JHS Pedals The Bonsai 9 Way Screamer Pedal

Depending on how you look at it, this month’s Pedal Of The Month is either a total surprise, or a complete no brainer. It’s a total surprise in that, as much as we love a company who does a good clone, we rarely prefer it to the real thing. And yet, it’s a complete no brainer that we give the JHS Bonsai our prestigious “Pedal Of The Month” title because of JUST WHAT THIS PEDAL IS DOING - it’s a miracle, a sweet, tube-screaming miracle. Why? Because it contains 9, yes, N-I-N-E of the market’s best loved Tube Screamers, all housed in one sweet box. Hard to believe? Believe it.

Let’s back up here a second, and explain pedal cloning. For the unaware, pedal cloning is basically what you think it is - a company coming along and “re-making” a pedal, calling it something dubiously similar to the original, then marketing it as a cheaper (sometimes even more expensive) version. There are shameless clones that often copy or closely resemble specific trademarks, logos, or established appearances. There are clones built by builders or individuals who are too small to ever actually compete or threaten the original builder or trademark owner. And lastly, there are many modified versions out there, where a company says “we took the pedal and improved it ourselves”.

Did any of this make you mumble “the cheeky feckers”? Because it’s a common reaction. And I can only imagine what the likes of Ibanez feel about there being a billion clones of the Tube Screamer, or how Jim Dunlop might feel about the amount of Fuzz pedals that came out after his OG Fuzz Face or even the game changing Wah Wah Pedals. BUT, can you imagine a world where that didn’t happen, and the only Fuzz pedal out there was limited to the one Dunlop that was available? It’s be a pretty small, one dimensional and definitely quieter, world.

We think cloning is only a good thing here at the ‘Maker. It lends great sounding effects the chance to be improved on or rediscovered. It helps pedal enthusiasts find a sound that’s long been discontinued in its original pedal form. It keeps the market versatile and helps manage the price of rarer pedals. It’s how new sounds get invented. It also means that someone somewhere has the schematic of your favourite long forgotten pedal, and can probably build you a new one, even if the original company disappeared decades ago.

Now, let’s zone in on what JHS have done here. Josh Scott, the JHS pedal Company founder, is not only an encyclopedia of the pedal world, he’s also a major pedal designer/user/mad-pedal-scientist. Oh, and he’s also a collector of all things Tube Screamer. So when he decided to build his own, we knew it would sound good. We knew it’d sound legit. What we didn’t know, is that it wouldn't just be a single Tube Screamer - this is essentially a glorified Tube Screamer’s Greatest Hits! - From the dawn of the pedal in the 1970’s, right up to modern day versions. And it’s not a tin of mini sweets either, this is a full blown selection box!

Just for context of how deep a well the Tube Screamer history is, after doing some research, I came across over 140 versions of Tube Screamers, from pedal companies all over the world, and I wouldn’t be surprised if JHS have them all, studied them all and found the best of them all. But, how do you whittle it down to just nine? No one explains it better that JHS themselves: 

“Creating the Bonsai became an archeological dig of sorts that sent us deep into the history of this circuit by examining dozens of versions, variations and replications. At the end of it all, Josh chose nine of his personal and favorite units and we painstakingly replicated every nuance and aspect of each pedal. One of the most challenging parts of this project was accounting for component drift as many of these pedals were decades old and the internal components had strayed from their original values. Each pedal was individually replicated using our Audio Precision analyzer and various other methods that allowed us to perfectly replicate every aspect of the sound and feel of the unit. It's important to know that the Bonsai is not a "box of mods," it is exact replications of these nine units all housed in one box! The Bonsai is exact replication, not emulation. When you choose a mode on the Bonsai rotary, you are actually activating components specific to each mode and playing the unit that Josh chose along with all the quirks, drift, vintage mojo, and individuality that a vintage pedal has.”

Which is what brings me to crowning it Pedal Of The Month. This is legit not just some magic circuitboard wizardry - these different versions have all been studied and fully re-built inside the JHS Bonsai, giving you 9 fantastic flavours of Tube Screaming goodness, each with it’s own totally different era of sound. And they’re not just squeezed in like some over-the-top multi-effect, they individually sound fantastic. And if that wasn’t fun enough, the 9th Tube Screamer is JHS's own design, capable of stripping paint off venue walls. I couldn’t even decide which one was my favourite, each one was magnetically fun to play with.

Tread very carefully, there are many branches of dense overdrive sound within the JHS Bonsai, but which one SCREAMS your name?