Stewart-MacDonald has long been known as one of the best places to buy lutherie tools and parts. Now, they have partnered with JHS Pedals to bring some of JHS’s discontinued pedals back to life in kit form.
Currently, Stew-Mac is offering five different JHS pedal kits: the 808 Overdrive, the All American, the Bomb Boost, the Low Drive Bass Overdrive, and the Old School Fuzz. The first four are reissues of discontinued JHS pedals, and the Old School Fuzz is a new circuit designed specifically for Stew-Mac and this partnership.
I’ve owned a number of JHS pedals and have played several more of them. My favorite is their Sweet Tea overdrive pedal, which includes their 808 Overdrive. It sounds fantastic. It has the familiar mid-boost of a Tubescreamer, but also has the capability of being much smoother. I’ve also owned the All American, which is their RAT clone, which I thought sounded good as well.
If you’ve ever thought about building your own pedal, this could be a nice way to do it and end up with a nice sounding pedal.