The JJ-150

The JJ-150 pedal was created in collaboration with my good friend and pedal designer Jim Robinson. The goal was to get the fat edge-of-break-up sounds of an octal tube amp like the EH-150 out of a pedal while keeping the feel of an amp. Since gigging with an eighty-year-old amp can be less than practical in many cases, we thought to put together something that would sound great in front of modern solid-state amps that are both lighter and more reliable than their tube brethren. Plus we wanted it to look the part; so we took our design cues from the EH-150’s chassis and Streamline Moderne radios, even going so far as fabricating Art-Deco-style knobs for the hand-wired version in-house. The JJ-150 is a FET-based version of the actual EH-150 preamp circuit (the later 6SQ7 version) with a tweak or two. The Gain control on the pedal is the volume knob in the EH-150. It adds grit the higher you roll it up. The Tone control is the same as the EH but we’ve added a dark/bright switch to make it much more flexible. The Volume controls the overall output of the pedal with unity at about noon. And just like the original EH-150’s, we have an Instrument channel and a Mic channel with the Mic channel being quite a bit hotter. This pedal can do the mostly clean Charlie Christian-type sounds as well as the wonderful nastiness of Junior Barnard. To purchase, please visit our store.

• Price $215 plus $10 domestic shipping ($20 international). Available immediately.

• Price for hand-wired version is $300 plus $10 domestic shipping ($20 international). Three week lead time.

• The pedal requires a center-negative 9-volt DC power supply (not included)