JHS Collaborates with Paul Gilbert on Signature Parametric Mids PG-14 Distortion Pedal

I’m a huge fan of Paul Gilbert - surely one of the most talented and nicest men in rock. Besides his long association with the TC Electronic MojoMojo Overdrive and signature pedals by Homebrew Electronics and his signature Ibanez AF2 Airplane Flanger he’s not that readily connected to specific effects pedals - like most he tends to chop and change quite regularly and besides the MojoMojo mainstay we have seen an assortment of Catalinbread, JHS, MXR, Supro and Xotic Effects pedals over the years.

I was a touch concerned for continuity purposes - that Paul’s new pedal would be replacing the MojoMojo, but rather it typically goes in alongside it - although I have seen it at times replaced by the JHS Bonsai. Paul’s tone is often associated with slightly pushed mid frequency profiles - and it makes perfect sense that his signature distortion is very much tailored around those principles.

I wasn’t quite sure what sort of pedal we would be getting - like many I obviously spotted the earlier black prototype with 3 black and 3 red knobs - and was thinking it would be more along the lines of a 3-band EQ with likely some sort of parametric mids - while I’m actually delighted with what we’ve ended up with - as the parametric mids take centre stage, where Josh explains those are served by a separate Pre-Amp OpAmp - meaning that you essentially have 3 knobs to control the mids - with the ’Push’ knob being the Mids OpAmp Pre-Gain as far as I understand.

The other knobs are all very self-explanatory, and the existing demos hint at a suitably versatile while still very much a Paul Gilbert -sounding core JFET distortion. There are certainly more technical and feature-rich distortion pedals out there, but I will definitely be getting one of these for its combination of tones, look and its Paul Gilbert association. I feel you can get a huge variety of sounds out of this - covering many of my favourite tones - and I look forward to replicating the ’Fuzz Face into Plexi’ tones that Josh references in the launch video below.

The PG-14 is available for Pre-Order at a number of UK vendors - for £195, but with no definitive arrival date given as yet - most likely post NAMM therefore - the usual February / March sort of thing. You tend to get either pedals launched with everything in stock at retailers, or more as an announcement - with pedals shipping later - which seems to be the case here. Actually Andertons seem to be indicating a January 20th release - so we shall see.

To date there are only a couple of demos - and the PG-14 sounds just as suitably impressive as something Paul would put his name to - the PG-14 actually refers to Paul’s shoe-size - which he happens to share with Josh Scott! :