Has anyone tried the JHS Colour Box preamp pedal?

Mark Perrodin · Post by **Mark Perrodin** » 20 Apr 2022 10:30 am

wondering if anyone has tried a Colour box preamp by JHS pedals. opinions please.

Jon Light (deceased) · Post by **Jon Light (deceased)** » 20 Apr 2022 12:28 pm

There was a while where I felt that parametric eq was what I needed in my quest for some specific things. I bought this after a rave review from a friend (not a steel player). Some new onboard distortion/OD flavors were nothing but a plus. But I decided that I was looking in the wrong direction for the specific tone shaping I thought I was seeking.
Absolutely nothing negative to say about the unit. It is a powerful, feature-packed device.

I'm not intending to be heavy-handed but let me just mention that I've still got it and will eventually get around to putting it up for sale so if you interested, message or email me for a price.

John McClung · Post by **John McClung** » 20 Apr 2022 3:23 pm

Jon, did you come up with something else that gave you the tone you sought?

Jon Light (deceased) · Post by **Jon Light (deceased)** » 20 Apr 2022 3:58 pm

John -- nah. It's humbling to admit but I decided that mostly it was a matter of obsessing over things -- resonant peaks and such -- in the practice studio that were not really issues on stage or in recording. There were some things that needed better picking technique and I'm always working toward that. But whatever was bugging me was stuff for which there is no magic bullet in a box.
But that absolutely does not mean there is no place for a good eq device. And the Colour Box's design around a Neve board (I think?) is intriguing.

Susan Alcorn (deceased) · Post by **Susan Alcorn (deceased)** » 8 May 2022 4:19 pm

I think I bought the Colour Box for a similar reason that Jon did, and I thought that it would give a little more umph to my sound, but I really couldn't find a way to make it work. It's cool that you can get the sound of John Lennon's guitar on that, but it didn't do much for the pedal steel guitar, at least not mine. I had it for several years but ended up selling it when I was broke and needed money.

Dennis Detweiler · Post by **Dennis Detweiler** » 10 May 2022 3:54 pm

I've found them very useful. I use a Boss 59 Bassman pedal with a Quilter 201. The 201 by itself only has mid and high end roll-off controls. The Bassman pedal gives me more tube warmth plus more detailed tone selection. Another rig I use is the TC Electronic BQ250 which has excellent tube compression sound built into it, but lacks a little in tone detailing. I use the the Boss 81 bass pedal preamp which details the tone. One aspect of both, I can duplicate the tone between 12 inch and 15 inch speakers. 1501 vs Eminence 12" and 15."

Len Amaral · Post by **Len Amaral** » 12 May 2022 12:14 pm

I have been using a TC Spark as it has a level control, bass, treble and gain control. It also has a 3 way mini switch (Mid) (Clean) (Fat) All three positions on this switch are usable. Having this on my pedal board allows me to tweak bass, treble and volume without turning around to adjust the amp. I leave the gain control off. Pretty handy little box and price friendly.