JHS Paul Gilbert PG-14

The JHS Paul Gilbert PG-14 is a signature distortion pedal from JHS Pedals, built to Paul Gilbert's specifications and released at NAMM 2020. At its heart is a FET-based distortion engine that, in JHS's words, "emulates the touch, feel, and the response of a pushed tube amplifier"¹². What sets it apart from most drives is an active mid-frequency preamp placed at the front of the FET distortion circuitry, which gives the pedal a wide sweep of tonal possibilities¹.

JHS lists it at $199.00 USD¹. It shipped at launch in January 2020 for $199 in the US and £195 in the UK³.

A FET distortion aimed at a cranked tube amp

The design goal is the sound and response of a tube amp turned up loud. JHS describes the core of the circuit as a FET-based distortion engine that emulates the touch, feel and response of a pushed tube amplifier¹. gearnews put it the same way: the pedal "aims to capture the sound and response that you would associate with a cranked tube amp"⁴.

In the JHS demo video, the pedal is described as a FET-simulated tube amp you can crank, with settings that can evoke a Marshall sound or a small amp sound³. Pedal of the Day called the result "a warm, hard-hitting effect that sounds great from the instant you plug it in"².

The Push control is the input stage of that design. Pedal of the Day describes it as controlling the amount the input signal is pushed, acting as a powerful preamp hitting the front of the FET amplifier². In other words, you are driving a preamp into the distortion engine, the way you would push the front end of a tube amp.

The active mid-frequency preamp

The feature that reviewers kept coming back to is the active mid-frequency preamp, located at the front of the FET distortion circuitry¹. gearnews credited it as the source of the pedal's character: "What really gives this pedal its unique tone is the active mid-frequency preamp"⁴.

The circuit has a family connection to another JHS pedal. Premier Guitar's review notes that the PG-14 "shares some functionality and DNA with the JHS's Haunting Mids pedal," combining that pedal's active mid-frequency control with a FET drive circuit and an input preamp⁶. For a player, that means the mids are not a simple passive cut: the preamp shapes the signal before the FET stage clips it, so mid settings change the whole drive character, not just the EQ.

GuitarPlayer's Art Thompson highlighted the same quality from the playing side, pointing to "how shapeable the FET-based preamp circuit is in response to EQ and gain settings"⁷.

Designed with Paul Gilbert and Josh Scott

The PG-14 is a Paul Gilbert artist signature model, designed specifically to his specifications¹. MusicRadar's Rob Laing called it "the meeting of minds between Gilbert and JHS honcho Josh Scott"⁸, and gearnews reported the pedal was tailored to Gilbert's specifications with Scott involved in the process⁴.

The circuit's origin story is unusual. JHS has said the specific design came about because of Gilbert's hearing⁹:

The mid-focused voicing grew out of compensating for Gilbert's tinnitus and hearing loss at certain frequencies⁹.

The name and artwork come from a simpler place. In a Sweetwater demo video with Josh Scott, Gilbert confirmed the 14 refers to his shoe size, and explained the enclosure graphic: "it's got a shoe on it and that's my name in Japanese katakana"¹⁰.

What reviewers said

Reception at launch and in full reviews was positive, with the mid preamp drawing most of the praise⁴².

Gilbert's own assessment, quoted by guitar.com from a video for The JHS Show¹¹:

The JHS demo video expands on that point, with Gilbert saying the pedal takes on a different character depending on how it is set¹².

Two demo videos cover the pedal in depth. The JHS Pedals demo with Paul Gilbert, Josh Scott and Nick walks through the circuit, the mid preamp and the range of settings, with Gilbert describing the FET-simulated tube amp at the core and how strongly the settings change its character¹².

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The Sweetwater demo with Gilbert and Scott covers the pedal's background, including the shoe-size name and the katakana artwork¹⁰.

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Overdrive or distortion?

JHS itself calls the PG-14 a distortion pedal¹, and MusicRadar and Guitar World both described it that way at launch³⁸. Other coverage used different terms: gearnews called it a "tube-like FET overdrive pedal"¹³⁷¹⁴, GuitarPlayer's Art Thompson reviewed it as Paul Gilbert's signature overdrive pedal⁷, and Guitar World's launch coverage called it a long-awaited overdrive with a FET-based design¹⁴. Pedal of the Day split the difference, calling it "a unique distortion and overdrive pedal that adds the ultimate dirt channel to your amplifier"². In practice the distinction matters less here than with most pedals: the FET engine and the front-end Push preamp let it run from pushed-amp grit to full distortion, which is why the press landed on both words.

Videos

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Questions