JHS The Bonsai

The Bonsai is a compact overdrive pedal from JHS Pedals that packs nine Tube Screamer and Boss OD-1 circuits into one box, selected with a rotary knob. JHS calls it "our tribute to one of the greatest pedals ever created," and the company says it is an exact replication of the nine original units rather than an emulation¹². Where a normal Screamer clone gives you one take on the circuit, the Bonsai lets you move between the Boss OD-1, the TS808, the TS9 and six rarer or modified versions without touching your patch cables.

The pedal follows the pattern JHS set with its Muffuletta distortion, released in 2015, which also used a rotary knob to move between circuit variations¹. MusicRadar summed up the appeal at the pedal's announcement: "The last thing the pedal world needs is another Tube Screamer, but we won't say no to nine-in-one"². JHS founder Josh Scott and the JHS team spent three years developing the extra circuitry needed to make the nine modes work in a single enclosure³.

Nine Tube Screamer and OD-1 voices in one pedal

The Bonsai's nine positions cover more than four decades of Screamer history, from the 1977 Boss OD-1 through to a 2008 JHS mod. Pedal of the Day lists the modes with their years⁷²:

The guitar.com review describes the pedal as "eight Tube Screamer variations and an OD-1... with a nine-position switch to select the overdrive type"³. The JHS position recreates the sound of the original JHS Strong Mod from 2009, according to JHS's own write-up of its Screamer lineage⁸. The OD-1 mode is based on the Boss circuit with asymmetrical clipping, which distinguishes it from the symmetrical clipping of the Tube Screamer designs⁹.

The controls and the 9-way switch

Day to day, the Bonsai works like any Screamer: three knobs and a switch. The controls are³:

• Volume: sets the output level
• Drive: sets the gain, altering the gain section of the circuit
• Tone: alters the treble and bass section
• 9-way rotary switch: selects the mode

Pedal of the Day notes that Tone and Drive "allow you to dial in the perfect sound, altering the Treble/Bass and Gain sections, respectively"⁷. Because every mode shares the same three knobs, a setting that works in one mode will usually need a small tweak when you rotate to another, which is the trade-off for having nine circuits in one enclosure.

Power: 9V, external supply only

The Bonsai requires standard 9V DC negative power and consumes 20 mA¹. There is no battery compartment; the guitar.com review lists its power as "9V external PSU only" and notes there is no room for a battery inside the compact enclosure³.

The circuits behind the nine modes

Inside, the Bonsai is not nine complete pedals stacked up. On the Sweetwater demo video, Josh Scott described the topology as shared components routed by analog switches, comparing it to a railway that changes tracks depending on the mode¹⁰. That approach is what let JHS fit the nine variations into a compact format enclosure¹¹. JHS has also said its multimode pedals, including the Bonsai, were directly inspired by early DSP pedals like the DigiTech DF-7, which offered several classic circuits in one unit¹².

Delicious Audio confirmed the pedal is analog, answering the question directly: "Is it analog? we hear you ask. Yes, it is!"¹³. The guitar.com review likewise describes the Bonsai as all-analog³.

What reviewers said

Reception was largely positive, with one notable caveat about how different the modes really are³⁷.

• guitar.com (Huw Price, 2018): found the Bonsai "isn't nine distinct overdrives in a single box. It's more like three overdrives plus six variations on a theme," while otherwise praising the compact true bypass design³
• Pedal of the Day (2019): called it "one place that definitely lives up to all the hype"⁷
• Toneisland (Adam Connell, 2026): wrote that "I especially like the Keeley Mod Plus and JHS Strong Mod. They sound excellent," and found the build quality exceptional⁹
• That Pedal Show (2018): compared the TS808, TS9 and TS10 against the Bonsai, calling it "what seems to be the best Tube Screamer clone yet"¹⁴⁷
• Delicious Audio (2018): included the Bonsai in its Best Stompboxes of 2018 according to Dennis Kayzer¹⁵

On the Sweetwater demo, Mitch Gallagher and Josh Scott walked through the modes and the railway-style switching, showing how the shared circuitry changes character as the rotary knob moves between positions¹⁰.

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The Bonsai has gone on to become one of JHS's strongest sellers: the company says it has consistently outsold every other pedal in the JHS lineup⁸. Players who want a single Screamer circuit rather than nine can also look at JHS's own 3 Series Screamer, which covers the classic TS ground in a simpler format⁸.

Videos

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Questions