“Using this pedal is like adding a new and ultra-flexible distortion channel to your favorite clean amplifier”: JHS Pedals and Lari Basilio join forces for Violet, a versatile overdrive/distortion with a powerful EQ

Lari Basilio has joined the likes of Madison Cunningham and Paul Gilbert as a JHS Pedals signature artist, and her pedal, Violet, is an overdrive/distortion pedal with more than meets the eye.

Violet has that amp-in-a-box drive pedal vibe. It has a similar enclosure design to Gilbert’s PG-14, and in a sense it is designed for a similar purpose. Think of it as adding another channel to your guitar amp.

“Using this pedal is like adding a new and ultra-flexible distortion channel to your favorite clean amplifier,” says JHS Pedals.

There are controls for Volume and Gain, plus a three band EQ, with the Mid Freq knob selecting your midrange frequencies before the Middle knob adjusts exactly how much of them you need in your electric guitar tone. As with the Bass and Treble controls, you can boost and cut, with noon on all dials giving you a flat response.

And here is where it gets interesting. The midrange section of the pedal’s EQ is placed before the distortion, allowing you to shape your tone as it enters hits all that gain.

This, allied to the the bass and treble positioned more conventionally in the circuit, post-gain, opens up a great acreage of sonic territory to explore – “from overdrive to full-on modern distortion”.

“Pre-emphasis mid gives you so much flexibility,” says JHS Pedals supremo Josh Scott, introducing Violet with Lari Basilio on the JHS Pedals YouTube channel. “So however much you turn up this mid you can cause more or less distortion. It is different than other things you were playing and anything we have ever made.”

Like any amplifier worth its salt, Violet reacts to how you actually play the guitar. Hit those strings harder and it’ll show more grit. Pick softly, or roll back the control on your guitar, and it will clean up. “I just love the dynamics of this pedal,” says Basilio. “It has an amazing, very responsive EQ.”

Scott has also designed this unit to be eminently stackable, so it should play well with the other drives and distortions on your pedalboard. It isn’t the first pedal he has made for Basilio. A while back, he made Basilio a version of his Morning Glory overdrive in purple. Violet can do some of that work. It might even retire the Morning Glory on her ‘board.

The Violet: Lari Basilio's New Signature Overdrive Distortion Pedal! - YouTube

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“There are so many things I love about this pedal,” she says. “The tone is right here. Many times I would turn on the pedal, everything was set flat, and it sounded great already.

“But of course it is amazing to have a very responsive EQ, so you can play around with different guitars and different amps and really find your sound easily. I love playing easy pedals, that you don’t have to dial too much to get a good sound.”

Other neat touches include the top-mounted jacks, the silent soft-touch footswitch, and we love the purple LED. Violet takes 9V DC from a pedalboard power supply, drawing 55mA.

It has a buffered bypass and it is available now, priced £/$199 street. See JHS Pedals for more details.