There is a specific kind of guitar tone that haunts players who have ever dug deep into the Beatles’ white album, Steely Dan’s Aja, or any number of Wilco records. It is warm, punchy, and weirdly intimate — a direct-in sound that bypasses the amp entirely and runs guitar straight into a studio console preamp. For decades, that sound lived exclusively in million-dollar recording environments. Then in 2012, Josh Scott of JHS Pedals had a crazy idea: what if he could shrink a Neve 1073-style studio preamp down into a stompbox you could take anywhere?
The result, after two years of development and a debut demo filmed at Abbey Road Studios in London in 2014, was the Colour Box. It immediately rewrote the rules of what a guitar pedal could be. Version 2 pushed things further still — adding an output transformer, 48V phantom power, a parametric EQ with sweep-able frequency centers, and a Hi/Lo headroom switch that gives you clean studio precision one moment and full-blown fuzz the next. At $449, it is one of the most expensive pedals on most players’ boards. It is also one of the most versatile pieces of hardware in the guitar world, full stop.
This is not a review. This is a deep dive into why the JHS Colour Box V2 sounds the way it sounds, who has actually put it to work, and how to coax everything from pristine DI warmth to face-melting fuzz out of ten knobs and a pair of toggle switches.
The Origin Story: Abbey Road in a Box
Josh Scott has been open about the inspiration behind the Colour Box from the beginning. He was obsessed with a recording technique that predated modern amp-in-room orthodoxy — the practice of plugging directly into a console input and capturing the sound of the preamp’s transformers, gain stages, and EQ. Bands like the Beatles and Steely Dan used it to create guitar tones that felt close and almost tactile in the mix. Wilco and Spoon refined it for the indie era. What all these recordings had in common was an absence: no microphone, no speaker cab, no room ambience. Just signal and transformer iron.
The challenge was that the hardware responsible for those sounds — vintage Neve 1073 console modules, API preamps, Helios desks — cost thousands of dollars per channel and required 48V rack power. Replicating that circuit in a battery-friendly stompbox format meant rethinking everything from the power supply architecture to how the gain stages interact.
Version 1 launched to instant cult status. Engineers and producers started using it on vocals, kick drums, bass, acoustic guitars, synths, and overhead mics. It showed up in studios and on stages in configurations nobody at JHS had anticipated. Within months, JHS was getting emails from artists and engineers describing sessions where the Colour Box had become a centerpiece of the signal chain.
Version 2 addressed the few remaining limitations of the V1. The original lacked an output transformer — crucial in Neve-style circuits for imparting that slightly saturated, harmonically rich character at the back end of the signal path. V2 added one. It also added phantom power capability so condenser microphone users could run the whole signal chain through a single pedal, plus the parametric EQ shift controls that transformed the EQ from a fixed three-band unit into something genuinely surgical.
Specs That Matter
| Feature | JHS Colour Box V2 |
|---|---|
| Type | Preamp / EQ / Overdrive / Distortion / Fuzz / DI Box |
| Input | Combo XLR / 1/4″ jack (INST or XLR mode selectable) |
| Phantom Power | 48V (XLR mode) |
| Pad | -20dB (XLR mode only) |
| Output Transformer | Yes (V2 addition) |
| Gain Step Positions | +18 / +23 / +28 / +33 / +39 dB |
| Treble EQ Range | ±15 dB; shift 2 kHz – 30 kHz |
| Middle EQ Range | ±10 dB; shift 150 Hz – 2.4 kHz |
| Bass EQ Range | ±15 dB; shift 20 Hz – 440 Hz |
| Hi-Pass Filter | 2nd order, 12 dB/oct, 160 Hz – 650 Hz adjustable |
| Headroom Switch | Hi / Lo |
| Switching | Silent (no switch pop) |
| Power | 9V DC negative centre only — no batteries, no higher voltages |
| Current Draw | 193 mA |
| Dimensions | 5.7″ × 3.75″ × 1.85″ |
| Price | $449 USD |
| Made in | Kansas City, USA |
One critical note on power: the Colour Box V2 draws 193mA and requires a quality, regulated 9V DC supply. It will not run on a battery and — crucially — cannot tolerate voltages above 9V. Many pedalboard power supplies offer switchable 9V/12V/18V outputs; triple-check you are feeding this pedal from a 9V port. Plugging in 12V is a one-way ticket to an expensive repair bill.
Understanding the Controls
The Gain Section (Red Knobs)
The three red knobs govern the core preamp behaviour. Master is the output volume — it controls how loud the signal coming out of the Colour Box is, but it does not interact with the gain staging itself. Think of it as the fader at the end of the chain.
Pre-Vol is where things get interesting. It controls the gain between the two internal preamp stages — effectively how hard the first stage is driving the second. As you increase Pre-Vol, you introduce progressively more grit, harmonic saturation, and eventually full distortion or fuzz character. It is the “drive” control in the traditional sense, but the character it adds is transformer-flavoured and console-derived rather than tube-amp or transistor-fuzz territory.
The Step knob is a five-position rotary that sets the gain of each preamp stage simultaneously. Its positions are +18 dB, +23 dB, +28 dB, +33 dB, and +39 dB. For context: position one (+18 dB) gives you studio-clean preamp gain suitable for acoustic guitar or gentle DI use. Position five (+39 dB) is slamming both gain stages hard enough to produce genuine fuzz textures when you also push Pre-Vol. The relationship between Step and Pre-Vol is multiplicative — small Step values with high Pre-Vol yields creamy overdrive, while high Step values with high Pre-Vol goes all the way to wall-of-noise territory.
The Hi / Lo Switch
This V2 addition is arguably the most transformative control on the entire pedal. In Lo mode, the Colour Box has a massive amount of clean headroom — you can push Step and Pre-Vol hard and still get articulate, clean tone. This is the mode for studio DI work, acoustic guitar running direct to front-of-house, and any situation where you want the EQ and transformer character without distortion.
In Hi mode, the headroom collapses significantly and the pedal begins to saturate much more readily. A small nudge of Pre-Vol in Hi mode produces crunch. Full Pre-Vol in Hi mode with Step at position three or above produces aggressive fuzz that would be right at home on a garage rock record.
The EQ Section (Blue Knobs)
The EQ on the Colour Box V2 is a genuine parametric: each of the three bands has a cut/boost knob and a Shift knob that moves the band’s center frequency.
Treble cuts or boosts up to ±15 dB at a frequency you set anywhere from 2 kHz (CCW) to 30 kHz (CW). At 30 kHz that top end is beyond the audible range for most humans, so fully CW Treble Shift basically gives you a subtle air boost; fully CCW puts the cut or boost right in the presence/attack zone that gives guitars their edge and cut.
Middle offers ±10 dB with the center frequency sweepable from 150 Hz to 2.4 kHz. This is the most immediately expressive band — 150 Hz is in sub-bass/low-mid territory (useful for tightening up bass guitar or kick drum), while 2.4 kHz is the upper midrange where guitars get honky or nasal. The ability to notch out or boost exactly where a specific instrument needs it makes this band feel more like a studio tool than a guitar pedal control.
Bass cuts or boosts up to ±15 dB with the center sweeping from 20 Hz (sub-bass) to 440 Hz (low midrange). On a guitar, sweeping down toward 20 Hz mostly affects feel and body; sweeping up toward 440 Hz can add or remove the “muddy” low-mid that makes guitars sound boxy in a dense mix.
The Hi-Pass Filter is engaged by a separate toggle below the knob and operates as a 2nd order, 12 dB/octave high-pass with an adjustable cutoff from 160 Hz to 650 Hz. This is studio-standard rumble and low-mid trimming at your feet — the kind of filtering that mix engineers apply to almost every guitar track in post to keep the low end clean.
Who Actually Uses It: Verified Artist Connections
The JHS Colour Box exists in an interesting promotional space: the brand’s own product page mentions that the pedal “can be heard on dozens of recordings from U2, Wilco, The National, Spoon, Collective Soul, Muse, the War on Drugs, and Phantogram,” but the attribution is intentionally vague. These bands used the Colour Box — possibly V1, possibly in recording contexts rather than live — but the brand is careful not to claim individual artist endorsements where none exist.
What the research confirms with specificity: Eric Burton of Black Pumas has had the Colour Box documented in his live rig via Premier Guitar’s Rig Rundown series, discussed in detail by his guitar tech Bryan Wilkinson. Black Pumas’ raw, soulful guitar tone makes the Colour Box a natural fit — it is exactly the kind of direct, harmonically saturated sound the pedal was designed to produce.
Nels Cline of Wilco — one of the bands explicitly cited by JHS as a Colour Box user — is a guitarist whose extensive use of unconventional signal processing tools and studio-grade hardware makes it entirely plausible that the pedal appeared in Wilco sessions. St. Vincent (Annie Clark) has been repeatedly associated with the pedal in community discussions, and her studio-centric approach to guitar tone aligns completely with the Colour Box’s design philosophy, though a specific SKU-level confirmation via verified rig documentation is elusive.
Matthew Bellamy of Muse has been cited among Colour Box users; given Muse’s extensive studio production work and Bellamy’s voracious appetite for unconventional signal chain hardware, this is the kind of tool that would fit naturally into a Muse session context.
The honest summary: the Colour Box V2 is more of a producer’s and engineer’s tool than a guitarist-with-an-iconic-pedalboard story. Its user base is wide but diffuse — recording engineers who mic drum kits with it, vocalists who run through it into a portable interface, bass players who use it as a DI with attitude, and guitarists who want the warmth of a vintage console in a 5.7-inch box. That is a feature, not a bug. The tool-first nature of the Colour Box V2 is exactly why it has appeared on as many records as it has.
Tone Recipes and Settings
1. Neve DI Clean — The Reason This Pedal Exists
This setting delivers the classic warm, punchy direct-in guitar tone that inspired the pedal’s creation. Set the headroom switch to Lo. Step to position 1 (+18 dB). Pre-Vol at 9 o’clock (just a whisper of drive between stages). Master to unity with your interface or amp. EQ all at noon. Treble Shift to about 10 o’clock (roughly 6-8 kHz centre). Enable the Hi-Pass at about 200 Hz to trim sub-bass rumble. Result: warm, slightly rounded, transformer-flavoured guitar tone that sits beautifully in a mix without fighting the bass register.
2. Console Crunch — Driven Midrange
Headroom switch to Hi. Step at position 3 (+28 dB). Pre-Vol at noon to 2 o’clock. Master adjusted for output level. Boost the Treble slightly (2 o’clock) with Treble Shift at around 9-10 kHz. Cut the Bass slightly (10 o’clock) with Bass Shift at around 200 Hz. This setting replicates the sound of a recording console’s channel strip being pushed into pleasant saturation — harmonically rich, slightly compressed, and extremely responsive to picking dynamics. It goes from almost-clean to biting with pick attack.
3. Recording Fuzz — Full Preamp Slam
Headroom switch to Hi. Step at position 5 (+39 dB). Pre-Vol between 2 and 4 o’clock depending on desired intensity. Master pulled back to compensate for the massive level increase. Treble Shift at noon (around 7-8 kHz). Middle boosted slightly (1-2 o’clock) with Middle Shift around 1-1.5 kHz for vocal-forward fuzz character. Hi-Pass engaged at 300-400 Hz to keep the low end from becoming a wall of mud. This is the Colour Box V2 at maximum aggression — a fuzz texture derived not from germanium transistors or silicon clipping, but from transformer saturation and cascaded preamp stages being pushed beyond their design intent. It sounds different from any dedicated fuzz pedal because the distortion mechanism is fundamentally different.
4. Mic Pre for Acoustic — Studio Acoustic DI
Switch input to XLR mode. Enable 48V phantom power. Connect a condenser microphone (small or large diaphragm). Headroom switch to Lo. Step at position 1. Pre-Vol very low — around 8 o’clock. Engage Hi-Pass at 160-200 Hz. Bass slightly cut with Bass Shift at 60-80 Hz. Treble boosted gently (1 o’clock) with Treble Shift at 12 kHz for air. Use the -20dB pad if your microphone is particularly hot. This transforms the Colour Box V2 into a portable studio vocal or acoustic pre — suitable for home recording when you want analogue transformer warmth without a dedicated rackmount pre.
5. Bass Guitar DI — Warm and Tight
Headroom switch to Lo. Step at position 2 (+23 dB). Pre-Vol at 10-11 o’clock. Middle Shift around 600 Hz, cut slightly (10 o’clock on Middle knob) to tighten the low-mid. Bass Shift at 80-100 Hz, boosted at noon to slightly above noon for fundamental warmth. Hi-Pass engaged at 160-200 Hz to remove true sub-bass that speakers cannot reproduce cleanly. The result is bass DI tone with the warmth and presence of a tracked-through-a-console signal chain — closer to what you hear on classic soul and rock records than what most DI boxes deliver.
How It Stacks Up: The Colour Box V2 in Context
The Colour Box V2 occupies a genuinely unique position in the market. It is not trying to do what the Line 6 Helix Floor, Neural DSP Quad Cortex, Kemper Profiler, or Fractal Audio Axe-Fx III do. Those platforms model specific amplifiers and speaker cabinets in digital domain. The Colour Box V2 models nothing — it is a real analogue preamp circuit, a real output transformer, real gain stages that really saturate. The comparison is almost a category error.
A more direct comparison might be the Universal Audio UAFX Lion, the Strymon Iridium, or the Empress Zoia when used as a preamp platform — but even those drift toward amp simulation. The Colour Box V2 is console simulation. It wants to sound like a mixing desk, not a guitar amplifier. That makes it a complement to amp-modelling platforms rather than a competitor: running a Colour Box V2 into the front end of a Quad Cortex or Kemper is a combination that engineers report gives digital platforms a more organically saturated front-end character.
Compared to the Fender Deluxe Reverb — the canonical clean American amp — the Colour Box V2 produces fundamentally different saturation. The Deluxe Reverb distorts because its output transformer is being pushed by a power section running out of headroom. The Colour Box V2 distorts because its input transformer and gain stages are being pushed. The harmonic character differs: the Deluxe Reverb’s breakup is smooth and compression-y; the Colour Box V2’s saturation is grittier and more aggressive, more in line with what you would hear from a British console pushed hard.
Who Should Buy the JHS Colour Box V2?
The Colour Box V2 is a natural fit for players who record regularly and want the same tool on stage and in the studio. If you run direct into an interface at home and then use an amp modeller on stage, the Colour Box V2 can serve as the colouring and saturation tool that makes both contexts sound more like each other — not by modelling an amp, but by adding the analogue preamp warmth that digital chains often lack.
It is also the right tool for multi-instrumentalists and recording engineers who want a single piece of hardware that handles guitar, bass, acoustic, and vocals with equal competence. The XLR input with phantom power means you can use it with condenser microphones in a home studio context, and the parametric EQ means you are not fighting generic fixed frequencies when shaping each instrument.
Bass players looking for a serious DI with character — rather than the transparent, clean output of a Radial J48 or similar passive DI — will find the Colour Box V2 an extraordinary tool. The Neve-adjacent saturation and transformer warmth works at least as well on bass guitar as it does on six-string.
Guitarists who are specifically looking for a distortion pedal and nothing else will probably find the $449 price hard to justify against a dedicated drive pedal. The Colour Box V2’s distortion is excellent, but it is not the primary reason to buy it. You are buying versatility, DI capability, studio-grade EQ, and transformer warmth — the distortion is a side effect of the preamp being pushed, and a very good one.
Ownership Notes
The most important practical note: current draw. At 193mA, the Colour Box V2 is one of the hungrier devices on a typical pedalboard. Budget your power supply accordingly — most entry-level pedalboard power units allocate 100mA per output, which is insufficient. You need a supply with at least one 250-500mA output dedicated to this pedal, or an isolated high-current output. The Strymon Zuma, Cioks DC7, and Truetone 1 Spot Pro CS12 all have outputs capable of handling it.
The -20dB pad on the side of the unit only functions in XLR input mode. In INST mode it does nothing. This catches players out occasionally — if you are running an instrument and your signal seems attenuated, check whether you have accidentally engaged the pad while the input is set to INST.
The Hi-Pass filter is the single most underused feature on the Colour Box V2, based on community discussions. Engaging it at a sensible frequency (200-400 Hz for guitar) can dramatically clean up a direct signal that sounds thick or muddy without touching the EQ knobs. Make it a habit to engage it on any direct-in recording application — it is essentially the same Hi-Pass that mix engineers apply to guitar tracks in post, just applied at the source.
The 10th Anniversary limited edition of the Colour Box V2 — which spotted on Juanes’ pedalboard — offers the same circuit in a special colourway and packaging. There is no functional difference from the standard V2.
FAQ
What exactly does the Colour Box V2 model?
It is inspired by the circuit topology of Neve-style console preamps — specifically the kind of gain staging and transformer saturation found in high-end recording consoles like the Neve 1073. It does not digitally model any specific piece of hardware; it is a real analogue circuit designed to produce similar tonal character through hardware means.
Can I use the Colour Box V2 as my only preamp into a PA or interface?
Yes, and this is one of its primary use cases. Run your instrument or microphone into the input, set gain appropriately, and the balanced XLR output feeds directly into a mixing desk, audio interface, or PA. It functions as a full DI box with studio-quality preamp character.
What is the difference between the Hi and Lo switch settings?
Lo gives you more clean headroom — the signal can be pushed harder before saturation occurs. Hi reduces the clean headroom so the gain stages saturate more readily, making distortion and fuzz tones accessible at lower settings of the Step and Pre-Vol controls.
Can I run the Colour Box V2 in front of a guitar amp?
Absolutely. Many players run it as an always-on preamp colour tool into an amp’s clean channel, letting the Colour Box’s transformer character and EQ shape the front end while the amp adds its own character and volume. It also works as a boost or drive pedal in front of an amp’s preamp stage.
How does phantom power work on the Colour Box V2?
Switch the input selector to XLR mode and the unit safely passes 48V phantom power through the XLR input. You can plug in any standard condenser microphone, and the pedal will power it while processing the signal through its preamp and EQ. The -20dB pad (also only active in XLR mode) helps tame hot condenser signals.
Is the Colour Box V2 compatible with standard pedalboard power supplies?
It requires 9V DC negative centre polarity — the standard pedal power format — but draws 193mA, which is more than many pedalboard supplies allocate per output. Make sure your power supply has at least one output rated for 200mA or more. Do not run it at higher voltages; the unit is rated for 9V only.
What is the difference between V1 and V2?
The V2 adds: an output transformer (the most tonally significant change), 48V phantom power capability, EQ Shift knobs that make the three-band EQ parametric rather than fixed-frequency, a Hi/Lo headroom switch, and silent switching that eliminates the “pop” the V1 produced when engaging the pedal. The V2 is larger (ten knobs versus seven on V1) and runs on 9V DC rather than the V1’s power requirements.
Does the Colour Box V2 work for bass guitar?
Exceptionally well. The parametric EQ handles bass guitar’s frequency range with precision — particularly the sweepable Bass band (20 Hz – 440 Hz centre) and the sweepable Middle band (150 Hz – 2.4 kHz centre). Many bass players use it as a primary DI tool that adds Neve-style warmth and character to what would otherwise be a flat, clinical direct signal.