JHS PEDALS /
KEELEY
ELECTRONICS
STEAK AND EGGS
REVIEW BY DAVID A. EVANS
STREET PRICE $349.00
It’s easy to imagine that
the world of boutique
pedal making is a cutthroat
one. When news of a
collaboration between
JHS Pedals and Keeley
Electronics hit the stands,
one had to wonder about
the potential for a feud. In
the end, we are all better off
because the collaboration
has given us the Steak &
Eggs, a pedal that combines
Keeley’s Three-Knob
Compressor with JHS’s
Morning Glory overdrive.
The result: a sizzling sonic
meal of creamy overdrive
served up with a side of
hot, tasty compression.
Folks, get your bibs. It’s
time to eat.
50
GEAR REVIEW
//
Keeley’s compression is just
the sort of classic, warm
effect that country and funk
guitarists prize. Adding in
more or less compression is
easy enough, with a quick
turn of the Sustain knob.
Meanwhile, the Blend knob
adds the uncompressed
signal to the outputted
signal. In its default settings,
the Keeley compressor
tends toward the darker
and dirtier side of things.
Especially at the higher
compression levels, the
pedal tended to soften,
sometimes even bury,
the higher notes of this
writer’s chords. Yet the
overall impression was
of good, quality sound.
To compensate for any
murkiness, Keeley added a
brightness toggle switch.
In testing, this writer
tended to prefer the darker,
default setting, although
for soloing, a brighter tone
might be preferable.
On the left side of the
pedal, JHS’s Morning Glory
promises to deliver tubelike overdrive. Not only
does this effect feature its
own on/off footswitch, its
location in the effects chain
can also change with a flip
of a center-mounted toggle
switch. This changeability
offers the user a greater
and subtler tonal palette,
which the Morning Glory
contributes quite a bit to.
JHS Pedals/Keeley Electronics Steak and Eggs