It’s the preamp pedal heard on tracks by The Edge, Noel Gallagher and countless others. Now it’s 25% off during Cyber Monday

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The JHS Colour Box V2 preamp pedal is like having the channel from a Neve console in a stomp box

A photo of the JHS Colour Box V2 in 10th anniversary blue
(Image credit: Courtesy Sweetwater)

Designed to create the direct-injected sound of electric guitar heard on recordings by the Beatles, U2, Wilco and Steely Dan — to name a few — the JHS Colour Box V2 preamp pedal is the tonal equivalent of a channel from a vintage Neve studio console. Right now, Sweetwater is taking 25% off the price of the pedal in its 10th Anniversary Edition guise. It has all the features of the standard pedal, along with a stunning dark blue finish.

I’ve enjoyed using the JHS Colour Box V2 in my studio for its remarkable tone-shaping abilities. It offers an interactive three-band EQ along with gain staging that takes your tone from clean to vintage dirty to downright filthy. Each of the treble, middle and bass controls has a shift knob that allows surgical frequency sculpting to get more from your instrument than you’ve heard before. It also packs a wallop, with dual gain stages that deliver over 39dB of gain to give you everything from subtle sweetening to full-on distortion.

The pedal has clearly won over guitarists in high places. The Color Box has been spotted in the studio with Noel Gallagher and been used on stages and recordings by everyone from The Edge to Jeff Tweedy.

Best of all, it’s not just for guitars. The Colour Box V2 works on line-level devices as well as microphones, and can deliver 48 volts of phantom power to condenser mics, active ribbon mics, and mic activators. That's all the more reason to have it in your studio. .

For more control over your tone, the widest range of gain and the classic sound of a vintage Neve channel, nothing can beat a JHS Colour Box V2 — except one that’s 25% cheaper.

JHS Colour Box V2 10th Anniversary Edition
Save 25%
JHS Colour Box V2 10th Anniversary Edition: was $449 now $336.75 at Sweetwater Sound

Sweetwater's deal lets you put a 10th Anniverary edition Colour Box V2 on your pedal board and save over $112 in the process. But this isn't any ordinary pedal, and it's certainly not an effect. The key to the Colour Box V2’s musical and harmonically complex character is its Lundahl transformers — a favorite of Rupert Neve — that give it its vintage flavor. The precise Baxandall-style tone controls sound transparent and musical, while the dual gain stages and switchable Hi/Low settings let you dial in as much gain as you need — more than 39dB. Use the Colour Box to add gentle enhancements exactly where you need them, push it hard for crunch, or slam it to the max for the nastiest fuzz you’ve heard. It’s the stomp box your pedal board is waiting for. 

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Christopher Scapelliti
GuitarPlayer.com editor-in-chief

Christopher Scapelliti is editor-in-chief of GuitarPlayer.com and the former editor of Guitar Player, the world’s longest-running guitar magazine, founded in 1967. In his extensive career, he has authored in-depth interviews with such guitarists as Pete Townshend, Slash, Billy Corgan, Jack White, Elvis Costello and Todd Rundgren, and audio professionals including Beatles engineers Geoff Emerick and Ken Scott. He is the co-author of Guitar Aficionado: The Collections: The Most Famous, Rare, and Valuable Guitars in the World, a founding editor of Guitar Aficionado magazine, and a former editor with Guitar World, Guitar for the Practicing Musician and Maximum Guitar. Apart from guitars, he maintains a collection of more than 30 vintage analog synthesizers.