The JHS Facebook fan page, comment sections everywhere, the JHS Discord and the JHS inbox were all overtaken by the same cry: "Josh! Build a JHS Flerb!" JHS refused. Instead of Flerb, JHS built PHERB.

PHERB is a dark, moody lo-fi reverb running into a four-stage phase shifter, with both effects on all the time. BREAK mode takes the whole signal -- reverb, phaser and dry guitar -- and destroys it. PHERB was decided, designed, prototyped and approved for production in just 35 hours, making it the fastest pedal JHS has ever made, and probably the most fun one as well.

PHERB > FLERB: Josh Scott loves the Holy Grail reverb and has written a 500-plus page book on the history of Electro-Harmonix, but the Flerb setting has never been his favorite -- flanger inside of a reverb just doesn't sit right with him. Phaser inside of a reverb is a different story, and that's the one nobody ever built. PHERB is the pedal that should have been and never was.

PHERB is Phaser + Reverb, built from the ground up, in house, through a manic 35-hour push of engineering. That's the fastest anything at JHS has ever gone from a decision to a finished, approved prototype, and the old record holder, the Twin 12, wasn't really close.

The reverb is dark, moody and lo-fi on purpose. Not a plate. Not a hall. Not a room anybody measured. It's chorused and chunky, and at longer decay times it slightly pulses.

The phaser is a four-stage vintage-style phase shifter (think Phase 90) with the feedback left off… read more and the notch sweeps moved up through the frequency spectrum, so they stay out of the way of the reverb's low mids. You still get the swish. It just doesn't swallow everything underneath it. Speed covers 0.05Hz to 5Hz, from barely moving to seasick.

Both Effects, Always On: There's no blend, no order switch and no way to run one effect without the other (because it's called PHERB) -- with one exception. Turn Speed all the way left in normal mode and the phaser steps out, which leaves you the reverb by itself. Three knobs and a toggle, and every position on all of them does something worth hearing.

Break Mode: Flip the toggle up and your signal hits an "asymmetric bitcrusher" with analog-style clipping on the way in. The reverb and phaser are built on top of the wreckage. The phaser can't be stepped out in this mode. JHS compares the destruction to an old Jordan Bosstone fuzz from the '60s colliding with a DOD Grunge.

Surprisingly Usable: PHERB started as a novelty, a fun joke for JHS fans. Then the first prototype landed on the bench and there were good sounds at every location on the knobs. The bit turned into a pedal JHS knew it had to make for the masses -- it's musical, inspiring and most of all fun.

How to Use It: Put it near the end of your board where you would normally put a reverb, after your dirt, and leave your amp set the way you already like it. Or don't. Maybe "just try stuff?"

Mix low, Length low, Speed around ten o'clock: the feeling of a lively room instead of an effect you can point at.

Length all the way up, Speed slow: a pulsing drone that sits under everything and keeps breathing like a synth pad.

BREAK with a short Length: a fuzz that screams out of the speaker. Good for riffs that need to sound broken.

BREAK with a long Length: the sound of a nightmare you wouldn't mind having again. This is the setting some people will hate and a lot of people are going to love.

Who This Is For: Players who love building sounds instead of chasing tones. Shoegaze, industrial, noise, experimental pop, ambient records where the reverb is the floor of the sound rather than something poured on top of it later. Anyone who has ever wanted a reverb that fights back.

Who This Isn't For: If you want a vintage-style spring reverb for a blues gig, this is not that pedal. If you want a precise phaser to sit politely under a clean chord, it isn't that either. And if you came here for a Flerb, JHS has already explained itself.

Controls: MIX -- Controls the amount of reverb/phaser. Clockwise increases the level, counterclockwise decreases it.

SPEED -- Controls the speed of the phase shifter. Clockwise is faster, counterclockwise is slower. Fully counterclockwise disables the phaser when the BREAK toggle is in the down position (normal mode).

LENGTH -- Controls the decay time and pre-delay of the reverb. As the decay time increases, the pre-delay increases proportionally. Higher settings naturally allow more phasing to be present. Clockwise is more, counterclockwise is less.

BREAK -- Toggle up engages BREAK mode, which distorts your incoming guitar signal before it hits the reverb and phaser. Toggle down is normal.

Jacks: INPUT -- 1/4" jack, right side.

OUTPUT -- 1/4" jack, left side.

POWER -- 9VDC center negative, 70mA. Do not exceed 9VDC or the warranty is void.

Features:

- Combines a dark, moody lo-fi reverb with a four-stage vintage-style phaser
- Reverb features chorused, textured ambience with pulsing character at longer decay settings
- Phaser is tuned to preserve low-mid clarity while delivering classic swirling movement
- Speed control ranges from ultra-slow 0.05Hz modulation to fast, seasick sweeps
- Turn Speed fully counterclockwise in Normal mode to disable the phaser and use reverb alone
- BREAK mode adds asymmetric bit-crushed distortion and analog-style clipping before the effects
- Simple three-knob, one-toggle layout with expressive sounds across every control position

WARNING: Cancer and Reproductive Harm - www.p65Warnings.ca.gov.

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