I can totally get why Dan Coggins is upset. A lot of other industries don’t work this way at all, even the record industry. If he had, for example, written a hit song then anyone who wanted to rerelease that song would have to pay him royalties and give credit.
Lovetone really stands out because of how creative and innovative their designs were, and I think people in DIY and the industry respect that. I do think this would obviously been a different story if Dan had gotten a heads up before hand.
If pedals and circuits were as ridiculously copyrights protected as music and digital media we might not even be having this conversation as there might not even be a Madbean Pedals. Or forum.
Ultimately though, if Dan and thorpy are going to rerelease some of these pedals this whole JHS thing could be good for drumming up some press for them. Pedal buyers listen to Josh, and him doing this is gonna bring some more attention to Dan’s work.
I suspect what probably stopped most people from getting Lovetone clones is that they are ridiculously tweakable and pot and switch infested. Ultimately I believe people much prefer a one knob phaser like the Phase 90 or Small Stone over the Doppleganger. Stick too many knobs and switches on a pedal and you'll scare some people off.
Just for a small comparison of the market, let's ask Brian what his top selling PCBs are. I'm gonna bet that it is in the Fuzz/OD side of the house.
The point I am making is that the world may not need "yet another fuzz/OD" however, they always seem to be the best selling boxes/PCBs out there. What does that tell you?
It's not my fault people keep buying into the hype of yet another fuzz/OD pedal. X has just released a new Y fuzz/OD! I gots to have it! Said pretty much EVERYONE on TGP. And I am guilty of that too, I have whole banana boxes full of fuzz and OD pedals that I built. Which is why I can say that they pretty much all sound the same to me. And I don't blame Madbean and all the other PCB sellers for catering to that market. Where there is demand, supply will always follow.
Hasn't (nearly) everything JHS released been a clone of something anyway? Devi Ever had a topic on Diystompboxes listing most of the JHS pedals and what they are clones of. I guess there are only so many different ways to make a fuzz/od.
JHS has always been synonymous with (slightly) modded clones. Almost every thread where people asked if anyone knew the schematic to a JHS pedal the reply was almost always just take pedal X and change value Y to Z. I really dig his pedal and guitar vids though, he's really found a nice fun entertaining style.
