JHS Pedals founder Josh Scott has a new signature guitar with Bilt, and it’s an instrument that will be very familiar to many.
Scott regularly plays a white offset Relevator when demoing pedals on YouTube, and now it’s getting a signature release.
As Scott explains during his off-camera cameo on 60 Cycle Hum’s video exploring the weird guitars that call the JHS headquarters their home, the Relevator is (was) a one-of-one guitar custom-built for Scott designed to be “the ultimate pedal demo guitar.”
Fittingly, it looks like something concocted in a mad scientist’s laboratory, with the offset body and Starcaster-style headstock a charming match, and a swarm of pickups and switches that make the guitar so well-suited for putting pedals through their paces.
Scott’s signature model, then, is a careful recreation of that guitar, with all its kooky quirks in tow.
At its core is an alder body, given a JHS-coded Arctic White gloss finish and a white-and-chrome pickguard, alongside a hard maple neck capped with a 22-fret rosewood fingerboard.
Built to a 25.5” scale length and featuring a 12” fretboard radius, it also features an Adjust-O-Matic roller bridge, Mastery vibrato and metal button tuners.
Things get extra bonkers when we go over to the electronics, with two Firebird minibuckers, a Jaguar pickup, and a Lipstick pickup making for the ultimate tonal squad goals.
Pair that tasty quartet with a three-way selector, a kill switch, a neck/middle pickup toggle via white sliders, and neck/middle and bridge/middle selectors via the red sliders, and no one should be left wanting.
Made in South Korea and priced at $1,600 apiece, the Bilt x JHS Pedals Relevator could be a revelation for tonally demanding players, and leave pedalboards the world over quaking in their rubber-bottomed boots.
The first pre-order drop was 100 strong and sold out in just 15 minutes. The good news is that Scott says this isn’t a limited run. The initial batch was made available to test the waters. Well, consider the waters thoroughly tested, and expect plenty more to arrive soon.
Scott has also stated that his share of sales will go toward his non-profit art center, which he launched with his wife. It includes a program providing kids with free music education.
Keep your eyes on Bilt for more details.
In less positive news, Scott has warned that ChatGPT is erasing pedal history after an experiment yielded some scary results.
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