Guitar Gear Gems: Bad Monkey Fever?
Bad Monkey Fever is rising
2,4 / 5,0 | 
Guitar Gear Gems · Source: Instagram/Wampler Pedals, TGP Forum, Facebook/Pedalboards of Doom
Guitar Gear Gems this week looks at the Bad Monkey Fever insanity caused by Josh Scott comparing it to the Klon Centaur. As the JHS Pedals owner, has caused the prices of the budget overdrive pedal to soar.
Bad Monkey Fever
Bad Monkey Fever sounds like a new global pandemic. One that started in a secret government lab and escaped out into the world when the scientists were off getting the bananas ready for teatime.
In fact, this Bad Monkey Fever was all the fault of Josh Scott of JHS Pedals. As he uploaded a video to his popular YouTube channel and compared the budget green-coloured overdrive pedal to the hallowed boutique Klon Centaur.
Prices on Reverb and eBay skyrocketed overnight and the world of social media exploded in a burst of memes about the craziness.
Everyone then blames Scott, who then makes a statement on Instagram in his defence.
To the people complaining that I raised the price on this pedal and “now you can’t buy one,” I would like to remind you you had 19 years, but you never cared. This pedal has existed four years longer than JHS as a company, and most guitarists have hated on it since day one. No one kept you from trying it in 2004. Learn to listen with your ears and not trends, and you will be a much happier guitarist. – Josh Scott
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- Wampler Pedals · Source: Instgarm/Wampler Pedals
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- Bad Monkey memes · Source: Pedalboards of Doom
Is the Bad Monkey coming back?
Then to add fuel to the fire Josh Scott was interviewed by Pedal Pawn and suggested it was about to be reissued by Digitech.
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Tom Cram kills the rumours
This was shot down in flames by Digitech’s Tom Cram, who said Scott was mistaken. Thankfully, Tom is a regular contributor over on the TGP forum (and an all-around great guy), so he cleared up the rumours quickly.
Sorry, Josh is mistaken. Well, kind of. We will likely do an update of the Bad Monkey at some point, but not anytime soon. The timing of this video has nothing to do with what we are doing. -Tom Cram
Source: TGP forum
So is the Bad Monkey really that good?
I’m going to stick my neck out and say it is a decent overdrive pedal. Though, I really do not believe it sounds or reacts anything like a Klon Centaur.
I can back that up as I have owned both pedals, more than once and multiples of each. What I do like about the Bad Monkey is that it can cover a lot of TubeScreamer-style overdrive tones and that it cleans up well.
Some may also remember that it was a favourite overdrive pedal of Phil X for absolutely ages and that he championed the budget pedal for many years. It is a good pedal, but it isn’t worth more than about £60 on the second-hand market, in my opinion.
4 Great Overdrives you can buy under £100
Below are a few links to new overdrive pedals that I would recommend and that all offer some absolutely stellar drive tones. Each has it’s own thing going on and I would suggest you try at least one of them in your lifetime.
Each one is less than £100 (at the time of writing this article) and they are all really easy to use. Josh Scott is great if you like hype, and can push prices up on just about any effect pedal just by mentioning it.
But if you use your own ears, you will find each of these overdrive pedals below to be great for good drive tones.
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3 responses to “Guitar Gear Gems: Bad Monkey Fever?”
It’s funny how everyone blames Josh! He just likes to talk about pedals, and he is right, if others then think that pedal is suddenly worth more than it is… you dont need to buy it. As for (overrated) Klon vs bad Monkey. A friend rightly pointed out, was the Klon set to sound as close to the Bad Monkey? Whatever it may be, as Joe B always says: listen with your ears not your eyes.
I think the whole thing is funny. The Bad Monkey is a good pedal, just not worth much as was mass-produced and so easy to find. YouTube guitar influencers and channels can spike the prices of most gear as so many musicians are too lazy to check out stuff themselves. Doom-scrolling on the web to be told what is good, probably isn’t going to result in anything positive, musically. Still, it is quite funny to watch the madness.
And free publicity for JHS everywhere, I doubt Josh cares about that effect. His show is fun to watch, even to me and I am not really a pedal guy. Only thing I blame him for is upsetting my YT algo, it’s spitting bad monkey videos at full gain now. Hah!