What Did I Do Wrong? (Learning from Failure) ROSS Pedals

Probably would have sold better as jhs pedals.
Bet they'll be 300$ on reverb soon.

I have most of the original ROSS pedals including a BUD box or two. The only JHS ROSS pedal i was interested in was the fuzz but not at $179. I've been waiting for them to drop under $100 but missed out on midnight madness sale. DAMN!

Too bad the famous Ross Flanger (the red one) wasn't part of this reissue. That kept me from buying any of them. That was the main one I really wanted. It was made famous by the guitarist from Herman Brood in the Netherlands back in the seventies. I used to have one, until it broke down and I threw it out. Hoping that it would be back someday. But it never did, unfortunately.

I’m 69yrs and live with my wife and 2 special needs granddaughters we care, ages 8 and 13. I played in dozens of bands, like a lot of us did in the late 60’s, 70’s and 80’s. I had a ton of gear. Guitars, amps, pedals etc. Then life came along with a school, a wife, children and career. So I sold most of my things to pay for school. Now after I retired a few years ago and the wife and I on.y live off our Social Security and it’s difficult to buy new gear these days since the costs have skyrocketed. And of course I knew they would, just as everything else. I like the idea of the nostalgia pedals, amps, guitars etc. I think part of the issue, at least for me is wanting to recreate my time in the 70’s playing on stage with great no nonsense gear. So much has changed in the music industry and it’s overwhelming sometimes. I’ve tried these so called pedal amps, like the Line 6 Pod Go, and a few others, and I just don’t like them, plus they are pretty expensive. I love to just set up my old Marshall half stack, with my way wah, fuzz, compressor and one or two other simple pedals, plug in and play. I saw this video today, 11/17 and went straight to the JHS website and every ROSS pedal was Sold Out…!
That in and of itself, is simply amazing and should show Josh the love we have for the older nostalgic pedals. And yes the $79 price point probably helped and I’m sure Josh moves a ton of pedals, of which I have 2 right now.
Congratulations Josh and while you’re making these pedals, remember us older guys and gals who maybe don’t have the mega cash sometimes needed for a great pedal. Great show Josh and Thanks again for your honesty and sharing of a great story. These videos help the lay person understand a little of what goes on behind the scene….! 🎸✌️

I remember when these were reissued and not being excited about it. Maybe bringing back the old Foxx stuff would be a better move.

I did think that it was a strange choice of brand to be revived, to be honest... Other than for the reason of nostalgia, I didn't see the point. I have to totally admire the perfectionist attitude that you took to it. It was an amazing recreation.

Love Ross pedals but the price point was too high. Thank you for bringing them back.

You need an audience for it. The competition is outrageous. These pedals look , to new comers, boring and dull.

I absolutely love the style and execution of these, but I feel like the brand recognition just wasn't there for today's market. Amongst a sea of bajillions of other pedals, this seemed like a pretty niche endeavor. Hopefully there's a future for those enclosures and recessed knobs!

You made stock for production cost. I.e.. you were trying on shoes you can’t afford

So … the 3,700 units sold out in less than 48 hours!? How can you say there was no interest from the market?

1- bad price
2- bad marketing

You don’t move that many units when there is no interest … but out of sight, out of mind.
My opinion!

this is really interesting, i can't wait to check out the doc. I'd never heard of Ross and still know nothing about them except for the fact that during covid i bought a Ross 4 track cassette recorder. i got it for several reasons but long story short i started out in the 90s recording on a tascam portastudio. sold it for a digital 8 track which was garbage. then spent a decade recording on computers just to come full circle 20 years later with my Ross 4 track cassette. i wanted another portastudio but Alessandro Cortinni single handedly drove up prices and after searching reverb for weeks i came across the Ross which had everything i wanted. it was from the mid 80s and recently refurbished with new belts, capacitors, pots, etc. it has individual inputs for each track on the front and back with V.U. meters for each track. pitch contol, a padded carrying case and it's portable and the price was right, i couldn't pass it up. I've only ever been aware of a few brands as far as portable 4 track cassette recorders like tascam, teac, fostex, etc. and I've been curious about Ross ever since I bought this unit so thank you for these videos.

Thanks so very much for your honesty. I was very uplifted and took a look at my failures to pat them on the back.

If you named it Chandler it would have sold more.

Could it not work with small one-off batches of reissues? If you make a thousand of an old pedal and that’s it, you could increase the margin and not try to sustain a brand forever.

Pedalz I'd hard! It also doesn't help that the economy is shit! I wish I could've picked up one of those Ross Fuzz pedals. It seems unique. Sorry JHS and company.

I wish I would have saw this sooner.. $189 was too much for my needs.... I would have totally been in @ $79 just to have one but sold out now. I can only speak for myself but the circuits themselves in a modern enclosure @ say $119 would have been a hit.

Reminds me of a simpsons episode where the school cafeteria would sell malk ( rats that were milked )

Ross pedals were pretty niche in the first place. The good news is if you hold on to most of your inventory, you can rehype them up in a couple years and sell them on ebay and reverb for like $1000s each.

how many Ross Fuzzes were made?

I love the ethos of JHS but something occurred to me watching this video. You spent months diligently researching form factors, paint colors, packaging and presumably circuit designs to EXACTLY re-create... a brand that failed multiple times previously. It appears you DID replicate the brand identically... It failed. AGAIN. Honestly, other than the nostalgia factor for someone who may have bought one of these in the 70s or 80s as their first pedal and lost it and wanted another, there wasn't anything particularly unique to these units back in the day other than the "Ross" script logo. The key lesson here is don't underestimate your OWN brand. "JHS" has a reputation for innovation and quality that far exceeds some of the nostalgic brands from yesteryear. Don't distract the team that's building a solid CURRENT reputation by recreating brands that at best were a "meh."

I was sad to see this happen. But this is just my opinion and maybe others as well. The 2 knob thing was perfect but the IN/OUT jacks on the back were not. Maybe if they were installed on the sides like the original ones they would have sold better. DOD relaunched themselves and are doing very well sticking to their old design.

There's a difference between a business success and a creative success.

Back in the day I had a few Ross pedals, a Flanger and a Phaser. The one thing I remember about the Flanger is that was beyond noisy, i mean NOISY. I sold them for a lot more than I bought them for, sometime in 2010ish. I wouldn't purchase any of Ross' products again, so there is that.

If you were to re-ignite a brand, A/DA. They had one of the best chorus pedals at the time, and a really great flange pedal.

They just didn't do anything that you couldn't get anywhere for less money. You can buy the actual vintage Ross Phaser and Distortion for less than the JHS version. Just a hard sale. They were good pedals, but just. not very exciting.

Bittersweet. I didn't even know ROSS was rebooted by JHS until recently. Very nostalgic but historically they were not highly desirable and ended up in pawn shops around the country. Now ROCKTEK, that would be an awesome manufacturer to bring back with cheap components. The Vibrator, Chorus, and Analog Delay were great sounding, inexpensive pedals with their own unique qualities.

Sold out !

Ross pedals will be $300 on reverb in no time

I think another way to look at this is as one of the major manufacturers of Military fighter planes. Perhaps you did not get the multi billion dollar contract but you learned a lot of what you CAN DO next time around that you design a new JHS pedal. 🤔

Nothing was wasted here and you are correct it was a learning experience. Even people who went to college have these experiences.

Keep it up guys!😉👍✨

my memories of ross back in the day is that nobody liked them, I think I played a chorus and maybe an od, nothing memorable from my early days of learning guitars and guitar gear. I dont feel like I missed anything.

As a guitarist and product manager of both coffee & software products, I find this exercise to be profoundly wise and the fact you did it publicly/transparently to be very awesome. It’s part of what keeps me coming back to this channel and it builds a connection with the brand. Y’all are awesome

Keep your head up bro! Knowing when to pivot is true wisdom as a leader, as is admitting when something didn’t work. Now you tried it and won’t have regrets like you would if you had never took the risk. You have plenty of other ideas that worked and will work in the future.

Brand 1 -lovetone? Brand 2, Brand 3 - 4?? Pleeease tell us 🙏🙏🙏

Dead brand documentary.

Awesomeness, JHS.
Just a lol here.

“Your scientists were so preoccupied, with whether or not they could do that & they didn't stop to think if they should” 🎛️

Stop recycling old ideas and make your own Josh. Make money creating not recycling. Same R&D, same downside risk. But creating has legendary upside potential. IMO.

You would have probably sold better if you branded them ROSS by JHS

Pedals are dead

When you sold all the new Ross pedals did you sell a lot less JHS ? Did they just replace JHS sales or were they planned to ADD to the party as additional sales ? Anyway correct decision. If it ain't working dump it. Business is business.

As a student of Trey's guitar playing, I was so excited to get my new Ross compressor. It was such a disappointment with very low SNR and no discernable improvement in sustain. Returned it on the same day I bought it.

Pedals sounded pretty good. Will say the pink one sounds nothing like ccr. Maybe if you added the rare frequency circuit that was in john fogertys amp to it. That would help. But the fuzz itself sounds nothing like ccr lol. There is no pedal in the world that gives you ccr tone.

I'm a synth guy, so I didn't even know about these pedals. I'm going to have to try some of them second hand (all sold out)

There’s a reason these older dead brands don’t exist anymore. You have such a strong brand that it probably carried the day with these Ross pedals for a while. But you got to try things. Not everything works but you take away lessons from “failures” for future successes. If you want to bring back history do something more like you did with The Beach Boys Punchline. That was brilliant, great pedal and it’s your own pedal brand which people trust and will pay a premium for. Next time I’m back in the States I’m picking one up for sure! Been waiting for a box like that for years!

Sorry that the products didn't sell, there is no real logic to it. Having a fantastic product like this, sometimes actually requires a bit of luck to break into the minds of users. Hope in time that some musicians out there can see the value and your hard work gets appreciated.

2 knobs end of story.

you live and die by taking chances, that's what drives everything

cool piece guys, thanks for the inside - Mark

Those pedals will be wort a ton in secondary market tho… what an odd ball history!