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 In the second part of his delay pedal feature, GEARED gets close and personal with the incredibly-named WAY HUGE AQUA PUSS and the mighty T-REX REPLICA.
Last week, I had the echoes produced by the MXR Carbon Copy and Subdecay Echobox bouncing off my walls back and fro while another two pedals sat patiently in their boxes. However I’m admittedly impatient when it comes to playing with guitar effects, so I unwrapped them next like an overexcited kid on Boxing Day. Below is my account of what I saw and heard.
A hugely-admired Jim Dunlop acquisition like MXR, Way Huge Electronics lay claim for having some of the best names on the product market: Fat Sandwich, Angry Troll and Swollen Pickle to name a few. Some of their acclaimed effects – like the Red Llama overdrive – have been discontinued, but some have luckily been resurrected. The uproariously-monikered Aqua Puss reissue is more than timely: having swiftly become a revered stompbox during the company’s first run, fans were smiling again when it hit the production line again early this year, saving them the need to pay fleecing prices on eBay.
Having long attained near-mythical status among players for its no-bullshit, beautiful analogue echo/delay sound, the Aqua Puss Mk II is a sheer aural and visual joy. I briefly owned a cult-classic old Boss DM-2 and the blue box outshone it in every department when I gave it a test run – the repeats sounded more distinct, the tonal warmth was wide-reaching and the overall tweakability reminded me of a lot more complex units. As the folks at ProGuitarShop (whose YouTube channel is compulsory viewing for guitar geeks) declare, “extreme settings can induce self-oscillating hallucinatory waves of maddening echo!” They’re not wrong and you might want to check your volume levels before letting your inner Mogwai – I’m talking about the fearsome Scottish post-rock outfit – loose.
Fitted out with the no-Einstein-required Delay, Feedback and Blend controls, the true-bypass pedal’s 20-300ms of delay cover everything from “bathtub” slapback to the abovementioned self-oscillating freakouts – and it all sounds as sweet as an Echoplex sans tape hiss. To cut a long story short, it’s as good as a basic echo box can get.
 The winner of the much-contested Guitar Player Editor’s Pick badge, the T-Rex Replica is spoken among many effects geeks in tones similar to the ones usually attributed to the old Electro Harmonix 16-Second Delay or Ibanez AD-9 and I last week, I called it the Holy Grail of analogue pedals. Well, I’m sorry to disappoint everyone, but it isn’t – shock, horror. As I begrudgingly acknowledged after checking the cold, hard facts, the Replica is actually digital, yet the tube echo-like warmth it conveys more than makes up for this revelation – while guitar-slingin’ aficionados Gary Moore and John Mayer (a major Aqua Puss lover) don’t mind, either.
Unlike the no-frills Aqua Puss, the second installation of Replica is a pretty full-on unit and I duly had a field day ... hang on, night with it and my Gibson. You can literally spend hours finding all kinds of different settings, with the Repeat, Echo, Level, Tempo controls and Brown (high-cut for a more “echo” sound) and Subdivision (1/4 note triplets) buttons at your disposal. The Tap Tempo switch lets you set whatever rate you like while the midi input allows you to remotely set the tempo and switch the pedal on/off.
Visually, the ‘chickenhead’ knobs of old are these days fitted out with a solid round base and the golden brown finish gives the stompbox a subtle gloss. Super-cool, the Replica is the Danish boutique company’s labour of love – and sonically, it’s as delicious as a freshly-baked Danish (bad pun). Despite the pedal’s name, you’re never going to replicate yourself in just one way with it.
RRP $399 (Way Huge Aqua Puss), $799 (T-Rex Replica). www.ellaways.com.au / www.jimdunlop.com / www.t-rex-effects.com
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