If I didn’t know any better and someone I trusted told me, “Dude, I’m giving you an Aqua-Puss, a Blue Hippo and a Russian Pickle,” I’d be pretty sure I’d be...
If I didn’t know any better and someone I trusted told me, “Dude, I’m giving you an Aqua-Puss, a Blue Hippo and a Russian Pickle,” I’d be pretty sure I’d be receiving a handful of hallucinogens. And that would be okay. But seriously, no—no, it wouldn’t be okay! All joking aside, I do know those trippy names come with some serious pedigree as beloved and sought-after effect pedals from Way Huge. Only this time around, they’re not so way huge, because the Way Huge Smalls Aqua-Puss Analog Delay, Smalls Blue Hippo Analog Chorus and Smalls Russian Pickle Fuzz are now miniaturized Doppelgangers of the originals. Best of all, these Way Huge Smalls stompboxes preserve the same features and sweet tones, but in a compact pedal footprint.
FEATURES While the Way Huge Smalls stompboxes aren’t sized as typical mini-pedals, they are still small enough to fit into the palm of your hand and are less boxy than their original counterparts, making them super pedalboard friendly. The Smalls Aqua-Puss features 20ms to 300ms of pure analog delay time, with controls for Delay, Feedback and Blend (dry/wet). For chorus and vibrato, the Smalls Blue Hippo has controls for Speed and Depth with a Vibe/Chorus switch to toggle between the two settings. In this MkIII version, the Smalls Russian Pickle Fuzz comes with Volume, Tone and Distortion controls for a full range of gut-punching distortion and hirsute fuzziness. All three pedals are powered by a single 9-volt battery or a 9-volt AC adapter and are true bypass.
PERFORMANCE I actually own and use the original Aqua-Puss stompbox, and after spending some time with the Smalls Aqua-Puss, I swapped my original for the Smalls version to free up room on my pedalboard. Mostly because I found that it’s exactly the same—a