Caroline Guitar Company Wave Cannon Pedal

A true FUZZ MUH-SHEEN, Wave Cannon is gnarly and super interactive. Not for the faint of heart. Inspired by legendary Ibanez Sonic Distortion, DOD 250 and ProCo Rat—all op-amp hard-clippers from the 1970s and 1980s.

Wave Cannon’s circuit lets you really explore the usable limits of circuit abuse without too many screechy feedback episodes. However, if you foolishly dime all the controls, you’ll get weird high-frequency squeals and whistles only a Fruit Bat would enjoy. With a broad range of gain settings that respond to your playing dynamics, amp settings and pickup selections provide a massive variety of usable amp-like tones. Wave Cannon’s wicked Shape control is designed by Philip Ruetz of Ruetz Amplification. Ruetz’s circuit really refines the frequency response and grit, especially at lower gain settings. This combined with the Stack control which governs the overall treble content of the pedal is a big part of Wave Cannon’s ability to reign in the uncontrollable aspects of its gain structure. Unfortunately for you cork-sniffers, Philippe says the circuit is completely uninteresting. No freaky capacitors formed from gypsy tears—just good design and quality components.

If crazy gain effects are the action you crave, Wave Cannon’s optional Havoc feature will certainly oblige. Havoc mode sends Wave Cannon into fits of distortion, feedback and funky sci-fi weirdness and is sure to be a hit with audio molesters worldwide. You may be thinking “Surely it can’t get any better than that?” Well it does. Philippe and his soldering minions have created an exclusive to Vintage King Wave Cannon, dubbed the VK Edition Cannonball, with double-secret circuit tweaks and Havoc on momentary switch! One step on the VK Edition Cannonball is a perfect way to put a final statement of madness on any epic guitar solo.

We really like Wave Cannon’s incredible range of distortion/fuzz. It dished up everything from super-tight Rush Limelight-type distortion to harmonically rich Oasis Supersonic/Rock 'N' Roll Star grunge. We dug the fact that Herndon didn’t design a tremendous amount of compression into the circuit. This means all the tone comes from your guitar and amp, while the hard clip element of the circuit cuts through a mix. Engineers will love the Wave Cannon. If a guitar track really needs to really burn its way to the top of the mix, track it through a Wave Cannon and it will consume attention.