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Way Huge Aqua-Puss Delay Pedal Review – I finally try this famous delay pedal!
Introduction
My experience with analog delays is limited. However, there has always been one that caught my eye. The Way Huge Aqua-Puss delay. I have just been drawn to it for some reason. I have always loved how it looks, the sounds I have heard, and also one of my favourite guitarists plays one, John Mayer! Fair enough, he plays a MKI version, but they are so expensive! However, I have always put off getting one, for a reason I will get on to shortly.
What made me finally decide to grab one and give it a go though? Well, it due to me reviewing the Archetype John Mayer. They have an Aqua-Puss style delay pedal in that plugin, and I found it so useful, and turning it on made my guitar tone sound thick and huge! So I finally bit the bullet and ordered one. Let’s see if the pedal lives up to what I think it will be like!
Way Huge Aqua-Puss Pedal
The Way Huge Aqua-Puss delay is a fully analogue delay pedal that has been made famous by lots of guitarists, John Mayer being the biggest one! It is designed to give you a short and slapback delay sound.
So why don’t we talk about the controls. Being a fully analogue delay pedal, it has a rather simple layout and control schema. So what are the controls?
- Delay: Will allow you to control the delay time, which can go from 20ms through to 300ms.
- Feedback: This allows you to set the amount of repeats you want in your delay. From a single repeat to almost endless repeats.
- Blend: This controls how much of the delay is heard. It blends the dry and wet signal together. Allowing you to have a full wet signal.
More on the Way Huge Aqua-Puss
Thanks to its delay time and wonderfully straightforward operation, it has been used over the years as a way to thicken up and add depth to people’s tones. It is also massively favoured by rockabilly and country legends as a slapback delay on their pedal board. With a delay time that goes down to 20ms, you can get some snappy and very quick delay times! However, the 300ms maximum delay lets you venture into longer and more ambient delay times.
The Way Huge Aqua-Puss is a fully top-loaded pedal! The input, output, and power jack are all top-mounted. The Way Huge Aqua-Puss runs on standard 9v power or a 9v battery. Being a fully analogue pedal, it will only draw a 16ma, so won’t require any special power or converters to run.
The Way Huge Aqua-Puss is a fully top-loaded pedal! The input, output, and power jack are all top-mounted. The Way Huge Aqua-Puss runs on standard 9v power or a 9v battery. Being a fully analogue pedal, it will only draw a 16ma, so won’t require any special power or converters to run.
The Sounds
For the sounds, I just plugged the Way Huge Aqua-Puss into the front end of my RD Custom Tube amp and ran through some sounds. I had the amp set up fairly clean. I then set the amp to an overdriven sound and ran through some more sounds. A simple set up but very realistic to how you might use this pedal in real life!
What are my thoughts?
The Design
I will give a little nod to the box design! The pattern and design are very nice! Even if the box is tiny! Within the box, you get a few stickers, a quick start guide, and a warranty card! Very simple contents alongside the pedal itself!
Moving on to the pedal itself, I love the blue colour of the pedal! I think the whole pedal is very well designed and has become a cult classic now! It is instantly recognisable! The whole design and colour way is such a classic! One thing that shocked me is when I took the Aqua-Puss out of the box, the pedal’s size! I knew they had made it smaller than the original, but I didn’t think that they made it as small as they had! I took it out of the box and it stunned me at how tiny the pedal is!
All the controls and knobs feel super well made and high quality! The knobs have a nice resistance to them, and the foot switch has a nice solid feeling to it! However, I would have preferred a soft touch switch to this pedal! With the input, output, and power input on the top of the pedal, you can really slide this up against other pedals, saving you a load of space on your board.
"The moment I plugged this pedal in and played through it, I fell in love with it!
The Sounds
How does it sound? Stunning! The moment I plugged this pedal in and played through it, I fell in love with it! I will talk about using slapback delay a bit later, but for now, let me talk about the sounds from this pedal. The sounds are warm, organic, and sit so nicely alongside your guitar sound! It adds just the right amount of punch and tone to your sound.
You may look at the controls and think “It doesn’t have a tone control” and honestly, you don’t need it at all! Not once have I been playing using this pedal and thought I needed to adjust the tone of the sound! They have it set up just right. This is even more apparent when you push the blend control up; the delay never sounds like it is overpowering the signal! Always sits nicely (unless you really push the blend control).
More on the Sounds
Delay times! Now, it is designed to be a light slapback delay so you won’t get huge delay times, but this pedal does go up to 300ms. Which means you will be able to get decent delay time from the Way Huge Aqua-Puss if needed. Of course, the longer the delay, the more that analogue sound will come out. If you crank the feedback, you will hear this even more! Set the delay to about 3 o’clock, set it so it only gives you one repeat and blend to your liking. This will give you a nice filler delay sound!
The Drawbacks
One of my biggest issues I have with this pedal is the font size! I know there are only three controls, but when you are using various different pedals every single day, it is hard work to remember the controls. When stood up and looking over the pedal, it can be hard to see the font and controls! Just a few pixels bigger would have been lovely! Don’t get me wrong, the font, colour, and layout are amazing, but the size is way too small! The good news is that is all I have an issue with! Which is a good sign! The only thing I have an issue with is the font size!
I said at the start that there was always something that stopped me buying the ay Huge Aqua-Puss. What is it? Well, this isn’t a cheap pedal! It is a one trick pony in that not only is it just a delay pedal, it is only really made to give you a short delay time. So it is a £190 pedal that will only give you a sub 300ms delay time. However, it does have that sound, feel and vibe to it! So if it is what you want then it might be a good price. However, what I will say about this pedal is that if you haven’t ever played a fully analog delay, it is something special! The way they react and play is so different to a digital delay!
More on the Drawbacks
As mentioned above, I do wish this pedal had a soft touch switch! They feel so much nicer to use! A pedal at this price should have one! I don’t know why they didn’t put one on! I wonder how much effort it would be to swap it out!
"You may think that this pedal isn’t doing much, then you turn it off and find your tone sounds “thin” and “empty”."
Final Thoughts
I have properly loved playing this pedal! It is a very unique pedal with a specific sound, but it is a sound I think more people should check out! I found it not only useful in a live rig aspect, but it made jamming at home alone so much more enjoyable! Definitely made the guitar sound wider, bigger, and thicker!
On a side note, if you feel your tone is missing something, then I would 100% recommend that you try out a slapback delay! Even when you crank the delay time a bit and feedback amount, it still sounds great and helps fill out some space and thicken up your tone! I can’t think of a simpler and better pedal to do this with than the Way Huge Aqua-Puss Delay pedal. You may think that this pedal isn’t doing much, then you turn it off and find your tone sounds “thin” and “empty”.
Conclusion
What a pedal! I also absolutely love the Way Huge Aqua-Puss pedal! It has been the missing piece in one of my rigs! If you feel that something is missing in your rig and tone, then I would 100% recommend you try a slapback delay, and you won’t find many better slapback delays than the Way Huge Aqua-Puss! I would highly recommend this pedal!
If you do want to pick up this pedal, you can grab one on the links below. They are affiliate links, so if you do buy something through one of the links, I get a small commission from it with no extra cost to you. This is a great way to help support this site and allow me to continue to bring you reviews and articles!
Should I review more Way Huge pedals? They have a wide range of pedals covering a lot of different effects! I think I will definitely have to get more Way Huge pedals on the site. Let me know which ones you want to see. I have a few in mind that I want to give a go! I am very interested in their chorus pedal! So I might have to give that a look at some point.
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Way Huge Aqua-Puss Delay Links:
- Way Huge Aqua-Puss (Andertons Affiliate)
- Way Huge Aqua-Puss (Thomann Affiliate)
- Andertons Affiliate Link
- Thomann Affiliate Link
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