GearDump

Catalinbread's New HiWatt Pedal, the WIIO

HarmonyCentral’s forums were alive with talk of a new Catalinbread Pedal called the WIIO. Catalinbread A/B tested the WIIO against a Hiwatt amplifier and the results were close. When polled most people answered which clip they though the Hiwatt was at first they answered incorrectly.

The pedal is based on the sound of a full-stack Hiwatt amp & cabinet combination popularized by guitarists like Pete Townshend of The Who. The clips did not show if this pedal can also reproduce the famous Hiwatt clean tone. The pedal has controls for Treble, Bass, Gain and Master. The paint is clearly reminiscent of the milispec construction Hiwatt featured in the 1970’s.

The WIIO is $159.00. The WIIO is already sold out the initial run of 100 units. Catalinbread indicated that this was a limited run product and that no more would be produced. Catalinbread has produced some other limited run effects emulating different amplifiers including, the Dirty Little Secret based on a Marshall, and an S.F.T. which is based on an old Ampeg Bass Amp though it works for guitar too.

Catalinbread calls the Dirty Little Secret a “foundation of tone”, suggesting it be used more like a pre-amp then a distortion or overdrive. Since the WIIO has not made it into user hands yet speculation is rampant on whether this pedal will work well in the same roll as the Dirty Little Secret.

Gearmandude did some shootouts on the OCD and it’s various versions. To be perfectly honest my love for the OCD started when I decided I wanted an overdrive pedal again and was tired of the standard Tubescreamer/Boss lineup. I am a big fan of Robin Trower’s playing and tone so I investigated his rig from a few years back and discovered that he was a heavy OCD user. Robin Trower now uses a signature Fulltone Overdrive which is allegedly very similar to the OCD.

For shear versatility the OCD seems to be one of the most amazing overdrives I have ever touched. It can get really gainy and do a distortion kind of effect or you can set the gain back and crank the volume to get a huge volume boost. When I heard there was a clone of it put out by Danelectro I decided to give that a whirl—and for the money who wouldn’t? It is a very similar pedal to the OCD but lacks the hi/lo switch. Honestly I think the OCD V4 I own sounds great at medium gain settings but the Cool Cat Drive sounds better when the gain is maxed. The Cool Cat actually sounds a bit grainier when used with no power tube saturation but when played through cranked tubes it looses that quality completely. Many players cite the Digitech Bad Monkey as a great budget OD but I think the Cool Cat has it beat dollar for dollar. I might be comparing Apples & Oranges though since the Bad Monkey is a budget Tube Screamer and the OCD is something entirely different.

In the versions video you can see that Mike Fuller at Fulltone has made a lot of modifications to the circuit since it was originally released. At some point I want to get one of each version just so I can have them in my tonal pallet for recording purposes but based on the video I think the V4 is the swiss army knife of the OCD’s.