WAY
HUGE
Pedals
Buy if: your tone is lacking in punch, definition, and refinement.
Skip if: more gain is necessary.
Rating... 4.0
Street $170
Way Huge Fat Sandwich Harmonic Saturator
The overabundance of distortion and overdrive pedals available today has
made it awfully tough for one to stand out from the pack. Large numbers
of them are copies of legendary designs with a few tweaks here and there
to address some of the issues players have had with those devices. Others
are based on new concepts that try to creatively stretch the boundaries of
what “good” guitar tone can be, and provide tonal options that can make
the instrument sound completely different altogether. Sailing through this
crowded arena is the Fat Sandwich Distortion. Bearing the Way Huge name
may draw some intense scrutiny, but the Fat Sandwich holds up to just
about anything
you can throw
at it.
The faceplate
has the same
basic layout as
the other two
pedals in the line:
Volume, Tone,
Distortion, and
two mini controls
that adjust specific frequencies.
In addition, there
are two internal
controls to adjust
the corner frequencies of the
overdrive (similar
to the controls inside the Pork Loin), and a Sustain control to add even more
distortion to the sound. Plugging in a Gibson Flying V into an early eighties
Marshall JCM 800 50W head, the Fat Sandwich was fired up with everything
set at 12 o’clock, volume to taste.
One of the surprising qualities of the unit was the very focused tonality of
the drive, not harsh in the least. The feel of the distortion is modern, but
with more give in the lows and mids, yielding a very spongy tone. Certainly
one of the best features of the original JCM 800 line was how great they
sounded cranked. After dialing up a mild drive from the preamp and pushing the master up, engaging the pedal caused the amp to open up and
surrender an incredible rhythm tone, with wonderful note separation and
control. It simply rocked—that made it really difficult to take a break, even
after two hours of playing.
