Caroline Guitar Company releases best ever 3rd Generation Zero Edition of its Wave Cannon Superdistorter

The Wave Cannon has long been on my wishlist, alongside Caroline’s Shigeharu Octave Fuzz. It seems the time is right for the Wave Cannon - now in its best ever iteration, and kind of returning more to its original 2010 roots versus the more divergent MKII edition.

Philippe Herndon launched the Caroline Guitar Company back in 2010, and the Wave Cannon was its very first product - a heavily modified and evolved ProCo Rat with more shaping and gain-range.

The nearest I had come to owning one of these until now is courtesy of JHS Pedals’ Packrat - as the Wave Cannon just happens to be the 8th variation / Mode on that pedal (MKI take), while at times this pedal can sound nothing like a Rat - particularly with the Havoc Feedback Oscillation Footswitch applied.

Controls - Volume, Gain, Shape, Volts (Starve), Tone, Havoc %, Bypass Footswitch, Havoc Feedback Oscillation Footswitch.

There’s just a couple of things that need further explanation here - Shape is a sort of combination of Gain Structure and Frequency Emphasis - where it works in tandem with the main Gain level control. While the Havoc function is a feedback oscillation essentially which underlines the ’Superdistorter’ moniker. In fact you have 3 controls here really that deal with different aspects of the pedal’s output gain - the main Gain control, the Shape control, and the Havoc intensity control - which also impacts gain to some degree.

With the voltage starve / Volts control you get access to an extended range of different distortion textures. This is the very epitome of an evolved and extended range Rat derived distortion - and is very much its own thing, quite distinct also from the Life Pedal varieties.

It arrives at a similar time to the Oneder Effects Red Ryder Distortion getting revived too - which is also on my wishlist. It will be interesting to see which of those two I land first. Both are definite active targets for me, and each delivers something quite different. In terms of the overall output profile.

Update! - actually I came across these on the Andertons website and indeed snapped one of those up on sight - it will arrive on the same day that this article goes live. Priced in the UK @ £279 vs the USA price of $249 - of course available direct via the Caroline Guitar Company Webstore.

This Wave Cannon Zero becomes just my second Caroline pedal - after the CCCP Special Edition Hawaiian Pizza - so just the Shigeharu Fuzz to go then to complete my Caroline Trifecta! - I will likely wait for a final format evolved edition of that one too no doubt - before I hit the trigger!