Way Huge celebrates 30 years by re-issuing its Red Llama Overdrive - now in MKIII Smalls Edition

The Red Llama is a pedal I’ve long liked, but never yet got around to acquiring. I believe Mythos Pedals’ Chupacabra is derived from the same circuit - and indeed sports the same 2 controls - just by different labels.

Controls - Volume, Drive.

I’ve always classified this circuit as a ’Fuzzy Drive’ type which I typically associate with the Billy Gibbons sound or thereabouts. Some say it has a flavour of Fender Tweed to it, while there’s for sure some special sauce as you crank the Drive.

I had been planning to do a feature on Billy Gibbons inspired pedals - including Expandora and the like - and for sure the Red Llama would feature healthily within that selection.

All this time I’ve been waiting for my friend Guillem Vilademunt to release his Reverend Overdrive Mini Expandora Clone - that was always going to be the final inclusion on that selection.

I look forward to adding the Smalls edition too now - I had previously included the 25th Anniversary Edition of that pedal in the Billy Gibbons selection - which includes a Hi-Cut 3rd knob. While the Smalls edition is overall the most practically suitable for me - so that will replace it in the selection.

I will be very glad to have added the Red Llama at last, actually I’m still waiting for my friends at Missing Link Audio to sort me out with an Eliminator - my main contact has been on holiday for a while and that whole episode has dragged over two months now.

So it’s really cool to see the Red Llama back in the mix again - priced at $149 at Sweetwater, and £169 at Andertons. Not only do we have a UK surcharge on the price, but for some reason Dunlop products always arrive in the UK at least a month behind their materialising in the USA - much to my frustration. We often have to wait as long as 2 months after the release announcement before we can get our hands on one this side of the pond! 

Dunlop isn’t the only US brand to be slow at getting its products into Europe - surely it can’t be good for business?

In any case I’m mostly over my Covid now - still a tiny bit of brain fog on occasion, and degrees of listlessness - but things are properly improving now - yay!