Wren and Cuff Red Fish Octave and Fuzz

The first time I came across the Tycobrahe Octavia pedal I was recording at a friend's studio. He has an amazing studio and is the kind of guy who has so much gear that he forgets what he owns (including a restored Echoplex that I drool over every time I'm there). I was tooling around his guitar room messing with different pedals for a part of a song and I asked him about a light blue pedal I had seen. He handed it to me saying "I think it's broken, it makes these God-awful clanging sounds when I play chords through it; take it home and try to fix it if you want." I plugged it in and heard the awful melting amp sounds coming from my rig and agreed with him that it must be broken (this was a while before I was building stomp boxes from scratch). I went home and did a bit of research and had my own epiphany. It wasn't broken, it was supposed to sound that way! It was a clone of the super-rare Tycobrahe Octavia, a transformer equipped octave/fuzz. The damn thing was horribly wonderful! After a few minutes toying with the knobs I started hearing sounds I had been hearing on records for years, but had assumed was some sort of studio trickery. Purple Haze, Jimi's "flute" sounds on Axis Bold as Love. Neil Young, Zeppelin, Cheesy 70's sound track stuff. This beast could go from cartoon-goofy to the sound of someone pouring water onto a hot tube amp, whilst kicking holes into the speakers. The Tyco certainly has a quality that, love it or hate it, no other pedal can touch! A lot of it has to do with the mini transformer used to help create the oct-up effect.

The Red Fish is my version of the Tyco circuit. There is a lot of myth around this circuit, and it's hard to sort truth from fiction. Some insist that Noel Redding brought in a pedal made by Roger Mayer, to be repaired for Jimi, and the folks at Tyco "stole" the circuit by tracing the pedal at the shop. And there are other tales about it that are best told at 2 in the morning, in a smoky dive bar. It's all great pedal freak conversation though. Whatever the reason, this pedal is very different than any other Octave-up/Fuzz and if you've never used one, you'll definitely have some, "so that's what that effect was in that song..." moments.

I spend a great amount of time on each of these stompboxes, and do my best to deliver you an Oct-up Fuzz that spits, and snarls, but can also truly sing and trill. I want you to be happy when you take it out of the box, and I hope you'll sense that it was made by someone who loves to make FX, and has built it to be used and treasured by it's future owner. I know it sounds cheesy, but I've had the sensation of opening a package for an item I purchased online, only to find that the item was not nearly as nice in person as it was in the pics. I want you to have the opposite reaction. I hope you'll think it's even better than the pic, and that Wren and Cuff is a company that you are glad you stumbled upon. I hope you'll notice the overall attention to detail, and appreciate the uniqueness of your new pedal.