Why does the Warthog exist?

Following on from the article as to why the Peacekeeper exists, I thought I would move onto the Warthog, especially as it stacks so very well with the Peacekeeper.

The Warthog was designed at around the same time as the Gunshot pedal. My thinking was that the Gunshot would offer the British amp tonality and the Warthog would offer a more USA based tonality (think Santana, saturated boogie style). During its development it became very clear that the circuit had much more to offer than one fixed tone. So much so that we were going to name it after a chameleon to describe its wide range. In the end we stuck with our naming convention and chose to call it the Warthog after the A-10 Thunderbolts nickname.

 So where does the Warthog now sit tonally? Well, it is still definitely centred in the USA style of saturated gain but with more to offer through the combination of the gain and calibre controls which are where the magic of the pedal sits. Low calibre and low gain with high level gives you a crystal-clear boost. Adjust the calibre and gain upwards and you can roll through overdrive, into distortion and then at extreme settings you can achieve an incredibly touch sensitive fuzz.

To further glean more sounds out of the pedal you can adjust the proportions of calibre and gain applied to emphasise each gain stages particular character.

The tone control is a simple design but when adjusted with the calibre and gain controls it becomes more powerful.

The only problem with the Warthog is the sheer amount of sounds you can get from it. We have customers who use two of them set very differently to provide the bulk of their overdrive sounds. But the best bit is how it stacks, we were put onto this by a customer of ours who was stacking his Peacekeeper after the Warthog. I wasn’t expecting it to be as glorious as it was so if you have a Warthog, put a low gain pedal after it in the chain and you’ll see just how good it can sound.

TLDR: So why Warthog? Because it could possibly be the perfect one pedal rig for open mic nights or for stacking with your other pedals. Need a boost, overdrive distortion or fuzz? Use the Warthog.