Caroline Guitar Company Wave Cannon MkII Superdistorter

The Wave Cannon MkII Superdistorter is a distortion pedal from Caroline Guitar Company, a small batch effects builder in Columbia, South Carolina¹. It is version 2.0 of the Wave Cannon, the company's very first product, which dates back to 2010²³. Where the original Wave Cannon was a tribute to op-amp distortions of the 1970s and '80s, the MkII keeps that character while adding extra controls, including a midrange Focus knob, a Rumble low-end switch and a Havoc footswitch for feedback oscillation⁴.

Caroline describes the pedal as an unrepentant, unapologetic distortion pedal, and the company builds it at what it calls its small batch distortery in Columbia, South Carolina¹².

Controls and what they do

The MkII carries four knobs and two switching elements. Pedal of the Day's reviewer found the Volume, Gain and Tone controls straightforward, and described the fourth knob, Focus, as "basically a mid-range only control"¹. The toggle switch, Rumble, is "simply a low end booster"¹. Delicious Audio, covering the Wave Cannon line, notes that the Rumble switch adds deep low-end⁵.

The Havoc footswitch is the pedal's wild card. Delicious Audio describes it as triggering unpredictable oscillations⁵, and Guitar Pedal X, writing about the Wave Cannon line, calls the Havoc function "a feedback oscillation essentially which underlines the 'Superdistorter' moniker"³. Guitar World's review of the later Wave Cannon Zero explains the idea in more detail: the Havoc switch generates wild feedback that can be warped and shifted by the knobs or even by your guitar's controls⁶.

Where it came from

The Wave Cannon was Caroline Guitar Company's very first product, released in 2010³⁷. Company founder Philippe Herndon described the original circuit as a personal tribute: "the Wave Cannon is derivative in that it is my tribute to my favorite op-amp distortions of the 1970s and '80s"⁴. In a Guitar World video review of the original, the pedal was described as "a veritable Swiss army knife of overdrive sounds, capable of going from a 'clean' boost all the way to amber waves of gain"⁸.

The MkII is the second version of the Wave Cannon distortion design, which Caroline Guitar Company positions as an updated take on the original rather than an entirely new pedal². The pedal drew press attention around its release, including coverage of Caroline's newer stompboxes of the period¹⁹.

On bass

Caroline has addressed the question of whether the Wave Cannon works for bass directly. Rather than fitting a larger input capacitor as a dedicated bass distortion would, the company chose to voice the input and drive sections of the Wave Cannon to work well with both bass and guitar, with a thicker low end¹⁰. The Rumble switch's low-end boost gives bass players a further way to keep weight in the distorted tone¹⁵.

How it differs from later Wave Cannon versions

The MkII sits between the original 2010 Wave Cannon and the later Wave Cannon Zero. Guitar Pedal X describes the Zero, released in its 3rd Generation Zero Edition in October 2024, as "now in its best ever iteration, and kind of returning more to its original 2010 roots versus the more divergent MKII edition"³. The Zero carries a larger control set: Volume, Gain, Shape, Volts (Starve), Tone, Havoc percent, a Bypass footswitch and a Havoc Feedback Oscillation footswitch³. Its Volts trimmer opens up extra sonic options, turning classic distortion and fuzz tones into gated and velcro-like versions of themselves, emulating a dying battery⁵. Caroline's own page for the Zero notes that circuitwise it shares a lineage with the original Wave Cannon v1 of 2010⁷.

What reviewers said

Pedal of the Day's 2015 review of the MkII was enthusiastic about its sound and range:

The reviewer summed it up as a pedal with tons of options, thick tones and heavy, meaty leads¹. RockBoard's PedalPedia entry echoes the character of the thing, calling it "an unrepentant, unapologetic distortion pedal that is totally nasty and fun"¹¹. Reviewing the Wave Cannon Zero in 2024, Guitar Pedal X's verdict on the line was "A fantastic and distinct pedal all-round"¹².

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