Crazy Tube Circuits White Whale II

The Crazy Tube Circuits White Whale II is a spring reverb and tremolo pedal, the successor to the original White Whale, which is now discontinued and available only as old stock¹². It carries a list price of £299¹. On the reverb side, the Dwell control sends more or less of your guitar signal into the springs, the tone control runs from bright and bouncy to smooth and vintage, and the Mix control blends the amount of reverb¹.

The original White Whale it replaces is discontinued and sold as old stock²³, and its B-stock listings have sold out²³. A Remote version of the original has likewise sold out⁴. For the II, Crazy Tube Circuits kept the player-facing reverb controls simple: Dwell sets how much of the guitar signal reaches the springs, tone moves from bright and bouncy to smooth and vintage, and Mix blends in the reverb amount¹.

A real spring tank and tremolo in one pedal

The 3-spring reverb tank assembly housed inside the White Whale V2's enclosure is the same one used in the original White Whale⁶. What changed in the V2 is everything around it: the reverb power amp was upgraded and given a volume control capable of up to 20dB of boost, and a toggle switch now selects the size and decay of the reverb between three tank types⁶.

The three toggle positions model different tanks:

⁶

Guitar World's roundup of the best new pedals of the 2020s describes the same feature as a triple-spring tank providing "short", "medium" and "long" reverb times, with the first two using two of the three springs¹. Delicious Audio called the V2 "the most tweakable real spring reverb out there"⁷.

The tremolo side draws on Fender amp history. Guitar World notes the choice is of three tremolo types that were used at various times in Fender amps: bias, opto and harmonic⁵. The original White Whale offered only two modes, opto (blackface style) and bias shifting (brownface style)⁷.

The controls

The reverb section gives you Dwell, Tone and Mix. Dwell sends more or less of your guitar signal into the springs, Tone moves from bright and bouncy to smooth and vintage, and Mix blends the reverb amount¹. The reverb Volume knob can add up to 20dB of boost⁶.

The tremolo section has its own Depth control for modulation intensity, a Speed control whose range Crazy Tube Circuits extended beyond the span of vintage amps' speed controls, and a Volume knob with boosting powers similar to the reverb Volume knob⁶⁵.

The V2's new harmonic tremolo mode includes the two most significant variations found in the original amps, which differ in range and sweep of the pulsating frequencies⁶. Guitar Pedal X describes these as Hard and Soft options on the harmonic mode⁸.

Both effect sections are controllable externally: the reverb's Mix and the tremolo's Speed can be driven by an expression pedal or an external tap tempo footswitch through the two TRS expression inputs⁷.

Power and connections

The V2 runs on a 9V DC adaptor, which is not supplied, and draws 180 mA⁵. That current draw is high for an analog pedal, so it is worth planning for on a power supply budget. The jack layout is standard input and output plus three TRS jacks: Trem XP, Reverb XP and Remote⁵.

The two onboard footswitches engage or bypass each effect section independently, and both feature a power-up bypass/engage preset function, so you can choose which effects are active when the pedal powers on⁶.

The optional White Whale Remote Control Footswitch controls the bypass state of each effect section from elsewhere on your board. It operates on both the White Whale V1 and V2: on the V2 it connects to the Remote input jack, while on the V1 it uses the reverb expression input with an internal assign slider set to FX SW. A TRS cable is required and not included⁹.

Versions: White Whale, V2 and Junior

The family now spans three pedals:

The original White Whale is now discontinued and sold as old-stock, with its B-stock listing marked sold out². The Junior uses the exact same 3-spring reverb assembly as its larger siblings, driven by a dedicated analog power amp¹⁰¹². Guitar.com's reviewer Richard Purvis notes that in the Junior "the pedal is the tank, with the three-spring Accutronics assembly mounted to the baseplate"¹³.

What reviewers said

Guitar World's coverage of the White Whale II lists it at £299¹. The original White Whale is now discontinued and available only as old stock¹², with B-stock listings sold out².

The White Whale II is listed at £299¹. Its reverb controls are the Dwell control, which sends more or less of your guitar signal into the springs, a tone control that runs from bright and bouncy to smooth and vintage, and a Mix control that blends the reverb amount¹.

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