ThorpyFX FAT GENERAL MAUD Birthday Cake Edition

The ThorpyFX FAT GENERAL MAUD Birthday Cake Edition is a limited run of the Fat General, an optical compressor pedal built by ThorpyFX together with its original designer, Dan Coggins. ThorpyFX describes it as the last of the Birthday Cake editions, released to celebrate the company's 10 year anniversary, and says it is sonically identical to the V1 version of the pedal¹.

Like the standard Fat General, it is an evolution of the critically acclaimed OTC-201 compressor, a now-discontinued optical design by Coggins sold under his Dinosaural brand¹². ThorpyFX says that unlike many other compressors, the FAT GENERAL MKII adds sustain and balance to your signal without unnecessary noise or signal "pumping", staying transparent with sparkle and clarity¹.

The Fat General, its designer and the Birthday Cake edition

The Fat General line goes back to 2018, when Guitar.com reviewed the original ThorpyFX Fat General, a redesigned version of Dan Coggins' Dinosaural OTC-201 compressor, marking the start of the Thorpe and Coggins collaboration⁵²⁶. MusicRadar describes the pedal as the result of a collaboration between Adrian Thorpe and Dan Coggins, co-founder and co-designer of Lovetone pedals³. On That Pedal Show, Coggins was introduced as someone who works with Adrian Thorpe and helps him design gear, and he called the Fat General "a sort of re-imagination of that circuit with a couple of extra cool features and it's been tweaked"⁷.

The Birthday Cake edition sits at the end of that line. ThorpyFX says it is the last of the Birthday Cake editions celebrating the 10 year anniversary, and that it is sonically identical to the V1 version, while the V2 version of the pedal comes in an anodised aluminum black enclosure¹. The edition keeps the physical features of the MKII format:

• Recessed knobs, protecting settings from knocks on a crowded board¹
• Top mounted jacks, saving side-to-side space¹
• A custom engineered enclosure: a laser etched stainless steel center console wrapped in a tough baseplate¹

The circuit: OTC-201 lineage and parallel compression

The circuit traces directly to the Dinosaural OTC-201 Opticompressor. On his own site, Coggins writes that "the now-discontinued OTC-201 'Opticompressor' lives on in a new guise: as the Thorpy FX 'Fat General' Compressor"². Aion FX likewise describes the Fat General as an updated version of the Opticompressor, designed in collaboration with Coggins⁶.

MusicRadar's reviewer, Trevor Curwen, notes the pedal is based on optical circuitry and offers two modes of parallel compression, where some of the dry signal is mixed in with the compressed signal, and that there is plenty of the OTC-201's DNA in the Fat General³. Parallel compression is the practical draw here: because part of your dry signal passes through untouched, the dynamics of your picking survive alongside the sustain and leveling the compressed path provides.

What reviewers said

Published reviewers were positive about the Fat General family. Curwen found that "the pedal is extremely quiet with very little hiss even at full compression"³. On That Pedal Show, the presenters noted that "there are loads of players who are using this as their always-on pedal"⁷, and ThorpyFX itself calls it an always-on pedal in the Birthday Cake listing¹. Delicious Audio's review of the Fat General Parallel Compressor V2 was very complimentary about the pedal overall⁸.

Power and size

The Birthday Cake edition draws 35mA, the same figure ThorpyFX lists for the MKII¹⁹. The original Fat General runs on a 9V mains supply or a battery, with the battery not supplied⁴. At 65mm wide and 125mm long, with top mounted jacks, it fits a compact pedalboard row; the 53mm height is measured to the top of the knobs¹.

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