Way Huge Blue Hippo Analog Chorus MkII

The Way Huge Blue Hippo Analog Chorus MkII is a chorus pedal with a second trick: flip a toggle and it becomes a vibrato pedal. Premier Guitar called it "a bucket brigade-driven analog resurrection of the original Blue Hippo," built around the same kind of analog delay-line chip that classic 1980s choruses used, with a mode switch added to the original design¹. Way Huge is the maker, and the pedal's designer is Jeorge Tripps, whose circuit layouts set the pattern for the revived Way Huge line¹².

For a player, that means two pedals in one box. In chorus mode it thickens and widens your tone; in vibrato mode it drops the dry signal entirely and modulates pitch on its own. MusicRadar's reviewer found the chorus "offers a similar rich warmth to a vintage Boss CE-2" and the vibrato "lush with a range of useful tones"³.

What it does to your sound

The Blue Hippo covers the full spread of chorus sounds from subtle to extreme. Way Huge's own description of the circuit says you can "dial in everything from lush tone-widening to full-on rotating speaker modulation madness"⁵. At the deep end it blurs the line between effects: MusicRadar's reviewer found settings "reminiscent of milder phasing, Uni-Vibe or rotary speaker"³.

The vibrato mode is where the pedal earns its second personality. Pedal of the Day's Mike B explained that the Vibe toggle "completely removes the dry signal from the path, and kicks the [pedal] into a fat, Leslie-esque vibrato party," moving "from a normal-sounding chorus up to a fat, Leslie-esque vibrato"⁴. A chorus keeps your dry signal and adds a delayed, wobbly copy beside it; vibrato modulates only the wet path, so the pitch of the whole note bends. That is the whole difference between the two modes here, and the switch is all it takes to move between them.

One thing the MkII does not do, according to Pedal of the Day's Curtis U, is brighten your tone: "The pedal also (thankfully) doesn't have the age-old issue of making your tone brighter which many chorus units do"².

The controls: Speed, Depth and the Vibe switch

The interface is deliberately minimal. Way Huge describes it as "straightforward and no-nonsense-just plug in and dive into the deep end," with a simple Speed and Depth control layout⁵.

Depth deserves a note, because it behaves a little differently from a normal mix knob. Mike B described it as deciding "how intense you want the effect to be, sort of like a pseudo-blend control"⁴. In vibrato mode it stays usable at the top of its range: MusicRadar found "the depth knob's maximum warble remains musical rather than nausea-inducing"³.

The mode switch sits in the middle of the pedal. Curtis U noted it "effectively making this the only 2-in-1 Way Huge pedal since the Camel Toe," with the switch up giving "a charming vibrato"². The later MKIII manual describes the same layout in the smaller pedal: a Speed knob that "sets rate of aqueous modulation," a Depth knob that "regulates level of wetness," the Vibe switch that "toggles vibrato goodness on/off," and a footswitch with a blue LED to show the effect is engaged⁶.

History and versions

The MkII is a revival. Premier Guitar described it as a resurrection of the original Blue Hippo, with the vibrato toggle added to the earlier version's design¹. MusicRadar likewise noted the MkII "adds a toggle switch to the original version to offer vibrato as an alternative to its standard chorus mode"³. Inside, the circuit shows Tripps' hand: Premier Guitar's reviewer wrote that "the MKII circuit reveals the sense of order and design that's the norm for Tripp's new Way Huge pedals"¹.

The line continued after the MkII:

• Blue Hippo Analog Chorus MKIII: a later version of the pedal, with a measured noise floor of -96 dBV A-weighted with the controls at center⁶. It is covered on its own page as the Way Huge Blue Hippo MkIII, and the Way Huge Smalls Blue Hippo Analog Chorus is a smaller-format version.
• Penny Saver Royale: a Way Huge pedal that pairs overdrive with chorus. See the Way Huge Penny Saver Royale page.

The Blue Hippo Analog Chorus MKIII carries a published noise floor specification of -96 dBV A-weighted, measured with the controls set to center⁶.

What reviewers said

Published reviews were positive across the MkII and its smaller successor.

MusicRadar's Trevor Curwen called out "Excellent quality and functionality," and went further on the sound: in chorus mode the pedal "offers a similar rich warmth to a vintage Boss CE-2," and "we preferred the Blue Hippo in an A/B test on certain settings, which is saying something!"³. Pedal of the Day's Curtis U predicted in 2015 that "the WHE601 Blue Hippo is sure to become a modern classic"², and Mike B called it "a perfect way to inject some life into a dull pedalboard, or to dial in the classic tones of your guitar heroes from decades past"⁴.

On the Smalls MKIII, Guitar World's Paul Riario found "the Smalls Blue Hippo's thick chorus and swirling vibrato are incredibly vintage sounding"⁷.

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