The Way Huge Swollen Pickle Smalls MKIII is a compact fuzz pedal built on a Muff-style fuzz circuit. When it was announced in June 2024, Delicious Audio's Paolo De Gregorio described it as a new smaller version of Way Huge's Muff-style fuzz series, one "which replicates the venerable fuzz circuit"1. For a player, that means a Big Muff-style sustain-and-fuzz voice in an enclosure that takes up less of a pedalboard, with more tone shaping than the standard circuit it is based on.
What it does
The Swollen Pickle takes the classic Muff-style fuzz layout, where a typical design pairs Loudness and Sustain controls with a single tone knob, and changes the tone stage. On the Smalls MKIII, "the typical Loudness and Sustain controls are integrated with a high-end roll-off Filter" instead of the standard Muff "tone" knob, as Delicious Audio put it, "adding, you guessed it, more tone-shaping possibilities"1. In practice, the Filter works as a high-end roll-off rather than the fixed mid-scoop of a standard Muff tone control, which is where the extra shaping comes from.
"which replicates the venerable fuzz circuit"
The other change from the full-size pedal is how the midrange and gain character are set. The Smalls MKIII "replaces the Scoop and Crunch miniknobs with toggle switches," according to Delicious Audio's Griffin Jennings, who also notes it is "about 2/3rds the size of the original"2. Switches instead of mini knobs mean the settings are fixed positions you can set and forget, rather than continuously variable trims, and they stay out of the way on a crowded board.
| Control | What it does |
|---|---|
| Loudness | Output level1 |
| Sustain | Fuzz intensity and sustain1 |
| Filter | High-end roll-off, replacing the standard Muff tone knob1 |
| Scoop switch | Sets the mid-scoop character, replacing the original's mini knob2 |
| Crunch switch | Sets the crunch character, replacing the original's mini knob2 |
How it compares in the Swollen Pickle range
The Swollen Pickle has been made in several formats. The original Swollen Pickle MKII is the full-size Jumbo enclosure, "now in its MkII version" as Delicious Audio noted in 20173, and the Swollen Pickle Jumbo Fuzz MkIIS offers "a similar fuzz in a more 'board-friendly footprint," in Total Guitar's words for MusicRadar, whose reviewers also listed "Powerful controls" among its strengths4. The Smalls MKIII pushes further in that board-friendly direction by shrinking the enclosure again and moving the Scoop and Crunch trims to switches.
There is also a Smalls Swollen Pickle Fuzz in the current Way Huge line, where the maker notes that "flipping both switches down delivers the classic three-knob Swollen Pickle setup," referring to its Scoop and Crunch switches5. The MKIII carries the same switch-based approach in the newest Smalls enclosure.
The Smalls MKIII's Scoop and Crunch controls are toggle switches, not the mini knobs of the full-size Swollen Pickle, so its settings are stepped rather than continuously adjustable2.
Videos
Way Huge Electronics
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Sources (5)
- Way Huge Swollen Pickle Smalls MKIII Fuzz, Delicious Audio, 2024-06-19
- Best Big Muff Pedals In 2025: Reissues, Clones & Evolutions, Delicious Audio, 2025-04-07
- Way Huge Swollen Pickle Jumbo Fuzz MK II, Delicious Audio, 2017-05-11
- Way Huge Swollen Pickle MkIIS review, MusicRadar, 2017-02-23
- WAY HUGE® SMALLS™ SWOLLEN PICKLE® FUZZ, Dunlop (jimdunlop.com)
