Price rev from September 1 2011

From September 1st, Standard units will also have a list price of USD $204 (an increase of $15 from the old price). This is due to increased manufacturing costs and a weak US Dollar.

It’s unfortunate when the price of something goes up and this is not done lightly nor for the sake of ‘profiteering’ but in reality, the cost of producing things and the cost of materials does increase over time. For example: the cost to produce the housings has increased by almost 50% mainly due to the increase in the price of steel. Similarly, the cost of things such as the boxes that the pedal comes in, or user manuals has increased by 25%-40% depending.

While we have optimized some of our supply chain to bring down costs on some parts and in other areas, in order to maintain quality, the price had to increase and we hope you feel that it is in fact quite nominal in the grand scheme of things.

Chi-Wah-Wah bass will start shipping from September 1st 2011

We are pleased to announce that the long-awaited Chi-Wah-Wah Bass units will start shipping out to our dealers from September 1st 2011. Please check here for your nearest dealer: http://www.plutoneium.com/buyinfo.aspx or send us a mail at info@plutoneium.com if you wish to become a dealer.

Housings during one of the assembly stages:

More exciting pictures and updates over the next couple of days.

Thanks

Plutoneium Guys

Nice demo of Chi-Wah-Wah from Jack Zucker

Sheets Of Sound maestro Jack Zucker demos the Chi-Wah-Wah with a wide range of playing styles and sound combinations. One of my favorite demos to date. Thanks Jack!

More Chihuahuas with Chi-Wah-Wahs

Courtesy of our Plutoneium Friend in Russia. Nice guitar in the background btw. Love that colour.

Bass prototypes – color swatches

Some prototypes of the bass Chi-Wah-Wah we put together so we can decide on the final color scheme. We’ll go with one of either black like the original, or these rather cool hammered red and gloss yellow versions.

Chi-Wah-Wah and Chihuahua

I hope this picture doesn’t incite the rage of those PETA folks,  but here’s Rainman (owner: Koori) posing with his Bronze Limited Edition Chi-Wah-Wah and his Standard.

No Chi-Wah-Wahs were harmed in the taking of this picture.

Random pictures

Guitarist magazine U.K. review

4.5 stars out of 5 in the U.K.’s Guitarist magazine January 2011 issue (out now) and a ‘Guitarist Choice’ award. We are very, very happy with this. Mick Taylor, the magazine’s editor said ‘beautifully, robustly constructed inside and out, this is the most useful addition the wah market we’ve seen in decades.’ Thanks to everyone who helped make this happen.

New testing board I put together

Here’s a nice picture of a new pedalboard I put together yesterday. The pedals at PHQ were getting in a bit of a mess so I decided to invest in a Pedaltrain Junior to tidy them up a bit. Plus, I bought a new Voodoo Labs Pedal Power Plus 2 which is mounted underneath. The PT Jnr now has two holes cut out at the back of the frame which are obviously made with the PP2 in mind – the socket positions are exactly right once it is mounted (I use 3M Dual Lock).

So here it is:

Sequence is:

Guitar –> Plutoneium Chi-Wah-Wah – Barber Dirty Bomb –> Fulltone Catalyst –> BB Preamp –> One Control Mesquite Blender –> Mod Tone Delay.   To those who are wondering, no, I don’t use all those distortions/overdrives turned on at once.

Now – the One Control Mesquite Blender is a little pedal I’m quite excited about – it’s a true/hard bypass looper with a difference – in that it has a wet/dry mixer knob on it so I can blend the amount of the effects in the loop to my desires. It’s the next logical evolution from the true-bypass looper I had before which was custom made and had no blend – it just switched things in and out.

In the loop, I have put some modulation/reverb effects. There’s the EVH Phase 90 –> Guyatone Flanger -> EHX Reverb. None of these have there own mix/level control, so the One Control Mesquite Blender works great here as the mixer. So the signal comes in from the BB Preamp into the One Control, then if the pedal is off, it goes straight out to my delay. When I turn it on, it brings the Phaser, Flanger and Reverb into the chain (which I can also turn on and off individually).

It’s a beautifully made little pedal too and it feels very solid. The finish has a brushed anodized look which is beyond classy – it reeks of high quality. The control knob has a nice firm feel to it too. I highly recommend it – more info here: http://www.ninevolt-japan.com/

Yes, we know ‘size isn’t everything’…

First and foremost is SOUND – that’s of paramount importance obviously, but Chi-Wah-Wah is not only designed to sound great (which we think it does and gladly, some others concur) but it also happens to be the world’s smallest Wah pedal. Here’s a comparative size chart:

L to R: Boss DS-1, Chi-Wah-Wah (CWW), Morley Mini Wah, Dunlop Crybaby, Teese RMC 2 (or 3 – I forget which), Boss V-Wah, Morley BH-2.

CWW is only slightly larger than the DS-1 – with Boss pedals pretty much through ubiquity kind of defining anything close to a standard size of pedal. The ‘mini’ occupies about 150% the space of the CWW – it’s size is deceiving as while it’s shorter than say a Crybaby, that size is put onto the side – the mini is quite a bit wider than a Crybaby.  The Crybaby and Teese are both identical in size (being made from the same standard chassis) and are around double CWW’s footprint. The big daddy is the Bad Horsie, being about 4 times larger than CWW.

Oh, that Chi-Wah-Wah is our workshop reference unit. I sprayed it with some silver paint so it didn’t get mixed up with the other units.