A wailing wah classic with three killer voices and a footprint built for modern pedalboards.
Be sure to check out our video demos of these other Dunlop products:
This soulful filtering machine dishes warm fundamental tones, smooth envelope effects, and rich, throbbing modulation textures. The PG Flower Pedals Hosta review.
RatingsPros:High-quality construction. Smart control layout. Superb fundamental tones. Cons: Might be too spendy for the auto-wah-curious. Street: $279 Flower Pedals Hosta flower-pedals.com
| Tones:  Ease of Use:  Build/Design: Value:  |
The subject of auto-wah engenders weird reactions among guitarists—ranging from puzzlement to indifference to outright hostility. But, like many things that provoke strong responses, lack of understanding is usually the main driver of skepticism. The guitarists with the most vicious reactions usually assume that an auto-wah does the wah-ing for you and little else—as if an oscillating filter were an affront to Jimi's ghost, or something. So it's fun to imagine a skeptic's surprise should they someday interact with the Flower Pedals Hosta—an analog auto-wah with a digital brain that imaginatively stretches the auto-wah concept with warm wah-pedal-like oscillations, quacky envelope filter effects, and deep “No Quarter"-style LFO modulations.
Freq Your Wah Out
The Hosta is carefully made, with an eye for high-quality components and serviceability. Crack it open and you'll behold a tidy and exacting circuit, with a Fasel inductor (an evolution of the type used in the first Italy-made Vox wahs) looming over the rest of the circuit board. The expression pedal jack, footswitches, and the DC jack are all mounted to the chassis independent of the circuit board. There's no option for 9V battery power.
The thoughtful design motivations behind the Hosta are also apparent in the easy-to-grasp control layout, which is distinguished by logical flow and intuitive feel. Level determines output volume. Gain regulates input level at the wah's first stage (higher levels make the pedal more sensitive, intense, and resonant). The three toggles select between auto-wah, fixed wah, and envelope modes, select between three peak frequency ranges, and select the Q, or resonance and intensity, of the filter sweep.
Like many digitally managed analog pedals, the Hosta utilizes multi-function controls to extend the pedal's basic functionality. In this scheme, the A knob controls LFO speed in auto wah mode, peak frequency in fixed wah mode, and the envelope filter threshold. The B knob selects the LFO wave shape in auto wah mode, adjusts the ramp speed in fixed mode, and controls envelope filter sensitivity.
These knobs also have secondary functions, including a latch function and selection of the oscillation speeds that bookend the ramp effect. The two footswitches are also dual-purpose units: The right switch bypasses the effect but also enables access to secondary A and B functions. The left footswitch inputs tap-tempo rate, but also activates the ramp function. And while the optional use of an expression pedal (not included) might seem funny to auto-wah skeptics, you can use one to control the LFO speed and set up different fixed wah peaks.
Resonant Freaks
One facet of the Hosta's performance that strikes you straight away is the intrinsic warmth and roundness of its fundamental tones. These inviting base sounds make many extreme sounds more expressive, palatable, and easy to slot in an arrangement or mix. And no matter where you set the Q and frequency toggles in relation to each other, that essentially warm tone is ballast and counterbalance for the peakier, more resonant output.
Players that have only experienced the quackiest, most basic auto wahs are likely to be surprised by the range of tones you can extract by switching the frequency toggle alone. Low frequency emphasis summons a funky, soulful undertone that sounds both burly and bouncy at slower sweep speeds and medium-intensity Q settings. Mid-frequency emphasis brings focus to the output—enabling exploration of high-intensity Q settings and fast, twitching sweeps. High-frequency mode brings out the pedal's more angular and stinging qualities, adding emphatic punctuation to a guitar phrase, or gentle percolating tones.
The Verdict
Surprisingly, there isn't space enough to describe all of Hosta's tones and capabilities in depth. But the pedal—and its recombinant, interactive features—are much deeper in functionality and expressive potential than the economical design suggests. Auto-wah skeptics will probably balk at the steep $279 price. But players that work from a less stodgy mindset will hear how Hosta cleverly and seamlessly ranges from wah to envelope filter to modulation machine—and appreciate the high craft that went into the Hosta's well-executed controls and inviting tones.
Gazillions of tone colors lurk in this box of swampy fuzz and funky filters. The PG Fuzzrocious Croak review.
Recorded via Shure SM57 and Apogee Duet to Garage Band with Guild X-175 and Fender Vibro Champ.
Electric rhythm track recorded at low gain, filter 1 and 2 settings, and high output volume.
Electric lead features real time adjustments to gain, filter 1 and filter 2 settings.
RatingsPros:Deep reserves of unexpected filter/fuzz sounds. Amazingly deep fuzz textures. Cons: Precise filter settings can be elusive and difficult to return to. Street: $189 Fuzzrocious Croak fuzzrociouspedals.com | Tones: Ease of Use:  Build/Design: Value: |
Fuzz riffs are meant to excite. Fuzz solos are meant to soar. So what do you do on the days when every flipping fuzz on the face of the Earth sounds the same to your weary ears? Fuzzrocious Pedals’ Croak is one possible answer. Its combination of fuzz and filters spins ordinary fuzz textures into resonant, twitchy, fat, quacking, and, yes, croaking tones that can enliven—or completely mangle—the most ordinary solo.
Croak does not lean on arcane, use-once-and-throw-away novelty tones to break away from fuzz templates. In fact, many of its most intriguing tones are mildly filtered fuzz that evoke the sounds of fixed wah and low-voltage vintage oddities like the Selmer Buzz Tone. But Croak keeps the wild at the ready. And its many bold and bizarre sounds— combined with its superb sensitivity and dynamic response—make it full of surprises that can beat back the fuzz-sick blues many times over.
Terrible Toad and His Bag of Tricks
Croak sometimes feels and functions like an analog synth. And, as with a synth, understanding signal is key to unlocking and harnessing sounds. Croak processes guitar signal first through an input gain control, which generates the fuzz. The most fundamental fuzz tone—that is, the fuzz you get with first filter off and the envelope at minimum intensity—might not blow you out of the water straight away. But it’s butter-rich, bassy, fat, incredibly touch responsive, and has a way of putting its hooks in. With the gain down low and the ouput volume up pretty high, I got lost in a Jimmy Reed shuffle for what felt like 10 years—completely blissed and content to bathe in the dynamism of funky, hazy, thumb-thrumming downstrokes and fiercely growling accents. This isn’t the kind of fuzz you ride to soaring, Gilmouresque heights. But it might be the deepest, swampiest fuzz you’ll ever hear in your life.
I’d be tempted to own Croak for this fuzz texture alone. But that low, throbbing fuzz voice is just one feature attraction. Once the signal passes the gain control, it hits a sweepable EQ filter that shifts resonant peaks from low to high. You can use it to create more low-gain, high- and mid-forward versions of the basic fuzz voice. And it sometimes sounds a bit like a voltage-starved Fuzz Face—buzzing and forceful, but fast to decay and fracture. At really high-input gain levels, though, the filter can be driven to absurdly quacky, spitty, and sputtering states, and just running through the filter’s range at maximum gain reveals countless fuzz/filter profiles with bizarre peaks, warped transients, and unexpected overtones.
Once you’ve dialed in an appropriately perverse or sonorous fuzz/filter combination, you can flip the formula yet again with the envelope filter. The envelope is highly responsive to the input gain control. And though Croak is exceptionally touch sensitive and dynamic at just about any setting, you can really increase the envelope width, intensity, and headroom by keeping the input gain up high. Maintaining control of the filter at these hot settings takes practice, but the payoffs are massive.
If you dig more traditional envelope fare in the fashion of Bootsy and Garcia, Croak does that, too—in its own unique way. The quacks aren’t nearly as immaculate as those from a Mu-Tron, but they are dusty, deliciously grimy, and full of attitude. Push the gain further and the quacks become spitty and granular. Croak can also be operated via expression pedal (not included) to control the input gain. And twitchy, foot-actuated volume swells will induce percolating chirps and croaks that give the pedal its name.
The Verdict
Make few assumptions about Croak. This pedal will probably confound them anyway. It’s a unique fat-to-throaty fuzz, a filthy envelope filter, and dishes a thousand tones in between. And even if you’ve never toyed with a filter other than a wah, you can find many inspiring and mind-blowing sounds with ease. Great stompboxes should push you in unexpected directions. The Fuzzrocious Croak fits that task to a T.
