Three releases just landed at Tone Shop this week, and it's a particularly good batch. A 30th-anniversary fuzz from Way Huge that's been completely overhauled under the hood, Strymon's first foray into the vintage silicon fuzz world, and a full-feature optical compressor from Walrus Audio that has no business sounding this good at its price point. Let's get into all three.

Way Huge Jumbo Fuzz Swollen Pickle XXX — 30 Years of Brine

Limited Edition

Thirty years. That's how long the Swollen Pickle has been making amps sweat and sound engineers wince in the best possible way. To mark the occasion, Way Huge didn't just slap a "30th Anniversary" badge on it and call it a day — they rebuilt significant parts of the circuit and gave the tone stack a thorough overhaul.

The most meaningful change under the hood: the traditional transistor array is out, replaced by high-gain discrete transistors. The result is more hair across the gain range — more of that gritty, alive quality that makes a fuzz feel like it's about to get loose. If the Swollen Pickle was already a beast, the XXX is a beast that didn't sleep last night.

The Crunch knob — previously a rotary control — has been swapped for a toggle switch. Faster to dial in during a set, more decisive in feel. For a control that was always about making a quick tonal decision, that change makes a lot of sense.

The most significant rework, though, is the tone stack. The classic Filter control is still there, but it's now flanked by dedicated Hi and Lo knobs that shape the high- and low-pass behavior of that filter. A pair of internal switches let you set the sweep range itself — from flat through to ultra-scooped or super-bumped — so you can tailor how dramatic that Filter sweep actually gets. The Loudness and Sustain controls return unchanged, covering everything from mild crunch to apocalyptic fuzz saturation.

This one is a limited run with special edition artwork, so it won't be around indefinitely. If you've been a Swollen Pickle player for years, the XXX is the most expressive version of the circuit Way Huge has ever offered. If you've never tried one, this is a fine time to start.

Strymon Canoga — The Analog Fuzz You Didn't See Coming

If you told most players that Strymon — the company known for building some of the most sophisticated digital reverbs and delays on the market — was about to release a two-knob analog fuzz, they'd probably laugh. And yet here we are, and the Canoga is very real.

The backstory is worth knowing: ten years ago, Strymon CEO and analog engineer Gregg Stock built a handful of custom fuzzes in an afternoon as a creative reset. They sat on a shelf for seven years until the company needed a fuzz to demo alongside their UltraViolet vibe pedal. That rediscovery became the starting point for Strymon's Series A line — a family of no-frills, all-analog pedals with no MIDI, no USB, no firmware. Just circuits doing circuit things.

The Canoga is the second Series A release (after the Fairfax), and it's built around a tweaked vintage silicon fuzz-face-style circuit. Two knobs: Drive and Level. That's it on the surface — but the real range of this pedal comes from how it interacts with your guitar's volume knob. Roll your volume back and the fuzz opens up into cleaner blues and rock territory with high-frequency clarity that doesn't go muddy. Wide open, it's full saturation. The Canoga was designed to be plugged directly before your amp (unbuffered), and Strymon is explicit that the interaction between the pedal's input and your guitar's pickups and volume pot is central to how the circuit works.

True Bypass. Mono in, mono out. Built in the USA. Maximum 9 volts DC, center-negative, 50mA minimum — keep it away from 12V supplies or higher. It's a compact pedal at 4.53" x 2.83", so it won't eat your board.

The Canoga is the kind of pedal that rewards players who slow down and explore. It doesn't have a lot of knobs because it doesn't need them — the tonal range lives in how you play it and how you set your guitar. If that sounds like your thing, this one is worth a serious look.

Walrus Audio Highpoint — Optical Compression with Studio Manners

Not everything this week is a fuzz. The Walrus Audio Highpoint is an analog optical compressor, and it's the kind of pedal that's going to find a permanent home on a lot of boards — particularly for players who've been frustrated by compressors that either squeeze too hard or don't give them enough control to dial things in precisely.

The Highpoint is part of Walrus Audio's Monarch series, alongside the Meraki analog delay and the Mantle bass preamp. It's designed to be an always-on foundation piece — the kind of compressor you set once and forget about until you realize your tone has never felt this good. The controls go well beyond what most guitar compressors offer: dedicated Attack, Release, Ratio, and Make-Up knobs give you real shaping precision, and the Blend control enables true parallel compression so you can preserve your transient attack while layering in harmonic density and sustain underneath.

The circuit operates internally at ±15VDC for increased headroom — significantly higher than the standard 9V most pedals run at — which translates to more dynamic range, better clarity under high-input signals, and less congestion when you push it hard. It runs off a standard 9V center-negative supply, but the internal voltage doubling is doing real work on the quality of the compression.

A standout feature is the 10-LED metering array on the face of the pedal. You can toggle between Input, Output, and Gain Reduction monitoring in real time — which, on a pedalboard, is genuinely useful for understanding what your compressor is actually doing to your signal rather than guessing. The selectable high-pass filter in the sidechain is another smart inclusion: set it and frequencies at 160Hz and below stop triggering the compression disproportionately, keeping your low end tight and punchy rather than squashed. Useful for both bass guitar and extended-range players.

True Bypass. Requires 9V DC, 500mA center-negative — note the higher current draw vs. most pedals, so plan your power supply accordingly. Walrus recommends an isolated power supply; no daisy chains.

Shop These Pedals

All three are in stock now at Tone Shop Guitars. Links below — or swing by any of our three DFW locations and we'll put them in your hands.