Malekko Heavy Industries Chicklet

A few weeks ago I was harping on about Malekko pedals to some friends of mine and anyone who has seen any of the proguitarshop videos on Youtube will know that they are the manufacturers of some pretty formidable delay and reverb pedals as well as the infamous assmaster fuzz. What follows is the true story of how I came to be the owner of one of their superb pedals.

At some point in the not too distant past I consciously made a decision that my new pedal board had to have a reverb pedal at the end of the chain that I would probably leave switched on all of the time. My Orange Rocker 30 combo doesn't have a reverb circuit (and in my opinion the tube driven reverb on the larger Orange models is way too over the top to be musically usable) and so once again the quest to find the perfect pedal in it's class had begun!

Of course the first thing I did was ask my friends what they though and they just said "reverb is for losers" so I decided not to ask their advice again and try some out for myself. I was looking for a nice lively and bright sounding spring reverb that wasn't too mushy and still let the dry signal cut through nicely, I also wanted to add a little depth to the repeats from my MXR Carbon Copy delay. The physical footprint of the box was also extremely important as I wanted to fit as many pedals as I could onto a board that I can carry around with me with not too much difficulty. I created a short list of reverb pedals after spending an hour or so on youtube which consisted of the Electro Harmonix Nano Holy Grail, The T Rex Tonebug Reverb and the Malekko Spring Chicken all of which had received numerous levels of praise from various sources.

The Holy Grail was good, of course it was, it's featured on pedalboards of many pro players and has probably been used on countless recordings and me being the guitar snob I am this put me off a little. I liked the pedal put found it to be a little mushy and the extra modes surplus to my requirements. I wanted a reverb that I could set up and forget about so moved on to trying out the recently released T Rex tonebug but found it be slightly over the top and a little uncontrollable with a tendency to drown out what you were actually playing. It was still a top quality reverb and I was tempted to try out their much more expensive Room Mate reverb but it was too large (I have enough pointlessly large pedals on my board already) and I have never been a fan of valve driven pedals running into a valve amp...

So by the time I got to the end of my list I was pretty sure that the Spring Chicken was going to be the reverb for me. Hell I was sold on it just because it had a picture of a chicken and a single knob labelled 'cluck' on it but then DISASTER. Turns out Malekko only made a few hundred of these bad boys and they had already flown the coup... errr, I mean sold out, FOREVER.

I was at a total loss, I spent hours pining over youtube videos coming ever closer to the realisation that this was indeed the reverb I had been searching for and that I would never hear it's sweet clucking echo at the edge of my tone. THEN as if by magic the wonderful people at Malekko announced they were releasing a NEW RANGE of ultra small effects boxes called the OMICRON series and amongst them was the ultra cute, pink, sparkling CHICKLET reverb which not only had the original cluck control (now more sensibly labelled 'mix') but also had the upgrade of a 'dwell' control which controls the depth of the reverb time! This was my chance, I thought, my credit card magically appeared from my wallet and FORCED me to order it right there and then and so the weeks of waiting began.

When I almost couldn't take it any more a LETTER arrived from Parcel Force demanding MONEY and VAT for my US import. After a few short curse words I payed the damn fee and so my Chicklet was delivered. In fact I actually chased the courier down the street, but that's another story for another time.

I've been using it for a few weeks now and every time I plug it in I am reminded just how fantastic a reverb it is. The controls are simple but with a massive range that can take you from gentle slap back to all out cavernous reverb hell, the reverb itself is bright and lively and never interferes with your playing (unless you want it to in which you can crank the dwell and get lost in the soup.) Perhaps my favourite thing about this pedal is the way in which it responds to input levels and the dynamics of your playing making it perhaps one of the most expressive spring reverbs I've ever played, highly recommended.

Malekko Heavy Industries are a small stomp box manufacturer based in Austin, Texas that went into business in 2006 and they've just released a whole range of super tiny, super amazing pedals and will probably sell lots of them, in fact you should buy one but not a chicklet because IT'S MINE. http://www.malekkoheavyindustry.com/