Jeorge Tripps is well-known among circuit benders for sparking the homemade pedal revolution in the early ’90s when he founded Way Huge Electronics. With an ear for great tone and a drive to improve upon established circuit designs with often unconventional techniques, Tripps created several pedals that became highly sought-after modern classics. While responsible for great pedals of every effect type, Tripps has earned a reputation as a master of delay, creating the most innovative and acclaimed delay circuits released in the last 20 years.

His latest creation, the Way Huge Echo-Puss, was particularly designed for players who want an organic analog delay pedal that allows them to fine-tune their delay sound with a simple user interface. We sat down with the delay guru to discuss the finer details.

Tell us about the development of the Echo-Puss. Is it based on an older Way Huge pedal? If not, what was the inspiration behind its design?

Jeorge Tripps: The Echo-Puss is a new circuit. I designed it as part of a larger effort to create a group of delay pedals that meet the various needs of players depending on the tone they’re looking for and how much control they want over the sound of their delay signal.

We re-released the first Way Huge delay, the Aqua-Puss, without any changes because it’s a classic pedal in its own right and we knew that’s what fans of the original Way Huge line would want. It’s a simple set-it-and-forget-it design with a relatively short delay time and a bright, snappy voice. If you play rockabilly or you’re going for that ’50s rock sound, the Aqua-Puss does slapback echo like no other pedal—guys like Rev. Horton Heat love it. You can do a lot with it for how simple it is, but I felt there was further ground to cover.

That’s where the Echo-Puss comes in. It’s still easy to use, but it has more parameters for players to customize and it has twice as much delay time with two bucket-brigade chips instead of one. They’re the same low-headroom chips used in the Aqua-Puss; I like them because they break up the repeats a bit.

For further control of the delay sound, I added a tone control and a fully tweakable modulation circuit. Overall, the tone of the Echo-Puss is warmer than the Aqua-Puss, but it’s still pretty bright.

Who’s going to be interested in this pedal?

JT: Anyone who wants pure analog delay with some extra control over the sound of the delay signal. Classic rock, ’80s rock, metal—you have enough control over of this pedal to dial up a sound that will fit with your playing style.

Rumors of something called the Supa Puss have been floating around for a while now. How is it different from the Aqua-Puss and the Echo-Puss?

JT: The Supa-Puss is for players who want the next level of control. Like the Echo-Puss, the Supa-Puss has tone and modulation controls, but it has six bucket-brigade chips and an even longer delay time. It also has tap tempo and lets you control the behavior of the repeats. Also, it uses a different type of bucket-brigade chips than either the Echo-Puss or the Aqua-Puss, so it does have its own tonal character. These chips have low headroom like the others, but I wanted to take that grittiness a step further with the Supa-Puss, so I added a distortion circuit at a certain place in the signal chain.

When is the Supa Puss coming out?

JT: We’ll be shipping it some time between late this year and early next year.

That will make it three Way Huge Delay pedals in three years. What got you on such a delay kick?

JT: The Aqua-Puss, the Echo-Puss and the Supa-Puss each have their own personality and serve a different type of player. Ultimately, we wanted to have a complete offering. We didn’t want to drag it out over years and months—we got the circuit designs where we wanted and then pulled the trigger.