EL PESCADORO™ Reverberant Hot Preamp is another great and unique pedal from the brain of Tavo Garcia Vega at the Nocturne Brain. He has greatly improved the Jr. Barnyard™ preamp by adding a reverb. As pointed out this is not a spring reverb as these did not exist in the late 1940s thru the 1950s and into the 1960s. The first Fender Reverb Unit was originally introduced in 1961. This was a separate unit that helped put Surf music on the map with the drip sound, but in fact was used by many others.

The recordings we all heard from Chess Records and Universal Recording back in the 1950s was not created by a spring reverb or amp reverb as they did not exist. These records had a different vibe. It was the sound of the recording space, loud amps and a few recording tricks using the natural space. The EL PESCADORO™ Reverberant Hot Preamp re-creates these sounds in a pedal. The preamp provides the octal tube amp character along with the nice wash reverb.

From Nocturne Brain website.
no 60’s “reverb tank” here at all.. this is way before premier & leo got springy. Think late 40s, across the 50s!
When you hear the opening rift in Maybelline by Chuck Berry or Bo Diddley’s first hit; Road Runner of Chess’s Checker label, you hear that sound. Its drippin off the walls of Sumlin’s guitar w Howlin Wolf’s recordings as well as Muddy’s. Going forward to the end of the 50s, 1960 to be exact.. Universal Recording and Chess Records had a beautifully dense, warm, and open quality.

No springs there, just a culmination of sounds from blaring guitar amps in the recording space, and that room sound in the tube mixing console sent through a floor drainpipe w ribbon and tube mics into a basement and non parallel walls in long narrowish rooms w moveable panels.. not to mention the melding of mechanical steel plates, magnetic drivers w tube amplifiers..

Nevertheless, we listen to the 45’s and the 78’s and we hear and experience something heard no where else in this era. Its a haunting bloom, an iconic captured live sound that surrounds a guitar in a mix.

So I want you to be able to get that from YOUR guitar, and YOUR amp w the EL PESCADORO that is feeding an Octal Tube Character preamp, a streamlined version of the stand alone Hot Preamp I make called the Jr. Barnyard™ into a cleverly voiced reverberation emulation circuit. So old skool Analog Class A Discreet is meshing w modern DSP on the verb side, to be slightly technical.

The Reverb on the pedal SERVES the OCTAL Tube preamp, it can be used alone but the preamp pushing the reverb is the magic here and provides the ambient backdrop to helping you recreate the pioneering sounds first heard along Chicago’s water front, and later under the streets of the west coast’s studio catacombs.

Preamp:

Gain control- controls output of mixed analog and digital signal

Bass & guitar mode switch- (upright bass, electric bass, steel guitar, electric guitar, acoustic w piezo, banjo,uke..)

Bright- Wooly mode switch- moving from wooly’s warms & softly saturated highs, to bright mode will return snap & jangle to your strings if you desire a cleaner attack.

Grits mode switch- this is the preboost mode of the Jr. Barnyard™ hot pre and you can adjust how much grindy reedy texture you want w the internally mounted trim pot. set n forget, eezy.

Reverberation:

Wet Control- this controls how much of your analog guitar tone you want to feed into the reverbs wet effect. Your dry signal is ALWAYS analog.

Dwell Control- This is controlling your reverberation bloom and decay in conjuction w your wet mix, and smoke control.

Smoke Control- this takes the reverberation from shimmer & snap to dark and blurred, find your sweet spot.

Subterranean & Shallows Switch- Shallows mode gives you live intimate spaces w tight reflections to liquid washes via luscious plate ambience. Subterranean takes you from a narrow two-story 1920s Chicago building’s studio plaster walls n’ plank floors to its odd long shaped rooms, down mic’d drainpipes to murky catacombs* beneath the city streets, nodding even to the entomb chambers of LA’s Capital building on the west coast.

Overall a fun pedal that can give you the sounds of some old records and is great for blues. Get the sounds of old field coil type amplifiers that players like Junior Barnard (Texas Playboys) & Charlie Christian used. Chicago Chess and Checker label recordings as well as Memphis Stax recorded amps.

Tavo continues to bring out unique and quality pedals and I keep buying them!