What it is
The Habanero Copycat is a dynamic overdrive and boost pedal with impressive headroom, designed to give you a distinct presence in any mix. The overdrive is transparent, and it gets its warm, organic character from a pair of germanium diodes doing the clipping.
Experiment with the settings, but be careful with the output. This little beast can get loud.
Controls
Three knobs, named as they’re printed on the enclosure.
gain
The gain control serves a dual purpose. Besides increasing the output of the op-amp stage and altering the clipping behavior of the pedal, it also impacts the midrange and bass filtering. Two germanium diodes perform the hard clip, followed by feed-forward networks and a summing amplifier in the circuit. That’s what keeps the clean signal preserved and gives the pedal its unique transparent feel.
treble
The treble control is an active high-pass filter, boosting or cutting frequencies above 400 Hz. It’s paired with the clean blend path of the dual-gang gain pot, which forms a low-pass filter at around 500 Hz. Between the two, the midrange qualities of the pedal get emphasized.
output
The output control is a simple shunt-to-ground that lets you attenuate the signal leaving the pedal. At more extreme settings the amplification stages can deliver a lot of level, and it may need taming.
There’s one footswitch and no toggles on this one. It’s true bypass: with the effect off, your signal runs straight from the input jack to the output jack without going through the circuit.
Hooking it up
- The jacks are marked on the enclosure: .in on the right, .out on the left. Guitar into .in, .out to your amp or to the next pedal.
- Power: 9V DC, 2.1 mm barrel plug, center negative. It’s the same adapter that runs every other Spicy Pedals pedal.
- Do not use a supply with a higher voltage rating. That can damage the pedal.
- The Habanero Copycat can also run off a single 9-volt battery. Connecting an external power supply automatically disconnects the battery.
- To preserve battery life when the pedal isn’t in use, or when it isn’t connected to an external supply, unplug the cable from the input jack.
Getting the most out of it
- Set output all the way down before you switch it on for the first time, then bring it up until the pedal matches your bypassed level. This pedal has a lot of output on tap and it’s easier to find unity from below than from above.
- For a clean boost: gain low, treble around the middle, output above unity. The clean path stays intact, so you get level and presence without much grit.
- For the overdrive: raise gain and pull output back. Remember that gain isn’t only a drive control here, it also moves the midrange and bass filtering, so the voicing shifts as you turn it.
- Treble works above 400 Hz, so use it to place the pedal against your amp: cut it if the rig is already bright, boost it to cut through a band.
Specifications
| Type | Overdrive and boost, transparent voicing, high headroom |
| Clipping | Two germanium diodes, hard clip, with feed-forward networks and a summing amplifier |
| Gain pot | Dual-gang, paired with the clean blend path |
| Treble control | Active high-pass filter above 400 Hz |
| Clean blend path | Low-pass filter at around 500 Hz |
| Controls | gain, treble, output, one footswitch |
| Switching | True bypass |
| Power | 9V DC, 2.1 mm barrel, center negative, or a single 9-volt battery |
| Build | Individually assembled by hand in Dallas, Texas, personally by Rolf |
Current draw: not yet measured on this unit, so no figure is published for it here. As a practical guide, analogue overdrives of this kind draw very little — they are among the most frugal things you can put on a pedalboard — so any standard 9 V DC supply rated 100 mA or more has ample headroom for it, on its own or shared with the rest of your board. Treat that as guidance rather than a measurement of your pedal: what this one actually pulls depends on its LED, on the components fitted and on how the unit is built. What does have to be exact is the voltage — 9 V DC, center negative, and never higher.
Care
- Keep it away from dust and moisture, and away from extreme temperatures.
- Check the jacks and knobs now and then and tighten anything that’s worked loose.
- Unplug the input cable when you’re done playing. That’s what stops the battery from draining.
Warranty and support
The Habanero Copycat comes with a 5-year warranty to the original buyer, covering manufacturing defects.
If something isn’t right with your pedal, get in touch. Spicy Pedals is a one-man shop, so the person who answers is the person who built your pedal.
Individually assembled by hand in Dallas, Texas, personally by Rolf.