I’ve been playing around with the Electro‑Harmonix Cock Fight and I think it’s time I talk about this interesting pedal. The basic concept of this pedal is to simulate the ‘cocked’ wah tone. Many players out there have used this trick where you turn on a crybaby, and set it to specific point and leave it in that position. This is a great way to get that throaty mid bump for some nasty riff tones.
Now, personally, from my experience, I’ve never really spent too much time with this technique with my wah pedals, so I was excited to focus on this. But just like everything with Electro-Harmonix, they go to the next level allowing you to control and shape the specifics to really create something special. Before I go further, let’s talk about the controls on the unit.
Volume – controls the overall output volume
Freq – controls the frequency that you want cocked. Also, there is an expression input where you could sweep the frequency like a traditional wah. What’s the point then? Well, this unit also has fuzz, standard crybaby mode and talking wah. That’s a lot of cool parameters – so you could sweep with a control on one setting and lock it for another. Options!
Tone – As you would expect, dial in that high or low
Drive – Here is the control on how much drive you want to add to the fuzz
Bottom – I liked this cranked.
Cry/Talk – Sets the mode what type of filter you want. Cry is standard Cry Baby wah and Talk is their talking wah where vowel sounds are used.
Fuzz Off / Pre / Post – I really dug this, this positions the fuzz. Either pre filter, post filter or off.
Bias – can simulate that dying battery / glitchy fuzz sound. Again, EHX taking all aspects
The versatility and extremes this pedal is capable of is amazing. You can have it be really subtle to melting your face off. I really enjoyed the options provided. If you’re into glitchy nasty sounds, set this thing to have the fuzz post filter and dial the bias counter clockwise and let it rip with some nasty break up. If you’re more traditional, set the fuzz to pre-filter, dial the drive back and set the unit to ‘Cry’ and you can nail some classic cocked rhythms.
The ‘talk’ setting is very interesting. I took me off guard at first, but then found myself addicted to that type of filter. The Tone/Freq and Bottom were really important to dial in depending on what you want to do. Those all work very closely together.
In the end, I thought this pedal would be good in so many applications, I was quite impressed. Definitely could be a great tool for rhythm work, but for leads, this could be insanely awesome for cutting through on the mix. Locking in on a good midrange frequency, dialing i n some nasty with some body from the ‘bottom’ control, you could really have a lead tone that cuts.
The price point is excellent as well. To pick up the Electro‑Harmonix Cock Fight for yourself, you can pick it up for only $111.70 at Amazon.com. Well worth the dollars for this.
If you have experience with this pedal, please comment and let us know your thoughts!!
