Introduced in 2017, Christos Ntaifotis’ original White Whale tremolo/reverb became one of his company’s best sellers. Its success, however, didn’t breed complacency, and after years of gathering user input, they recently introduced an update.

With a genuine three-spring reverb and a variety of tremolo effects, the White Whale V2 is no larger than two pedals. Its sounds can be used independently or in series, and each side has a soft-click/true-bypass switch along with the requisite controls – Volume, Mix, Dwell, and Tone for the reverb, along with Volume, Speed, and Intensity for tremolo.

Running between a dual-humbucker guitar and a small tube amp, the benefits of the additional selections became very apparent. The reverb side has a three-way mini toggle for Long, Short, and Medium duration, which makes it much easier to dial-in dwell and mix.

On the tremolo side, the three-way toggle selects tube bias shifting between blackface-style optical (labeled Opto) and Hard or Soft brownface-type harmonic tremolos; Hard has a wider range and more-pronounced sweep, while Soft has a smoother sweep and gentler peak. The Pre/Post toggle selects which effect runs first. CTC added to the pedal’s versatility with input jacks for a remote pedal and an expression pedal, to enhance control of reverb mix and tremolo speed.

In all, the White Whale V2 provides warm, all-analog reverb and tremolo with precise control of both.

This article originally appeared in VG’s November 2024 issue. All copyrights are by the author and Vintage Guitar magazine. Unauthorized replication or use is strictly prohibited.