Captain Coconut FAQ

When Emails come in, I do my best to reply to them. Sometimes my replies become very long and involved. I decided to take some of the best and most commonly asked questions and put them here for all who are interested. I also stuck in some content from various on-line forums where I participated in Coconut Q&A. There's a lot of text here, so I hope you're in the mood to read! Some of the questions and answers were taken word-for-word from their original emails while others have been shortened where appropriate. I hope this is informative. If you have any questions that are not addressed here, please write to me directly and I'll do my best to give you an answer. Who knows- it may end up on this page.

Enjoy!

Dave Fox

davefox@foxroxelectronics.com

Q: What's up with the serial numbers on your products?


A: I include the product, the year, the month, and the sequence number in the serial number. Here's an example:

CC20111081 (or)

CC2-01-11-081 (or)

Product-Year-Month-Sequence (or)

Captain Coconut 2 - Year 2001 - Month 11, November - Sequence, 081, Eighty first one made

Also, inside of each thing I make, you'll find my signature, the serial number, and the date it was tested.

Q: I have an original burgundy colored Captain Coconut. What other colors were there?

A: I produced a total of 143 original Captain Coconuts before introducing Captain Coconut 2. The first five were prototypes, so there are really 138 production units in existence. Most of them were burgundy colored, a kind of purple-brown color. I also had some boxes painted Black, Red and Blue. Here's the break down of colors:

Black - The first ten were black, and in the last batch, there were ten more, adding up to a total of 20 black CCs.

Red - In the last batch, I had only 5 boxes painted red.

Blue - In the last batch, I had 10 of them painted blue.

Burgundy - The bulk of the original CCs were burgundy. That's a total of 103

Q: What makes the Provibe different, or better than the other Uni-vibe clones, or even the original Uni-vibes?


A: There are a lot of great sounding vibe clones out there. Here are some things that set the Provibe (part of Captain Coconut) apart from the others.
1. Lush, 3-D, psychedelic swish that the Univibe is known for. Listen to the sound clips on this site to get an idea of what it sounds like. If you're into Univibes, you know that many of them can sound different in a very subtle way. There are definitely different flavors out there. I've heard some that have almost a flanger-type quality "nyanyanyaya". I've heard others that almost had a wah-wah type quality "wowowowowow". Provibe would be the "nyanyanyaya" type. It has a nice, defined back-and-fourth swish and wobble. Also, the spinning effect stays wide at slow speeds. Many other vibes tend to get narrow and stop spinning when you try to slow down, cheating you out of the slow speeds.
2. Captain Coconut Provibe has a regulated power supply. Fluctuations in line voltage have no effect on the sound of the Provibe. Not so with some of the other vibe clones. Like the Uni-vibe, their power supplies are unregulated. The brightness of their tone will change in direct proportion to line voltage fluctuations.
3. Captain Coconut Provibe has a "CENTER" control that controls the same parameter as the internal trimmer found on the original Univibe and most of the clones. This is an important parameter - it allows you to tweak how off-center the "wobble" is, which is essential for those who are serious about the "vibe tone". Dial in the dark Trower tones. Get the bright Jimi-at-woodstock tones. On the originals and most clones, you must go inside and adjust a trimmer if you want this control. It's even more of a pain when you consider how the unregulated Uni-vibe power supply will allow the type of tone differences that this trimmer was meant to compensate for.
4. Captain Coconut Provibe uses a wall adapter and has a highly filtered power supply for NO HUM in the effect and NO HUM induced in other near-by effects, like a wah pedal. Not so with other vibes. This is because of the internal transformer. It can induce hum in the vibe as well as in a wah wah pedal. If you have a clone, or an original, hook it up with a Fuzz Face or other high gain effect after it. Crank up the gain and see if it hums. Chances are it hums to sum degree. You want to make it worse? Put a wah pedal next to it!
5. CC has a speed pedal jack. With some other vibes you have to request it custom, or it's just not offered.

Q: Why buy a Captain Coconut instead of getting all thee effects separately.


A: Value - Captain Coconut sells for 399.00. For this money you get Vibe, Fuzz and Octave effects of the highest order.

Let's compare prices. These prices are from the companies web sites

ROGER MAYER

Classic Fuzz $159

Octavia $159

Voodoo Vibe $369

Total $707

 

FULLTONE

69 Pedal $169

Octafuzz $169

DejaVibe $295

Total $633

 

PRESCRIPTION ELECTRONICS

Face Lift (or) Germ $199

Clean Octave Blend $179

Vibe Unit $299

Total $677

 

VOODOO LABS

SuperFuzz $149

Proctavia $149

Micro Vibe $219

Total $517

 

FOXROX

Captain Coconut

Total $399

Captain Coconut is arguably the best on all three counts. At just under $400.00, it's just like buying the best of all three pedals separately and paying $100.00 for the Fuzz, $100.00 for the Octave and $200.00 for the Vibe. Plus, you get all the added quality features that the others can't touch. Think about it- who could pass up a bargain like this??


Q: Does it have true bypass switching?


A: Yes. All audio switching is done with audio relays. Each footswitch controls a voltage that switches the state of a relay - no audio passes through the footswitch. This guarantees unparalleled reliability when turning effects on and off. When the effects are switched out, the guitar signal is passed through the box, untouched. This is about as "true" as "true bypass" gets!

Q: Why is it called Captain Coconut?

A: It's the name of the last song on the Hendrix Crash Landing album. Back when I was a 16 year old hippy burnout, Crash Landing and Midnight Lightening first two Hendrix albums I bought (I could afford them because they were in the cut out bins). I wore them out. I didn't know at the time that they were the two albums that were made from out takes in which the original backing tracks were wiped out and other musicians were hired to replace the parts. Also, other guitarists filled in for Hendrix to make the songs sound complete. All I knew was that the music blew my mind and I loved it. Even to this day, I love those two albums. Why the name? I thought it sounded cool and it has a Hendrix connection.

Q: I was wondering if this pedal can replace some of my current stuff. My pedalboard is crowded & the C.C. sounds like a good alternative.

A: My current effects setup is an original Clyde McCoy wah wah pedal, a Captain Coconut and a home-made Tube Screamer - in that order. I can't imagine anything sounding better. I love it! Actually, a Teese RMC wah wah pedal would probably be better because it sounds incredible and is much quieter than my Clyde.


Q: I was wandering past your booth at the Philly Guitar Show last Saturday (11/18) when I heard a fluid roar that sounded like it came from Electric Ladyland. I was in a hurry to catch my ride home, but I saw this dude stroking a Strat that was running through a Captain Coconut and I just had to stop and listen for a spell. Unfortunately, I could not hang around to learn more about this effects setup, but I was lucky enough to find the website. I'm very interested in the Captain, and my question is simple: the effects that the Captain seeks to emulate were quite noisy in their original forms. Have you designed your unit to compensate for this noise? There was too much background noise at the Guitar Show for me to tell if there was excessive hiss.

A: Thanks for your interest in Captain Coconut. I'm glad you liked what you heard. Here's the deal with what it emulates and the noise:
I did some fine tuning to FuzzFace, Octavia (Tycobrahe) and Uni-Vibe circuits to get the best out of these effects. One main goal was to get rid of some of the "shortcomings" inherent in these vintage effects. By putting them all on one circuit board running off of one main power supply, which is super-filtered, noise is brought to an absolute minimum. Also, using high quality components throughout the circuitry helps to minimize hiss and noise. When I built up the first prototypes, I was very surprised at how quiet CC is. Even with all the effects on at once, with fuzz and octave set to their highest gain settings. It's hard to believe, but noise is not an issue with this box. Of course, single coil pickups will still hum, but when you turn the volume on your guitar all the way down, noise created by CC is almost inaudible. At the highest gain settings, the thing is not dead-silent, but it's way quieter than if you were to take the original effects, or clones and patch them together the same way.

More Q & A coming!