At 15.4 × 8.3 × 6.8 cm (6″ x 3.2″ x 2.6″), the Crazy Tube Circuits White Whale Junior is almost certainly the smallest fully analog real spring reverb – with the added benefit of a tremolo to boost. That’s not a typo. That’s a three-spring tank in a box barely bigger than a King of Tone.
The original White Whale and the V2 got close to the dream. But close isn’t the same as pedalboard-friendly. So these crazy Greek geeks went back to the bench.
Here’s the trick: despite the shrink ray, the Junior uses the exact same three-spring assembly as its bigger siblings. It drives those springs with a dedicated analog power amp—just like the vintage tube units that started this whole obsession—rather than feeding them from a low-level signal path. The driver circuit is voiced to recreate the subtle saturation of a tube power amp and output transformer. Push it hard and it gets warm, deep, musical. Sounds way bigger than it has any right to.
Controls: Separate footswitches for each effect, of course. Dwell (how hard you hit the springs—subtle ambience to full surf drip), Tone (brightness and presence), Mix (wet/dry blend like a vintage amp’s reverb knob), and a dedicated Volume control that can match bypass level or add a clean boost. The tremolo sits after the reverb in the signal path, just like brownface and blackface Fender architecture, so the reverb decay pulses along with your dry signal. Three-dimensional movement. The good stuff.
The tremolo itself pulls from optical smoothness and tube bias organic movement into one voice. Best of both, no switching required.
€299. Real springs. Real tremolo. Real small. It rattles when you bump it because that’s what springs do. If you want a digital emulation that stays silent when you tap your foot, go buy a Strymon. If you want the real thing in a box that actually fits on your board, this is it.
