Captain Coconut 2 Owner's Manual

Operating tips

Captain Coconut 2 was designed with professional performing and recording guitarists in mind. The following tips are provided so that you can get the most out of this unique vintage multi-effects device.

Volume swell You can get some great volume swell effects by activating the Octave and FuzzFoot, and then carefully tweaking their settings. By using the Octave to super-overdrive the FuzzFoot, you can cause to the Fuzzfoot to overcompensate. This cuts off the attack of the notes and fades in as the notes sustain.

Manual phase By activating the Provibe, selecting Chorus and turning the Width control all the way down, you can use the Center control to manually phase. This can yield some very interesting tones, useful for recording and combining different guitar tracks.

Vintage tones In a normal rock & roll guitar rig, the guitar amp is used to add a final stage of overdrive. By tweaking the controls on the FuzzFoot and selecting a weak, gritty sound with the boost and Grit controls, you can get some great vintage tones. You can also do this by inserting a tube-type overdrive pedal after the FuzzFoot.

Guitar volume and tone knobs The controls on your guitar can be used in conjunction with Captain Coconut in order to get some great tones. For example, try turning your guitars treble knob all the way down. With the Octave, you will get a more pronounced upper octave effect, however the high notes will sound weak. With the FuzzFoot, you will get a very fluid, instantly recognizable vintage tone. Also, try turning your guitar volume knob down. When set properly, the FuzzFoot cleans up very nicely for rhythm passages. When it's time for your lead, turn your guitar volume knob up. This will bring on the classic Fuzz tone, sustain and the right amount of level increase.

Octave tones For the best Octave tones, leave the Octave Drive control at minimum. As you turn the Drive control up, the octave tone gets replaced by more of a standard fuzz tone. At maximum drive, the Octave produces a nasty saturated tone that can be useful in it's own right, but it doesn't contain much of the upper octave. To get the maximum upper octave, keep the Drive control down, select your guitars neck pickup and play on the upper strings at around the 10th to 12th fret. You can also roll back your guitars treble control and kick in the FuzzFoot for additional gain.

Vibe tones In order to get all of the classic Univibe tones that you've heard on recordings by Hendrix and Trower, you will need to tweak the Provibe's Width and Center controls. One big reason for this is because the Univibe included an internal bias adjustment that played a big part in the sound of the unit. The Provibe offers this adjustment on the front panel via the Center control.

Signal flow By using the individual Input and Output jacks, you can treat the Octave, Provibe and FuzzFoot as separate, individual units. With two standard ¼" patch cables, you can change the order of effects and insert other effects. This is very useful if you want to reproduce all of of Hendrix's live tones, since he didn't settle on one order of effects.

Guitar tones in general Keep in mind that the vintage tones you hear on recordings are the result of a whole bunch of different variables. They include: Player, guitar, guitar pickups, guitar cables, pedals, amps, mics, mic placement, console input channels, console eq, tape, and on and on.

!!!CAPTAIN COCONUT 2 WARNING!!!
This device delivers some serious fuzz, phasing and octave sounds. It's very tempting to over use it, to turn everything on and wail endlessly. Here's some good advice: be subtle in your use of effects. If you kick in the FuzzFoot, Provibe and Octave every time you do a lead, you will quickly annoy your listeners - and create a lot of noise. If you go back and listen to recordings of Hendrix and Trower, you'll rarely find them using all these effects simultaneously or even continuously through songs. It's really true that the less you use an effect, the more effective it is. A couple of licks here and there say it all. Keep in mind that the Octave and FuzzFoot are high gain effects and are capable of creating a huge amount of noise, especially when used with a wah wah pedal and a guitar with single pickups. Take all that, and add in the swishing of the Provibe, and you've got the noise generator from hell. If that's the sound you're looking for, Enjoy!