
An overdrive boost that takes cues from a Klon but goes beyond by adding useful tone-sculpting features.
A large range of wide-open tones to explore in the overdrive/boost family. Easy to voice with various types of gear. Might free up space on your pedalboard.
Potentially a little more expensive than alternatives.
$249
Walrus Audio Voyager MkII
walrusaudio.com
When it comes toKlon-style pedals, I like to think I have my bases covered. I’ve done too much research, I own a few, and I have some personal methodology for deciding which ones go on the board for which gig. (Not even I always understand that methodology, but it seems to work!) I’d like to put a check mark next to boost/overdrive in my mental notebook, but things don’t always go according to plan, so, on occasion, I find myself wooed by new offerings.
I promised myself I’d approach the Walrus Voyager MkII with a steely resolve. “I’m not going to fall for this pedal,” I whispered to my current klone-du-jour as I swapped stomps, confident that I’d never feel the need to add more options to a perfect pedal formula, as the Voyager does with its six knobs. But I guess there’s always room to grow.
More Knobs!?
In spite of the many similarities, you can’t really call the Voyager MkII aklone. It has germanium 1N34A diodes like a klone does. When I AB’d with myJHS Notaklön—which sounds exactly like my Klon KTR and has become my go-to thanks to its sturdier build—I was able to dial them in to sound quite close. I wasn’t able to set the controls to identical positions and I had to use my ear to tune the Walrus to get them. But with a baseline established, it was time to explore.
The Voyager MkII features five modes, which include the 1N34A diodes with a bass boost (mode 2), symmetric silicon diodes (mode 3), asymmetric silicon diodes (mode 4), and asymmetric silicon diodes with a bass boost (mode 5). If you’re familiar with what that all means, you know what to expect. If you’ve never tinkered with pedal design or dug into the finer details of your overdrives, distortions, and fuzzes deeply enough to understand those things, this is an excellent way to learn with your ears.
A 2-knob EQ, controlled by a footswitch, opens up the voicing of the Voyager. The mid control determines the amount of boost or cut from clockwise, and the freq knob selects the frequency that is cut or boosted, ranging from 350 Hz to 2 kHz.
Modes and Mids
I jumped around the modes to taste, finding each suitable in different scenarios. As much as I love the warm, compressed sound of the germanium diodes—and the bass boost option is a welcomed touch—the silicon diodes are more open, dynamic, and even feel a little grittier. That creates a lot of sonic variety. I always keep another boost/overdrive on my board along with my Klon or klone, but the Voyager would be a fine way to replace both.
The mid boost turned out to be my favorite feature on the Voyager. This would be a super-handy thing for kicking on between one section of a song and another, perhaps changing color for a lead or single-string part after heavy strums.
As I switched guitars, it was handy to hone in on some frequencies. After reveling in the higher side of the gain knob with a Powers Electric A-Type into my Deluxe Reverb, I had a hankering for some Strat-like bridge pickup sounds. Grabbing my G&L Legacy, I fine-tuned the high-mid cut, taming some of that guitar’s spanky quack and adding some saturation by using just the slightest touch of gain. Moving to my Creston JM, with the Voyager MkII set to moderate gain, I cranked the boost in the lower mid frequencies, where I discovered a cocked-wah sound that lent a ’70s Zappa flair to some off-kilter leads.
The mid boost proved especially useful when getting my existing gear to sit well with the Mk II. In front of my Mattoverse Just-a-Phase, cranking the high mids lent noticeably more attack to a particularly gooey phaser setting in a useful way. And when I plugged into my Champ, I was able to beef-up that amp’s thinner sound in the same way I might otherwise use an EQ pedal.
The Verdict
The Voyager MkII is built from a Klon-style foundation. But its well-considered features make it a much more versatile tight boost and overdrive that’s easy to voice for different guitars, amps, and pedal pairings. With a wide range of tones on hand, it also allows me to stay “in the zone” when looking for a sound instead of going on a pedal-swapping hunt for tone. At $249, the Voyager is priced competitively with other pedals in its class but offers more room to roam.
Walrus Audio Voyager MKII Overdrive Pedal - Seafoam Green
Voyager Pre-Amp/Overdrive mkII - Seafoam GreenJack White's 2025 No Name Tour features live tracks from his album No Name, with shows across North America, Europe, the UK, and Japan.
The EP is a 5-song collection of live tracks taken from White’s 2024 edition of the tour, which was characterized by surprise shows in historic clubs around the world to support the 2024 album No Name.
No Name is available now via Third Man Records. The acclaimed collection was recently honored with a 2025 GRAMMY® Award nomination for “Best Rock Album” – White’s 34th solo career nomination and 46th overall along with 16 total GRAMMY® Award wins. The No Name Tour began, February 6, with a sold-out show at Toronto, ON’s HISTORY and then travels North America, Europe, the United Kingdom, and Japan through late May. For complete details and remaining ticket availability, please visit jackwhiteiii.com/tour-dates.
White’s sixth studio album, No Name officially arrived on Friday, August 2 following its clandestine white-label appearance at Third Man Records locations that saw customers slipped, guerilla-style, free unmarked vinyl copies in their shopping bags. True to his DIY roots, the record was recorded at White’s Third Man Studio throughout 2023 and 2024, pressed to vinyl at Third Man Pressing, and released by Third Man Records.
For more information, please visit jackwhiteiii.com.
JACK WHITE - NO NAME TOUR 2025
FEBRUARY
11 – Brooklyn, NY – Kings Theatre
12 – Brooklyn, NY – Brooklyn Paramount
17 – Boston, MA – Roadrunner
18 – Boston, MA – Roadrunner
21 – Paris, France – La Cigale
22 – Paris, France – La Trianon
23 – Paris, France – La Trianon
25 – Utrecht, Netherlands – TivoliVredenburg (Ronda)
26 – Utrecht, Netherlands – TivoliVredenburg (Ronda)
28 – London, UK – Troxy
MARCH
1 – London, UK – Troxy
2 – Birmingham, UK – O2 Academy Birmingham
3 – Glasgow, UK – Barrowland Ballroom
10 – Hiroshima, Japan – Blue Live Hiroshima
12 – Osaka, Japan – Gorilla Hall
13 – Nagoya, Japan – Diamond Hall
15 – Tokyo, Japan – Toyosu PIT
17 – Tokyo, Japan – Toyosu PIT
APRIL
3 – St. Louis, MO – The Factory
4 – Kansas City, MO – Uptown Theater
5 – Omaha, NE – Steelhouse Omaha
7 – Saint Paul, MN – Palace Theatre
8 – Saint Paul, MN – Palace Theatre
10 – Chicago, IL – The Salt Shed (Indoors)
11 – Chicago, IL – The Salt Shed (Indoors)
12 – Detroit, MI – Masonic Temple Theatre
13 – Detroit, MI – Masonic Temple Theatre
15 – Grand Rapids, MI – GLC Live at 20 Monroe
16 – Cleveland, OH – Agora Theatre
18 – Nashville, TN – The Pinnacle
19 – Nashville, TN – The Pinnacle
MAY
4 – Austin, TX – ACL Live at the Moody Theater
5 – Austin, TX – ACL Live at the Moody Theater
6 – Dallas, TX – South Side Ballroom
8 – Denver, CO – Mission Ballroom
9 – Denver, CO – Mission Ballroom
10 – Salt Lake City, UT – The Union Event Center
12 – Los Angeles, CA – Hollywood Palladium
13 – Los Angeles, CA – Hollywood Palladium
15 – Santa Barbara, CA – Santa Barbara Bowl
16 – Oakland, CA – Fox Theater
17 – San Francisco, CA – The Masonic
19 – Seattle, WA – The Paramount Theatre
20 – Seattle, WA – The Paramount Theatre
22 – Vancouver, BC – Commodore Ballroom
23 – Vancouver, BC – Commodore Ballroom
24 – Troutdale, OR – Edgefield Concerts on the Lawn
A dose of magic gain potion.
Works like a little vial of magic gain potion. Fattens without obscuring individual frequency bands.
None.
$129
Solodallas SVDS Boost
solodallas.com
The Schaeffer-Vega Diversity System—an early and very successful wireless system—excelled at the tasks it was designed for. But there was more magic than met the eye. Though designed to sound as transparent as possible, it nonetheless colored the signal in a way that people like Angus Young and Eddie Van Halen found essential.
SoloDallas explored the possibilities of this circuit before in pedals like theSchaeffer Replica, but the new SVDS Boost strips the formula to essentials. Minimalist controls—one knob, that’s it—make this boost no less delicious. I’m not surprised Angus Young was smitten with the original SVDS. An SG and Marshall 18-watt amp sound fantastic naked, but the SVDS Boost has the rare talent for fattening everything without seeming to favor or obscure any frequency band too much. And as zest to the PAF/Marshall style formula, it makes the kind of rowdy, organic, airy, large, and punch-packing Marshall sound you would dream of getting in a studio or hearing on the radio. There are many shades of this basic awesome color in spite of the single knob. Unity gain lives in the earliest third of its range. From there you certainly get more volume, but mostly you bathe in various hues of compressed, saturated, thick, and dynamite growl. You don’t need a Gibson and a Marshall to use it to devastating effect, either. A Telecaster and Vibrolux snap with attitude and whip-crack energy with the SVDS in the line. And with both guitar/amp combos, the SVDS’ wide dynamic responsiveness to volume and tone attenuation assures that things stay cracking when you need more control.
Learn about this iconic guitar's journey, its mods done by Frank, and hear how it sounds in the hands of his son Dweezil.
Neil Young’s ’70s hits are some of the most recognizable radio rock jams of all time. But Neil’s guitar playing continued to grow over the ensuing decades, as he traversed styles from blues to country to electronic to rockabilly and beyond, eventually developing one of the most tonally decadent, fully formed improvisational voices in the entire guitar universe.
Neil Young’s ’70s hits are some of the most recognizable radio rock jams of all time. But Neil’s guitar playing continued to grow over the ensuing decades, as he traversed styles from blues to country to electronic to rockabilly and beyond, eventually developing one of the most tonally decadent, fully formed improvisational voices in the entire guitar universe.
Like any discography that’s been growing over the course of more than half a century, it can be hard to decode Young’s work. And with such an adventurous spirit, it could be easy to make some missteps and miss out on his best guitar works. In this episode, Nick guides Jason through some of his hero’s finest moments.
More news from Neil always seems to be on the horizon, so here’s your chance to catch up.