Artists have used guitar effects for instruments other than guitar for a long time. And with a joystick taking center stage on the enclosure, Walrus’ Melee, which combines three reverb algorithms and a distortion circuit, looks like it was designed in explicit acknowledgement of that fact. You see, it’s not easy to control a joystick precisely with your foot. So, the presence of the joystick—which blends distortion and reverb in seemingly infinite combinations—makes the pedal seem intended as much for use by synth, laptop, and keyboard artists as guitar players.
That may be true. But even if it were fact, it would do nothing to diminish how cool the Melee is as a pure guitar effect. Melee’s distortion is rich and often old-school fuzzy. Its three reverb algorithms—ambient, octave-down, and reverse reverb with feedback—are awesome, too. And with switches to change effect order, alter decay time, and select EQ emphasis, the tone-shaping options are many. But it’s the joystick that makes the Melee extraordinary and makes it such a deep well of possibilities.
Free-Form Interactions
Walrus’ Melee is far from the first joystick-controlled effect pedal. Walrus already has a dual-joystick fuzz/tremolo in its line in the Janus. A prototype of former Premier Guitar editor Joe Gore’s excellent Filth Fuzz used a joystick before he recognized the perils of fuzz-crazed users stomping it to death. Visionary companies like Devi Ever and Dwarfcraft have also given the joystick a go.
“The distortion is remarkable. It’s articulate and communicates individual string detail clearly, even at high-gain settings.”
Though unorthodox, Melee’s use of a joystick-centered design is a relatively elegant application. The only potentiometer is the master output volume. Situated below the master volume, there are three toggle switches. The topmost toggle controls the tone profile of the pedal—switching between progressively less bright settings. Curiously, the least bright setting is situated in the middle position, and a rotary knob might have been more effective here. Even so, the three EQ voices work well within the context of the fuzz voice. The middle toggle selects the range of reverb decay. It’s essential, given how expansive the Melee’s reverb can sound. And while the longest decay setting is incredibly fun, the shortest decay range can be indispensable at extreme fuzz settings. (The decay switch, by the way, can also be re-purposed to select reverb modulation level by holding down the bypass footswitch.) The third toggle re-orders the reverb and distortion effects, and it vastly expands the Melee’s range of sounds. I love the hazier, more mysterious textures of situating the reverb before distortion. Players that like more precision and control over picking dynamics might prefer the distortion in front.
The already impressive range of sounds afforded by those controls is made exponentially larger thanks to the very sensitive joystick. Pushing the joystick along its vertical axis increases the distortion gain. Moving it from left to right increases the reverb mix. The spaces in between are home to many blends of the two effects, and interacting with the control is a satisfying process akin to shaping clay.
Cross-Pollination Yields Beautiful Fruit
As cool as Walrus’ interface is, it’s only as good as the effects behind it. The distortion is remarkable. It’s articulate and communicates individual string output clearly, even at high-gain settings. But it can also sound searingly fuzz-like—evoking mid-’60s classics like the Fuzz-Tone and Fuzzrite. That combination isn’t easy to find. And Melee’s ability to walk the line between those two worlds is impressive. It’s also critical when working with reverbs as intense as the Melee’s can be.
Each of the Melee’s reverb algorithms is distinct and powerful. The reverse reverb with feedback was a logical launching point for me, given my own My Bloody Valentine predilections. And many settings uncannily evoke MBV sounds—particularly with the joystick in the upper-right quadrant or in the shallower reaches of the upper-left quadrant. Unlike a lot of reverse reverbs, the Melee’s feels fluid and cohesive. Shoegaze devotees would serve themselves well by investigating the Melee for this function alone.
The ambient reverb setting seems mostly free of the cloying high-octave tonalities that can evoke bad TV dramas. Instead, Melee’s ambient reverb setting is more cave-like in its reflections, which meshes nicely with the fuzz at long decay settings, but also creates a nice wash in the trail of heavy fuzz at low decay settings. The octave-down algorithm, meanwhile, will thrill any composer who loves to incorporate doomy, fractured textures as a bed for slow melodic movements. It also delivers treats like haunting, dolorous foghorn tones that sound magnificently terrifying coupled with deep, slow vibrato dives.
The Verdict
Melee is an overflowing source of sound and texture. How well it works for you as a guitar effect depends on your style and mode of performance. Experimental guitarists that work outside the performance constraints of footswitch-activated effects and can situate the Melee on a tabletop, stool, or, heck, a fancy, ceremonial side-stage plinth, will delight in the hands-on nature of the pedal’s interface. More kinetic stage performers may have a hard time avoiding accidental displacement of the joystick.
Melee’s most promising guitar applications probably exist in the realm of non-traditional rock stage presentation and in the studio, where the Melee’s intuitive functionality can be explored more freely. But in any situation where you can make the Melee’s idiosyncratic design work for you, its brilliant fuzzy distortion and varied and expansive reverb voices make it a tone-crafting asset with huge potential.
Walrus Audio Melee Wall of Sound Demo | First Look
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When he’s on the West Coast, Jim Campilongo feels something like a stranger in his own home. His latest record pays tribute to the city he misses when he’s there, and the one where he built most of his career.
He did this largely in his adopted home of New York City, where, for most of the 2000s, he was a mainstay—and, for music fans in the know, a must-see—of the downtown arts scene, with long-running and celebrated residencies at Lower East Side venues like Rockwood Music Hall and the now-defunct Living Room.
Campilongo left the East Coast to return West roughly two years ago. But his newest record, She Loved the Coney Island Freak Show, is very much a New York album—maybe his most New York one of all. It is also very much a rock album—maybe his most rock one of all. There are reasons for this. The roots of the record stretch back to the dark days of Covid, when words like “quarantine” and “distancing” were too much a part of the common vernacular. Life was weirder, quieter and, truth be told, often drearier. Campilongo found escape where he could, which manifested in daily 5 a.m. walks around his Brooklyn neighborhood. His companion was an old iPod playlist of classic-rock songs. “I’d go out, it’d be pitch black, there’d be no one around—it was like a science-fiction movie,” he recalls. “I had these old-school Vic Firth headphones, and an iPod that had a playlist of maybe 300 classic-rock tunes that I made back when iPods were the latest thing. And I would walk the streets listening to it over and over.”
The 4TET, from left to right: drummer Dan Rieser, Campilongo, bassist Andy Hess, and guitarist Luca Benedetti.
Some of the songs that, quite literally, got into Campilongo’s head? “It was ‘Mississippi Queen’ kind of stuff,” he says. “‘Hush’ by Deep Purple. Elvin Bishop’s ‘Travelin’ Shoes,’ which is an amazingly eventful track. There’s background vocals, there’s a little breakdown, there’s a melodic solo. There’s harmonies, a great rhythm.... I became obsessed with it.”
These songs, and the 297 or so others on Campilongo’s playlist, informed several of the tracks on She Loved the Coney Island Freak Show. One, a greasy, growly workout titled “This Is a Quiet Street,” was influenced by Grand Funk Railroad’s live version of the Animals’ 1966 single, “Inside Looking Out”—“a song I’ve been listening to since high school, and that I’ve been trying to write for 20 years,” Campilongo says. “This is about the closest I’ve gotten.” Another track, “Do Not Disturb,” he continues, “is like my interpretation of a ZZ Top tune.”
“I’d go out, it’d be pitch black, there’d be no one around—it was like a science-fiction movie.... And I would walk the streets listening to it over and over.”
But She Loves the Coney Island Freak Show is not all rock-influenced. Leadoff track “Dragon Stamp,” a dark, deep-in-the-pocket jam that Campilongo introduces by sounding a detuned open low string, and then hitting a harmonic and raising the pitch by bending the string behind the nut (something of a JC trademark move), came to Campilongo after repeated playings of “Step to Me,” a 1991 song from deceased New York hardcore rapper Tim Dog, on his early morning walks. “I think I listened to that 50 times in a row, numerous times,” Campilongo says. “I couldn’t get enough of it.” The emotive “Sunset Park,” meanwhile, in which Campilongo unspools languid, vocal guitar lines in a manner that is nothing short of a master class in the subtle art of touch, tone and phrasing, was influenced by a Maria Callas aria. Another track, “Sal’s Waltz,” by Frédéric Chopin. “Whether it’s successful or not, who knows?” Campilongo says self-effacingly.
Sunset Park
While many of the She Loved the Coney Island Freak Show songs have their origins in Campilongo’s early-morning walks and his iPod-provided soundtrack, bringing them into existence was in some ways a more immediate affair. To record the album, Campilongo got together with guitarist and longtime collaborator Luca Benedetti, bassist Andy Hess, and drummer Dan Rieser in a combo they dubbed the 4TET, and laid down the tracks live in the studio—two studios, to be exact. “We did two days recording at Bunker [in Williamsburg, Brooklyn], and then another two days at a different studio [Atomic Sound, in Red Hook, Brooklyn],” he says. “It was pure joy to play with those guys.”
“I always figured I could get all the sounds I want from the volume and tone knobs on the guitar, or from where I pick, and how hard; all those little variations.”
Campilongo, as is his way, kept his gear setup minimal: his trusty 1959 Fender Telecaster with a top-loader bridge, plugged straight into a 1970 silver-panel Fender Princeton Reverb fitted with a Celestion G10 speaker—no pedals required. “It’s so uninteresting for me to talk about gear, because it’s basically the same answer every time,” he says with a laugh. As for why he mostly eschews effects? “I always figured I could get all the sounds I want from the volume and tone knobs on the guitar—and on a Tele, those knobs are really dramatic—or from where I pick, and how hard; all those little variations,” he reasons. Another benefit of going sans pedals? “You kind of just accept the hand you’re dealt, and you can get down to playing music quicker.”
When it came to the playing, Campilongo stuck to another tried-and-true aspect of his guitar style—improvisation. “None of what I’m doing on the album was worked out beforehand,” he says of his solos on She Loved the Coney Island Freak Show. In his opinion, this makes for not only a better playing experience, but a better listening one, too. “If I play a perfect solo and it’s worked out, I generally don’t like listening to it, because it’s not a time capsule of that moment,” he says. “It’s like going out on a first date and having a script of what to talk about, instead of it just being a natural conversation. I want to hear the real talk, warts and all.”
Jim Campilongo's Gear
Campilongo performing at Rockwood Music Hall Stage 3, the same Lower East Side venue where he previously held a long-running residency.
Photo by Manish Gosalia
Guitars
- 1959 Fender Telecaster
- Lumiere Jim Campilongo Signature T- Model
- Fender Custom Shop Jim Campilongo Signature Telecaster
Amps
Effects
- Crazy Tube Circuits Splash Reverb
- Crazy Tube Circuits Stardust Overdrive
- JAM Pedals Wahcko
- Universal Audio OX Amp Top Box
- Boomerang Phrase Sampler
Strings, Picks, & Accessories
- D’Addario EXL120 Nickel Wound Super Light (.009–.042)
- V-Picks Fusion
- Klotz Titanium guitar cable
- Souldier guitar straps
Campilongo’s commitment to balancing on that creative knife edge informs every aspect of the album, and also his music in general. “I don’t want to ever put out the same record twice in a row,” he says. To that end, he is already plotting future challenges, including a “pseudo-jazz record where I’m playing standards in the way I would present them, which would be a little scary.”
For all his musical adventurism, one aspect of Campilongo’s artistic makeup that remains steadfast is his connection to the city that helped birth She Loved the Coney Island Freak Show. “Even though I’m back in California, in many ways I feel like a transplanted New Yorker,” Campilongo says. “It’s in my DNA,” he laughs. “It’s not like I’m returning home to the West Coast and, you know, I can’t wait to go surfing.”
YouTube It
For years, Jim Campilongo held court at New York City’s Rockwood Music Hall. Here, Jim and the 4TET tear through a She Loved the Coney Island Freak Show highlight: the Southern-rock-inflected, ZZ Top-inspired “Do Not Disturb.”
Taylor 517e Grand Pacific Builder's Edition V-Class - Wild Honey Burst
Breedlove Premier Concerto CE Acoustic-electric Guitar - Burnt Amber Adirondack/East Indian Rosewood
Marcus King plays his Gibson Hummingbird at his Nashville Guitar Center in-store last week.
King plays his song “Hero,” on his 1961 Gibson Les Paul SG.
After performing his song “Hero” on his vintage SG, King told the SRO crowd that both his guitar playing and singing were born out of ways to overcome shyness and interact with the world. “I was too bashful to say anything. I didn't have much interest in speaking to others. I just like hanging out with my dog. I don't know if I'm too dissimilar from that now, but the guitar kind of spoke where I couldn't. So when I started singing, it was kind of the same emotion. I'd rather sing than speak. With the best abilities, you can just be a vessel allow something extraordinary to flow through you. Not saying anything I do is extraordinary per se, but I just have a real respect and reverence for music, for just being able to create and get your emotions out that way instead of harboring them.”
King’s primary instrument is his grandfather’s ES-345, named Big Red, which served as a model for the Gibson Marcus King Signature ES- 345 Custom, which was unveiled in early 2021.
Recalling his early years, King attested, “Gibson was always the go-to. It was the Cadillac of guitars in my household. My grandfather played Big Red, which was his ES-345 that I have now. And my dad played an SG. My uncle played a Les Paul Deluxe, and a Marauder.” Over the course of the session, King performed with an SG, a Les Paul Junior, a Hummingbird acoustic, and his cherished family heirloom, the “Big Red” ES-345, which was refurbished by the Gibson Custom Shop in Nashville.
King’s pedalboard for the in-store was a variation on his latest Rig Rundown setup, including a Dunlop Cry Baby wah, an MXR Booster, an Ibanez TS9 Tube Screamer, a Tru-Fi Two Face fuzz, MXR Micro Chorus, Dunlop Rotovibe chorus/vibrato, MXR Phase 100, Tru-Fi Ultra Tremolo, Dunlop Echoplex Delay, MXR reverb, and a Voodoo Lab Pedal Power 3 plus.
Electro-Harmonix Lizard King Review by premierguitar
A big part of that flexibility starts with the sun/shadow switch. Sun mode features a mid-boosted fuzz bookended by enhanced treble and bass in the clean side of the blend. The shadow mode features flat bass and treble response and a much tighter fuzz. Each mode can be radically reshaped by the octave, blend, and tone controls, which, in various configurations, span warm overdrive with a little fuzz and fizz, glowing at the edges and thuggish realms. Many of the tones in the latter range are predictably chaotic, belching strange, colliding overtones that can sound quite tattered at more aggressive blend, tone, and octave settings—especially when you play down low on the neck. The same tones can be tightened up by playing in higher positions and especially at the 12th fret and above. The most cohesive of these tones can sound devastating while doubling, say, an SG and a Big Muff. But using subtler, hazier, and more modest octave fuzz textures can provide hip juxtaposition to mellower sounds from acoustic guitar to electric piano and synth string ensembles.
Electro-Harmonix Lizard King Octave Fuzz Pedal
