A spacious reverb that spans low-key plate and demented, enormous cosmic reverb colors is a gas to use and easy to own.
Fun to use. Wide spectrum of sounds. Nice build quality at a great price
Can be hard to remove high harmonic content at all but the least trebly tone settings.
$129
Walrus Fundamental Ambient
walrusaudio.com
With variable voices, accessible prices ranging from 99 to 129 bucks, and slide controls that evoke old synths and vintage Jen pedals, Walrus Audio’s Fundamental series effects are functional, stylish, and dish a lot of awesome sounds at a nice price. The newest addition to the Fundamental series, the Ambient, will be good news for budget-constrained atmospheric musicians that otherwise settle for less-durable pedals at the market’s most inexpensive extremes. Some of those pedals are pretty cool, but the Walrus’ construction quality, sense of substance, and function—which is flat-out fun—make it a substantial alternative to those entry-level artifacts for a minor additional investment. It puts a super-wide range of sounds at your disposal, too.
Though few may use Ambient in subtle applications, it is capable of nice sounds on that spectrum. By using the lowest mix, tone, and decay settings, you can create an appealing facsimile of studio plate reverb that isn’t slathered in cloying top-end harmonics—particularly in the deep mode (which adds low octave) and the sustain-rich lush setting. At advanced mix and decay settings, the Ambient can sound colossal, alien, and unreal in ways any serious sound designer would be happy to explore. Haze mode, which uses sample rate reduction to create grainier, fractured, lo-fi pictures, is its own awesomely weird animal. You can fashion outsized dream-pop textures, or, at the most extreme level and mix settings, use the tone slider in crossfade fashion to conjure scuzzy VHS horror tones that, frankly, freaked me out as I was playing them.
A budget-friendly set of pedals that have cool retro designs with pro-level tones.
Walrus set out to design a set of pedals with the tonal integrity that’s required to live on a professional’s pedalboard, but with simplified controls friendly enough for new pedal users.
Each Fundamental pedal has three sliders for sound tweaking and a three-way switch for changing pedal modes. The result is a line of pedals that will keep you covered from your first band practice to a sold-out arena.
The Fundamental series allows Walrus Audio to become part of a guitar player’s journey much earlier but still incorporates the audio fidelity and build quality that they’ve spent the last 12 years developing for their core line and Mako series. Walrus wants to make it easy for newer pedal users to dial in precise and emotional sounds, but for these pedals to also be something a professional would be happy taking on tour with them.
The initial eight pedals in the Fundamental Series line are the Drive, Distortion, Fuzz, Tremolo, Chorus, Phaser, Delay, and Reverb. Each is housed in a matte black diecast enclosure which is 4.33” x 2.16” x 1.61”. Power requirements are 9VDC (100mA minimum).
Walrus Audio Fundamental Series Phaser Pedal
Walrus Audio Fundamental Series Phaser Pedal
Walrus Audio is offering the Drive, Distortion, and Fuzz at a retail price of $99 each, and the Tremolo, Phaser, Chorus, Delay, and Reverb at a retail price of $129 each. All eight are available now at walrusaudio.com and participating dealers worldwide.
For more information, please walrusaudio.com.