WALRUS AUDIO FUNDAMENTAL SERIES

Walrus enter the affordable pedal market with a new, visually striking range. How do they sound?

-  Alex Lynham

Known as a boutique pedal company, Walrus Audio have been repositioning themselves in the mould of Earthquaker Devices. That is, no longer a pure boutique outfit, but rather a mainstream operation with some quirky options to consider. Their recent pedals have backed this, with more ambitious circuits and DSP work that requires greater up-front R&D and investment. The Fundamental series very much represents the other side of this coin. Where the Mako series are the high-end, high-effort pedals, the Fundamental series are simple, entry-level pedals. Here, Walrus have leaned on their extensive pedal building experience to create a product line that consolidates that knowledge. In the process, they've also bested many of the major manufacturers on price.

Every pedal in the Fundamental series has a streamlined interface of three slider controls and a Mode switch. According to Walrus, this is to make them more accessible to newer players. We'd suggest it's unlikely that your average player wouldn't understand each pedal if it had a different layout. Then again, it is at least visually satisfying to have consistency across the range. The fact that each pedal has up to three modes does mean that players are encouraged to experiment to some degree. There are only so many settings on each pedal so there's less fear of changing the settings and forgetting a cool sound you've dialled in.

Currently there are eight pedals in the line, covering the main sounds that you would likely find on most standard pedalboards. There are no weirdo effects or experimental units represented in the series, presumably to keep prices affordable and prevent diverting attention away from the company's more specialist higher-end units. Read on as we take a look at a quartet of pedals from the series and find out if the Fundamentals succeed in going back to basics...

DRIVE

Driving them wild