Envy

Tuners are very easy to get right, but it's always nice when one goes above and beyond for those who crave efficiency. Not only is the PolyTune 3 an exceptional tuner with great accuracy, a good range of tunings and a nice, bright screen that's impossible to miss, but the buffer is a very welcome addition, and the ability to daisy chain & power other pedals through it is a lifesaver for my busy board with far too many wires. Like I say, there's normally not much in it with tuners (for most players at least), but if your needs are straightforward and you like to get the most utility out of your limited board space, it's hard to beat this one

Don't let the whacky names on the controls of this pedal fool you; you can put the controls pretty much anywhere and get a good sound out of this thing. While I don't get a lot of utility out of the tremolo sounds, and it sometimes feels like the trajectory knob isn't doing much of anything, I don't have any complaints to make because I wanted the lush movements and wide sweep of classic phasers for funky clean rhythms, ambient soundscapes, 70s-inspired synth tracks & some big fuzz-ed out riffs, and it can handle them all. I do wish the sweep of the velocity (speed) knob was a little more forgiving though; the space between a slow undercurrent and leslie-like fast churning seems a little small and hard to find a sweet spot in. It sounds fantastic, and the different sounds are worth exploring, but it you're just after the basics there are cheaper (and smaller) options that would suit your needs just as well.

I wanted a fuzz that gave me a tinge of that sputtery, velcro, dying-battery fuzz; aggressive & far removed from the silky-smooth Big Muff tones I typically go for. I'm happy to say that the Cheese Ball is all that and more; the four voicings in the pedal provide plenty of variety, but the 2nd (more gain, more sputter & a touch more midrange) is where it sounds best to me. At bedroom levels, the pedal is perfect, however, I quickly discovered that it simply wasn't loud enough for gigs with my band; even with the volume dimed completely there was a substantial drop in volume when I turned it on, and I all but disappeared (I'm used to working with fairly mids-scooped pedals, so I'm fairly certain this was a straightforward matter of not having enough volume on tap). I have corrected this by simply putting a TC Spark behind it in the same loop, and the pedal sounds great and cuts through fine like that, but be prepared for that going in!

Walrus Audio have an uncanny ability when it comes to reverb. Other companies make stellar reverbs, of course, and not everyone is after outrageous, ambient sounds. But that is most certainly what I'm after, and from the Descent to the Fathom to the newer Slo, Walrus delivers in a way that makes me feel a little cold towards other manufacturers. The Fathom can be used for some fairly basic sounds & makes a great workhorse in that sense, but the Slo dives right into the deep end, and all the better for it. Endless ambient possibilities lay before you inside of this pedal, and I've thoroughly enjoyed exploring them all.

I find it VERY easy to overuse this plugin in production; subtle hints of it in most tracks seems to just bring the whole project to life. I don't see it as a replacement for the octave-y reverb pedals I've come to know and love like the various Walrus reverbs (though I would argue it sonically outclasses the likes of Strymon), but it serves as a handy addition to a sound design toolkit to give projects the sparkle they might otherwise be lacking. Deceptively simple but brimming with weird and wonderful options, shoegazers to soundscapists to pop producers will find some use for this, and its low price point compared to hardware/stompbox alternatives is a huge plus.

This sounds great, that's all there really is to it. To my ears, it doesn't replace the pedal it's very clearly designed to emulate, but it is a very reliable and cool chorus. I like this one best dialled back but it can get into vaguely-rotary-ish territory with a more pronounced sweep. People who are very serious about chorus should look elsewhere to more robust, tweak-able options, but if you just need that one, classic chorus sound for that one moment in your cover band's setlist, this'll do the trick nicely

You get what you ask for with this one, nothing more, nothing less. Solid clean boost to liven up any tone, smooth overdrive that stacks beautifully into tube amps & other gain sources. There aren't many pedalboards and setups out there that wouldn't benefit from one (or two) of these. One could argue that it's a little too brittle with the treble high compared to the pedal it's emulating, and others may prefer the more mid-focused honk of a TS-style overdrive, but this sits pretty perfectly with my current setup, and I have a feeling you'll find a nice spot for it too