The Walrus Audio Fundamental Distortion belongs to the Oklahoma company’s first sub-$100 line of pedals, but its circuitry borrows from about a decade of experience in designing distortion pedals costing over twice as much.
Although the three controls are what you would expect on any distortion pedal (Gain, Tone and Volume), a touch of uniqueness is introduced via the use of faders rather than knobs – a trend that’s increasingly popular in the pedal realm.
However, what makes this pedal stand out tone-wise among its peers is the 3-way clipping switch, which delivers three slightly different sounds:
- Dark mode is based on a dynamic and touch-sensitive asymmetric silicon clipping with an added high-frequency cut for a warm, darker tone.
- Si stands for Silicon clipping, a diode used for hard clipping that delivers a more compressed and crunchy sound, great for cutting solos.
- LED diodes in this mode are also hard-clipping but less compressed, therefore ideal good for more open crunchy tones. This mode is noticeably louder than the other ones.
Here are the videos of the Walrus Audio Fundamental Distortion.
Walrus Audio Fundamental Distortion, Builder’s Notes
The Fundamental Distortion is a 3-mode distortion with the tonal integrity to live on a professional’s pedalboard but with simplified controls friendly enough for even the newest effect pedal users. It covers a wide range of sounds from dark and doom through sharp cutting leads.
For the Fundamental Series, we challenged ourselves 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 even the newest effect pedal users. Each Fundamental pedal has three faders for tweaking the sound 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 all the way to a sold-out arena. Designed and assembled at Walrus Audio headquarters in OKC, OK.
Fundamental Distortion
The Fundamental Distortion is a three-mode distortion. It covers a wide range of sounds from dark and doom through sharp cutting leads.
Gain – The Gain slider sets the amount of gain applied to your guitar signal passing through the distortion circuit.
Tone – The Tone slider controls the signal’s frequency response after distortion. Left of center cuts highs and right of center boosts highs.
Volume – The Volume slider sets the overall output volume of the pedal.
Slide Switch – The slide switch allows you to change between three distinct flavors of the pedal. Each position has different clipping modes or tone profiles.
Dark – Asymmetric silicon clipping with an added high-frequency cut. Think dark and dynamic.
Si – Classic silicon hard clipping diodes. Things get compressed and crunchy.
LED – LED hard clipping diodes. A dynamic and crunchy sound.Note: The LED clipping mode will be louder due to the nature of the LEDs, so use your volume slider to compensate!
