Walrus Audio has refreshed its Klon-inspired Voyager, with MKII expanding on the transparent drive template with a heap of cool tone-shaping features.
There are all kinds of Klon Centaur clones out there in the wild. You can get faithful replicas of the cult overdrive pedal, affordable alternatives to the prohibitively expensive vintage originals. And you can get pedals like this, hugely tweakable, capable of being used as a standard drive pedal or as a preamp pedal, that draws inspiration from the Klon and then runs with it.
Either way this is designed to be a capable mediator between electric guitar and amplifier. As we have seen with the Era series, Walrus Audio really knows how to put together a tweakable drive and distortion pedal. Voyager MKII is no different.
Like the Eras, we have a rotary switch that allows players to choose from five different clipping options. In position one we have the classic 1N34A germanium diodes setting, offering the same level of compression as the original Voyager.
Position two is a complementary setting, adding a bass boost to this clipping, which sounds like it could be come in handy for those occasions when you want to fatten up the single-coils on your Telecaster.
The third position is described as a less compressed and more dynamic setting, with the pedal’s clipping handled by symmetrical silicon diodes, and more dynamic still we have asymmetric silicon diodes in position four. Finally, you have the asymmetrical silicon diodes with the bass boost.
And there is more. The Voyager MKII has your typical Volume, Tone and Gain controls, all very Centaur-esque, but Walrus Audio has also added a parametric mids EQ stage that can boost or cut 12dB from midrange frequencies between 250Hz and 2kHz. Use the Freq knob to set the centre frequency of the Mid knob, and then have at it.
Best of all, this parametric mids EQ has its own footswitch, so you can kick this in on demand (an obvious occasion might be during a solo to help you punch through the mix but your mileage may vary).
Walrus Audio has also updated the Voyager’s enclosure, relocating the jacks on MKII to the top of the unit, kitting it out with a soft-touch relay switch, and the pedal itself is now true bypass – another point of difference between the Voyager and the Klon.
Voyager MKII is offered in seafoam green and black. Nathan Price illustrated the eponymous satellite on the seafoam green version; Christi Du Toit painted the black version.
The Voyager MKII is made in the USA, takes 9V DC from a pedalboard power supply, drawing 100mA, and is priced £245/$249 street. See Walrus Audio for more details.
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