NAMM 2025: Walrus Audio and guitarist Yvette Young have unveiled Qi Etherealizer, a magic box that helps you explore the sonic edges of guitar tone, but might well be the crossover pedal you'll want to use with any instrument or voice.
We love an effects pedal with boundary-pushing sonic aspirations, and Walrus Audio's new Qi Etherealizer - pronounced “chee ethereal-izer” - appears to be precisely that. Indeed, so much is packed into this diminutive box that it will appeal to anyone wanting to push the envelope, guitarist or not.
Available in two styles - the above 'Rosy Clay' option, which you will surely choose over the black and cream variant (below) - Qi Etherealizer packs in chorus, delay, granular and reverb effects, all of which you can run in either series or parallel to produce a 'vast universe' of sonic possibilities. [As opposed to a 'small universe' - pedant Ed.]
The controls on Qi Etherealizer include Space, Grain, Delay and Chorus for the four main effects, plus a Tone knob to control a 'synth-style' low-pass filter, and a Mix (series)/Dry (parallel) rotary.
There are further switches and dials to control the individual parameters of the four effects, such as a Feedback control for the Delay effect, with three subdivision options. There are also two switchable modes for the Grain effects, with Cloud for unpredictable glitchy sounds and Phrase Sample for rhythmic effects.
Around the back you get a couple of audio ins and outs (mono/stereo), MIDI in/thru and a USB-C socket for firmware updates.
Inside, Qi Etherealizer utilises Walrus Audio's MDSP proprietary digital processing platform, and users can create and save up to 127 presets via MIDI, with three accessed directly on the unit.
Qi Etherealizer was developed with the innovative guitarist Yvette Young, known for her cutting-edge playing style and effects use. She says of the pedal: "I hope that it will inspire people to be excited to have colours and textures to play with. I think this is going to be a wonderful tool for people to create ambient sounds and add interest to their playing! I want people to think about their melodies and how they can start to sound a little less guitar-y and more magical!”
You can buy Qi Etherealizer for €519/£449 at the start of February this year, and there's more information on the pedal at the Walrus Audio website.
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