Walrus Audio Unveils Ages Five-State Multi-Clip Dry-Blend Overdrive

I am ever intrigued by new entries into the overdrive pantheon - an already hugely overcrowded sector. And as JHS’s Josh Scott keeps telling us - there are only a few circuits really at the root of everything dirt-wise - yet a myriad of possible outcomes.

I always approach new overdrives from circa 4 key points of perspective - what is the circuit based on / nearest match, how does its core tonality / frequency profile sound, what is the pedal’s range and versatility, and what is its unique innovation or distinct feature and functionality aspect.

Right from the outset there are a couple of immediate distinctions which aren’t rare by themselves, but rarely appear in combination on an overdrive - a multi-clipping Mode selector and Dry Blend. Dry Blend helps enormously when you want to get those more clearer spanky tones - or just notch down / temper your gain / saturation a fraction - and is considered pretty much essential for bass players to retain their core dynamics and feel. There are a number of overdrives which feature a Dry Blend or different clipping options while the Ages is indeed pretty rarefied to have both.

In gauging what sort of overdrive we were dealing with I straightaway detected a certain mid-hump bark, not particularly nasal - but sounding somewhere in the territory of a Klon or a Tube Screamer. So Shnobel Tone Roman’s demo versus his original Klon Centaur was the key formative demo for me as it helped me to place and position the Ages along the 12 Degrees of Saturation arc.

It does sound remarkably close to the Klon in many ways but somewhat muddier / grittier somehow and lacks some of the Klon’s sparkle and dynamism and that slightly more present low-end. Also the various clipping states are set up to be very close and complementary - so that they don’t so much markedly change the core tonal character but more the Compression, Saturation, Thickness and Tightness of the output. We’re talking about shades of grey here rather than noticeably different hues. Some say this is a two-voice pedal because of its Low and High Gain clipping groupings, while others say it’s rather three as the final state is hard-clipping. You can really argue it either way - but in general those voicing are relatively close to each other and rather subtle.

I also presumed an Active Baxandall style of tone-stack - while it seems that the Bass control is active and applied pre-gain, while the Treble control is post-gain and seems to be more of a High Frequency Cut / Filter - at least from what I can gather.

There’s obviously a significant amount of range in some of the key aspects of the overdrive - while the tonal signature with its sort of mid-hump bark is quite distinctive throughout - so you really need to love that aspect of it as you can’t tune that out.

There is one aspect here in particular that I’m a little miffed about - and that is the fact that Walrus Audio have ’borrowed’ the ’Ages’ name from Anasounds - who already launched their Anasounds Ages Harmonic Tremolo back at Winter NAMM this year. I’m not sure what the pedal-builder’s etiquette says about using someone else’s name - but I would personally consider it somewhat indecent behaviour. Alex at Anasounds seems fairly chilled about it - but I personally would be more than a touch annoyed with all the conflicting marketing and SEO clashes that will undoubtedly ensue.

Still - this Ages has lots to recommend it, it certainly has an inherent degree of flexibility - while I personally am not that taken by its core timbre and tonality. I feel I have better sounding alternatives in similar and related categories and several of which seem to yield more satisfying results with rather less controls.

That said I think many will be very happy with this addition and for some it could form the core of their pedalboard drive section. I will probably do a later follow-up article identifying pedals in similar categories which people might prefer - including ThorpyFX’s Peacekeeper and Matthew Effects’ Architect V3 for example. For sure the Ages definitely has an appealing aesthetic and feature-set though.

It has 6 highly interactive Controls :

• Volume : Output level
• Dry : Dry Blend
• Gain : Degree of Gain / Saturation
• Bass : Pre-gain low frequency cut / boost
• Treble : Post-gain high frequency cut / filter
• Mode :
  • I : Low-gain mode with symmetric silicon soft clipping. Compressed and smooth
  • II : Low-gain mode with symmetric LED soft clipping. Pushed, open, and sparkly
  • III: High-gain mode with symmetric silicon soft clipping. Increased saturation and tight
  • IV : High-gain mode with symmetric LED soft clipping. Saturated, punchy and big
  • V : High-gain mode with symmetric silicon hard clipping. Heavy compression, thick and chewy