Walrus Audio Fundamental Series Drive | The most versatile $99 overdrive out there?! Review & Demo

This is the Walrus Audio Fundamental Series Drive – a $99, made in the USA, three-in-one overdrive pedal… with sliders!

At Thomann: https://thmn.to/thoprod/564325?offid=1&affid=1250
At Sweetwater: https://sweetwater.sjv.io/Orvv1G

Walrus’s Fundamental Series came out in mid 2023, and the range provides a great way for players to get into the Walrus Audio game in an affordable way. As well as the Drive, the range – which kicks off at $99 – also includes Distortion, Fuzz, Reverb, Delay, Phaser, Tremolo and Chorus pedals.

So, something for everyone really, and all the pedals have the same basic layout, with three modes per pedal, and three control sliders instead of your more traditional twisty knobs for tonal tweaking. The Drive’s sliders control your Gain, Tone and Volume levels – pretty self-explanatory – and the three overdrive modes are Smooth, Crunch and Bright.

Walrus tell us that the Smooth mode is “a classic soft-clipping silicon overdrive. Clean and smooth,”, while the Crunch mode is “silicon soft clipping with added hard clipping silicon diodes and a slight low-end boost. Crunchy and edgy,” and the Bright mode offers “silicon soft and hard clipping from the Crunch mode with a pre-clipping low-end cut. Bright and glassy.”

With the modes and the sliders, then, what we should have here is one incredibly versatile overdrive pedal – and in the video we put that to the test! Here, I try the Drive in as many different musical genres as I can, from pop, funk and blues to indie, classic rock, punk, and even some metal, using my Fender Telecaster for single coil tones, and my Epiphone Les Paul for humbucker sounds. I also do a couple of loops to really tweak the Drive, and we try it out against three other drive pedals: my Ibanez Tube Screamer Mini, the Greer Lightspeed, and the Tone City Dry Martini (which is a Fulltone OCD clone!).

Here are some links to the various playing samples and info bits:

00:00 Hello!
00:11 Introduction to the Fundamental Series and Drive
01:11 Pedal controls and features
02:51 Today’s rig and plan

Pushed clean tones
04:15 Clean reference tones and turning on the Drive
05:23 Ringing open indie pop chords
05:48 Country ballad arpeggios
06:02 Blues progression
06:23 Funk rhythms
06:37 Strummed country pop chords
06:56 Poppy barre chords
07:25 Soul pop melodic riff
07:46 Ascending droning indie riff

Overdriven Tones
07:59 Fat indie rhythm chords
08:29 Indie octave chords
08:58 Choppy barre chords
09:16 Kings Of Leon inspired riff
09:31 Garage rock riff
09:48 Southern rock picked arpeggios
10:07 Indie rock octaves
10:33 Upbeat indie barre chords
10:57 Groovy classic rock riff
11:23 Hendrix inspired rock riff
11:39 Driving classic rock riff
11:54 AC/DC inspired classic rock riff
12:11 Airbourne inspired rock riff
12:33 More Hendrix tones
12:42 Classic rock riff

Heavy Overdrive Sounds
12:58 Classic hard rock riff
13:15 80s rock riff
13:35 Hard rock riff
13:51 Hard rock melodic lead
14:12 Foo Fighters inspired modern rock riff
14:31 Alternative rock riff
14:55 Pop punk riff
15:20 Melodic pop punk lead
15:36 Punk rock riff
15:59 Progressive rock riff (Drop D tuning)
16:15 Modern rock palm-muted power chords (Drop D)
16:40 Rage Against The Machine inspired groovy riff (Drop D)

Metal Sounds (all in Drop D)
16:56 Metal chugging riff
17:30 Hardcore punk riff
17:45 Heavy metal lead sound
18:00 Rammstein inspired industrial metal riff

18:15 Guitar volume knob roll off test
19:02 The Drive as a boost into an overdriven amp

20:27 Fender Telecaster indie rock loop
24:17 Epiphone Les Paul classic rock loop
27:52 Drive pedal vs Tube Screamer Mini vs Greer Lightspeed vs Tone City Dry Martini loop

33:24 My thoughts
33:41 What I like: sounds and the three Drive modes
36:18 Price, build quality, sliders
37:17 What I don’t like
37:46 What other similar overdrives are out there?
39:46 My conclusions on the Drive and why you should buy it
40:50 Thanks and goodbye

My setup was as follows: I ran the Drive straight into my Hughes & Kettner Black Spirit 200 head. That went from the amp’s Red Box DI straight into my Focusrite Scarlett 2i4, which went into Logic Pro X. That's it. No post-processing on the sounds was done. Oh, and I used my Boss RC-10R to play the loops.

Here’s some links to those bits of gear:

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H&K Black Spirit 200 head: https://thmn.to/thoprod/447827?offid=1&affid=1250
Boss RC-10R Rhythm Loop Station: https://thmn.to/thoprod/470055?offid=1&affid=1250
Focusrite 4i4 (the new 2i4): https://thmn.to/thoprod/467952?offid=1&affid=1250
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Backing music from the YouTube Audio Library: Duck In The Alley – Track Tribe.

#WalrusAudio #OverdrivePedal #WalrusAudioPedals

*Note: certain links in the description are affiliate links. If you click said links and purchase anything as a result, I will receive a small commission. This doesn’t cost you anything extra, but it does help to support the channel. So, if you do that, thank you very much!*

@walrusaudioeffects
@FACEMI

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#Walrus_Audio #Walrus_Audio_Fundamental_Series #Walrus_Audio_Drive_Pedal #Walrus_Audio_Drive #Walrus_Audio_Fundamental_Drive #Transparent_Overdrive #Best_Overdrive_Pedal #Overdrive_Pedals_Shootout #Transparent_Overdrives #Best_Overdrive_2023 #overdrive_pedals_under_$100 #Walrus_Audio_Overdrive #Walrus_Audio_Fundamental_Overdrive #Greer_Lightspeed #Greer_Amps_Lightspeed #Tube_Screamer #Tube_Screamer_Mini #Tone_City #Tone_City_Dry_Martini #Best_New_Overdrive_Pedals

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