Klon clones are incredibly common in the overdrive pedal market, but Walrus Audio has now attempted to master Bill Finnegan's illustrious stompbox with an updated Voyager MKII that offers “ a wealth of features not seen on a Klon-style circuit before”.
It’s a bold statement considering how many recreations (both faithful and reimagined) there are available today. But Walrus Audio, which first launched the flagship Voyager as its first-ever pedal in 2011, is confident it can make good on such a claim.
As the name gives away, the Voyager MKII is the second iteration of its flagship Klon copy. Joe Bonamassa – who released his own Klon-esque device with Way Huge earlier this year – was a fan, as was Radiohead’s Ed O’Brien.
The new-and-improved pedal, says its creator, benefits from “thoughtful” new features, including a quintet of overdrive textures accessible via an on-board dial, and a foot-switchable parametric midfrequency EQ.
Position one delivers 1N34A germanium diodes as per Voyager’s original compressed sound. Position two offers the same diodes with a bass boost – “Trust us,” the brand says with that mode in mind.
The next trio all feature symmetric silicon diodes, offering “more open and dynamic”, “less compressed and driven”, and “less compressed and driven with a bass boost” tones, respectively.
Away from its versatile innards, the pedal also now has a host of new controls on its exterior, too. Its input and output jacks are now top-mounted for better pedalboard placements and it has been given true bypass, soft-touch relay switches for good measure.
Described as a “mid-focused overdrive/preamp”, the “mythical magic” of the MKI has been bolstered with “a uniquely superb amount of clarity for any playing style”.
That clarity is best in low-gain settings, while cranking the gain promises to deliver a “thick” and depthy overdrive for chords without harming guitar solo articulation.
The Gain dial is joined by Volume and Tone knobs for further tone sculpting, while its parametric Mid EQ offers a boost/cut range of +/-12dB. Partnered with a Frequency dial with a 250Hz-2kHz range, the pedal helps cater to humbuckers and single-coil pickups and a greater variety of playing preferences.
The Walrus Audio Voyager MKII is available in two colorways: a seafoam green casing with black ink and satellite artwork by the pedal’s original artist, Nathan Price, and a matte black with cream ink edition. The latter is illustrated by Christi Du Toit.
It costs $249.99 and is available to order today.
Head to Walrus Audio to learn more.
