Walrus Kangra
Walrus makes great pedals. Not only are they beautiful to look at, but they are wonderful to hear. The Kangra is no exception. This fuzz pedal (with a little extra fun added in) is a simple yet effective pedal. It allows the user to find some aggressive and powerful tones that can be surprisingly versatile. Its onboard envelope filter gives a secondary texture that makes this pedal more capable than your average fuzz. This exceptional pedal has a ton of personality and would be a great addition to any board.
External Control: SWITCH
Cost: $$
HornFX Review
Interface: 4/5
The Kangra is split into two sides. On the right, the fuzz controls are as easy as they come. Two switches provide four fuzz options, all of which are useful and interesting. The left side houses a surprisingly intuitive and potent envelope filter that can give you a whole other set of sounds alongside the fuzz. This pedals utilizes simplicity in its small housing in an exceptional way.
Versatility: 3.5/5
As far as fuzz pedals go, this one can do more than you would expect. Even though there are no parameters that can be dialed in to perfect your fuzz sound. The four options provided by the two stiches cover some nicely varied and equally potent territory. You can find yourself sounding like a colony of angry bees, or you can create a plump, fat, fuzzy sound. All the fuzz options on the Kangra are useful. The envelope filter side of the pedal is just as useful. Unfortunately, it will only provide you with extra funkiness while the fuzz is also engaged. The envelope filter does not speak very well on its own. When the fuzz is on, you will find a wide variety of filter sounds to compliment the fuzz. In some cases, the combination of the two can approach synth-like qualities. This little fuzz pedal packs in a lot more sounds that its face would seem to indicate.
Tone Reproduction: 3.5/5
The Kangra crushes your sound, and that is what you want. The quality of the effects is quite good, and the fuzz sounds that are available still retain some of the personality of your acoustic tone. The left side of the pedal can help to further mess with the tone of this pedal (and the attack). The Kangra’s envelope filter can help you find some wonderful sounds and bring even more personality to the tones you create with this stompbox.
Complexity: Simple
Live application: 4/5
As with all fuzz pedals, feedback can be an issue. There are ways to combat this, but it must be made clear that with a conventional microphone, you could be entering dangerous waters with the Kangra. That common reality aside, this is a great pedal for live use. Its sounds stand out, and are surprisingly easy to manipulate on the fly. The switch-only fuzz interface is a great tool for quick sonic changes. If you enjoy using synth-like sounds, this pedal can get you there. The combination of the filter and fuzz give you options to get close to that synthy vibe. Overall, this small, lightweight, and furious pedal can be a wonderful addition to any pedal board. If you can mitigate the feedback issues that may arise, you will LOVE the kangra.
Product Information
The Kangra Filter Fuzz is a true bypass, two-in-one pedal that provides a thick and spatty octave fuzz, and a psychedelic filter thats great for sweeps, frequency boost or even envelope filter sounds.
Would you like to command all of existence with the authority of one guitar strike?
The Kangra Filter Fuzz is a true bypass, two-in-one pedal that provides a thick and spatty octave fuzz, and a psychedelic filter thats great for sweeps, frequency boost or even envelope filter sounds. The filter can run independently, or with the fuzz feeding into it. This is no rhythm player’s fuzz. Dig in and play dirty with aggressive fuzz lead lines that’ll rip time and space apart at the seams.
SNL Guitarist and fuzz fanatic, Jared Scharff, approached us about doing a modern filtered and fuzz inspired by his favorite vintage fuzz pedal, the Kay Fuzz Tone. Working together through hundreds of texts, calls, emails and mailing prototypes back and forth, the Kangra came to life with plenty of grit, teeth and vintage vibe, as well as pronounced modern features.
FUZZ
Get two different styles of fuzz with the M/V Switch. In the modern position (M), you notice a more forgiving fuzz with longer and tighter sustain, while the Vintage position (V) feels starved with spatty breakup and grittier, shorter sustain.
FILTER
The Kangra also has a versatile filter with Resonance, Sensitivity, Frequency and Envelope Filter controls. Use the filter on its own to add a unique shape to your sound, or flip the Envelope Filter switch and open up funky sixties style tones.
“On the filter, I wanted to go for that vintage mpc 3000 low pass type of thing…Or similar to doing a low pass plug-in for a track, or like a dj would do without it being too “wah pedal” like, and this achieved that.” - Jared Scharff
Specification
The art was inspired by a once in a life time expedition Jared Scharff took to the Kangra Valley near the Himalaya Mountains. It was there his journey inspired new ideas that can only approximated by the Kangra Filter Fuzz.
The pedal comes in Prismatic Powder "Peach Ice Cream" enclosure with art by Adam Forster in white and blue inks.
The diecast enclosure’s exact size is 4.77" x 2.6" x 1.39”.
Power requirements are 9VDC, Center Negative, (100mA minimum).
The use of an isolated power supply is recommended for powering all Walrus Audio Pedals. Daisy chain power supplies are not recommended.
Power supply not included.
Product info taken from the Walrus website.