What if oil and water did mix? What if Stevie and Lindsey stuck it out? What if The War of the Worlds wasn't so much a war but just a good time among new friends?
Walrus Audio's The Melee: Wall of Noise—an effects pedal that combines distortion and reverb via one shared joystick—shows that disparate elements everywhere can in fact live in a weird, wonderful harmony.
The Melee lives up to its name in that the distortion and reverb sides of its personality are in constant battle, though at any moment what you'll hear is just one furious sound.
Moving the joystick left and right adjusts the reverb, up and down adjusts the distortion, though technically speaking one is always coming before the other in the circuit. At the flip of a switch, you can select which comes first. And another switch lets you choose between Ambient, Octave, and Reverse reverb algorithms.
Walrus' detailed explanation of those algorithms, plus more of the pedal's features, include:
- Ambient Reverb (Pink LED) - Huge reverb capable of massive trails and engulfing your chords into an angry wash of sound. Great for soaring melodic lines or shoegaze-driven chord progressions.
- Octave Down Reverb (Yellow LED) - Similar to the Dark mode in the Slö, you’ll find an eerie lower octave hovering in the reverb trail for a nice and dark atmospheric touch.
- Reverse Reverb with Feedback (Blue LED) - Add reversed reverb trails back into your signal, create gentle melodies or push into reverse feedback overload. Big, slow, and sad chords love to hang out here.
- Press and hold the sustain switch to ramp up the reverb trails. Release and the trails will ramp back down to where the decay switch is currently set. The sustain switch can also latch in all three programs. Press and release the Sustain switch to capture and sustain the current reverb decay for long pad-like sounds in your wet mix. Press again to release the latch, and the reverb trail will taper off based on the position of the decay knob.
In our video above, we use the Melee on guitars, electric piano, drum machines, and synths, getting a sense for what all it can do. Be sure to watch the whole thing and get your own Melee on Reverb now.