The Walrus Audio Melee: Wall of Noise is a pedal that truly lives up to its name, packing a shoegaze-ready pairing of crushing distortion and textural reverb. This pedal boasts a trio of reverb tones — Ambient, Octave Down, and Reverse — that perfectly pair with its aggressive distortion. However, this pedal is by no means strictly limited to noisy freakouts: a 2-way switch allows you to set the order of the signal chain, with reverb-into-distortion resulting in Kevin Shields-style waves of noise. Meanwhile, the more traditional distortion-into-reverb setting unlocks beautifully atmospheric lead tones that seamlessly slot into any genre. Finally, Walrus Audio designed the Melee: Wall of Noise pedal with a host of fun and inspiring features, including a highly interactive momentary/latching Sustain footswitch, and, of course, the great big joystick that provides hands-on control of your distortion intensity and reverb mix.

A trio of spacey reverb tones

OK, the Melee: Wall of Noise has three reverbs, but how do you switch between them? A simultaneous stomp on both the bypass and sustain switches cycles through three different reverb types, all fine-tuned for use with the Melee’s aggressive distortion.

• Ambient: A lush wave of reverb with soaring trails. Perfect for singing, never-ending leads when run after the distortion, while running it before the distortion results in an impenetrable wall of noisy shoegaze sound.
• Octave Down: Similar to the Dark mode on Walrus Audio’s Slö, this setting adds a moody low-octave foundation under your reverb trails — ideal for crafting eerie soundscapes.
• Reverse: Reverb, but in reverse. In comparison to the calm, ambient feel of a typical reverb, reverse reverb produces an unsettling edge that’s an absolutely essential addition to any aspiring shoegazer’s tonal toolbox.

Who needs knobs, anyway?

The Melee: Wall of Noise’s joystick offers a far more interactive approach to shaping your sound — the X axis controls the reverb’s mix level while the Y axis determines the intensity of the distortion. This strange but effective setup allows you to control both parameters simultaneously; it also makes wide dynamic adjustments a breeze.

Achieve endless pads with the Sustain switch

The Melee’s Sustain footswitch offers even more in-the-moment, hands-on (feet-on?) control of your sound, and a simple stomp sends your reverb’s trail cascading upward for massive pads and dreamy soundscapes. It’s a momentary control, so your trails will continue to ramp up when the switch is engaged; releasing it eases your reverb back into the pedal’s switch settings. What’s more, this switch can also latch onto all three reverb programs for endless ambient waves that rival the spacy sound design potential of any synth pad!

• Offers the shoegaze-ready combo of crushing distortion and textural reverb in a single box
• 3 different reverb types: spacey Ambient, eerie Octave Down, and textural Reverse reverb
• Built-in joystick adjusts distortion intensity on the Y axis and reverb mix on the X axis
• Order switch allows you to flip the order of the reverb and distortion in your signal chain
• Momentary Sustain footswitch that ramps up the trails on your reverb when held down, with the ability to latch on all 3 reverb types for endless pads
• Tone and Decay switches each have 3 different pre-set notches to shape your sound
• Neon-pink enclosure with colorful artwork by David Hüttner
• 3 different bypass modes: DSP, true bypass, and DSP+true bypass