Walrus Audio Polychrome Analog Flanger Pedal

This is a full-featured and highly versatile Flanger pedal in a compact package. There really is no competition for this pedal in today’s market.Basically, the Polychrome is the Flanger version of the Julia Chorus pedal. If you enjoy using the Julia, then the Polychrome will be a good fit for you. However, even if you’ve never used a modulation pedal of any kind, you shouldn’t have a problem learning to use the Polychrome. Just turn knobs until you find a sound that interests you.Speaking of knobs, despite the compact size of this pedal, the knobs are spaced in a way that makes them easy to manipulate and tweak as you see fit.What makes this pedal a must-have are the controls. You can augment your tone in ways that other Flanger pedals simply can’t. The usefulness of the famous Walrus “d-f-v” control cannot be overstated. By controlling the mix of dry and effect, you can achieve sounds that aren’t even possible with other Flanger pedals. For example, you can set your Rate, Depth and Feedback controls pretty high (which would be a really extreme and even unusable setting on any other Flanger pedal) but then dial the “d-f-v” control back to a mostly dry sound. Doing this, you can get a unique and totally usable sound. That’s just one example, but it’s worth your time to really play around with this pedal to see what kind of new sounds you can create. Your imagination is the only limit.Another great feature that sets this pedal apart is the 3-way Waveform Selector switch. You can choose between sine wave (standard), triangle wave (more pronounced transitions), and random waves (more useful than you might think). The random wave setting adds a dimensionality and movement to your sound that other Flanger pedals can’t achieve. By using the random wave setting and dialing the “d-f-v” knob to an entirely vibrato sound, you can get a cool tone that sounds like an old warped vinyl record (experiment with the Rate and Depth to get the sound you desire).Yet another interesting feature of the Polychrome is the 2-way Voice switch. Basically, this switch gives you two Flanger pedals in one. In the down position, you get the tried and true Flanger sounds that you know and love. In the up position, you get an even more lush and complex sounding Flanger. Truth be told, I’ve never heard another Flanger pedal that sounds like it. It’s awesome. If you want extreme sounds (which can be easily tamed with the “d-f-v” knob dialed back), then try out the up position of the Voice switch.In summary, the Polychrome is a powerful tool that helps you to achieve tones that no other Flanger pedal can do. If you think that Flanger is an effect that has very limited utility, you’re sadly mistaken and this pedal will prove that to you time after time. The Polychrome is pretty much the best Flanger pedal on the market today. For around $200, this thing is a steal.

As an experienced guitarist with a love of flange, I was excited to try the Polychrome pedal. The many features and uses have been detailed in other reviews and are true. The pedal is very versatile, good-sounding, and low-noise. The down side for me was the 2-3 dB drop in volume when the effect is engaged, which is a known thing in certain flangers. It is unfortunate that a high-quality producer of effect pedals like Walrus could so thoughtfully design the Polychrome and yet still miss such a basic issue. This would have been a simple thing to correct. I did put a boost pedal right after the flanger as a workaround; this does improve things greatly but it's obviously not ideal.

I really liked the many sound options available on this pedal. It could do mild flange, intense jet flange, and could also just act as a filter (and a lot of other sounds in between). The only downside (and it was a pretty big one for me) was the very noticeable volume drop when engaged, which was especially noticeable when using the momentary function. I really wanted to love it but could not get over the volume loss, and didn’t want to dish out for a boost pedal like some of the other reviewers did. It’s a shame because it could have easily been corrected with the addition of a volume knob. Unfortunately I ended up returning this one.

Really, there's nothing more to say. I'm admittedly not the biggest flanger user out there, but I do want one to have in my toolbox and this pedal has been the best sounding one I've tried yet. Unfortunately whenever you engage it, the volume drops. Short of double tapping this pedal and a boost right after I don't see how anyone could live with this as it currently stands.I ended up returning it the same day. Shame, too. Because it's a a gorgeous looking pedal.

I absolutely love walrus pedals. They are mainstays on my board and I owe a lot to them for evolving my sound.The polychrome is a very nice flanger, I like slow subtle effects. And this one provides that. It’s also capable of some classic flanger sounds. I have really been enjoying it.If you are on Instagram, check out rstl_musicFor some samples of the sounds I get from the pedalboard.Hope this helps.

Update - still never contacted from Walrus. Never buying from them again.This pedal worked OK out of the box. Ducking sound when turned on. Just had a bad pedal.Reached out to their CS and NEVER received an email back after numerous attempts. Unfortunately had to go through Amazon for a return and got shorted 40 bucks because there was a restocking fee never mentioned to me. The return clearly stated there was a 90 day money back promise. Now I'm on rep 4 to get the full refund.Very disappointed in Walrus CS and Amazon for screwing me around over 40 freakin dollars...

Awesome Flanger. Versatile, high quality build. In one word... Magical.

I love it. It can get pretty crazy if desired, but there's a lot of subtle modulation possibilities that make this work well in many applications. I found it less over the top than some flangers, and that's what I wanted. Returned a JHS and MXR flange for this and am very happy i did. Love JHS n MXR, they are constants on my board, but this was the flange for me. Walrus Audio makes great stuff.