Walrus Audio Ages

I sounds pretty good in the demo. I’d like to try one. But I didn’t feel there was too much difference in the different stages that they went through in other demos.

 

Has anyone had a chance to try one of these? I'm super interested, but don't really have time to get one and fiddle with it right now.

 

I haven’t tried it yet but I’m interested. I ended up getting the EarthQuaker devices plumes and I really like it. The three different modes are fairly distinct (which doesn’t seem to be the case based on some ages demos) and it’s about half the price. It doesn’t have some of the options of the ages (the pre drive bass control is very interesting) but I think you can get in similar territory.

 

Took the dive and picked one up, arrived last night. Only spent about fifteen or twenty minutes messing with it. I was initially underwhelmed, but found the right mixes of voice/dry/bass to get a great medium drive out of it today.

Then I used it to push a fuzz pedal and swore I will never sell this thing. Voice three on the Ages driving into either my You're Doom 2 or Pork and Pickle fuzz open the sound up so much it's not even funny.

 

Clips!

 

I'm not set up to record, unfortunately. Here are a couple other things I can say:

• On the basses I ran through it, there are really only 3 distinct voices. The differences between 1+2 or 3+4 are noticeable isolated, but subtle enough I think they would get lost in a mix. I exclusively play flatwounds, so YMMV with roundwounds.
• There's a bit of low end loss without the dry at at least 9 o'clock or the bass boosted past 1 o'clock. Not super noticeable, but a bit. My Earthquaker Dunes was waaay worse on this, though.
• Voices 1 and 2 are fairly responsive in the gain knob. Low gain settings on the Ages reminded me of the 4 knob TC Spark Booster at it's higher gain settings.
• Voices 3 and onward have a fair bit of color to them even with the gain all the way down. Seems like most of the variance on these voices is going to be with the gain under noon.

 

Thanks for further details!

 

Update - The Ages is going back to Sweetwater. Used it in a church service and couldn't get the sound I was looking for out of it. Once it got in the mix, the drive was either too subtle or too heavy and compressed, couldn't get any in between. Bass boosted, drive at halfway, still sounded overly thin to me on the later voices.

It'll be getting replaced by a Pork and Pickle I had on hand and was aiming to use for the fuzz settings, will just switch it over to a dedicated OD. Who knows, if my fuzz hunt goes on I might just pick up a second for that.

 

Might have been the mix, then. Our church is between sound guys at the moment. I heard the recording, my clean songs were super deep, the second I hit the Ages on it felt like the bass turned into a guitar. I had even asked if they were getting enough bass in rehearsal, because we just moved to all in-ears and don't really have the best picture of the overall mix for broadcast yet.

 

[unaffiliated] GC is selling off a bunch of their (ugly) limited color version for $120 (down from $200) if anybody was waiting for a price drop.

Walrus Audio Ages Overdrive Effects Pedal

I'm sure that paint will be impossible to read in anything but daytime but I'll overlook that for almost half off.

 

I just placed an order for one and and am picking it up later today. I've got no problem saving $80 for a crappy paint job.