Wampler Tumnus V2 Overdrive & Boost Guitar Effects Pedal

This is not my first Wampler pedal. I have an Ecstasy and a Paisley OD, and both are top notch pedals. This one is no different. I purchased it to take the place of my Blues Pearl Perplexed, which is another "Marshall in a Box" type of pedal that is also loosely based on the Marshall Guv'nor. That pedal has not been produced in 10 years, and has a big footprint.I was able to get a near exact tone with the Pinnacle by manipulating the tone and contour. Being that the Perplexed has a bass, mid and treble control, it goes to show just how versatile the Contour control really is.But the pedal can do SO much more. While I prefer the warm mids of the Vintage mode, the Modern mode will give you a brighter edge suitable for 80's thrash metal through modern rock. There is a ton of gain on tap, even without the boost, and plenty of volume to kick the front end of an amp.But I ended exchanging the pedal for the Deluxe model. The main reason is that with the gain at anywhere above 12:00, kicking in the boost does add hiss (expected for this much gain). So I wanted to be able to control it with the pedal to kick it off (and the noise) during quiet parts of our songs. Also, it is just so much more handy having the boost on a footswitch for lead boosts. Not only does it give you a slight kick in volume, but it gives you that stacked OD pedals "butter" lead sound with infinite sustain. Having the boost on the pedal allows me to just use this one pedal on by board for rhythm and lead OD sounds, where before, I'd use a second "tube screamer" type pedal afterward to boost mids and volume for leads.Overall, you can't go wrong with this pedal, but if you do want the versatility of having a dynamic OD for rhythm, plus a super compressed OD for leads, think about the Deluxe model.

The Wampler Tumnus Deluxe works very well as a boost to bring up the volume for solos or to push the preamp of an overdriven amp. Gain can be dialed in to add harmonic richness to an overdriven amp, or as the overdrive sound for a clean amp, or going into an audio interface for recording. The three band EQ of bass, middle, treble gives a lot of flexibility and control for getting either a scooped tone or a mid-range forward sound. I use Marshall, Fender, and Blackstar amps, so the EQ lets me adjust to the characteristics of each amplifier. The Hot switch and the True Bypass / Buffered Bypass are subtle but nice extra features. This is an overdrive, not a distortion pedal, so going into a clean amp or plugin is not going to give a heavy distortion sound. The gain does provide a lot of overdrive breakup, and it has a really good sound ... it maintains the articulation of individual notes and the dynamics from the guitar, and doesn't get fizzy or muddy.

This is easily the best Distortion/OD pedal I’ve ever used. The sound is incredible, and the ability to EQ the low, mid, and high frequencies makes it so much better. The hot switch in the middle of the pedal is also great if you want a bit more of a volume boost. The buffer switch on the side is great if you need to get rid of any unwanted whining or troublesome frequencies. And the volume and gain controls can change your guitar’s tone to fit whatever punchy sound you need.I’m using the pedal on my Nashville Fender Telecaster, and playing through a Vox AC30 combo amp. I write a lot of songs that have clean verses and distorted/overdriven/punchy choruses, so this pedal is a great fit for me. The way that the pedal manipulates the clean Tele tone is unparalleled in my opinion. Also, unlike a lot of pedals I’ve used, the Tumnus Deluxe has a very easy-to-press active/bypass switch. Overall, I highly recommend this pedal to anyone that is looking for a good OD/Distortion pedal. It’s way better than anything Boss could make.

I have the Tumnus in between my Morning Glory and my Vertex SSS overdrives. I essentially use it as a second boost and my Morning glory as my first boost.After several hours of configuration and tone tweaking I found, The Tumnus has the ability to push your amp to break up and not color up the tone, it can get bright or dark, it’s super tweakable to get a good spectrum of tone your looking for.The footprint is so small like a half a king size snickers bar small. This is exactly what my pedal board needed because my pedal board has some big pedals including a volume pedal and Game changer plus sustaining pedal. So, I need all the room I can get while also getting the OD tones I need.Finally for the price, the versatility, the quality you get a major bang for your buck.