I recently spent some time with a Wampler Tumnus pedal and a couple of guitars – a Fender MIM Tele with a humbucker in the bridge, and a Fender American Strat with three single coils. I chose to plug them into a Fender Champion 100 instead of a Supro (which I love) because I wanted to hear the pedal, not the amp. The Champion 100 is a solid state amp with two twelves and the most bland sound you’ve ever heard.
I didn’t really have any expectations, because I’ve never heard a real Klon. I’d read the Tumnus is a “boost” pedal, and knowing that Brian Wampler is the premier pedal expert on dirt, I did expect the thing to sound great when cranked.
The MIM Tele was dreadful – sounded flat and lifeless and didn’t play very well, so I immediately switched to the American Strat, which played and sounded fantastic. Using a clean sound on the amp, I took the Tumnus through all of the pickup positions on the Strat and multiple settings on the pedal. The treble felt best to me around 12 o’clock, and the gain sounded good from 10% to the max. So what does it actually sound like?
It sounded like the notes were a little “worn in.” It took away some of the harsh brittle sound of the solid state and made it a little more tube-like. I definitely liked it. When I cranked up the gain all the way, it still sounded musical, but to my ears this is a “solo” pedal – the type of thing you kick in to give your solo a bit more personality and depth. It works best on single notes. It works fine on chords, but if you’re after a Marshall stack power chord distortion pedal, this ain’t it. This really is “just a boost pedal.”
Let’s talk about that a little bit. If you’re on a really strict budget, a $179 “boost” pedal will likely not be the best way to spend your money. For great distortion out of the little box, I think the Wampler Pinnacle is the best idea – it can cover the crunch settings semi-well, and of course can take you into the brown sound arena – at lower settings it can give you something similar to the Tumnus, or at least similar enough for a budget player. Of course, I also love the Wampler Plexi-Drive and the Catalinbread Dirty Little Secret – both are great Marshall in a box pedals. But the Pinnacle can cover more sonic ground and give you a bigger array of sounds, which is helpful if you’re not sure what sounds you really like.
But even for budget players, there’s a perfect target audience for this pedal – blues players. This pedal would be killer for a blues player with a Fender Blues Junior amp who wants to put a little something extra on his or her solos.
Overall, I think the Tumnus is the best boost pedal I’ve ever heard. I think it will appeal to those who want a great tone on their solos in live situations. Meaning I don’t see it as a pedal for beginners, certainly not beginners on any kind of budget, who would be better served with the more versatile Pinnacle.
