Xploration • Curation • Recommendation
My Hungry Robot Wallflower Ultimate All-in-one Shoegazer Reverb-Octaves-Chorus-Distortion has finally landed!
So I ordered this from my friend Andy at Effekt Boutique - back in mid-November of last year, while several production hitches delayed the arrival of the pedal - by approximately half a year! Which is one of the longest waits I’ve had to endure outside of Kickstarter and Indiegogo! But all’s well that ends well!
I’ve long been a fan of combining Reverb, Modulation and Fuzz / Distortion - for that killer dreamy hazy shoegaze effect - where I normally use a combination of single genre effects pedals. I actually thought I owned a few all-in-one Shoegazers, while this is one of only two fully-fledged ones really - with the other being the also excellent OBNE x Chvrches Screen Violence collaboration.
Wallflower Controls - Hollow (Low Pass Filter), Chorale : DOWN for mixed Chorus and Detune (more subtle) / UP for Classic Chorus, Layer (Octave Up + Down Reverb), Bloom (Long Delay Pad Reverb), Distortion Master, Left Engage / Bypass Footswitch, Right Distortion Footswitch.
Both The Wallflower and Screen Violence are exceptional Shoegazers - and each has its own advantages - they are both large enclosure pedals - with the Screen Violence a little larger than The Wallflower - and containing 8 controls versus the 5 of The Wallflower.
Each one is slightly differently calibrated and has slightly different core timbres and textures - while both are enormously versatile and deliver magnificent wall-of-sound outputs.
I started off with all the dials of the Wallflower in the middle, and the Chorale toggle up - and that delivers a nigh perfect sound already - particularly for when the Distortion is also engaged. You get a really nicely balanced hazy output with the Chorus and Octaves Reverb adding some cool bright accents into the murk! I generally found the core tonality to lean dark - and so I ended up mostly dialling back the Hollow / LPF control.
When the Distortion is off - you can further crank the Layer and Bloom dials to around 3 o'c for more intensity - it gets a bit much if they are that high with the Distortion also engaged. And with the Chorale switch down and that Detune mixed with the Chorus - you get a much more subtle Chorusing effect - and I feel I'm missing the bright accents of the classic chorus (Up!).
I also occasionally ran the Strymon Sunset Treble Booster after the Wallflower, and the Mids Boost from the CTC Triptychon into the front. With both those boosts engaged I got some really extraordinary tones out of the Wallflower - those two boost help balance and focus the output of the Wallflower - and deliver more volume and a little more clarity - which I seem to prefer. While players with brighter / single coil guitars might not feel they need to do that.
I'm very satisfied with the Wallflower - and would wholly put it on par with the Screen Violence - which I have had a little more experience with, and which I've loved for a long time. I feel those two are overall very evenly matched and totally deliver on that all-rounder shoegaze sound.
Eric from Hungry Robot has done some excellent work here - shame that this is / was a limited release pedal. I missed the direct batch, but fortunately was able to pick one up from Effekt Boutique - where there are still one or two in stock for €229 / £200 - well worth a flutter!
There are some archival details and a manual that can still be accessed on the Hungry Robot Website.
If you're into Shoegazy sounds - then this one pedal does a brilliant job of delivering that whole experience - it can sound really immense - in the best possibly way! And all those different elements onboard combine superbly! A very smartly thought out device.
Demos
