Wampler Tumnus

It is a small pedal and it is named Tumnus. Googling that name reveals that aside from Wampler naming a pedal thus, it is also used in Narnia, where Mr. Tumnus is a faun. A faun is upper half human, lower half goat. This should ring some bells towards what this pedal might be, especially since the three knobs are labeled Volume, Gain and Treble. Obviously, this is a Klon clone, and since it is much smaller than the original, the good people at Wampler have chosen a smaller, bipedal half-human-the-other-half-animal race than a centaur.
I must admit that I have never owned or played the original quadrupedal version of this pedal.
You might frown upon me for that, but spending upwards of $4000 for a guitar pedal is a bit excessive, even for me, so I humbly beg your forgiveness.
Now what I expect here is some kind of clash between two principles. I read somewhere that Wampler do design their pedals right, so they don’t choose those weak components that are barely fit enough to handle guitar but will immediately capitulate when you send bass their way. Wampler pedals work with bass, even though they might not be labeled as such.
The Pantheon and the Belle are good examples of that, both pedals work great on bass and I enjoyed playing them immensely.
However, I have read time and again, that the Klon does not really work for bass because it cuts the low end somewhat fiercely. I have no idea if that is by design (and therefore a wanted effect) or simply because of a “bad” choice of components which did not matter at that time because it was a pedal for guitar and not for bass.
Connecting the pedal, I started listening for any possible low end loss with the pedal turned off versus the signal chain without it in there. The Tumnus follows the original closely in that regard: There is no true bypass, the buffer is on at all times. I could not detect any low end loss in bypass mode, so I switched it on.

I did assume that treble knob would be your standard passive hi cut knob, but my ears tell me that’s not what is going on here. I would even go as far as to suspect that the control is boost only. It could be that the pedal is generating harmonics to push the treble more, but it could also be that the control is boost and cut and my setup will react to a treble boost, but not show much difference if these frequencies are cut. What I can confidently say is that treble content is added when I ride it past noon.

The Tumnus certainly is a low gain drive pedal. When you push the gain past 2-3 o’clock, you get a massive bump of the uppermost midrange. That is great for lead guitar, but sounds a bit honky on bass and since those frequencies get through even the denser mixes, you will certainly have the feeling that the lows (and the treble, if you don’t have that turned up, too) have somewhat deflated.
There is a pretty nice tone with the gain in the general noon area and the treble set to around 11 o’clock.
It feels a bit grindy, but is very soft and instead of obscuring, it lends the sound a certain definition that makes it seem sharper around the edges. Listening to the dirt it adds, I am reminded of using wet chalk on a blackboard and applying way too much pressure.
On paper, this is a hard clipping device using germanium diodes. I’m not a fan of either of these things, but the way this is applied so gently and tastefully really has me enjoying what I hear.
If you start out with a mellow clean sound, you can certainly add a fair bit of top end definition and the added harmonics don’t feel like your sound is leaning in the general direction of Motörhead. This works with almost any genre, because the dirt is so gentle. There is a certain amount of pushing back towards a cleaner sound, so when I use the Tumnus to push other pedals, some interesting options appear.
Paired with the Audio Kitchen Fake Plastic Trees – another pedal with a strong push back, you send the FPT into solid dirt territory but the notes clear up quickly and it’s a lot of fun playing with these dynamics.
The Tumnus also works very well as an always on tone sweetener. Something the JPTR FX Jive does, as well as the BJFe Blueberry. Playing in a mix, the bass sounds natural, but I am under the impression that I get more of that sound, like it enhances the natural qualities of the bass I plug into it.

I did buy this pedal with the intention of flipping it as soon as I have a firm grip on how it sounds but at the present moment, I’m heavily tempted to keep it.