Walrus Audio Mako ACS1 Amp + Cab Simulator

The Walrus Audio Mako ACS1 Amp + Cab Simulator is a pedal that puts a full amp and speaker cabinet rig on your pedalboard, and it can be run in stereo or mono¹. It arrived in a handsome anodized gold enclosure with an amp-like layout, built on the Mako platform with an Analog Devices SHARC processor inside¹. It was available to preorder priced £365 / $399¹, and it gives players three amp modes to choose from: the Fullerton, which models the Fender Deluxe Reverb, the London, which puts the raw heat of a 1962 Marshall Bluesbreaker at your feet, and the Dartford, which brings a 60s VOX AC30 to life²³.

The idea is simple: instead of carrying an amp, you plug into the ACS1 and it delivers what MusicRadar called "premium grade tube amp tones for your pedalboard"³. It models three vintage amplifiers, pairs them with six cabinet impulse responses (IRs, digital captures of real speaker cabinets), and outputs the result to a PA, an interface, or a pair of headphones. It runs in mono or stereo, is made in the USA, and carries a true bypass switch so it drops cleanly out of your signal chain².

What it does: three amp models and six swappable cab IRs

The ACS1 gives you three amp models, each named for the town its reference amp came from³:

MusicRadar described the London model as putting "the raw heat of a 1962 Marshall Bluesbreaker at your feet," with the Dartford mode bringing "a 60s VOX AC30 to life"³. An Amp switch on the face of the pedal moves between the three².

On the cabinet side, the pedal ships with six custom cabinet impulse responses, and players can upload their own to the pedal via USB using Walrus Audio's dedicated web app³. A Cab switch (A/B/C) selects the speaker pairing². When the pedal launched, a Walrus Audio commenter clarified that all six cab slots are user-swappable, not just three, so none of the stock cabinets is locked in place.

The ACS1 also carries onboard reverb, with a Room control and three reverb types: Room, Hall and Spring⁵. MusicRadar's review noted the stereo inputs and outputs give you the choice of running it in mono or stereo².

The controls

The control layout is deliberately amp-like, set in what MusicRadar's Jonathan Horsley called a "handsome anodized gold enclosure"¹. The full control set, as listed in MusicRadar's review²:

GuitarPlayer's coverage noted the boost switch and the adjustable room size alongside the Volume, Gain and three-band EQ controls⁸. Saving presets is done from the footswitches: dial in your sound, then press and hold the bypass and boost switches simultaneously until both LEDs flash to confirm⁵.

Presets and MIDI

Three presets can be saved onboard and recalled through the two footswitches, and with MIDI connected the count rises to 128²⁵. MusicRadar's review listed MIDI controllability among its reasons to buy, with MIDI in and MIDI out connections at the top of the unit². GuitarPlayer confirmed full MIDI support when the pedal launched⁸.

Power and connections

The ACS1 runs on a 9V DC power supply drawing a minimum of 300mA, and the adaptor is not supplied². That current draw is well above what a standard 9V battery or a low-current daisy chain output can deliver, so it needs a proper pedalboard power supply.

Connections are standard inputs (Left/Mono, Right), standard outputs (Left/Mono, Right), a mini-jack headphone output for silent practice, USB for loading IRs, and MIDI in and out². The headphone output means the pedal works as a complete silent practice rig on its own. The unit can be run in stereo or mono⁴.

Where it came from

Walrus Audio made the ACS1 available to preorder at £365 / $399¹². The pedal sits in the company's Mako series, and underneath its anodized gold enclosure there is a Mako platform with an Analog Devices SHARC processor doing the processing¹. The enclosure follows an amp-like layout, and the unit can be run in stereo or mono¹. A later blemished listing for the Mako Series MKII ACS1 shows a SOLD OUT status⁵.

The core of the ACS1's sound is its three amp modes. There is the Fullerton, which models the Fender Deluxe Reverb, the London, which puts the raw heat of a 1962 Marshall Bluesbreaker at your feet, while a 60s VOX AC30 is brought to life on the Dartford mode²³. Each mode is paired with the pedal's speaker cabinet simulation, so a player switching between the three is moving between complete amp and cab voices rather than preamp flavors alone².

What reviewers said

Coverage of the ACS1 pointed to what sits under the hood: underneath that handsome anodized gold enclosure there is a Mako platform with an Analog Devices SHARC processor doing the processing, and the enclosure itself follows an amp-like layout¹. The same coverage noted that the unit can be run in stereo or mono¹. The pedal has since become hard to find new, with a blemished listing for the Mako Series MKII ACS1 showing SOLD OUT status³.

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