“It’s a bit of an investment, but I think these power supplies will truly go the distance if you let them”: Walrus Audio Canvas Power series review

What is it?

Walrus Audio’s Canvas series is, for my money, one of the more exciting things to come out of Boutique-Pedals-ville – at least, as exciting as the ‘boring’ bits of your guitar rig can be. It’s an expansive suite of cleverly thought-out guitar utilities and essentials, from DI boxes and tuners to the subject of my attention today: pedal power.

Walrus Audio’s Canvas Power series has five different units to its name – the Power 5, Power 8, Power 15, and the Power HP. The numbers correspond to the number of isolated barrel-jack outputs each possesses, and HP stands for ‘high power’ – for the huge 3A-serving power outlet, that can be used to power your humungous modelling rig alongside a handful of your fave peds.

As well as having their own highly-useful attributes, you can link up to three of them together via a 24V power link cable – allowing you some smart and highly practical modularity in the process. You can either buy the power supplies as standalone versions, with an accompanying laptop-style AC adapter, or as a Link version, with a EIAJ cable for connecting to the 24V out of another Canvas Power unit.

The models I’ve elected to collectively review here are the Power 5 (of which I obtained two), Power 22, and Power HP. I think they capture a decent cross-section of the Canvas Power series’ capabilities, as a bed for finding out just how up-to-the-task this new-format pedal-powering solution could be.

Spec

Walrus Audio Canvas Power 22

• Price: $399.99/£345/€399
• Type: Modular isolated pedalboard power supply
• Features: 22 x isolated outputs (20 x 9V 500mA, 2 x 9/12/18V @ 500/375/250mA), 1 x 5V 1A USB-C outlet, 1 x 24V EIAJ output, IEC power input
• Dimensions (HWD): 25.5 x 417 x 54mm
• Weight: 572g /1.3lbs

Walrus Audio Canvas Power 5

• Price: $189.99/£164.99/€179
• Type: Modular isolated pedalboard power supply
• Features: 5 x isolated outputs (4 x 9V 500mA, 1 x 9/12/18V @ 500/375/250mA), 1 x 24V EIAJ output, IEC power input
• Dimensions (HWD): 195 x 88 x 35 mm
• Weight: 186g/0.4lbs

Walrus Audio Canvas Power HP

• Price: $229.99/£225/€259
• Type: Modular isolated pedalboard power supply
• Features: 4 x isolated outputs (3 x 9V 500mA, 1 x 12/18V @ 3000mA), 1 x 24V EIAJ output, IEC power input
• Dimensions (HWD): 195 x 88 x 35 mm
• Weight: 186g/0.4lbs
• Contact: Walrus Audio

Build quality

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Build quality rating: ★★★★★

I’m a big fan of these pedalboard power supplies, even just at first glance. They look a million bucks, with the smart Canvas branding atop a reassuringly all-metal enclosure. They’re low-profile power supplies all, AC power regulation having been relegated to the laptop-style power adapters supplied alongside the standalone bundles. For each, the case is a two-part aluminium enclosure, with some swanky curves and tight tolerances; the barrel jack sockets are the conventional box-fronted PCB-mount fare you find on most power supplies, but feel rock solid in their tight cut-out homes on the front.

The Power 22 is the longest of the bunch – and, indeed, the longest pedal power supply you may ever see in your natural life. It’s literally about 1.4ft long; it can be wielded like a cudgel, if you ever felt like you wanted to do that (which this writer certainly hasn’t, and certainly hasn’t acted upon at any one point in time). On the opposite side of the size spectrum, the Canvas Power 5 and HP (which share the same essential chassis) are pleasingly diminutive, and just as rock-solid as their biggest sibling.

Usability

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Usability rating: ★★★★★

The Canvas Power Series is an extremely friendly series on the practicality front. Canvas Power units large and small can be daisy-chained to one another via 24V through-puts, using EIAJ cables (provided with the Link-version bundles); all units also have at least one switchable-voltage outlet, and the larger units also have a 5V USB-C port for charging things or illuminating your board – an underrated inclusion on modern pedals, and something I’ve come to rely on in a pinch.

As far as instalment is concerned, all Canvas Power series power supplies ship with their own mounting brackets – an L-shaped affair for the 22 and a C-shaped one for the 5/HP. They all have various tapped screw-holes on their underside, for said brackets and a truly robust affixture to your elevated, aluminum-frame board of choice.

In order to make these brackets somewhat universal, Walrus Audio asks that you drill the requisite mounting holes into your pedalboard as a first step to installing your new Canvas Power units. I understand the reasoning, and commend the solidity that such work guarantees – though, on a wider, more philosophical level, it’s a shame there isn’t a quick-release bracketing standard for power supplies. For the purposes of my review, and for the sanctity of my own pedalboards, I opted to use good old cable ties or hook-and-loop instead.

The main vehicle for my Canvas-canvassing was a slew of rehearsals for an upcoming noisygig; this particular band is a riffy, thrashy two-piece in which I split my signal across two pedalboards, routed to a bass amp and guitar amp respectively. Most of the time it’s for juicy parallel distortion and that low-middy heft popularized by hommes Homme-y, but sometimes I’ll kick in an analog octave-down pedal and sub-drop the roof tiles off for fun.

Usually, my soundchecks are a journey into the tangle of cables and power supplies dangling beneath my pair of ‘boards – and usually, there’s some intolerable parasitic noise generated by one pedal and haplessly amplified by another, which I’m forced to style out throughout a given gig. During my rehearsals, though, with two Power 5s and a Power HP all linked to one power adapter, there was an unusual and blissful clarity. Despite the obligatory fussing required by the setting-up of such an idiosyncratic rig, my signal chain felt, for once, simple.

My ‘main’ guitar-amp-borne pedalboard is configured for maximum usefulness when used alone – other projects tending towards the sad-folky, and necessitating their own swampy tones accordingly. Being able to attach and detach my bass-y board according to different gigging needs is an understated blessing, particularly when mains plug sockets are at a premium. To know that, wherever I am, one plug will do it, is an incredible relief.

But what about the mothershippers out there – and the Canvas Power 22? I took this opportunity to return to halcyon days of interminably-complex signal chains, and expanded my noisy-board into a parallel-processing megalith of the type I used to gig with (before I met my match attempting to lug it to a show in another city via public transport, and resolved to minimize my rig accordingly).

My Canvas Power 22 mega-rig didn’t quite reach max output capacity, mostly for practicality’s sake – but the 18 or so pedals I did run were remarkably happy with the power they received, as well as with one another. The handy LEDs that show you which outlets are supplying power are hugely helpful, particularly for tracking and troubleshooting.

I did also stress-test the Canvas Power 22 by using every single one of its outputs at once, and all I can say is nothing struggled to power on; I’d imagine it was quiet as a mouse, if the sound of 22 stacked pedals wasn’t getting in the way!

Verdict

It’s hard to fault Walrus Audio’s Canvas Power range. Each unit is a prodigious provider of pedal-juice; at no point are you likely to encounter a pedal-powering roadblock with any of these, provided you’ve already done your thinking on how best to divide labour between power supply units.

The modular aspect of the Canvas Power series was the main winner for me, as someone who frequently extends and divides their signal chain according to different needs. It’s a bit of an investment, but I think these power supplies will truly go the distance if you let them!

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