What's the best wah out there? Share your wah loves and hates!

Aluz82 · 10th February 2012

Just bought a Dunlop Zakk Wylde Crybaby. Freaking love it, but I've just started getting into pedals so I'm learning more and more every day. Started looking at other wah pedals and wondering if I made a good choice. Let me know what you guys use!

JimmyBest · 10th February 2012

I fell in love with the fulltone clyde wah. I managed to get the 1,106th one that they made back in the day. Hand wired and has a nice sweet spot. When you take the cover off it has a potentiometer so you can change the frequency response.

That steve vai wah is sweet. Or even the mark tremonti signature wah too.

T-Stag · 10th February 2012

Check out the BBE Wah. Has a really cool pot that goes from CryBaby to Vox and everything in between. Won the Guitar Player Wah shootout a couple years back. I Love it! Also, the Custom Audio Electronics/MXR Wah is awesome. It has 2 Fasels so you can have 2 different wah shapes, switchable...

Kiwi · 10th February 2012

They all sound different, and work better or worse depending on different combinations of guitars and pedals and amps, and what sound you want.

I actually love the wah collection in Line6 Pods. I had a nice Vox wah, but the pot failed and I couldn't be bothered replacing it. I strongly recommend an optical pedal, which don't use pots and therefore don't wear out. I believe the Line6 uses optical, although the modeling is digital. But i'm using Line6 for live, so it makes sense to use the whole thing.

The Morley range are optical (some or all? can't remember). They have different sounds, and some use inductors (coils) for a more vintage tone.

If you are using distortion boxes, try both before and after. Sometimes I like the strong full sweep of a wah after distortion. But mainly I love wah into a distortion, which gives a more limited but more organic sound.

Kiwi · 10th February 2012

Don't forget the Mooger Fooger filter with an expression pedal ...

texasguitar903 · 10th February 2012

I like the wah sounds in my Line 6 Pod XT Live. The range of the wah can be tailored to suit different styles if you like more resonance or more of the high end. Only problem is you have to push the pedal all the way forward to engage it and this turns your volume all the way up.

I have used a VOX in the past but it didn't have the range I was looking for.
I have a crybaby and it seems to replicate the Jimi Hendrix/SRV wah sound.
The Line 6 is my favorite just because it is optical, it doesn't pick up outside interference like CB radio's, and it doesn't need an extra power supply.

Aluz82 · 10th February 2012

Im guessing that when u say "optical" u mean that it doesn't have that little thing under the pedal that has to eventually get replaced? How about the snarling dogs wah? Anyone know anything about those? Or the ibanez models?

mjtripper · 10th February 2012

I've had a few morley's, 535, clyde and the one that really did it for me was the mxr/cae 404. Great wah with a few different tone options.

Kiwi · 10th February 2012

The 'thing' under the pedal is a switch, and they are pretty strong and easy to replace.

No - a typical wah or volume pedal is based on a 'pot' - which is basically the same potentiometer or variable resistor as an ordinary volume or tone knob.

They have a sliding electrical contact that rotates while rubbing on a carbon or wire resistor. And like any pot that gets abused, they start crackling and wear out.

An optical pedal uses an LED light and an light dependent resistor. Moving the pedal moves an optical shade that varies the amount of light passing from the LED to the photoresistor. No contact - no crackles - nothing to wear out.

Perfect for volume and wah pedals, so my vote is Line6 for digital and Morley for analog.

FireMoon · 10th February 2012

The holy grail of wah pedals is the Coloursound..... the ironic thing being that, they were cheap and nasty and built like 1965 Russian saloon car. Yet for all their , literal, tin pot build quality they were and still asre the total dog's testes when it comes to making things go ..wah...

Now, if you;re lucky you'l find one for peanuts from some old guitarist who doesn't know what they have or in some junk store. Otherwise the now fetch serious moolah.

Look, bottom line, there's boutique wah pedals up your wazoo and yes, beautifully built, last forever.... only they don't do what a Coloursound did... Yes the boutique ones' will take your dog for a walk, remember to order flowers for your partner on Valentine's day, as well as mangling your guitar sound in a myriad of fascinating ways..... They won't however, manage the lead solo on Thin Lizzy's "Don't believe a word"...

joeq · 10th February 2012

I always liked a regular old Vox or a Crybaby. Your meat and potatoes classic wah sound. None of these signature models or fancy mods.

They have a edge to them and certain narrowing or pinching of the sound that to me is what wah is about. I always think of wah as the guitar equivalent of a plunger mute.

Never cared for the Morley - too clean or too polite or something. It also always struck me as 'going too far' in its sweep. Optical is great for volume pedal, but for wah, eh. Not for me.

RFZ DUDE · 10th February 2012

A good old Vox or Dunlop for me, have had everything else.Nothing as boring as RMC in my opinion.All of them.
If you are into more modern sounds check out the various Morley´s, Ibanez´s and such.
A well set-up, slightly modified GCB95 can be the ticket too..

drBill · 10th February 2012

Haven't found a situation where the Roger Mayer wah didn't work great. Not inexpensive though....

http://www.roger-mayer.co.uk/vision_special.htm

ribot · 10th February 2012

Had a Roger Mayer and compared the Fulltone Clyde Deluxe with my RMC Clyde which has the best and most Wah Tone imho....

It is not recommended for High Gain, there a Dunlop is ore aggressive...

I would try (different):
Vox (typish): Clyde RMC and Fulltone old Vox (Clean Hendrix and medium Gain)
Cry Baby: there are quite different ones...for more gain with humbuckers perhaps the new CAE Wah
Although I never liked Morley....some newer ones are ok (more Gain)

Perhaps interesting (I should try those)
Old Colortone
Cheapo Ibaneß

As mentioned my king: RME Clyde Picture Wah with the optimized germanium fuzz friendly implementation.....better range of tones, if you put the wah in front of a germanium fuzz....always use one with buffer or true bypass.....often the tone sucks with cheapo wahs.

I did not like other RMC wahs (never tried the wheel of....)

For higher gain a good sounding Cry Baby....they differ a lot...

Kai

AllAboutTone · 10th February 2012

This should really be in the sub forum, instrument, bass, guitars, amps etc.
Sorry, my 2 cents.

psycho_monkey · 10th February 2012

Anyone ever tried a George Dennis wah? Built like a Morley, sounds like a Crybaby...

I used to have one of the expensive morleys...I really wanted to like it, but never really did - was kind of "on or off".

adeptusmajor · 10th February 2012

Quote:

... from CryBaby to Vox and everything in between

the Crybaby and the Vox wah were the exact same pedal, just a different box, one marketed in USA, one marketed in Europe.

Any perceived differences between the two were simply due to random inconsistencies in the components, like most vintage gear that varies from unit to unit.

muziekschuur · 10th February 2012

Besides the Vox wah tone, the more aggresive ones, there are other designs like the parapedal wich are a combination of a q-tron and wah design.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t9-k70Xtyb0

After these older designs there is now the G-Lab Wowee Wah.
This design combines the parapedal (Think Tommi Iommi sounds), the Vox Wah and the Q-tron sounds. But allso with an additional mechanic option. Foot on is ACTIVE and FOOT OFF is EFFECT OFF. This means faster and more intuitive playing. Because of this mechanic design it cannot be cheap. But it is not really expensive either.

There can be now 4 pedals on your board.
1. volume pedal
2. wowee wah (q-tron-wah)
3. Univibe with expressionpedal (Fulltone dejavibe pedal)
4. a synthesizer with expressionpedal

This besides stompboxes for distortion/overdrive and so on.

trubac · 10th February 2012

Colorsound/solasound

Jim Williams · 15th February 2012

I use 2 here. One is a standard Cry Baby. It was heavily modified into what I wanted. Yellow Fasel inductor, a trim pot for the 33k resonance resistor, super low noise transistors, Wima EQ caps, full bypass, etc. It's more wow wow now.

The second is my "Space Baby". I've built a few over the years, they are a 2 pole sweeping filter with low pass, band pass, high pass and notch switches, including an all pass too. There is also a Q or resonance control, 2 octaves to 1/30th of an octave, it whistles at that setting. It's my talking guitar pedal and those resonanaces can lock onto any note or harmonic and pull it into controlled feedback. The designs are not unlike the 12/db octave Moog filters.

kafka · 17th February 2012

I like my Area51 wah a lot. It's very flexible, but it does have a characteristic smoothness to it that might not be nasty enough for some.

I'm interested in that G-Lab wah. That switching sounds useful.

Screwdio · 17th February 2012

The Wilson wah's are awesome. Tones of models and variety...

Wah Pedals

Aluz82 · 19th February 2012

Never realized there were so many wah pedals out there. So far I'm happy with my zakk Wylde crybaby. No complaints yet

s_andrews89 · 19th February 2012

I must've tried 30odd wahs before settling on (perhaps oddly) the one I'd not tried... Real McCoy Custom (RMC) Wizard Wah. The thing is amazing. Blows the Vox/Crybaby/fulltone/Morley etc. out of the water IMO. I play everything, blues, jazz, rock, metal and it does it all.

Cracking pedal, probably the only one in my pedal collection i'd REALLY fight for if the mrs moaned I had too many!

10th February 2012	#1
Aluz82 Gear interested Joined: Jan 2012 Posts: 14 Thread Starter	What's the best wah out there? Share your wah loves and hates! Just bought a Dunlop Zakk Wylde Crybaby. Freaking love it, but I've just started getting into pedals so I'm learning more and more every day. Started looking at other wah pedals and wondering if I made a good choice. Let me know what you guys use!

10th February 2012	#3
T-Stag Gear nut Joined: Mar 2010 Location: Espoo, Finland Posts: 122	Check out the BBE Wah. Has a really cool pot that goes from CryBaby to Vox and everything in between. Won the Guitar Player Wah shootout a couple years back. I Love it! Also, the Custom Audio Electronics/MXR Wah is awesome. It has 2 Fasels so you can have 2 different wah shapes, switchable... __________________ "If you're lost, play chromatics!" -John Scofield

10th February 2012	#8
mjtripper Gear maniac Joined: Nov 2010 Posts: 237	I've had a few morley's, 535, clyde and the one that really did it for me was the mxr/cae 404. Great wah with a few different tone options. __________________ My tunes on SoundCloud My videos on Youtube

10th February 2012	#10
FireMoon Lives for gear Joined: Sep 2005 Location: Coventry Posts: 1,373 1 Review written	The holy grail of wah pedals is the Coloursound..... the ironic thing being that, they were cheap and nasty and built like 1965 Russian saloon car. Yet for all their , literal, tin pot build quality they were and still asre the total dog's testes when it comes to making things go ..wah... Now, if you;re lucky you'l find one for peanuts from some old guitarist who doesn't know what they have or in some junk store. Otherwise the now fetch serious moolah. Look, bottom line, there's boutique wah pedals up your wazoo and yes, beautifully built, last forever.... only they don't do what a Coloursound did... Yes the boutique ones' will take your dog for a walk, remember to order flowers for your partner on Valentine's day, as well as mangling your guitar sound in a myriad of fascinating ways..... They won't however, manage the lead solo on Thin Lizzy's "Don't believe a word"... __________________ http://www.myspace.com/tubilahdog

10th February 2012	#11
joeq Lives for gear Joined: Jun 2002 Location: New York Posts: 9,918	I always liked a regular old Vox or a Crybaby. Your meat and potatoes classic wah sound. None of these signature models or fancy mods. They have a edge to them and certain narrowing or pinching of the sound that to me is what wah is about. I always think of wah as the guitar equivalent of a plunger mute. Never cared for the Morley - too clean or too polite or something. It also always struck me as 'going too far' in its sweep. Optical is great for volume pedal, but for wah, eh. Not for me. __________________ . “What you ask about is music. What you like is sound. Now music and sound are akin, but they are not the same.” — Confucius

10th February 2012	#2
JimmyBest Gear interested Joined: May 2011 Posts: 8	I fell in love with the fulltone clyde wah. I managed to get the 1,106th one that they made back in the day. Hand wired and has a nice sweet spot. When you take the cover off it has a potentiometer so you can change the frequency response. That steve vai wah is sweet. Or even the mark tremonti signature wah too.

10th February 2012	#4
Kiwi Lives for gear Joined: Feb 2009 Posts: 3,203	They all sound different, and work better or worse depending on different combinations of guitars and pedals and amps, and what sound you want. I actually love the wah collection in Line6 Pods. I had a nice Vox wah, but the pot failed and I couldn't be bothered replacing it. I strongly recommend an optical pedal, which don't use pots and therefore don't wear out. I believe the Line6 uses optical, although the modeling is digital. But i'm using Line6 for live, so it makes sense to use the whole thing. The Morley range are optical (some or all? can't remember). They have different sounds, and some use inductors (coils) for a more vintage tone. If you are using distortion boxes, try both before and after. Sometimes I like the strong full sweep of a wah after distortion. But mainly I love wah into a distortion, which gives a more limited but more organic sound.

10th February 2012	#12
RFZ DUDE Gear maniac Joined: Jun 2011 Location: Planet Earth Posts: 174 1 Review written	A good old Vox or Dunlop for me, have had everything else.Nothing as boring as RMC in my opinion.All of them. If you are into more modern sounds check out the various Morley´s, Ibanez´s and such. A well set-up, slightly modified GCB95 can be the ticket too..

10th February 2012	#13
drBill Gear Guru Joined: Jul 2006 Location: So Cal Posts: 11,509	Haven't found a situation where the Roger Mayer wah didn't work great. Not inexpensive though.... http://www.roger-mayer.co.uk/vision_special.htm __________________ Mindseye http://www.mindseyeprod.com IMDB Composer - Orchestrator Scoring & Mix Engineer - Music Editor

10th February 2012	#14
ribot Gear interested Joined: Jul 2009 Posts: 9	Had a Roger Mayer and compared the Fulltone Clyde Deluxe with my RMC Clyde which has the best and most Wah Tone imho.... It is not recommended for High Gain, there a Dunlop is ore aggressive... I would try (different): Vox (typish): Clyde RMC and Fulltone old Vox (Clean Hendrix and medium Gain) Cry Baby: there are quite different ones...for more gain with humbuckers perhaps the new CAE Wah Although I never liked Morley....some newer ones are ok (more Gain) Perhaps interesting (I should try those) Old Colortone Cheapo Ibaneß As mentioned my king: RME Clyde Picture Wah with the optimized germanium fuzz friendly implementation.....better range of tones, if you put the wah in front of a germanium fuzz....always use one with buffer or true bypass.....often the tone sucks with cheapo wahs. I did not like other RMC wahs (never tried the wheel of....) For higher gain a good sounding Cry Baby....they differ a lot... Kai

10th February 2012	#15
AllAboutTone Gear Guru Joined: Nov 2005 Location: S.Carolina Posts: 11,479	This should really be in the sub forum, instrument, bass, guitars, amps etc. Sorry, my 2 cents. __________________ *Don't Fuk with my Tone !!!. I need a spell check app Harrison~ API~ Dan Alexander~ Fuchs~ John Hardy~ JLM~ Urei/UA Fuchs Amps = Amazing Tone !!**

10th February 2012	#16
psycho_monkey Gear Guru Joined: Jun 2006 Location: London Posts: 14,291	Anyone ever tried a George Dennis wah? Built like a Morley, sounds like a Crybaby... I used to have one of the expensive morleys...I really wanted to like it, but never really did - was kind of "on or off".

10th February 2012	#18
muziekschuur Lives for gear Joined: Nov 2004 Location: Stavenisse Posts: 1,484 2 Reviews written	Besides the Vox wah tone, the more aggresive ones, there are other designs like the parapedal wich are a combination of a q-tron and wah design. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t9-k70Xtyb0 After these older designs there is now the G-Lab Wowee Wah. This design combines the parapedal (Think Tommi Iommi sounds), the Vox Wah and the Q-tron sounds. But allso with an additional mechanic option. Foot on is ACTIVE and FOOT OFF is EFFECT OFF. This means faster and more intuitive playing. Because of this mechanic design it cannot be cheap. But it is not really expensive either. There can be now 4 pedals on your board. 1. volume pedal 2. wowee wah (q-tron-wah) 3. Univibe with expressionpedal (Fulltone dejavibe pedal) 4. a synthesizer with expressionpedal This besides stompboxes for distortion/overdrive and so on. __________________ I use BAGEND SPEAKERS. you should hear em too. http://www.myspace.com/a-muze#!/556701704

10th February 2012	#19
trubac Gear addict Joined: Feb 2007 Location: Paris Belleville, France Posts: 309	Colorsound/solasound

15th February 2012	#20
Jim Williams Voiding warranties Joined: Feb 2004 Location: beautiful Carlsbad, CA Posts: 10,070	I use 2 here. One is a standard Cry Baby. It was heavily modified into what I wanted. Yellow Fasel inductor, a trim pot for the 33k resonance resistor, super low noise transistors, Wima EQ caps, full bypass, etc. It's more wow wow now. The second is my "Space Baby". I've built a few over the years, they are a 2 pole sweeping filter with low pass, band pass, high pass and notch switches, including an all pass too. There is also a Q or resonance control, 2 octaves to 1/30th of an octave, it whistles at that setting. It's my talking guitar pedal and those resonanaces can lock onto any note or harmonic and pull it into controlled feedback. The designs are not unlike the 12/db octave Moog filters.

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17th February 2012	#21
kafka Lives for gear Joined: Apr 2007 Location: Maryland Posts: 4,267	I like my Area51 wah a lot. It's very flexible, but it does have a characteristic smoothness to it that might not be nasty enough for some. I'm interested in that G-Lab wah. That switching sounds useful. __________________ - It looks just like a Telefunken U47 - with leather. You'll love it ... - Jazz is not dead - it just smells funny. - It doesn't make much difference how the paint is put on as long as something has been said. Technique is just a means of arriving at a statement.

17th February 2012	#22
Screwdio Gear maniac Joined: Dec 2006 Location: Providence, RI Posts: 278	The Wilson wah's are awesome. Tones of models and variety... Wah Pedals

19th February 2012	#23
Aluz82 Gear interested Joined: Jan 2012 Posts: 14 Thread Starter	Never realized there were so many wah pedals out there. So far I'm happy with my zakk Wylde crybaby. No complaints yet

19th February 2012	#24
s_andrews89 Gear interested Joined: Aug 2010 Posts: 13	I must've tried 30odd wahs before settling on (perhaps oddly) the one I'd not tried... Real McCoy Custom (RMC) Wizard Wah. The thing is amazing. Blows the Vox/Crybaby/fulltone/Morley etc. out of the water IMO. I play everything, blues, jazz, rock, metal and it does it all. Cracking pedal, probably the only one in my pedal collection i'd REALLY fight for if the mrs moaned I had too many!