WAH PEDALS

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Wah pedals give you access to the same effect that helped launch and keep famous guitarists like Jimi Hendrix and Steve Vai at the top. By accentuating certain frequencies or sweeping the band-pass filter up and down, you can create an otherworldly sound that the crowd will find impossible not to focus on and cheer for once your solo is over…

The spectral glide we call wah-wah has been around for quite some time. Trumpet and trombone players were doing it manually since the 1920’s, and in 1966 the first guitar wah pedal was invented.
These pedals have gone through a lot of revisions in technical terms of how they pull off the effect, but the sound itself remains the same.
Users are even developing new ways of working with these rocking pedals to achieve different enhancements to their tone. It’s boiling down to the cold, hard fact that a wah pedal is no longer negotiable. You need to have one in your arsenal and know how to use it

What is the Wah Effect?

The wah effect sounds like different things based on how it’s used and who’s listening and interpreting it. Most everyone agrees it has a very human vocal quality to it, akin to a baby wailing. This is achieved by using a band-pass filter and sweeping it up and down the frequency spectrum, controlled by the rocker on the pedal.

No More Tears Gold-72 Wah

Kirk Hammett Signature Cry Baby Wah

The band-pass filter is essentially a tight equalizer boost. When it is swept up and down the audible portion of the spectrum, the pitch of the guitar’s tone isn’t changed itself. Specific frequency ranges of the pitch are boosted in volume, and this boost is moved from lower to higher pitches, and vice versa.

Although the sweeping motion is the most popular use for the effect, some players will ‘park’ the pedal in a certain position (often before a solo) in order to accentuate certain frequencies to help them cut through the mix and create more excitement.
The exciting aspect for the guitar player and the listener is that this is one of the few effects that is actively controlled and changed by the player, instead of simply being turned on and forgotten. It’s interactivity has made it a fan favorite.

Hotone Vow Press Combo Wah

Cry Baby Slash Classic Wah

There are two main considerations when looking into a wah wah. The first has to do with the reliability of the potentiometer. Yes, you’ll be stepping all over this thing but all of the working parts are protected from that abuse.

The part in question, the potentiometer (also called a ‘pot’), is what tells the rest of the electronics how far you’ve tilted the pedal. If it’s a mechanical pot, you’ll need to worry about rust, dirt, and grime building up within it.

SONICAKE VolWah

Joe Bonamassa Signature Cry Baby Wah

You’ve probably heard of dirty pots before that crackle and create noise. That’s what we’re talking about, but at the extreme they can fail completely too. It’s often as cheap to get a new pedal as it is to buy new parts and pay for the tech labor to fix it.

The other type of potentiometer is optical, as opposed to mechanical, where the control of the effect is guided by light. Companies will market this as a “no wear or tear” device,which is an exaggeration. They will wear much slower but there are still concerns with dust and dirt getting inside of the light cavity. Regardless of this fudging of the truth, the optical option is often a better choice, in my opinion, if only for needing far less maintenance and increasing reliability.

MORLEY 20/20 Bad Horsie Wah

The other thing to consider is where the range of the effect occurs in relation to the ‘taper’ of the pedal. The taper describes how far you’ve tilted the pedal and the resistance you create in the potentiometer.
The taper is set by the manufacturer, and although some offer the option to change the taper, most won’t. They’re designed with a guitarist and keyboardists normal and average foot travel paths in mind, so none are that far off from one another. It’s just something to keep in mind, and is definitely something you’d become accustomed to regardless.

WHERE TO PLACE IT IN THE SIGNAL CHAIN

Despite a few loud dummies claiming otherwise every chance they get, there is indeed a very specific, natural, and logical sequence your pedals should be in. The signal path looks like this:
Dynamics, Filters, & Pitch Shifters
Boost & Distortion
Modulation
Time

Hotone Volume Expression

Boss FV-50L

Wah is a type of envelope filter like the auto-wah. You’re sweeping an equalization boost up and down the frequency spectrum when you rock the pedal, where as envelop filters do this automatically based an amplitude.

Naturally, you want this done well before your distortion, flangers, and reverb, or you’re going to get some really weird sounds coming out of your amplifier. To get specific, you want to use your noise gate, compressor, equalizer, pitch shifters, and then your wah.

Hotone Wah

Gary Clark Jr. Cry Baby

After that, go wild with your harmonizers, distortion, and phasers. The point is you definitely want your wah to come right after you shape your waveform and define your tone.

UNDERSTANDING THE KNOB SETTINGS

The main component of a wah pedal is the Foot Rocker that you use to sweep the frequency boost around. Usually, you press it all the way down to engage the On-Off Switch and then go to town with it, pressing it all the way down again to cut it off.

Valeton Surge EP-1 Mini Wah

Mark Tremonti Wah

However, it’s better marketing to have some knobs to play with, so many companies have started to add a Boost switch and Volume knob so you can increase the output gain. Not to be outdone, others have included a Mode switch that lets you choose different shapes of the Q-curve of the frequency boost you sweep around.
That’s pretty much it. Before long they’ll add EQ stages and more, but for the time being we’re safe from extra complexity.

Recommended Wah Pedals

Dunlop CBM95 Cry Baby® Mini Wah

Don’t let its small size fool you—the CBM95 Cry Baby Mini Wah doesn’t skimp on tone or usability. It comes equipped with the legendary Fasel inductor, a full sweep range, and three internally adjustable voicings—Low, Vintage, and GCB95.

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Hotone Wah

HOTONE Soul Press II is One Wah Volume Passive Expression Guitar Effects Pedal in the Hotone Press series pedal line. It have four function modes : volume, wah, volume/wah, expression Guitar effects Pedal.The guitar pedal size maintains portability for easying uses. Soul Press II is a truly wah Volume Passive Expression pedal.

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MXR MC404 CAE Dual Inductor Wah Wah

The CAE wah allows you to switch between two distinctly-voiced Fasel inductors with a built-in boost/line Driver circuit, internal Q and gain controls, and bright status LEDs on each side of the pedal.

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Hotone Vow Press Combo Wah

The Hotone Vow Press is a 3-in-1 pedal in a smart compact size. This unit features Wah, Volume, and Vol/Wah modes.

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MORLEY 20/20 Wah Boost

The 2020 Wah Boost is a Wah pedal on Steroids! Morley’s engineers widened the sweep and gave it a more midrange presence and a 20db Boost for when you need to cut through the mix or Ascend into Guitar Greatness.

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Cry Baby Standard Wah

The Cry Baby Wah is the most iconic guitar effect in music history. When it hit the scene in 1966, it added a whole new layer of expression to the electric guitar—players such as Jimi Hendrix and Eric Clapton used the Cry Baby Wah to create some of the most timeless sounds in rock.

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