The Wah Could Be Better...
Вставка
- Опубліковано 30 чер 2024
- The wah pedal as we know it today was created in 1966, but it's not perfect, and I think it could be better.
Today we take a look at the history of the way pedal and how Morely improved on the original design.
Timestamps
0:00 Intro
0:36 Wah History
1:54 The Mechanism
2:20 Pros & Cons
4:55 How It Could Be Better
6:20 The Cons
7:00 Demo
8:35 Conclusion
Social Media
/ kdhguitartv
/ kdhguitartv
/ kdhguitartv
Subscribe to support the channel :)
Like the video or my cat will get hair in your Wah too… 🐈
It will have to fight for a spot amongst the dog hair
KDH, your misspelt 'wah' in you description! You wrote 'way' instead!
Your power is useless against me since I don't have a WAH.
@@kainagami Are you SURE you're a guitarist?
@@DMSProduktions I'm not a guitarist, I'm a bedroom guitarist 😜
Hey man, just wanted to take the opportunity since there’s not many comments here yet to say that you’re by far one of the best youtubers in the guitar community. You bring a lot of quality opinions to the table that really put a lot of overrated things in the music world back into a more realistic and logical view, and I applaud the fact that you aren’t afraid of what it takes to get your opinion out there, no matter who it might piss off. Keep up the good work, and while I may not agree with everything you say, I respect the work you do and wish the best man
I agree. Using your reach to help out people dealing with sketchy vendors AND a wah-wah documentary, show me someone else doing that. Thanks.
Same
Agreed!
agreed. He's one of the authentic players and guitar enthusiasts. - a good guy.
Same, but opposite. I can’t stand this channel
The expression pedal/wah was one of the biggest selling points of me getting a Helix floor. Its an optical sensor, but the sweep is customizable in the Helix software.
Love Morley Wah pedals happy to be an endorser. I feel they got the Wah right especially with the new 20/20 line as they’re smaller and pedal board friendly with huge variety in the line up. Good video KDH!
i'm fine with my wah/volume combo but there's a huge folly to it
wish they would do a cliff burton wah re issue
@@BigFatCaulk I believe they still do a signature Cliff wah.
I Cant stand small wahs
Endorser? Who u?
My dad left me a Cry Baby from Thomas International, made in Chicago. Thing's an absolute legend! I have a decent stock of proper vintage stuff from him.
worth mentioning for anyone living near dublin - Moose electronics does the LED mod and it's not mad expensive. He's done a couple for me and it's a real help playing live
KDH writes a 70s porno theme song
One of the best and most informative guitar channels there is. Go right into the nitty gritty of why things are they way they are rather than being overtaken by the myticism of "tone".
I've had most of the well known wah pedals and sold them all. Then I bought an Ibanez Weeping Demon. I have had it for over 10 years and its the only wah worth playing. Try one and you will never go back to another wah pedal.
I got the weeping demon as a first wah and tried many other wah pedals before getting this one and I agree best one I've played
Completely opposite opinion on Weeping Demon here... I had over 40 wahs of all kinds and WD7 is the worst sounding wah ever, in my opinion. But all options it has, mechanical and electronic are brilliant.
Same here, tried almost all of em. Weeping Demon is the best.
@@Tomislav_B. It takes a while to figure out the best settings for all the switches and knobs. I didn't like it at first, but once I dialed it in, its unbeatable.
@@RacerX888 Then we will have to agree to disagree. I was really persistent with it and tried everything. Even at the end went so far to adjust internal trim pots. I really wanted to make it work because mechanically it's brilliant wah and I'm a wah addict, had over 40 wahs and currently own 11 of them. I mod them also. But I'm glad you liked it, there's also a lot of other positive comments here on Weeping Demon... witch surprises me lol 😄 but OK 👍
I like how the Kemper Stage handles it with an expression pedal: it's got the same form factor as a traditional Vox or Dunlop wah, including the switch in the toe, but you have the options to use a footswitch (either one of the Kemper's effect switches or an external one) to turn it on or off, or to make it touch-sensitive and turn on whenever your foot's on it. There's also an LED to show whether the wah is on or off and where it is in the signal chain.
However, it's one and a half grand's worth of gear, so it had better do the job better than anything else!
Cute cat, too!
I keep my wah (a crybaby type) in a sealed plastic bag when not actively using it. This discipline keeps my wah sounding fresh with no scratchiness to the pot yet since I bought it in 2012.
Excellent video mate. I have a Morley wah on my small pedal board purely because someone gave to me years ago and I just continued to use what gear I had rather than buy more. I always thought it sounded different from other wahs and was never able to understand why. You've done a really great job here of explaining the mechanics of that. Keep up the great work.
In 1979, as a novice guitarist, I bought a used Morley Power Wah. I got it home and found that the AC power plug had two 'parallel' pins as opposed to the angled pins we have here in Australia. I thought "no problem" as I bent the pins to suit our angled power outlet slots. Plugged it in and within mere seconds clouds of rancid smoke filled the room. My new wah was toast! Doh! Rookie error.
I have Dunlop's Cantrell wah. It has a knob that allows you to control the width of the sweep from the top end. Pretty nice feature.
The thing I always think of when it comes to the wah is the Eric Bell solo in The Rocker by Thin Lizzy, killer pedal for a killer solo.
One of the best wah solos for sure
I'm the guy who bought the Rocktron Black Cat Moan. It's great, I'm surprised it isn't more popular.
Kdh probably has the most soothing voice among guitar youtubers
Weeping Demon FTW.
I bought mine many years ago from McCormick's in Glasgow.
I had them line up all their Wahs for me to try as I was definitely walking out of the shop with one of them.
The WD-7 slayed them.
I still use it and it works perfectly to this day.
It sits at the side of my pedalboard now as it's just too big to go on it. It is built like a tank.
Fantastic Wah. Can't see me using any other now.
Great video, by the way.
Weeping Demon is the best.
Waaaahhhhht a nice video. Nicely done dude ;3
I love Morley...I have a Morley Mark Tremonti wah that has the built in boost and it’s the best wah out there for rock or metal in my opinion. I wanted the Dunlop Jerry Cantrell wah for a long time before I decided on the Morley.
The Tremonti Wah kills
I'm just gonna put it out there: Wahs with Nylon rack and pinion sound better that those with ABS.
They're smoother too. The piece of metal that Morley has the light shining through on to the optical sensor has a weird shape. It's like a square with a tail on it so the response is nearly on/off. I've heard of people bending or cutting that piece to a triangle to make Morley's smoother.
@@creamwobbly 🤣 it was too early in the morning and the car references went right over my head.
You can have abs and a rack and pinion.. lol. Working on cars had ruined 80% of all car jokes
Oh dear. This was meant to be a throw away joke comment. ABS = Acrylonitrile butadiene styrene = A type of plastic. A rack and pinion is a gear mechanism where a toothed wheel (pinion) engages with teeth on a straight component (rack). I don't even know for sure if Nylon or ABS are actually used for the operating mechanisms of Wah pedals...
Great video! I’ve owned a Dunlop 535Q wah for about a decade, and I don’t use it nearly as much as I used to because of the problems you mentioned. The pot gets dirty within a few days of cleaning - makes me wonder why the unit doesn’t have a dust cover. It’s fantastic when working properly, but the sound of a wah with a dirty pot is like nails on a chalkboard for me.
I’ve been planning on getting one of the new 20/20 Morley wahs for a while. It’s very difficult to find quality demos that include clean tones! I’m glad that your demo included this. I’ll have to do a bit more research before deciding which wah in the Morley line would work best for me.
Get a can of "Deoxit". I've been killing scratchy pots for 20 years with it. I use it preventive on every guitar, pedal and amp I have owned and I haven't had to deal with that issue since I started. Wah pedals take a couple uses sometimes to clean up (depending on how grimy it is). 👍🏾
I know you filmed the beginning to get this comment so here ya go!
Sick converse bro!
Also, love your vids.
Great video as always.
I have the Weeping Demon made by Ibanez. It takes away the annoying toe push, it has a spring and it changes modes when the wah pedal is moved/used and disengage right qaway when you stop moving it. You can tweak the time it takes for it to turn on. It also has eq, vol and some other knobs. It's great. We have some riffs that has part of it with wah and part without, so this is the only pedal I have found, that can do it
Great video man.
Look out for a video I will be doing over the next two weeks, detailing something that Luke baker is putting together to my spec, what we intend to call the 'Fox-Modded CryBaby' - everything you mention is addressed, in an elegant non-destructive mod solution.
Vox and Morely have long been my Alpha & Omega - but most people opt for the trusty Dunlop, hence why we are using that as our base model.
Love the channel, love what you do. Stay in it, Sonic Brother, & all my love and regards to your wonderful Emerald isle, home of many cool memories for me.
I've been usin a Gigawah my pal sent me from the states. Sounds great and it's well enclosed around those delicate moving parts. Their also space saving which is good because they will fit on a board as opposed to having it seperate next to the board.
Cool video I liked the history lesson. I’ve had to Dunlop original and KH. I’m starting to dig the more vintage ones now.
Then there is the ZVEX Wah Probe. The third and even more out there category of Wah...... Yeah I use a Parapedal Wah. Its not perfect but I have to love that sound. Not a Wah fan at the best of Times, but when I do that one is the one for me. It divebombs off the heel and there is 2 pots to give 2 frequency peaks.
I agree with you analysis. Also you can adjust the light sensor on the bottom of the Morley in order to make the input ark more gradual.
I have a Dimebag Darrell signature Dunlop crybaby and I love, it has a built in boost and adjustable EQ sweep so you can dial in the sound you like based on your tone/setup, its a great pedal.
Same here. Got my weeks after it was released to the public. So I've had probably 15 yrs. But didn't use it much at first. Still looks pretty for a 15 yr old pedal. I love all the adjustments it has. Between my Dime wah, bias knob Tube driver and Mooer liquid phase can really get a spooky hard rock sound.
i personally recommend the dunlop bass wah, its very different from the classic but its auto-engaging & the range of frequencies is actually shocking
Agree. I've used the crybaby BassEQ
For almost a decade now. Guitar, bass, even mandolin sounds great through it
I used a Morley for a long time. It was a older one that plugged into the wall and it was huge and heavy but I really liked the sound.
New to your channel, great videos 🤟🇮🇪
Morley are also easy to mod. All you need is a flathead and electrical tape haha. I always thought amt had an awesome mini wah that allowed to switch the frequency. Thanks again for the awesome video and keep up the amazing work.
Clicking on & off with sustained hi gain double note bends around the 17th fret sound cool.
I had a dunlop crybaby with an LED, was a chrome one with a boost as well. Had two leds at the top, one to indicate if the wah was engaged, the other for the boost.
Boss made a Haas-sensor wah in the 80s. Would love to see that concept revived! Come on Lehle!
I love that you are wearing a metallica shirt while making a video about wah
I love my rmc 10. Joe Walsh and Santana both use it. And their made in my home town. :)
Takeaway from the video.......KDH has perfected the pronunciation of Wah like Owen Wilson.
Cool idea for a video.
I use an amt wah and that's my favorite pedal ever.
You get 3 different sweep profiles and it's optical so no scratchiness. Also it has an led on the side.
All of this while taking only as much space as a regular pedal!
Great video! I have always preferred the vox... and the Dunlop even moreso.. they are all great though
I bought a Morley in 1993.. Its still working!
My Friedman is a good compromise of form and function. Three-way switch underneath the pedal (to tweak intensity), internal switch for whether you want the output buffer on or off... and it sounds good.
I love the Fulltone Clyde Deluxe, but it's just too much stuff LOL!
I have the Fulltone. It is the end all be all wah pedal.
@@friedrudibega6384
It's a great pedal, don't get me wrong. I used to have one. It can just lead to option paralysis for some people and the Friedman is more simple, yet effective.
I have Fulltone Clyde Standard (amongst other wah pedals) and it's probably the closest to the best possible wah out there.
I'm actually quite happy that the random WAH pedal I got is an optical one. This one even lets you adjust the LED brightness if you open it up.
Wah pedals are great because there are so many variations - each has its uses and applications. I love my Morley but I also love my Boss V-Wah and Digitech Expression Factory too. That Vox in the vid sounds really good too. eBay time...
special shout to the AMT Electronics wah... smaller than a boss pedal, tough as nails, optical, purple... and made in Siberia!
in Mother Russia, wah stomps you.
I do have a Morley and it IS a good pedal.
I NOW have a Musician Sound Design Silver Machine Wah and it is AMAZING
1 wah i hear NOBODY ever mention is the Ibanez Weeping Demon. This thing has auto in it, you can even adjust the time the effect will shut off after you take your foot off, and 2 wah voices channels as well. Has the classic wah pedal function as well but the on/off isn't at the tip of the pedal but rather off to the right of it, where it also stores the battery which is nice. You can even adjust the high and low sweeps and the 3 knobs to do this can be pushed into the pedal to be set level with the pedal to where you don't hit them and mess with the settings by accident. This thing rips but it is more on the effect/crazy side rather than your traditional sweeter classic vox wah
I love my Morley Bad Horsey II Wah’s function. Wish I could get it to sound like a Vox.
I loved my Morley Bad Horsie 2 wah, until it died. It lasted a long time though, was switchless and sound amazeballs in the contour mode!!! I think I need a new one...
try replacing the bulb
I had a spring pedal wha that activated when I moved it. The problem was that the pedal would snap back on release and catch my pant leg under it. Then as I moved my leg away it pulled the hole unit and cables out with it. This and the fact it sounded a bit dry was the reason I went back to the standard design.
the Ibanez Weeping Demon is a great pedal, and has some pretty interesting features
The coolest wah I've ever seen is the weeping demon by Ibanez, but I just can't find it anywhere to buy here in Brazil
I'll never forget realizing that my "broken" Morley Fuzz Wah was in fact just housing a burnt bulb inside. Cheapest and easiest fix i've ever done!
I have the old Steve Vai Morley wah 1. I fucking love it because it's spring oa9ded and no pot. I am going to buy the one with the boost next because every way I've used sucks volume and tone when soloing, and so for using the wah which is mostly as a solo I want the added db. 🤘♥️🤘
Great videos. I dig your channel.
Regards from the heartland. Indiana USA.
Tim.. 🤘♥️🤘
Been a huge fan of the Morley Bad Horsey, switchless since the first time i heard it..
I keep meaning to get some switch cleaner and airduster to clear out my scratchy old Crybaby, but somehow I just never get round to it. That pedal has been sat on the shelf for the last seven or eight years- I realised pretty quickly that they're a complete liability on stage when you're trying to juggle singing, playing, and pedals. It's easier to just use the expression pedal on my effects unit, which doesn't sound as good, but it's a compromise I was more than willing to make.
I heard (but don't know its true) that on some of the solos in ride the lightning Kirks Wah pedal was on and stuck in a position in which it did not interfere too much with the overall sound, but it was on.
Any position a wah is stuck in would put a huge bump in the tone somewhere, not sure that's true.
I’ve tried so many wah pedals in my time. Low end, high end you name it. Funilly enough it’s the Mooer Wahter that has stayed on the pedalboard the longest. 3 years (I think I got it 2019) and still counting. After I got it I realized the automatic activation was the key for me. I don’t really care about the pedal sound when I’m playing live, it just has to be easy to use. I hated the way the other wahs are activated, even the ones that have a dedicated on switch like a Morley. I have no idea why other companies haven’t figured out how to do the same, it’s so obvious.
Yeah, I’m with you on that. Out of the three ways that I’ve owned, I stuck with the crybaby switchless for the switchless feature. Sound-wise it was the weakest one.
Agreement here.. good video
A few years back I got a mid 70's Cry Baby on eBay and did a few mods: stack of halos inductor, ICAR 100k taper pot w/ dust cover, true bypass switch, gold Switchcraft jacks, and swapped out several resistors (vintage NOS). What I got was something quite amazing and nothing on the current market even comes close. There's a few DIY mod vids out there on YT but yeah, don't buy new. Get a vintage crybaby and mod it; you will not be disappointed.
I have just swapped my Dunlop Cry Baby 535Q wah for a Mooer The Wahter. It has an auto-wah setting that engages when in use. It is a super small form factor too. I prefer it loads. It feels much more modern and effortless to engage/disengage. You had to kick the 535Q through the floor to get it to disengage haha.
Very cool shoes.
Nice
Saw your cons! You need better converse get their MIJ ones I'm serious they're amazing bro ;3
I used to hate my standard Dunlop Crybaby because I'd either fail to engage it or leave it engaged! That was solved by getting a 95Q, which is awesome. I just need to step on it and it engages the up position which is perfect. I love it.
The Behringer wah pedal is a serious dark horse, spring loaded, automatically kicks in the effect once you move the expression pedal, LED indicator even though it can't be accidentally left on, a knob on the side to switch between wah types, 2 smaller fine tune knobs to change the eq curve, a boost option, i think brand new they're like 40 quid or something, i got mine for 20euro in a 2nd hand store n it's am awesome pedal, i had no idea how good it actually was until you highlighted the drawbacks to a regular wah pedal design in this video, cheers!
I had one, it wasn't true bypass and would leave a constant cocked wah sound when off. Promptly returned.
@@KelticKabukiGirl clearly a faulty unit so, I've had 0 issues with mine 🤷🏼♂️
@@KelticKabukiGirl Yeah that makes no sense. Also, true bypass doesn't really matter.
@@matturner6890 it does if you can still hear the effect in your signal ding dong. And do you know about buffers?
@@matturner6890 I got an Ibanez Weeping Demon guitar/Bass wah, best fucking wah on Earth. Just huge..... and also buffered bypass, but doesn't bleed into my clean signal. I am a working musician. I need shit that works
The Morley design was heading in the right direction. Sadly they aren’t aggressive enough for my ear. My Bad Horsie wah would have a delay when disengaging the circuit. So even if you weren’t stepping on it, it would remain “wahed” for almost 2 seconds
4:43 thats exactly why i love the Morley designs over all other wahs. Even though they're huge thats fine with me. And it sounds like pure 70s pornography. Also any wah that has a fuzz (not just morely) is amazing to me. I know people think of them as one trick ponies, but many can that pony do that one trick well
If you can, try the WD7 from Ibanez Tonelok series (a 'carvable' wah that works for guitar and bass. They got rid of most of the problems, and you can carve it to your taste.
ps on another note, I've played guitar with an electro-dance band , and used to wah to make slow sweeps with the guitar...
I currently use a 50 year old Morley volume pedal, one other advantage to the optical mechanism.
Love the metallica shirt while taking about the wah😂
I know a guy who gigged with with morley wahs, he had several over a 14 year period, and they are just as scratchy as any other wah would be.
The scratchy pot issue bothering you? Get some contact cleaner (not compressed air) and you'll be all fixed up. It would be best to get say DEoxit with the lubricant made specifically for faders because it is a part that needs to retain lubrication in the pot.
I actually use and love the Behringer Hellbabe. It's basically designed to be a copy of the crybaby from hell but it uses the ir like morley pedals. It turns on and off automatically, which I really appreciate and it turns off in the heel position.
Yeah I i use this too and it's a great pedal.
LOVE MY MORLEY MAVERICK MINI!
Got a Jam wackho Wah … it’s pretty awesome
You should try the gig fx Mega Wah and the Sonuus Wahoo for something different.
Gotta love the Kirk references. Comedy gold time and time again!
Today I learned I say "wah" like a Frenchman (like pourquois) rather than a Irishman. Thanks to Madame Tremblay and theprovince of Quebec.
Love my old Morley - you're right though, it is built like a tank 😊
I like the sound of my bad horsie wah but I hate that it can't be set in position and left there. It has a return spring that resets the pedal to zero when not in use. Could probably be eliminated if I really wanted to.
Whoa whoa. Thomas Oregon? THEE Thomas Oregon from Andy's rock opera from the office?
There is a reason Ibanez made the Weeping Demon. Also, bass switch and the most customizable wah EVER!
Wah is one effect I've never got into, can't say my favourite players ( Graham Coxon, Johnny Ramone), have ever really used them.
I really really wish the wah pedal had an option or setting where you could set it to push back against your foot. Like it wants to return to its up position. If you take your foot off of it it would return to up position. And a lock mechanism to leave it in the cocked wah spot
I could be wrong but the Dunlop rack wah is basically exactly that. Dial in the wah sound on the rack unit and then send like 4 controllers out to the stage and all of them are spring loaded to trigger the rack
@@JurekkJames never heard of it! Thank you for putting me on to that
I am still looking for a wah-pedal style enclosure that functions purely like a lowpass filter from a synthesizer. All the way silent at the heel and all the way open at the toe. I'm sure this is easy to build but I have no electrician skills.
The weeping demon from ibanez is a fantastic wah.
I have one in a box somewhere...I've been looking like crazy for it....smh...
I've had a Morley wah and a Dunlop Crybaby wah. I prefered the sound of crybaby, but the morley was easier to use live (Just lift your foot.) Few years back I used wahs live, but I just got tired messing with them. I was the lead singer and had some solos, so I had to do solos at a certain spot or run after the solo for my vocal parts.
I had the vox 845 and sold it and bought wh-10v2 by ibanez. I love it but i miss the 845 it gas different sound for different styles of music. So you need at least 2 wahs....
I modified my wah by removig the rubber feet between the baseplate and the footplate, making it easier to turn on, and put a spring around the footswitch to push the pedal to the heel depressed position after turning on. 2 things i couldn't stand about the wah pedal.
i agree with everything that comes out of this mans mouth
I bought a morley 2020 power wah boost for £75 brand new for my bass rig. And despite sounding amazing there’s a massive problem
It’s falling apart. By this I mean screws stopping the bottom protecting the insides just come off sometimes and even when screwed back in they still just come off and also the screw thing on the input bit comes off whenever I unplug the cable. I’m ok with dealing with these things but I was expecting better
I love my bad horsie, it just works
I owned a Cy Baby and a Vox 847a. I liked the Vox better. But now a days I dont use a wah, I use a Mu-Tron.
I had an old Morley and I wasn't too happy with it....then I got a standard Vox wah, which is okay but I now I use a crybaby 535Q with the 6 position tone control and a boost button....
Morley: But what if you wanted to have Thanksgiving dinner on your wah pedal?