Wah Pedals

A wah pedal is a highly expressive and vocal-like guitar effect. Essentially a filter, a wah works as a moveable peak in your guitar signal’s EQ to create an animated crying-like sound. A wah pedal can be used in many different ways. You can engage a wah pedal to accentuate certain musicial passages (like solos), or even leave one in a fixed position to achieve a nasally “cocked” wah sound.

There is no definitive “best wah pedal”, but there are a few big-hitters that are widely used in the guitar community. Jim Dunlop’s Cry Baby wah pedals are considered by many as the industry standard, but Vox wahs are also common and were the first of their kind. Morley wah pedals are popular too; distinctive for their rugged housing and switchless electro-optical design.

A wah should be one of the first pedals in your signal chain. Wah pedals are often placed early in a chain so that they can affect the sound of your signal before they are influenced by your overdrive or distortion pedals. This method will yield the widest and most natural-sounding wah sweep.