Wah pedal blues...

What type guitar & amp are you using & what style of music are you playing ?
Are you trying to emulate any certain player or sound ?

 

If you liked the 535, try the Fulltone Clyde Deluxe.

I A/B'd one against my 535 (thanks Graham! ), and although I did prefer the Dunlop, it was close, and if I'd been more into more vintagey semi-overdriven tones I might have picked the Fulltone. They're in the same ballpark, but the 535 works better with high-gain tones IMO. (I'm not concerned about 'true' bypass.)

 

if you like the crybaby, why not get one modded for true bypass and an led? I got one from doobtone off of e-bay that I like a lot.

 

The Budda Bud Wah is another truebypass wah you might want to consider.

 

Crybaby Classic - true bypass and IMHO good tone. It's relatively cheap too. I think I payed $90.

 

get a vox, a V847 or 848, and then send it to George Blekas at pedalworx. Top notch service, and he turned my backup wah into a *killer* pedal - very vocal and vowelly.

And as good as it sounds by itself, it sound better with a band.


/brian

 

get an original crybaby, send it to keeley, and voila! true bypass

 

Yup, that's what I have too. Paid $89 for it at zzounds. Sounds fantastic, has the Fasel inductor, 100k Hot Potz and true bypass.

What more can you want?

 

I really dig the Area 51, esp. w/ the new options (Growl and Q controls, etc.). Like a goodItalian wah w/ true bypass, quiet, etc. Good guys too!

http://www.area51tubeaudiodesigns.com/area51_wah.htm

 

Pretty much any wah can sound decent through a clean setting (IMHO), but in terms of an overdriven wah sound, I though that my Vox clyde pedal (V848) sounded as good if not better than the teese wizard wah I used to have (with both single coils and HBs). And true bypass to boot. Fraction of the cost of the fulltones (though I am sure those are good pedals as well).

 

I had an RMC3 and got tired of flipping it over and removing the cover to tune it. I found it almost impossible to dial in a wah sound that way, mostly because it's on the floor and the controls are on the bottom. You've got to play and work the wah to tell what's going on. By the time I set my guitar down and went to all the trouble to make a change, I couldn't appreciate the slight differences in the tone. Basically I felt like it's versatility was working against me rather than for me. I wanted a simpler wah. At that point I heard Buddy Miller with Emmylou Harris use a Clyde. It sounded sick, so I got one. It was the sound I was looking for from the first time I turned it on. I've had it for over 5 years and I'm still totally satisfied with it. I'm sure the Deluxe is nice, but coming off a RMC3, considering the extra $s, and not wanting to mess with a good thing..... I think I'll just keep my regular Clyde.

 

I built my wah pedal using Fulltone pot and inductor and it sounds fantastic.

I "tuned" it to sound as close to the old ones as possible, and added two (external) controls.
One is a 4-pos gain switch and the other is a pot that controls the midrange.
This way i can adjust it for singles and humbuckers, plus different gain levels for clean or dirty...

what i mean is that you can get an average wah,
mod the s**t out of it and live happily ever after...

Plus, there are lots of different parts out there to choose-experiment.


On the other hand, if you don't want it this way,
try the Fulltone Clyde deluxe which is also quite tweakable...

 

wilson wahs are some of the best

 

MXR CAE 404. It’s basically a hotrodded Crybaby and I think it’s true bypass (I have a Ge treble booster after the wah and it works well without any problems).
It has LEDs and you can switch between the 2 different cases modes with your foot, which is something I really like.

 

I'm sure OP found a usable wah in the 14 years that have passed.

 

I’ve had several Crybaby wah pedals, but never really liked them, and they were all unreliable (maybe that’s changed in recent years). I found the Fulltone Clyde Deluxe weak sounding. I now have a standard Wilson vintage spec wah, and it sounds great.