The Vox V847A Wah Pedal Review

I love the Wah pedal. It might be one of my favorite effects of all time, and while it can be overused it's one of those effects everyone should have in their arsenal. I've played several different versions including various Dunlop Crybaby's, and the Morley Bad Horsie, but what I'm using right now is the Vox V847A. Right from the top the V847A has a classic look. I like the Chrome top and black base. If you don't know how to use a wah there are a lot of tutorials on YouTube. This one from Papastache is great.



There are a lot of very versatile wah's on the market. The Dunlop Dimebag Wah is probably the most verasatile of all of them. In fact I've read somewhere that when making an artist signature wah this what Dunlop sends out to start with. Then the artist tweaks their settings and sends it back and they make a prototype, and make changes from that. As much as I like flexibility, I'm pretty much a set it and forget it kind of guy when it comes to wah pedals. I mean, it only has to do the one thing, WAH! I like that Morley's are switchless, but that's not a deal breaker for me, and for me the crybabies that I've played have a brighter sound. If your playing bright clean sounds this might work better for you but I only use the wah when I'm playing with a distorted sound. My only two requirements for a wah is that one, I like having a power input so I don't have to worry about keeping batteries in it. And two, it has to sound good. For me the Vox wah has the best sound out of a straight up wah. Compared to other wahs it has a slightly darker sound, and is a bit throatier. To my ears it's more vocal sounding.

Vox V847A Wah Pedal

I tend to use the wah in two ways. One for solos, like Hendrix Voodoo Child, or Alice In Chains Man in the Box. The other way is to put it in a fixed position, either half cocked for a "tubey" type sound or all the way forward, or in the toe down positions for a cool low fi type sound. The last one sound really cool when the rest of the band drops out for a bar or two and then comes back in all at once.

Some people have complained about the buffer in the wah but I haven't found it to be a problem. If you try it and find an issue with it there seems to be two schools of thought. One is to add in a true bypass switch and disable the buffer, you can find instructions for these modifications by using Google. The other is to use a better quality buffer in front of it. This seems like the simplest solution but once again I haven't had this problem. It plays nice with my fuzz pedals and sounds killer to my ears. I'm always open to trying new gear and I'd like to try some of the new boutique wah's out on the market. But if your looking for a straight up, great sounding, and classic looking wah, this should be your first stop.

This review was completely unsolicited, I received no compensation for it and all views and opinions are my own.