Ibanez Weeping Demon wah

[grab]

This isn't exactly an objective review, but never mind.

Ordering some strings, I spotted that StringsDirect had a B-stock Weeping Demon going cheap. I'd been thinking about getting a decent wah for a bit, so this seemed like a good time to do it. I'd actually been thinking about the classic Jim Dunlop (which our band's other guitarist has), but reviews online suggested that the WD was good.

The parcel duly turned up, I messed about a bit for a couple of evenings, and then had a first band practise with it on Wednesday.

Verdict? Oh boy, is this a keeper! I'm quite a fan of the sound where you leave the pedal partly open, so mild tube OD dialled in on my FX, little bit of wah, and it's just instant gorgeous tone. A slightly "meh" sound is now just lovely. It's possible to go for some big Hendrix wah-ness or Shaft wakawakawaka if you want - not really my thing, but the sounds are in there. Myself, I prefer using it for a more subtle emphasis of notes, and for that it's a total killer. Tone-wise, I much prefer it to the Jim Dunlop, and of course it wipes the floor with the wah on my multi-FX or the other guitarist's PodXT. (Wah is something that multi-FX just don't seem to get right, for some reason.)

Physically, it's built like a tank. I could beat the rest of the band to death with it, wipe off the splatter, and carry on like nothing's happened. (If it wasn't firmly attached to my pedalboard now, that is!) If it has a downside, it's that it's twice the size of the Jim Dunlop. Partly this comes from it having a separate on/off footswitch switch, which I like, but partly I think that's just the look they wanted. That wider base makes it nice and stable though, which is generally a good thing.

Friction on the pedal pivot is adjustable with a very obvious flathead screw on the pedal. Unusually, the pedal also has a return spring on it, so that (like a piano pedal) it'll return to the closed position. Again there's an obvious adjuster screw for spring tension. The return spring can be disabled with a lever on the side. Since I often use a static part-open setting, this is the first thing I turned off, but some people might like it. For me, it looks a bit of a gimmick.

The control knobs sit on one side of the pedal, above the footswitch. They're nifty retractable jobs, so you can click them to push them out, turn them to where you want, and then click them back in again to stop them getting kicked. Nice idea. You get to control the Q as usual. Another control sets whether the low-end is attentuated as much as the high-end, which is a nice idea. For me, it means I can make the wah a bit less in-yer-face, so it's adding expression without totally taking over the sound. The final control knob lets you tweak the level with the wah on (it doesn't affect the level with the wah off), so that you can balance the perceived levels with and without wah.

A slide switch selects between "normal" or "low" ranges for guitar-ish or bass-ish frequencies, as well as a range fine-tune knob under the pedal itself (clearly not intended for regular adjusment!) for further tweaking of that. Being slightly odd, I found I enjoyed it best in the "low" setting with the fine-tuner set all the way up, but YMMV, of course.

And a final hidden control under the pedal sets "auto-off delay". If you set this fully to the left, it'll turn the wah off when you return the pedal to the "up" position. Fully right, it won't. Somewhere in between, it'll wait for a little while before it does it. Personally I'd rather make that decision myself (and hey, there's a footswitch for doing it yourself anyway!) so this is turned off and staying off on mine.

When powering this and my multi-FX off the same power brick, I did get some nasty hissy noise. Putting them on separate supplies solved that. I suspect this is likely down to the normal earth-loop kind of problems, so it's not really the wah's fault.

Anyway, if you're shopping for a wah, this beastie is well worth considering.

[CS70]

This is a bit old, but just to confirm - I've tried quite a few wahs and since I got my demon a couple years back, it's a fixture on my pedalboard. Great versatility, great response, execellent sound, built like a tank. Only issue, its... footprint is bigger than other wahs, so it takes more real estate on the board. But worth it.

[KeithAC1]

Awesome pedal IMO, I have to use a 9 volt battery instead of my power pack to avoid noise/interference though. The fact that I don't have to click it on and off is great, and the adjustable range and Q controls are a winner.