Boss PW-10 V-Wah

As a Wah, it is wicked easy. Dial in a wah type, dial in a range, dial in some distortion if you want, step on it and wah.

It get's a little arduous when experimenting with the distortion sounds, or creating a custom wah. It is not hard per se, just very illogical. The manual has some type-o's, but explains the custom processes fairly well.

This Wah is the best I've ever heard. There are several types to chose from, I'm favoring the Crybaby model or the Morley. The ability to adjust the wah range is awesome. Not noisy at all, unless you start playing with the distortions...

I'm running mine into a JCM900 Marshall dual master volume half stack. I'm using the head's gain (full preamp, half gain), and using the V-Wah's distortions (Marshall Govner model) for a solo/gain boost. Previously, I used the DS-1 in the same manner. The distortion from the V-Wah is wicked killer (read: really nice), but also really noisy. Sounds like there is a fan in my cab. There is a built in noise gate for the distortions, but it doesn't kill the hiss when also running with the amp's gain. I'll be adding a gate soon (read good reviews on the NS-2), but it is bearable in the meantime, and I still have the DS-1 to fall back on. But as a wah alone, this rocks.

There are 2 modes to use the memory switch (the heel switch), one will give you the 3 stored choices, the other will give you just one (kinda like a A-B). I use the latter, and don't use any gain for the manual mode, and the distortion boost for the memory. This way you can use the heel switch as a seperate distortion pedal. Pretty clever.

Feels very solid, and you can tighten the pedal if the rocker becomes too loose, or you can adjust it if it is too tight new. The picture is a little deceiving...the is alot bigger than I pictured it would be, and it is all metal (looks a little plastic in the pict, but it's not).

Never dealt with them. I've had Boss gear since I was a kid, and they've never failed.

I'm into all styles. The most reliable, solid, flexable, wah I've ever owned, and will ever own. As a wah, it simply cannot be beaten. I would consider all of the other features as cool extras. They are very musical and workable, and sure as hell can't be found in other wah's in this price range (if at all), so this is definitely a bargan for anyone looking for the Ultimate Wah!! And with the infared sensors, you never have to replace anything, or even clean it for that matter. I would definitely buy this again. Definitely get the power adaptor. It takes like 6 AA batteries, so I would NOT want those to die on me in a gig, so better safe than sorry. The only thing I wish it had was a better noise gate. Not everyone is going to use the distortion as a gain boost as I am, so it might not affect YOUR tone ;-)

Once you figure out the procedure for setting presets it's not that complicated. Especially for what it's capable of. I can't stand that it won't bypass without any drive even when the pedal is off, but you can work around that.

Sometimes the sound is a little bright but overall it's pretty tight and responsive. It seems to fit most applications well.

Haven't had any problems in 2 years.

Never had to.

Good pedal. Worth the money. For God's sake though, buy the external power supply. Running this thing on AA's is expensive, especially when you factor in the time it takes to learn how to use this thing and the time you'll spend just fooling around with the endless toys it has. I only gave this a 7 because i have to keep the drive almost off to keep my signal how i want it.

Superb! Tried it out @ PMT in Birmingham, helpful guys, breif instructions on the bottom of the unit. The demo model had a broken power input, typicaly! So we opened a new one, ten minutes and a hugh dose of wah-ing later, I was walking to my lockup with one in my bag. (and a PSU, never use batteries!!)
A quick, "same time as using it" look through the instructions, and I was well away.
Admittedly, I was a little phased when 5 minutes into using my first patch It changed....I discovered the heel switch (I couldn't have got that far into the manual)
This pedal is genius, pure and simple!

Setup:
Fender Strat > Ernie Ball Volume > DOD FX Delay > Mesa V-Twin Pre-Amp > TU2 > Yamaha DG100 212 Combo.
This is now sitting at the front of my chain...I used to use a MT-2, which I still do on occasion and coincidentaly this is pretty much the same setting I used to use, but I can imagine it being fairly annoying not having the range of EQ available on the pedal itself...but please bear in mind this is a wah pedal with extras...not a distortion pedal. With this in mind the OD-2 is impressive, and has now forced me to leave my Mesa V-Twin on Clean!
The Morley is superb, I broke my bad horsie a while back, which I'd been usign for about 2 years. My replacement (a Vox job) was traded in with a friend of mine for the Mesa, so I'd been wha-less for a while. The vox patch on this pedal is not bad, not fantastic, but a worthy inclusion.
The Crybaby is fantastic, I like this one a lot.
The advanced is very useful in buildups a synth style....wicked.
Have not bothered to use the custom yet, everything I need is here!

Ah, a worthwile mention is also the Mig Muff Pi distortion...smack on!

I use the pedal with the heel set to switch between current settings and memory 1......saves swithing between thee effects to get the one you want.
(Memory)OD2 Distortion, Morley Wah.
(Settings) No Drive, Crybaby (Just for the times the mesa needs to be used!)
Every wah I could ever need!

The Univibe is great, controlable speed...I haven't used it yet.
Talker - Useless.

I'd gig with this without a backup because I can't afford one, and I haven't broken a boss pedal yet.
Besides, I think my leg would break before this beast!

The guy at PMT works for roland UK, so I can always pop by for any queries, also he registered my 3 year warranty while I was in store. but to be fair I don't think I'll ever need to use it.

This is a great pedal for every style imaginable. I play rock/pop. Not many solo's and things, but it's a great help with dynamics and phrasing...really adds character to any small lead breaks or for enhancing rhythmic stabs.
Been playing about 8 years or so, and have tried and owned a fair few wah's. This is a world beater compared to anything I've ever had (except maybe my coloursound....damn theifs....Hey, maybe that could be a next addition!!!)
If it was stolen by some light fingered git, I'd throw my pedal board at him, cut off his eyelids and pour salt over his head.
Then buy another one, because I'm sure as hell he wouldn't let go of it even then!
If you need a wah, try one now. Superb.
http://www.overplay.co.uk/jinja
(Cheap plugs all the way!!)

The only reason I won't give this a ten is because of the steps involved with programming, otherwise, it's a wah. I you used a Cry Baby then you can use this. The manual is essential in order to change distortions or store patches to one of the four memory slots.

I'm the very first review on this thread and needless to say I still have the V-Wah (which for me is saying a lot as I am constantly trading gear). I've had a couple of different Cry Babies, a Morley, the Tech 21 wah, the Akai wah pedal over the years and guess what? I don't have any of them anymore. The only wah pedal I own right now is the V-Wah (I've had it since 2002 when it first came out). The uni-vibe and the custom wah settings are by far my favorites and most used features of this unit. Occasionally I'll use the talker and some distortion (although I normally use an OD-20 for my distortions since it's easier to control). Right now I have the V-Wah in front of a OD-20 into a DD-20 into a Loop Station. All that leads to a Bose Cylindrical Radiator Persoanl PA and I'm playing a Takamine LTD-98 acoustic-electric. (By the way, I recently got the BCB-60 pedal board and everything is powered by one source and all the cables are neat and tidy and it's easy to pack and go). The V-Wah is not noisy at all, ever... It sounds great clean or distorted. My only complaint is that it is somewhat difficult to get it to change patches or to turn off IF you are sitting down while playing. That fact that I still own it is a testement to how great a pedal the V-Wah is.

Depend on a Boss product? Definitely. NEVER had a problem with their gear.

Well, I've never needed to contact them, so, in my opinion, that's the best customer support you could hope for, isn't it?

How could you not give the V-Wah a ten? Try it out, be patient, and don't let the programming steps freak you out. I'd most defintely get another if something should happen to mine. Wahs in my arsenal have come and gone, but not the V-Wah, and I've been playing for over 25 years. That's my story and I'm sticking to it. Peace

When used as a wah, this pedal is incredibly easy to get a fantastic sound out of. Choose your wah type, press down on the toe and there you go, easy as that. As for the other features though, well, that could be complicated for some. First things first, you have got to read the manual to get the most out of this pedal. It will show you how to create your presets, set the noise gate, set your distortion choices (if desired) and how to alter the functionality of the heel switch. For me this was a breeze, others could find it difficult though so I'll give this an 8.

I've used this pedal in several situations so far, though I use it most for jamming and recording into a Boss BR864. The sound is fantastic, particularly the Morley model, and there is no obvious noise when distortion is not used. However, the distortion settings change things dramatically. When using these settings you will always have a trickle of reverb sounds when using the wah. You can use the noise gate to fix this, but at high gain the gate will eat your signal something fierce. Personally I don't find the slight reverb sounds to be a problem, and keep the gate at about 2 o'clock. As for the distortion settings themselves, they are all quite good. My personal favorite is the Marshal, which growls like the best of them.

Once again, when using the wah features alone, this pedal is 100% dependable. I use it as a wah, with various wah types to choose from. Use of the distortion and patches is a little more awkward as stated in other posts previous, though as I don't use them I don't care. For my needs, this gets a 10. As for build quality, this pedal is built like every other Boss unit I've owned and will last no problem. Solid.

Never dealt with them, never needed to.

I play a lot of heavy rock, metal and my own blend of blues/jazz, and this pedal helps me get both classic and modern wah tones. Truth be told it is more feature ridden than I need, but what it does give me is the flexibility I wanted in a wah. I've owned two wahs in the past, the first being an old Boss unit and the second a Crybaby 535. I would take this over either of them anyday, and would buy it again without hesitation. Good job Boss!

I have not yet tried the pedal a lot, since I just got it. I bought it used on ebay, but it didn't bring a manual. After days of looking for one on the internet, I came up with this site (a great guy that posted his boss v-wah review gave it to me). It has EVERYTHING you need to know about the wah, including the whole MANUAL!!!

http://myguitarpage.narod.ru/wah.htm

it's in russia and it's kinda slow, but the files work and are virus free...

ENJOY!

Using it as just a wah is easy - set the wah type (Cry Baby/Vox/Morley etc) and use as normal. It's a pain to try to change the drive type - you have to mess around inserting the jack whilst pressing certain buttons.

Some of the wah sounds are ok. Side by side with a stock Cry Baby the CB emulation lacked the top end spike that makes 'Shaft'-style funk playing sound so good, Sounded a bit better with more distorted sound though. BIG problem though is that the drive knob is always active in the circuit even when the pedal is off, so you have to set it to zero. Also, if you have one of the presets selected, if it has drive as part of it's preset, you'll be able to hear it even with the pedal in the off position. This renders it pretty useless as far as I'm concerned. Univibe doesn't sound that nice.

Boss stuff is usually reliable.

Never tried them

Some ok sounds but the problems with the drive sounds are plain stupid. I sold mine in the end and bought a Fulltone Clyde Deluxe - sounds absolutely superb and well worth the extra cost. Boss seem to be bringing out new pedals and just cramming extra effects in to make them appear versatile - sound quality seems to suffer greatly though.

It's interface is stupid. Read the other reviews.

I like its sounds. Mostly.

So. I think this modeling pedal idea is a really nice one! However I'm disappointed by the way it was done.

This unit could have 8 fully programmable distortions, at least 10 presets, with the ability to render distortions to the presets individually. A true and instant bypass. I hope the Boss guys will check our reviews and develop a successor for the PW-10 soon. I suggest a larger housing, like the Digitech Whammy has for example. So there can be more knobs and switches to make the users life easier.

Also, I allways wondered why isn't there a wah pedal that is weight sensitive? If you step on it, the wah activates. If you step off, the wah turns off. This could be a much better solution than the traditional toe switch.

Well, I can imagine this pedal to be able to receive and send MIDI stuff.

Yeah, I would also include a pitch shifter a panner and a volume pedal option in the second version. Making it stereo of course.

This could be a very versatile unit both in the studio and live. Right now it is not versatile because of the stupid interface.
I'm going to sell it and buy a decent multieffect.
I'm pretty sure, that for its price it could be a better unit.

Read on.

I use a Ibanez fitted with DiMarzio pickups -> Mesa Boogie Studio Preamp -> Amp

Is it noisy?

I am a bit wary about posting this review as most people seem to be very pleased with this unit and its sound but I have posted my experiences in case someone else has similar problems.

I have owned 2 V-Wah pedals. The first V-Wah was so noisy that I was convinced (by reading previous reviewers) it must be something that I was doing. After 5 days, I decided to take it back to the shop to compare it with another. They were very co-operative and, after comparison with their demo model, they concluded that the pedal did have an unacceptable level of hiss, was therefore pretty much unusable and replaced it with their demo model.

I have been using this second V-WAH for 4 weeks now. The Wah effects are very good BUT I have been infuriated with it for the following reasons:

Problems
1. It produces a lot of hiss (It is not my set-up or cables etc). The hiss can be countered by the noise suppressor. See problem 2.
2. The built-in noise suppressor works but you can hear it struggling to suppress the played notes and it kills the sustain.
3. The subsequent treble boost when the pedal is fully forward is way too high leading to shrill sounding, artificial and thoroughly dreadful tones.
4. The 2-3 second heel switch bypass method is totally useless for playing live and annoying for home/studio use.
5. The distortion effects have only one adjustable setting ?Drive?, so your mileage will vary ? some might work for you but they all sounded bad on my setup as they could not be EQ?d.
6. The Wah effect is insufficient when you play high notes above the 12th fret.
7. THE BIG ONE ? It produces a strange Breathing Hiss as if the gain is increased as a played note decays. This hiss slowly fades away over a period of 20 seconds. If you turn the guitar volume all the way off whilst it is happening the breathing hiss is still there rendering the unit unusable! You can use the noise suppressor but it doesn?t work fully and refer to problem 2. The breathing hiss is still present even if you use the toe switch to turn the Wah effect OFF.

Solutions (your result my vary as this applies to my experience)
Problem 1 ? seems to be related to the built in distortion. Even if you turn your selected distortion OFF using the ?Drive? knob, it sounds like the distortion circuit (software?) is still part of the chain. It is actually less noisy if the ?Drive? knob is turned ON slightly (with some of the distortions) so the distortion effect has just activated.

Problem 2 ? You can turn the noise suppressor OFF when you change the distortion type. You will have hiss for a while but again read on.

Problems 3 ? By customising your own Wah effect you can turn down the ?PRESENCE? which attenuates the high frequencies. Problem 3 might be to do with hot pickups (I use DiMarzio Air Norton, HS-2, ToneZone) regardless, the ?presence? adjustment solves this one. In my case this is set to almost fully anticlockwise.

Problem 5 ? Turn them OFF (see below). BOSS should have left these out as it adds a level of complexity to the unit that could have been better allocated to further Wah refinements. Without the ability to fine tune the distortions they will be pretty useless to most people. As I?ve said before you may get lucky, other reviewers have.

Problem 6 ? By customising your own Wah effect you can alter the ?Q? which alters the width/height of the tone boost. By reducing the width and increasing the height (I think it increases the height) the Wah effect now works well with high fretted notes. Problem solved.

THE BIG ONE (7) ? I tried altering the Heel Switch operation but the Breathing Hiss was still there. This Breathing Hiss is very trial & error to eradicate. Sometimes it works others not but when it does work it seems permanent (so far). Begin by following the change distortion procedure. Turn the noise suppressor OFF. Turn the driv

The first one had to go back.
It's built like a tank though.

Never dealt with them.

I'd like to know if other people have had similar problems to mine so please post with your problems/solutions.

When I got it finally working it was good.

It is pretty easy to get a good sound of the PW 10. It models some other wah's so it's not exactly the same, but it is still a good wah pedal. Plus you can create your own custom wah sound. Editing the 3 memory patches are not difficult to edit after you read the manual. Also, if you go through and read the manual, it is easy to set up. Boss probably could have used some better wording to explain some things but it's not that hard to understand. If you want to change different distortion types onstage, then get some other pedals. Changing distortion types will take time and get aggrevating. Some people have stated that to bypass it, it takes too long to use on stage. Not necessarily true. It does take like 2 seconds to bypass but if you read the manual, it tells you how the change what the heel switch changes. The heel switch comes by defalut, to change to what's ing memory. I changed my heel switch to switch the distortion on and off. Doesn't take 2 seconds, no pause, just need to read the manual. It's there.

the sound quality on this is very good. I play a Carvin DC 127 with hot pups, and a Epi LP with emg's, through a carvin sx 200 H and Peavey transtube head with a Legion Sound cab. Sometimes I will run the wah before the digitech rp 400 when I decide to use the amp modeler. The unit is really not that noisy, but for some reason, If I use the ac adapter, I get noise like crazy so I'm not terribly fond of having to use batteries. The distortions sound good, no tweatking distortion sounds on the pedal but that's what my amp eq is for. If I use a distortion on my distortion channel, it gets noisy but most amps with gain, and high gain boost will do that due to all the gain. The wah effects sound good. No need to buy another wah pedal after this one. The noise supressor is pretty good to.

It seems to be a pretty reliable pedal. I've had it a couple of years and not had any problems yet. I had to do a factory reset on it once but other than that I had no problem with it. I would use it on a gig without a backup but like everything, it will eventually go out or mess up but I trust it as much as I do any of my other equipment.

N/A Never had to use their customer support. I guess that's a good thing.

I play mostly hard rock and Metal (mostly 80's or ealry 90's sounding). The PW 10 works great for what I play. If it were lost or stolen I would buy another one. The only other wah I have is one on my RP 300, while I love the RP 300 sound, the wah is terrible compared to this one. I love all the features on it. The distortions and different wah sounds. I do hate that to change distortions between more than 3 or more than 2 clean, you have to turn the thing off and turn it on again while holding a button, that's kind of annoying. For the money you pay for it, it is a superb value.