Boss PW-10 V-Wah

A little more complicated than your typical wah. Tons of knobs to tweak plus a bunch of presets... and it's a pedal that can easily sound bad. HOWEVER, if you spend some time with it, it can (and does) sound great.

I do have to admit that I had ignored the drive knob, and one day it got turned SLIGHTLY. Suddenly, I had slight distortion through the pedal- both on and off. Because I had never used that feature, I didn't recognize the problem and ended up collecting on the Guitar Center warranty. Before the check arrived, I was able to figure out that the drive knob was the problem... but it is an example of TOO MANY KNOBS. :-)

The advanced settings are not very user-friendly. Most involve powering down the unit, holding buttons while restarting it, and moving into convoluted modes that are not indicated on the pedal itself. The end result is that one requires the manual to even access these settings.

Basic use gets an 8 in ease, advanced use gets a 4 for being user-unfriendly.

I got this a few years ago- I had just had the pot go bad on my second Crybaby and was at Guitar Center trying to figure out a replacement. Something about the new Crybaby model (my two were both pretty old) just didn't have *that* sound- maybe they were revoiced at some point? I had already gone down the Morley route (my first wah was a Morley- great for solos, but not for that funky wah tone), already dismissed Vox as too subtle... and I was stuck.

The ever-helpful (when it comes to upselling an expensive pedal) salesman came out and suggested I try the PW-10. I had seen the pedal online and in magazines but had always dismissed it as a gimmick. Seriously- a programmable wah? Why on earth would you need that? Nonetheless, I still sat down with it and tried to dial in a classic Crybaby tone.

My mind was blown. I was able to dial in the Crybaby tone and so much more! The optical circuitry promised that I would never again have to deal with a dirty pot. That was enough for me, and I bought it on the spot.

For a long time, this was enough for me- a great Crybaby tone with silent sweeping. A few months ago, I actually sat down and explored the rest of the options.

The Morley sound is close, but not exact. The sweep is similar, but I wasn't able to get an exact match. The Vox setting was more upfront than I remembered, but is too similar to the Crybaby setting to be useful. The Univibe setting is cool, but I don't have anything to compare it to. The Voice setting is interesting, but I can't imagine a way I could use it. Advanced wah just seems to run the whole range of frequencies, but it didn't seem to be very musical. It might appeal to some, but it's not for me. I didn't spend a lot of time with the Bass Wah or the Custom settings.

The drive settings are interesting. To manually change the drive setting, one needs to access the hidden "drive select" mode (which involves resetting the unit while holding specific buttons). Instead, most users would modify the factory presets, as I did. I found a functional fuzz tone (supposedly modeled after a Big Muff fuzz), but that's all I've been able to salvage. I might dig a little deeper, but you really need the manual to help you get to it.

10 for the Crybaby tone, and no opinion on the other "candy".

Never had an issue, aside from my ignorance of that darn drive knob.

No opinion.

Perfect wah for the purpose I bought it for- a Crybaby simulator. The other settings are really pretty good, especially for an all-in-one unit.

I must say, though, it's a bit of a Catch 22. If you're not sensitive enough to care about the subtle differences between wah models, you probably won't need all the candy offered here (unless you care about the optical pot like I do). If you care about the subtle differences and want this many wahs, you'll probably be more apt to buy the real deal.

Theoretically I could use it as a multi-distortion pedal, but Boss drives have never really appealed to me. I'll use the fuzz since I don't own one (until my real Big Muff gets repaired), but that's probably it. The univibe setting is useful, but I don't know that it's an effect I need.

All in all, I'll still give it a 10 for being the perfect Crybaby wah for me. Everything else is gravy.

First of all guy just below me smoked a stinky one before writing I think! This pedal has 3 (THREE!!!) presets and one mode outside of memory which gives you 4 (FOUR) different sounds. (Pass it here man!) Anyways, it's easy enough to learn the functions but kind of a hassle to shift to the preset you want in the middle of a song, say for a solo. Other than that, it really is state of the art.

Sounds good with either single coils or humbuckers. I have way too many to list. And tried many different types and they all are good to go! Switching nice and quiet. Too bad the univibe's more like a Roland ap-5 or 7 phaser. And too bad the switching is at the tow end of the throw so you have to 'speed up' before you switch off, but at least this isn't the case when you use it in memory mode since the swiching is at the heel and you really can't notice the slowing that much. (One over on the Rotovibe!)
Not as lush as the original Univibe or even the Dunlop UV-1. I've read the revues for the Dunlop Rotovibe and it sounds like those are also more true to the univibe rotating speaker sound.
I have all the wahs this is supposed to model and must admit it's very close, but no cigar. The Morley doesn't 'nasal out' on the lower notes when playing cords like the PW-10. And the Vox mode is actually like a noisey version of the cry-baby. The 'voice' is useless. It actually will cut out at certain frequencies and I guess is really an anomoly they found in the R&D department and decided to keep it in the mix. But really isn't wierd enough and actually too wierd for any actual use! (Hhhmmm....make sense?)
But here's the kicker....I quit using a wah all the time back in the 80's because I got tired of the nasal sound with bar cords. Morely was best to avoid this, but I feel those really seem to steal the chunk factor from the rythm section and really prefer the vox/cry-baby sound. But this PW-10 has a dirty little secret!!! It has a mode called 'bass mix'. WOW man......there it IS!!! Woooo hooooo....The wah sound is there and very similar the the cry-baby sound, but when you hit bar cords the sound DOES NOT GO NASAL! Wow again. Good goin' Roland!
The other thing I want to relay to interested tweekers is that the sweep is adjustable and has to be the coolest feature. Although sweep still isn't enough to truly replicate the Morley sound as you Morley guys may very well know. Those old chrome stompers were just as much like treble boosters as much as wahs. But it's still nice to be able to limit the sweep just in case a beer bites my butt in the middle of a solo!!!
The other cool thing is you can customize your own wah sound (limited to what this wah can provide) and store it in the memory. (Just don't forget what color led it is!!!)
The distortion (?) boost sounds aren't really great, but then again not really bad and actually are nice to use in the memory as a touch of boost to an identical wah preset for a solo. (Just don't forget the color of the led! Should have had 4 or at least 3 different leds)
I give this a 10 just for the bass mix wah I like so much and all the other options would be different. The univibe I would have to rate at maybe 7 out of ten. The 'voice' mode maybe a 2+.

No problems yet. The only plastic I know of is the battery box contained inside the aluminum body and the battery door on the bottom. And the actuator arm that's also inside. (almost) So I'm not sure what the earlier comments were about this being a plastic piece of junk.

They've never contributed to my campain. Not the best support I guess! Oh wait....I think they may mean as far as repairs. You think? Never needed it and don't know.

This is becomming one of my regular wah buddies! I don't really have any regular guitars, amps or effects I use all the time. It keeps me interested by moving around alot to different sounds as I just mostly record and just plain 'ol jam anymore. You wouldn't believe it if I told you all the gear I own. This is a great wah!!!!!!!

Modeling Wah-Wah pedal, Cry Baby, Vox, Morley, Roto, ... with added Distortion modeling of the popular BOSS pedals available if desired. A couple of added special effects that are interesting but have limited use (voice wah?). OPTICAL OPERATION, no pysical linkage to break/wear out. Features an EFFECTIVE range control of Wah EQ. 2 programable settings + bypass = 3 onstage sound options. Easy to program if you have a manual and can READ... I'm kind of amazed at the number of hairless monkeys out there willing to admit THEY can't handle it and STUPID enough to TELL THE WORLD about their problem. This is NOT a lazy mans wah-wah, not "Guitar GOD in a box" if you want to sound GREAT you will need to work at it a little bit. It is a "Professional Players Best Friend." It's very quiet, very precise, and very dependable. It offers an extremely wide range of options, which is handy in the studio. AND it provides several hands free sound alternatives on stage.

I have a lot of different guitars and amps... The pedal works well with all of them. I think the modeled wah sounds are pretty faithfull to the originals (only quieter). I'm particularly in love with the ROTO simulation and the way SPEED can be varied with the pedal. I also appreciate the ability to set the Sweep Range EQ right where I want it, I can avoid those low end deadspots typical of most Wah-Wahs. I'm not real impressed with the distortion models and have found little use for them thus far, but I don't normally rely on OD pedals anyway.

No Problems. Seems to be well constructed and TOUGH.

No experience. Roland/Boss has a very good Rep.

I think it's probably the best pedal available at this time for the player who wants variety. Recent Chinese Cry-Baby production has been very disappointing and the high priced "Signature" Wah-Wahs seem to be more HYPE and MARKETING in a pretty box, than Quality and Tone on stage. LAZY Wantabees should avoid this pedal and buy a chinese cheapy that will give them an excuse to visit the music store once a week for return/repair. Dedicated players will find it to be an asset that SAVES time and trouble in the long run and provides more options than they can use.

Well it is not as hard as people say to use, read the instructions. It does take some time to set up if you do not like the defaults, but it is not nearly as bad as people make it out to be.

Unplug the power, hold a button down, plug in change settings hold down button...you are done. Does it take time? yes Is it that hard? No.

One thing I love about this wah is that it has a light to indicate if it is on or off (as well as the distortion effects).

Now granted I stated it is not that hard to set, I do believe it could have been done better (eliminate the issue of disconnecting the power). With that in mind I reduced the score.

I tested this unit with a small 30W fender amp, a Peavey Bandit 112S (awsome gig amp), and a Marshal Valvestate 100 with a 4X12 cab. I also used a stratocaster, a les paul, a Charvel, and a Peavey wolfgang.

I will say that I am amazed, the Crybaby setting sounds very good. I tested it with my original crybaby and it was very...very close. I was very impressed.

I then tested it with the vintage way (yes I have one of thoes too) and it did pretty darn good (but not as good as with the crybaby.

The Morley sounded nice but I do not own on to properly compare it to.

The univibe sounds very nice...I was impressed.

The distortions are usable but not great, I would recomend only using them in moderation.

I did not notice any major tone loss, in fact it was much less than my classic wah pedals.

It seems to be build well. Yes I know it is plastic but lets be honest plastic is much stronger than it used to be. This unit seems very sturdy.

I will gig with it, and not bring a backup...if it breaks I will go without for the gig.

N/A

I play and record almost every style of music.
I have been playing and recording for over 16 years.
If it were stolen I would replace it.
I love that you can store 3 presets and have a manual one giving more stage flexibility.

I wish the unit would have the ability to store more settings, and that you could have all of the distortions available without having to unplug the power and change it every time...but it is a wha peday not a multi processor.

It will be a great help on stage.

You will hear alot of things about this pedal. The first is that it is impossible to use, not enough buttons, etc. But what it must be judged on is the ease of use of the wah component. IN this respect, its moderately easy to use; plug it in, select dunlop, morley, or vox, and you are pretty much there. Easy as pie. Tweaking any further requires a few tries. Finding the distortion and setting usable presets requires can seem to require an electrical engineering degree. But is all that what you bought a wah pedal for?

As a modeling wah pedal on the dunlop , morley and vox settings, its killer. I run it on the front end of a pedal board- just before a DS-1 pedal, a tuner, a daddy-o distortion pedal, an Ibanez ts-9 and an EQ pedal, right into a 1965 Magnatone vintage all tube 65 watt M15a.

With the range at about noon, and the crybaby setting on, with the onboard distortion off, it sounds- acts, and behaves like a really well built wah pedal. In fact, I think boss really got it right. Any "digitized sound" issues are counterbalanced by the fact that it can be noisy like a real wah, or quiet like a Noise reductioned wah, it makes your harmonics sing. Don't believe the hype. It is not a tone stealer.

Its built with some sort of aluminum, rubber and plastic. I believe its just about as tough as it could be. Let me tell you a story about reliability. I have owned a dunlop crybaby that only lasted a few years before the bottom fell off; I bough another one, and abused that a few years, and it got a hiatus when I got a vox valvetronix built in wah set up. I found the dunlop, did not work after all these years.

When I went to buy a new wah, I bought a used Morley pro series from a well known used music reseller. Got it home- never worked. LOts of metal- no working pedal. I went back in and tried a dunlop. It worked but the switch was broken and it had to be turned on manually- useless. also a "snarling dog" super bawl" whine-o wah was in the case. Hearing good things I asked to try it- guess what- broken! So I tried a new ing demon. It was a cool pedal with a lot of neat things- but ultimately I settled on the used boss.

not yet; but I would probably give it away befoire I tried to fix it.

OK- so I was with this sales guy who said he was a blues player, a reformed death metal blues player. He said, try the weeping demon. I did, but it wasn't sounding like a real wah- it was better for metal licks and sweep picking and not really for bluesy soloing. He said the boos was too digital. That may be so- it may not be as analog and tone satisfying as a top of the line dedicated vox, crybaby, morley or fulltone/boutique wah- but for what it is, it is killer. DOn't be fooled. Use it right and its a pro tool. And unless you are doing soundtracks for seventies blue movies, who really uses a wah pedal more that 2% anyway?

Pretty hard to use and setup, though it can be quite versatile and all-in-one pedal. I used the 4 patch banks in the following order: booster, clean, vintage overdrive, turbo overdrive. This allowed me to use the effect at the gigs only with moderate pain:) while switching between the effects.

I would say it sounds good for the money. Wah works pretty well - I'm using Cry Baby setting most of the time. With the clean sound and only wah on it can be very good for recording. As to drive effects - it can be OK for a gig if you do not have or do not want to bring the whole rig and you find the right algorithm:) to switch when playing, but I never recorded with it - either used amp internal drives or other pedals, like RAT, DOD etc.

I' ve had it for 4 years already and played dozens of gigs with it and had no problems so far. 6 AA batteries last pretty long.

never needed to deal with them

I would say it is a nice wah pedal which can be used as a backup drive effect as well.

Presets are average. The presets are on par with (in my opinion) just about every other stompbox/effect in it's price range.

Changing a patch could be more simple if, as some other reviewers noted, there were maybe one or two more knobs. To change a preset, it only involves 1 button, and if you cant plug in the power adapter more than once, I don't think you should be using this pedal without proper adult supervision.

I bought mine used, and as such, it did not come with a manual. My dad however, bought one later, and although still used, had the box and power adapter etc. For my own use, I downloaded the manual from Roland's website, and found it relatively good. It was certainly better than most other pedals I have used that aren't made in a country where English is the native language.

In short, it could be a little more simple to use, but it could also be far, far worse. If you can't figure out this pedal, I think it's time for you to step up from playing Iron Man, Smoke on the Water, and Stairway to Heaven (If you catch my meaning).

Currently I am using this with a Fender Mexican Standard with Texas Specials in it and I put the PW-10 before a Peavey Classic 30 or Transtube EFX, depending on my mood. Nothing else is in the loop, except on the EFX, I find that coupling the Uni-Vibe in the wah pedal with the onboard auto-wah get an amazing funk sound with the neck pickup.

The wah effects are awesome, especially for what I use them for. Before I say anything about the distortion, let me say that I bought this as a WAH PEDAL. Not for distortion, or for a phaser or anything else. That being said, this review is almost strictly on the Wah aspect of this pedal.

However, if you are looking to get a sort of all-in-one pedal, my recommendation would be to try and find some place where they would let you try this out, and have them show you so you can decide for yourself on the distortion. I don't use it, and can only say that it's a little too "processed" sounding for my tastes. Also, I don't use the noise gate type thing, as I like pickup hiss and 60hz hum, especially for that raw, bluesy sound.

As a wah: 9
As anything else: 6.5

As others have said, this is a Boss. It's built to last. On par with Peavey's stuff. I don't gig outside of the occasional party, but if I did, I would definitely use this without a backup only if I was using a power supply (This thing can eat through batteries if on for long periods of time like 4-5 hours).

Never dealt with Boss/Roland, but the fact that all of their software updates and manuals are available for free on their website, I'd say that they are pretty adept.

I play everything, mostly rock/blues oriented but some influences for me include:
Blues (Robert Johnson, Skip James)
Country (real country like Hank Williams Sr. and Jr., Johnny Cash, Ramblin' Jack Elliot)
Blues Rock (SRV, Johnny Winter, Hendrix, Allman Bros.)
70's/80's power metal and rock (Dokken, Maiden, Preist, Van Halen, Extreme, Bon Jovi)
Rockabilly (Hellecasters, Stray Cats/Brian Setzer)
And anything else centered around guitar (Santana, Satch, Dream Theater)

Now...with all of those influences I mainly use this for Blues and Satriani-type stuff. The one preset almost nails Satriani's sound. It's pretty good for those, but as one other reviewer stated, why try to copy someone? The one preset almost nails Satriani's sound. Make your own tone and stand out from the "14-year-old-on-a-saturday-afternoon-at-guitar-center" crowd. (before you think I'm some old fogey (no offense to anyone) I'm going to state that I am 18, and still cannot stand most of the other players in the 14 to 20 age group)

I have compared this to other wah pedals, including a Crybaby and a Weeping Demon. For ease of use, this comes in close but last, with the Crybaby leading there (come on, one knob? how simple can it get?). However I'd say this wins only for the sheer difference in tones you can get with some work. Keep in mind that I didn't pay anything near the actual cost for this unit, and would give it a 10 at the price I got it for. At the usual, new price, I'd give this an 8.5 to a 9.5 only because it beats most other modeling Wah pedal in that price range. I might say, if you're a big fan of one artist, and really want their sound (also useful for cover artists) Spend the 50$ more and look into Digitech's signature wah pedals, like the Hendrix model. Hell the Hendrix model is good for general classic rock too, but you'll always be labeled as another Hendrix tone-clone.

Awful owner's manual. distortion/drive is so hard to access I would never use it live. 4 of the 7 wah modes are so similar they are a waste.
The Univibe is cool but something to be used once in a blue moon. I can get the same effect by tweaking my chorus or tremolo together.
No true bypass here so I did an a/b switchbox comparison and when off, this still sucks the tone out of my setup. Needless to say, the PW10 is outta here, replaced by a modded Crybaby with TB.

setup- custom US strat -> modded comp Boss CS3 -> pw10 (replaced by TB modded crybaby)-> Keeley brown modded ibanez TS9 -> FZ2 -> Keeley modded TR2 -> CH1-> DD3-> Mesa Boogie Rocket 44.

Needless to say, the PW10 is out of the chain. Not sure why Boss are doing this COSM stuff, since any COSM I've tried sucks the tone right out of my rig.(the COSM FZ5 Fuzz has to be heard to be believed - it's that bad)Boss pedals have been great down the years but they have gone down the wrong road with COSM. MAYBE PRODUCTION IS EASIER AND CHEAPER BUT THEY ARE DRIVING REGULAR USERS AWAY AND DON'T KNOW IT

The effects - Univibe and crybaby settings are the only thing I would use IF I kept this. The rest is either filler or too cumbersome to access on the fly during a gig. Do guitarists really need all these hard to access drive settings when 90% of the time they'll have an overdrive/distortion pedal in their existing chain???

BUILT LIKE A TANK SO YES IT IS DEPENDABLE AS ALL BOSS PEDALS ARE. I WOULD NOT EVEN KEEP IT AS A BACKUP BECAUSE OF THE TONE ISSUES.

For a big company, Boss is fairly responsive.

I got this on ebay for cheap, just to try it out. I play rock, blues, reggae, a bit of rnb...have done so for 27 years or so.
This is the most disappointing wah - Boss loaded it with what could be great features, but dropped the ball on the basics. A tone sucker, what more can I say. Mass production at its worst.

I will admit, having to unplug, turn knob, hold button, plug in, turn knob, push button, etc...isn't the most user friendly. But in all honesty, as I look at this thing, where was Boss supposed to put all the knobs and switches while maintaining it's size? The side may have been in option, but really, you know you're buying a modeling pedal, expect some work to customize it.

I run a strat, lp, x2n equipped RG, and a 7 string in to the pw-10 to a string of reputable dirt boxes modulations, and ended with the eq-20 and ns-2 all to a Peavey Classic 30, which just recently replaced my Marshall VS65R.
I read a lot of the low rating reviews and decided to stick my Crybaby 535q right next to the PW-10 and a/b them. With the heel down, the PW-10 is a little bassier then the Crybaby, but through the rest of the sweep...identical. This was with my Crybaby on the second setting, and the PW-10's range at about 10:30. I've never used a morely, vox, or univibe, so I can't compare really, but they sound good and are very usable.
As for the distortions. I got this b/c I needed a wah pedal...don't use 'em. Wouldn't suggest using them either.
Also, the noise gate is a bit of a paradox for me. To me, turning on the wah and hearing the noise is part of the appeal. I don't like having my signal get quieter when I step on the wah. Fortunately you can turn it off, and I do.

Unlike what everybody else says, I've had/have several boss pedals, and have had issues with many, and I'm a bedroom player, so my gear isn't getting abused or beat up.
With that said, this one has not been one of them yet.

I've dealt with Boss a couple times to get replacement components for other pedals. A decent experience outside of sending me the wrong part one time, but it was replaced quickly and for free. Did you know that potentiometers cost less then plastic knobs?

I play a bit of everything, which makes this wah a good fit. I've been playing for 8ish years, and while I don't go for the overpriced boutique stuff, I'd like to think I have a good ear for my gear. I only have it b/c I wanted a replacement for my 535 when it's switch broke (dunlop? broken switches?). The best thing in comparison is no click, and no bad switch to go bad. If it got stolen, I still have my 535, I'd probably just get a new switch (yep, it's shoddy again) and stick with the crybaby for the sheer fact it's there.
Overall, I think it's a mighty fine wah, does what it should and more. I especially like being able to save settings, and have four presets at my disposal with the rock of my heel.
I think some of the features are extraneous, and those that gave it poor ratings based them on those, rather then the wah it's self.

Easy to use as a wah as long as you don't step on the rear switch to engage a drive preset. If you do, you'll end up with a drive sound way too loud for the level of your manual mode. Drive mode is a nightmare until you get the hang of setting it up and even then there's no level control to balance your clean tone level against the drive channel - only a noise gate control and a gain pot. Very poor design from Boss in this area.

Wah sounds are generally good although not particularly good models of what they're supposed to be. If you take it as it is and use as a wah, the sound is fine. Drive mode is very poor quality. There is a lot of noise from the unit after your sound decays or is muted. It's bad enough with the noise gate engaged. It's positively unusable without the noise suppressor. A very poor effort from Boss in the drive mode - nothing like as quiet as a separate Boss pedal. I'll stick to driving my amp with a Marshall Bluesbreaker 2 pedal.

Very well made and I've never had a problem with Boss gear before. Unlikely to break unless you throw it under a truck because of the piss-poor sound quality from the drive channel !!

Never had to.

A frustrating bit of kit this. Could have been fantastic as a multi-effects unit, but unfortunately will need to be used only as a versatile wah pedal. Still good, but given that you can buy a very good Behringer multi-wah now for about ??30 (GBP) I'd say the Boss is looking very expensive now. But Behringer or a Crybaby instead and save yourself: (a) a few quid, and (b) a couple of days messing about trying to get good drive sounds out of this. Trust me, you can't.

Just a quick review this time. Ease of use? Not at all - if you want to use it for all of it's functions. The model I own was purchased in 2002 and the instructions are apalling! The distortion modelling takes some doing, and the presets aren't that easy either. It's too gimick really.

Bought this on the strength of the univibe sound, and the ability to get a cry baby and vox tone, Liked the morley tone the best though. Disliked intensly the distortion presets - mostly because you can't eq them - there's only one knob to control it - and that just affects the drive. Presets difficult to use as they involve rocking the pedal back. Plus there's a millisecond gap between pushing the pedal back and getting the sound to come out. I used the univibe setting on a Hendrix number at a gig and loved it, then thought "I'll add some wah to this to take me into real hendrix territory" No can do I'm afraid it's wah or vibe. Needless to say I've moved on and got a Deja Vibe and a Budda Wah now.

Had to return my first one to the shop, but I've had problems with Boss pedals before - the Taiwan ones.This is a generic Boss rating

Good if you you are on a budget and want different wah sounds without having loadsa pedals [ but most of us find a wah sound we like and stick to it]. Good if you want a univibe sound [ although Voodo Labs Micro vibes are cheap second hand on e-bay]Good if you want lotsa distortion presets - if you are prepared to fiddle about enough with it, and don't mind an in-flexibe amount of control of it. Forget the voice simulation gimmick that's on the pedal, but use the presets if you like, but not mid-song I'd suggest. I still use mine on my practice pedal board because it behaves itself better than my old crybaby gcb 98 in terms of being used with the poor quality tranny amps you get in rehearsal studios, and it does have the univibe

Pretty complicated, especially if you get involved with the distortions.

Now, don't get me wrong, I love Boss effects, and I think their digital ones are, on the whole, pretty good, but I just couldn't get a good sound out of this thing, and I spent hours. I was using an Ibanez EDR170 with it, into a Marshall MG100DFX amp. When using distortion, there would always be a clear click when rocking between treble and bass, no matter what settings were used and even when using the built in distortion. Instead of going "wah wah", it went "pop pop". Sounded good in clean though.

Don't know, I sent it back after a couple of days.

N/A

I just don't understand this thing. Even the wah on my old Zoom multieffects pedals sounded better than this. Go for a Cry Baby 535Q, THE best wah out there, even if it is a bit old-fashioned.

Takes a while to get to grips with, especially when you're trying to sort out both distortion and wah...to be honest, if i were you i'd just leave the distortion alone. The AC input doesn't like carpeted floors either...not the best bit of designing there...

At the moment, the PW-10 is the only thing between my ESP and my Marshall TSL. It's pretty quiet, which is always a good start. I actually got rid of a crybaby for one of these things, and i don't regret it. Waaay more versatile, and probably a better option for the more heavily inclined players. I tend to use the Morley emulation with the wah range cranked pretty far up, which comes out with a pretty pronounced Steve Vai or even Zakk Wylde style sound. If you insist on using them, the distortions actually come out sounding pretty good.

Feels like a brick. I've never even thought about a backup, although they eat batteries, so use a power supply.

never had to deal with them

If i lost it, in fairness I would probably get a Zakk Wylde crybaby, although they cost a fair bit more. At this price, I dont really think it can be beaten. You probably won't use many of the different wah settings, just find one you like best and stick to it. I definitely rate it above my old bog standard crybaby.

I agree with the last poster. This pedal sounds great. I also do not use the distortion features.. and also did not use any settings.. just pligged it in and went through the different wah tones. I have a laney GH50 head and marshall cab.. the gain on the head is awsome so I need not mess with anything else. I really like the univibe as well, sounds great !! is not very hard to use at all.. I will probably read the manial for the hell of it and see what I can do to it, but I am more than satisfied with just plugging it in and go!!

Great tones out of this pedal !

just got it today.. seems sturdy.

havent had to deal with them yet so I can not elaborate .

I will give it a 10 because it realls adds great tone to my already great setup. I wanted to keep everything simple and as dry as possible.. I have my guitar going to the PW 10 to my boss sd-1 to a boss ns-2 right in front of the amp. I have finally found my tone after all these years !!

I didn't go through all the programming and stuff. I just plugged in and switched through all the modes and they all sounded good. There is no need to go through all the tweaking to get a good sound. Just take it out of the box. I guess it helps to have a good rig.

I don't need the distortions but there is nothing wrong with them. I use my 5150's distortion. When I use one of my cleaner amps I use a Boss DS-1, but like I said they're good if you want to use them.

Boss stuff doesn't break.

Never nead it.

Its a good box. I've been playing for 25 years and have a TON of gear. This is my favorite pedal right now. The guys complaining probably don't know what there doing or have crap setups.

Ease of use?... I guess if your the average lazy guitarist, you might have a little trouble with this. But if it takes reading the owner's manual to get good tone, I think it's worth it. The only real complication is setting the overdrives -- which I don't find all the useful...

Also it's not too hard to toggle between presets (which is nice). You just push down on the heal end of the pedal, and the LED changes colors. I think there's like 4 presets... I only use 1.

I'll start by saying I HATE digital effects. They suck tone like a biotch... but I've tried a number of wahs and held on to this one for a while. I've always had the problem of finding a wah with a decent spectral versitility between funk and metal. With most wahs I've always had to sacrifice some aspect of sound quality for the effect, so it really didn't bother me choosing this digital pedal.

You can toggle between pretty accurate emulations of CryBaby, Vox, and Morley settings. It also has a UniVibe setting (which isn't all that bad either). The only short coming that I dislike about this pedal is the distortion settings. They are all digital emulations of boss pedals (DS1, SD1, MT2...). I've pretty much limited my overdrives and distortions to rack preamps, so I just leave the distortion off. nonetheless, they are fully controllable distortions. You just have to read the owners manual to set them just the way you want them.

As far as the wah sound: the signal is very clear. In the past I've needed an eq before my wah pedals in order to get the perfect range and tone control, but this really sounds great just as it is. I've never had a problem with any ambient hiss or other annoying buzz sounds. This is the main reason I chose this over Crybaby or Morley (I never did like their LED wahs).

I haven't had any problems with it. I'm really not much for digital effects, but we'll see how long it lasts.

Boss is pretty good all around.

I've tried a lot of wah pedals over the years. Of the ones I liked include the Crybaby 535Q, an Ernie Ball (which was too expensive and I had to sell it within a month of having it), and I was "holding" my cousin's Fulltone Clyde for a few days. But again, that's too much money for an effect that I only use less than 2% of the time.

It's the worst pedal in the world for using alive or even in a studio. It's so complicated, the Manual it's so bad than i think anybody could sincerely says other thing.

Sound Quality! What Quality ... ? This pedal makes any, but any, amp seems like a peace of she..

Use it on a gig? You must be insane ...

Roland / Boss Corporation as any e-mail adress that we could even contact them. How can we now if they are bad or good?
This must be a single case in the music manufacturers.
It's Incredible but it's true.

Overal Rating.

Too bad to talk about that.

This must be the worst product of Roland / Boss Corporation.

I don't know how they could send this product to the market and keep in there nowadays.

Awful. It need's about three more knobs. The menu selection scheme requires you to hold buttons while plugin in the guitar chord. Totaly &^%$#@.

The range in the wahs are wide but the rocker action between the highed tone and the lowest tone is too sudden and way too dramatic as you rock the pedal to and from. It's due to the fact that it uses some stupid, poorly engineered light sensors to detect the foot rocker's positions rather than a traditional pot. This means the tone shifting isn't perfectly linear, not by a long shot.

The end result is that it's difficult or impossible to make it sound like a real wah pedal, the kind you hear in porn music. I only keep mine around for the custom sinus synth effect.

And a side point, the distortions all have fixed tone settings = completely useless.

Murderer of batteries.

The rocker becomes looser over a short period of time and has to be retightened often.

dont know

Avoid at all costs. Digitech released a similar product which is much nicer although it requires a power source.

It's easy to get a good sound from this pedal, but good luck getting that sound a second time! Seriously, I tried it out at the shop and was blown away by the available tones and the potential. Since it was used, I didn't get a manual. I fouind the manual online, and good gosh, could BOSS make it any more complicated?!

Some of the sounds are amazing. I bought it because some of the tones sounded synth-like, so it's like getting a wah and an envelope filter in one. There's supposed to be eight different classic distortions modeled as well. So far, I've only heard one, and don't ask me which one. Whatever it is, t does a good job beefing up the various wah tones.

I'd like to know why the Univibe setting sounded killer at the shop, but I can't get a decent warble out of it now. Maybe I reset something while trying to figure out the controls.

I do like being able to set the range for each wah. In theory, this is a very flexible pedal.

I've used it with my Strat through a few amps. The unit isn't noticeably noisy, even with the Drive cranked up.

I have over 30 different BOSS pedals, some of which I'd guess are older than many of the people posting here. I think I could depend on this pedal, but there's no way I'd risk using it live.

I've never needed the support.

I bought this pedal because it sounded killer in the shop, and the price was right. And the shop was offering a great deal on financing, so I plunged when I should ahve reconsidered. Like I said, I can get at least one really cool synth tone from this pedal.

However, I bought this pedal because I thought it had a ton of potential. It might, but I wonder if I have the patience to unlock it. I've never seen a more needlessly complicated pedal, considering that it's a freakin' wah! The BOSS engineers couldn't find room for an extra switch or two? For example, if I knew I had to switch the power off to access the distortions, I wouldn't have bought this pedal. Just put in a three way switch allowing me to choose between wah mode, distortion mode, and a blend mode, and I would sing the praises of this pedal. Maybe I expected too much from this pedal.

I own such BOSS pedals as the PS-5, PS-3, and SYB-3. These are what I'd call complicated pedals, but a glimpse through the manaul and I can work with these pedals. I'm only guessing at what I'm doing with the PW-10.

This pedal sells new for over $200. For that kind of money, I wouldn't recommend it.

A very intuative pedal. Plug and play, you will get a quality sound, I had this thing plugged in for less than ten minutes and had quality tone ripping through it no problem. The manual is ok, it was better for me to just play with it for awhile.

My setup is: Ibanes AX-82 Artcore hollow body - PW10 V-wah (crybaby setting) - Boss DS-1 distortion - DOD Compressor - Homemade Chourus Delay - Fender Blues Deluxe. Sounds great on almost all settings, although the distortion can get pretty hairy pretty fast if you crank it. The UNIvibe effect is great and so is the synth like voice setting, again get a distortion pedal that is seperate, these distortion settings are a little bit hard to work with.

Have been gigging activly (60 shows a year) with it for 3 years.....still fine despite a few cosmetic blemishes. I would and do gig without a backup.

Never Dealt...It's a boss these things are bulletproof

I play in a rock and roll/funk/jam band...perfect match for our style. I have been playing for 5 years, gigging for 3. If it were stolen I would buy a new one right away.

Using presets is easy. Plug it in and go.

But you will soon want to at least balance the distorted with the clean sound, and there is no LEVEL knob! The only way to do it is to save the level in a memory, and that is ridiculously complicated, and that renders the distortion pretty much useless during a gig... :(

Doing any of your own settings involves, amongst other things, pulling out and replugging the input cable whilst pressing buttons!

Standard preset wah effects are good. The simulation of the cry baby matches mine closely, but the action of the pedal is too small, so I find it difficult to position it accurately.

There is no way to route the distortion before or after the wah, so the Hendrix "pre-scoop" is not possible without an external distortion pedal.

The lower end of the pedal range has digital zipper noise. Very evident if you move the pedal slowly.

The vocal effects are amusing but if they were going to go this way, a Peter Frampton voice box type sound would have been more useful for a guitarist.

So far, so good. Solidly built without being so heavy so as to damage other gear in your bag.

never used support.

Used in my studio, it is a good addition. But I would hate to use it live. You can customize the distortion knob to be a "boost" (i.e. volume control only), and this is what I have done. I use an external distortion pedal instead.

The multitude of wah effects available are a novelty. After trying a few, you will probably never again use the weaker ones.

Now, I argue that, if the DISTORTION knob can be customized, the waa effect positions should also ALL be customizable (not just the CUSTOM position).

This would have freed up the space wasted by the MEMORY button, where an additional LEVEL control would have made this pedal usable live.

A great concept, poorly executed.

The factory settings is what I actually like to play.

It can be a pain to setup, but they write instructions right on the wah pedal - so you shouldnt have to hunt down the manual all the time,

But with all the settings you can do with this thign - its set right.

I play through the a peavy XXL head and cab with a Dimebag tribute ML. The onboard distortion is perfect.

The distortion fits perfectly with my DBD ML. You can easily reproduce the Zakk Wylde wah on this thing to, set it to Crybaby wah and put the wah depth a little above the center -

You can get Zakk's sound with the onboard univibe and distortion turned on. Bend that G String with that univibe and distortion kicking and you can hear it.

So much sound - so little time

It's pretty solid - not VOX wah solid, but solid in its own little way.

Never had to deal with them.

I try to assimilate my tone to Hendrix, Stevie, Zakk Wylde (SDMF!!), and Dimebag.

This thing can do alot - I put my processor aside and have been running this thing straight into my cab - it's awesome, great match.

I've been playing for about 8 years - I'm a blues and metal guy with a lineup of mostly Fenders, couple Ibanezes, and my new brand Dean.

What I love is this is so much bang for your buck, you get:
Univibe
Great distortion
like 7 different wahs

While it doesn't emulate the other ones as well, you can modify it enough to make it your own sound. Like I said, you can reproduce the Zakk Wah easily with this thing.

You can turn the distortion off, mix effects, all sortas stuff just by clicking it down or forward.

Its been great in making some solid metal - again, I'm a big fan of the distortion on this thing - your pinch harmonics come out damn clear on this thing.

I'm very picky about getting stuff thats worth my tone, time and money. I've been using the same effects processor for 8 years now, just because I haven't found anything else I like - this wah is now my newly incorporated sound toy.

If you think I'm bullshitting you - e-mail me at houdini84@verizon.net and I'll send you a sound clip. Better yet, IM me and I'll hook you up!

Get a good sound with this is not very difficult, but to customize the PW-10 is a little difficult, the manual is very good to somebody that have a good english.

My setup: Epiphone Les Paul -> PW-10 -> Marshall Valvestate 60 -> BOS CS-3 Compression Sustainer (on loop).

The Noise supressor is good on more things but cuts some harmonics

Working with the Marshall Valvestate i can get easily a great sound, that sounds very good with pre-amp distortion of my amp, If i need a heavy sound I get some distortion of this pedal and some distortion of amp. In all situations this sounds good.

Steve Vai uses a this pedal, an example is the music "Kill the guy with the ball". with impressionant "Voice" mode.

The uni-vibe is very good, The distortions are good too, but to get more options in a distortion you need to buy a equalizer.

So, for this price, a wide range of variety and a good quality of songs make 10.

It's boos, it's pratically indestructible.

I do not use a backup, never for this.

Never used

I'm currently playing rock, this pedal complements very good the musics and get a new dimension for my playing mode.

I think that pedal is fantastic, the variety and the "Double Ressonance" gets incredible effects to guitar. I think to buy a Cry Baby before know the PW-10. Now I have all that I want and some more.

Well, I worked out how to get some nice sounds in the shop, so I kinda knew what I was getting. Since then, I've worked out what I can get, and there are some good combinations. The manual is crap. It really is. Hard to understand, there are some really useless stuff in there like "make sure you have the lead in the input" and such useless crap. I'm kind of having trouble getting the OD tones, but I'll try again today.I have had it for a while, but I've been a bit lazy checking the whole thing out cos I hate the manual.

A good pedal.
I only use a Washburn something or other, it doesn't have a special name or something, it was fairly cheap, but I get some alright sounds for the tiny Randall amp I use. For what I do - play a few rehearsals with my hard-rock and funk-rock band - it's great. I'm only fourteen, but i feel that this should be good enough for me for a long time. The range isn't the best, it doesn't have a really wide sweep, but i checked out a few CryBabies, and this is the best wah pedal i found in Melbourne and Geelong - Australia.
If you turn the Distortion up really high it has a fair bit of white noise after each note or chord, but that's up full. I'd rather use the distortion from my amp, then i won't get as much noise, but I have heard the OD and DS settings you can get are very very impressive.
The Voice setting is a bit weak. The Vox' range is also a bit odd, and Advanced setting isn't really my style, but the morley and the crybaby are good wah sounds. Uni-Vibe is a add on. Overall, it produces some good sounds.

One of my memory settings is exceptionally quiet - rendering it useless. These seem like major fallbacks, but the truth is, I really like this pedal. Nothing else has gone wrong, except lacking wah, which i fixed after i read through the manual. Easy to fix.
Other than that, nothing has gone wrong.

Never dealth with them. Never needed to.

I play funk and blues/hard rock, and it fits in with any combination. It works with all that I play. I've played for a year and a bit, and I only have a cheap Washburn electric, a nice Takamine accoustic and a small Randall practise amp. If it were stolen, I couldn't afford to buy another one, I'm only a kid, but I could, then yes. From all that i checked, this is the best pedal i found.
I like the Uni-Vibe and the Morley sounds the most, and i like the different distortion mixes i can get with my amp gain turned down, then up.
I like this pedal so much, sometimes i just want to use the wah in everything i play, but I know that probably isn't best for variation.

Boss should have added a 2 or 3 more knobs to operate the distotion side of this pedal. I spent at least 6 hours reading the horrid manual and toying with the distortions. This is the main reason I returned the pedal to the store and grabbed an Ibanez Weeping Demon instead (a truly wonderful pedal and is costs 33% less!).
Controlling the volume level is a total nightmare!

Had Boss added 2 more knobs to control the distortion settings, a few more memory patches and placed the AC cord plug a little higher so as not to be smashed into the carpet when switching the wha on and off....this pedal would be pretty frikkin cool!

The sweep lacks a bit too, if your a Jimi Hendrix fan. Just like my old original Boss PW-1 wha from the 80's, the sweep range is too narrow, even with the range knob turned all the way up. Damn you Boss for not reading my review on the PW-1 and not addressing this issue on your new model!

Well, the wha effect is dead quiet. A very cool thing for wha pedals.
The range lacks if you like to play Voodoo Chile from Hendrix and all the adjusting in the world won't take you there. Doesn't Boss know who Jimi Hendrix is and how important it is for a wha pedal to capture his tone?

On the plus side for sure is the great overdrive and distortion effects available. I was really super impressed by the modeling of the vintage DOD 250 preamp/overdrive sound! It's not tweekable except the gain and volume [like all the other overdrive models! boo!] but the tone was excellent! I would suggest to everyone to go through the hassle of at least hearing the DOD overdrive coupled to the Jimi model wha! It really did sound so much like Hendrix minus the range.

So why does the Jimi hendrix wha model lack the range Hendrix got with his Vox wha???

Truth is, the Morley wha sounded more like Hendrix than the Hendrix model. Even so, all the wha models sound just about all the same. There is hardly any difference.

Now the human voice wha model....what a joke! Certainly not the vowel sounds of an old Thomas Organ Wha with the "stack of dimes" inductor that is soo famous for the vowelly sounds. No the Boss vowel wha tones are fake, processed sounding and certainly a bit funny {ha ha} sounding. Certainly not for a rock or metal guitar use. Maybe for some weird electronic band!

I firmly believe the Ibanez has a better wha sound than the Boss but that DOD 250 overdrive tone is awesome!

I have to give a low score on the sound for the lack of sweep or range. Just doesn't peak high enough or go deep enough either.

That AC plug is gonna get hurt if you use the pedal on a carpet floor. Everytime I stepped on the pedal you can see the plug getting pushed into the carpet.

I have a bunch of old Boss pedal from the 70's and 80's and they are very well built products.

There is no support as I know of.

I've been playing guitar since 1969. I play it all from blues to heavy metal. I'm a big Jimi Hendrix fan.

I have 5 Marshall half stacks from the 70's. Right now I'm using a 1978 Marshall MKII 50 watter on a Marshall 4x12 with 50 and 65 watt speaker inside and I can't believe how frikkin great it sounds! No distortion box in the world can do what a Marshall can do. I get clean picking to nasty overdrive just by my picking pressure! That folks is dynamics!

I returned the Boss wha and got an Ibanez Weeping Demon wha and at 33% less money the Ibanez wha is better looking, just as quiet, has more sweep and range, has a better feel, is easy to use, has a line boost, has automatic on and off, has a better AC plug location, has more knobs, looks more solid, why...it excells against the Boss in every area except it doesn't have any distortion.

Easy to get great wah sounds. But very hard to set the distortions.
You absolutely need the manual because it is a case of holding this
whilst pressing that and holding this whilst turning that.
And of course 90 percent of the manual is redundant such as....
be sure to put the batteries in right.....and.....plug your guitar into the input...and.......don't use it in the bathtub... and tucked neatly inside all the BS are obtuse, anal, butten pressing regimens that you would not find after 10 years of trying to do without the manual... I mean setting the distortions is harder that Nick Cage finding the NATIONAL TREASURE!!!! But do this..... get what you like in manual mode and then save it to 1 - RED then redo the manual mode and save to 2 - GREEN then reset the manual mode and save to 3- YELLOW then again
reset the manual mode to what you would most like to use.

It is wonderful, super. But I suggest you sit down and TRANSLATE the manual into COMMOM SENSE which is what I had to do and then all was well with the world and this wa.

Seems very HEAVY DUTY.

I just don't care.

Take the time to read and reread the manual.
First I crossed out all the redundant Bull Crap, such as...
plug your guitar into the input jack... DUH Then I copied down all the vital programming steps. Then I rewroted those steps in my own words. Then finally I was able to rock with this thing.

oh, it's easy, plug it in and go, too bad it sucks!

1?!? more like -100!
I've never heard anything worse in my 15 years as a pro rock guitarist, this thing sucks. I'm shocked that it's on the market. Barely any play, I listened close and there are only 3 degrees of tonal switch! I can get a better wah sound out of jumping up and down on my eq pedal.

Well, I threw it out of the bus window once, my bass player got mad and said "hey, I could have used that!", I said "pal, if you wanna go look for it, it's yours." So we turned around and went back for it... it still worked!!! He hated it, i think he's using it to prop up his small amp at home.

They didn't take well to my cursing on the phone, meh.

Man oh man, I wish I could say something nice here other than I failed when trying to destroy it. It's gotta be the worst thing Boss ever released, barre none.

The most difficult to use pedal I've ever encountered, and I've owned about 40 here and there.

I can't believe the ratings people are giving this pedal! I got it recently, and I'm going to use it for noise purposes here and there, but come on people! This thing sounds pathetic! The wahs all suck, they all sound exactly the same, the pedal has no sweep, no range, nasal-sounding. The noise supprossor barely suppresses anything, the Uni-Vibe is barely audible, the talk think sucks. There is nothing good about the sound of this pedal. Sorry. Wish I hadn't bought it. Last wah I owned was a Hiwatt custom wah. Blew this thing away, and I didn't even like it that much.

Seems ok

I play rock guitar, I've played for about 16 years. Over that time I've used Dunlops, Crybabys, Vox, Morley, Hiwatt and now this wah. This one is by far, by miles, the worst of them. I can't believe Boss let this thing out into the market. Maybe there's something wrong with mine, I dont' know. All of the functions seem to work, but they all suck too. Oh well, the search continues.

This is an extremely easy peice of equipment to setup. I'm 16 and a first time Wah Wah pedal user and i didn't even have to look at the manual, though after setting it up i referred to the manual just for a gander and it was very well explained. Only problem here would be the difficulty to make your own sound.

My rig is from a Dean Baby ML --> Zoom 707II Multi-effects bank --> BOSS PW-10 V-Wah --> Marshall AVT150 --> Computer.

Im not getting any unwanted noise...it has actually got rid of that inscesant buzz that was there before hand. Nice!

These effects really do do the job! You can get Hendrix, DimeBag, Satriani, Vai all the greats! Only downfall would be the distortion! But any respectable guitarist should have another distortion and i pity the fool who doesn't!

Footswitching is difficult sitting down, but very easy when standing.

Only got it today, but no problems so far, unlike the Dime Cry Baby i bought and had to take back cos it was bust! I would most definetly use in a gig without a backup, unless the back up was another PW-10!

Phone number is supplied in the booklet and i haven't had to call!

I play all sorts and this matches every genre! I've been playing for 3 years and the gear i own is:

Dean Baby ML
Gretsch Electromatic (Custom)
Tanglewood BS800 Electro-resonator
Westfield SR838 Electro Acoustic
Fenix Strat (Fender Copy)
Peavey Milestone III Bass Guitar
Zoom 707 II
Marshall AVT-150
Seinheisser Evolution Microphone
And much more...!

The build quality and look of this thing is awesome, matches my guitar! And this pedal inspires me to make more rock music than i ever have before this BOSS truely has earned its name!

Is not as some people say it's complicated to use. Setting it up might be a little bit tricky but once you set this guy up, then you are on your own with a very easy to use unit. The manual is clear and easy to understand.

I use a roland cube 30 amp and a godin exit 22 guitar. Is not noisy at all. The built in effects are amazingly good, specially the distortions. I can easily get the sound of Dream Theater guitars as far as distortion and I can also get the wah wah from the cure. Check my bands website for a music sample so that you can hear how tis unit works.

I would use this unit on a GIG no problem without a backup.

I haven't dealt with them

I play heavy rock music and this unit fits perfectly in it. If it was stolen no questions I would buy another one. Something I love about is that is Boss. With this monster you won't ever need another wah pedal ever.

To use this pedal as a regular wah is easy as any other wah. You just press the toe down to turn it on or off just like a Dunlop. To use it any other way can de a bit challenging. Switching between the different presets and editing the presets is easy too. When it comes to saving those presets or creating your own, it's like a puzzle you might see in the movie National Treasure. I love figuring out gear and have been knw to spend hours on end just programing gear like old Digitech 2101's and Roland stuff. This pedal was just ridiculously un-intuitive. Once I got it to do what I wanted it was great but figuring out how to do that was NOT easy. The manual was written well enough but it's obvious that the manual was written to explain the technology and not written to establish an ideal method for the technoloigy to be designed around. To my knowledge there is no firmware/software versions.

My rig was a Music Man Silhouette with EMG pickups, the Boss PW-10 and a Mesa rig witha Triaxis preamp, 2:90 power amp and a Mesa Recto 4x12. I put the wah between my guitar and the Triaxis with no other gear in the chain.

The unit is inherently noisy but a simple turn of the threshhold knob for the silencer virtually eliminated all noise. Made a handy noise gate for general use too. Once adjusted the pedal is pretty much silent.

The pedal sounds GREAT! I've only owned one other wah, a Dunlop 535Q, and I was not impressed at all. The Dunlop had a weak range, considerably mild effect and the little boost button on the side broke off in a week and I didn't even use it. The Boss is built in their usual tank-like fashion... The wah effect from the Boss is unmistakable and totally dominating. Regardless of where in the sweep the pedal is you can hear the wah effect. The distortion on the pedal is cool for boost I guess but with no other controls for it but gain it's not very useful as, say, a "distortion with wah" pedal. It's definitely a great wah with some distortion in it. As for the accuracy of the modeling of the various wahs, I can't vouch for that but each model does sound notably different, all sound good and are very useable. Anyone wondering if this thing has a good range? It's range is nuts! I wanted a pedal with lots of range and I found myself using the controls to decrease the range more than to increase it. Also, the smoothness of the sweep is perfect. There are not hot spots in the sweep range. Overall, I say this is a perfect wah pedal.

This pedal is about the same size as a Dunlop wah and suprisingly heavy. I would definitely consider this pedal reliable. I knocked mine off the top of a full stack and it had no affect on the pedal. It's an all metal chassis and very solid.

Never needed it...

One last thing I thought was sweet was the ability to tighten the bolts that hold the pedal on to change the stiffness of the motion. Totally cool feature! I can't imagine anyone not liking the sound of this pedal. It's definitely a bitch to use if you wanna do all the fancy stuff it does but as a simple wah it is really easy to use.

I've been playing various styles of metal for about 18 years. I've seen lots of gear come and go and I consider myself a pretty picky ( pun intended ) gear head ( pun also intended ). If stuff doesn;t feel sound great, I dump it and move on. This pedal is a definite keeper.

I would buy another one of these if it were stolen, although I'd most likely buy the Boss GT-8 since it has this pedal and way more but for the money, if all you want is a great sonding wah, get this.

Again, as a distortion pedal, it sux. There are no tone controls and the distortion, despite being described as several different types, sounds like one OK pedal with just a really wide range of gain. As a wah, it's phenomenal.

As for features I wish it had? A more intuitive system for editing. With all it's ability it seems like it needs a USB port and a PC editor. They have too much in this thing for just three knobs and a couple of buttons.

For it's presets, it's very easy to use. You will have to read the manual or look under the pedal to customize your own settings. However, it's nothing too complicated.

It's just like most other pedals out there (minus the noise supressor). The emulation of the various pedals is decent but it really shines in it's double resonance feature. I also LOVE the Q and band frequency controls that this unite offers. The noise supressor is nice little tool that can really come in handy.

For a Boss Pedal, this feels a bit weak. I haven't had any problems at the moment, but the input for AC adapter is a little bit loose on my unit.

I've never needed to deal with them

It doesn't provide the best emaulation of various pedals but it does have it's own unique sound. It can somewhat emulate an analog synth filter with the use of the Uni-Vibe and double resonance features. If you want something simple that can accurately emulate vintage pedals, this pedal might not be for you (try a tesse mccoy). If you want something to experiment with (and don't mind programming in dual layers), then this pedal is perfect for you.

It does take a few tries to get this pedal set up. A little effort goes a long way. The manual is ok. Needs more steps and need to drop the "turn off/turn on amp" in every paragraph. The distortions need a tone control and a volume separate from the drive. Also, need a variable for the input so the wah's don't distort with a hot pickup.

I using this with a Marshall DSL 50. With the Wah engaged I was getting distortion when playing on the clean channel. The manual says roll down the volume on the guitar. I did and it cleaned up nicely. The distortions sound ok. I like the overdrive on my amp a lot better. I bought it for the Wah pedals, not the overdrives. I will try a few as a boost for the red channel on my amp but so far I can't use them. I am using all four channel with zero drive. I like being able to pick different Wah pedals. It gets the job done.

I don't know how reliable it is. I took it apart and it looks pretty solid. I don't use a Wah much so I don't need a backup.

The website had the manual to download. So that was helpful enough.

Overall, I like it. It will add another dimension to my playing. Hopefully, not a gimmick. I have been playing for 18 years and this is my third Wah. I had the original bad horsie but took it back. If I lost it I would try something else.

Using it as a standard wah pedal is easy enough, but the custom configuration takes alot of concentration and patience.

The bottom line is that you will eventualy figure out how to save the pedals settings in three states in addition to however the knobs are set at that moment, and they provide access to them by foot either in on/off fashion or 1/2/3/off fashion so that's much apreciated.

Unfortunately there is a one second delay kick in when activating the memory so that's a huge disapointment if you need to kick in the effect at a certain measure.

Also the full width of the wah seems to be encompased in the first half of the pedal's rock, the upper half of the rock is in it's peak position. Recalibration didn't fix it. I'll probably tighten the pedal and see if that helps control the wah in a shorter range of movement.

It's truely amazing that the designers though it was a better idea to make the controls as difficult to use as they are rather than add an extra knob and an extra button to spread out the functions. It's obvious that this pedal style is going to become increasingly complex like other multi effects pedal with digital readouts and multiple rockers because there's so much un realized potential in this model alone.

This pedal is realy good for blues or classic rock players because the incorperated overdrives sound realy good but switching between the effects is kind of risky, and with classic rock there usualy isn't as much switching as with modern music which relies on effects to create its highs and lows. I just set the OD1 or blues driver effect to it's fullest and reduce the effect with the volume knob on my guitar and no effect switching is neccessary because at about "5" the sound is pretty clean and plenty loud. With this pedal I can probably leave my oem tube screamer at home because the nobody will realize the difference.

The Big Muff distortion is very convincing but unless you want Big Muff from begining to end of a song, good luck trying to seemlessly switch it on or off since it takes a second for the effect to kick in.

I also have a Crybaby pedal, and it's true that the real thing is a bit richer in tone but the difference is superficial and it doesn't sound bad by any stretch of the imagination. It should be good enough for anyone and if it isn't I question their motives. In general, I can't realy hear a significant difference between most of the classic wahs. The modern wah options are fun to mess with, they might make for interesting lead guitar tones some day.

Here's another big plus, the univibe effect is a convincing chorus if you set it realy low.

It's fine as long as you configure the heel switch to be in toggle mode becuase if you accidently hit it you don't want to have to figure out how to get back to the last setting or potentialy have to press it three times to get to any particular effect.

n/a

It's great if you look at it for what it can do for you right now and ignore the lost potential it has to be so much better. It's especialy good for classic rock or blues because they were nice enough to throw in several overdrives.

I spent about half an hour playing with this at my local guitar shop today. I've been trying tremolo and vibrato (leslie effect attemps) pedals all week, spending about 45 min./day.

Get this -- I tried this pedal because of its UNIVIBE effect implementation! I also wanted a wah pedal, but wasn't planning to get one for a while -- I was planning to wait for the Behringer Hell Baby pedal to come out in May or June or July or whenever. The Behringer will cost $39, honest to God.

But I tried this Boss pedal. The Uni effect was pretty good, I thought. The wha sounds were frickin fantastic.

Over-all it was an amazing pedal, just in terms of the sounds it made. It's QUIET. It has a broad, clear, rich sound, with plenty of low end.

I love the way you can set the range of the wah.

It is built like a metal brick. If someone climbed in my window to steal it, I would beat them to death with the wah pedal! It is a weapon. You could kill several people, wipe off the pedal with a damp rag, and then play all night. (Ok, I am making all this up. I have not killed anyone with this wah pedal. I am using a sort of literary license to communicate the build quality of this product. Please do not contact the police. Thank you.)

I think I'm gonna buy it. It was the sound, which is what I think should matter most.

The unit is very easy to use. Until you want to program it, because then things get more complicated.
I would say you can operate it on two levels:
Level 1: out-of-the-(stomp)-box mode: no problems, great sounds
Level 2: a bit more complicated, more interesting sounds

Given the complex nature of the unit's operation (compared to normal wahs), the manual is pretty accurate. And there's even a manual on the bottom plate!

The way one has to change settings is simply ridiculous. You have to remove the power plug, fiddle around with some buttons, insert the power plug again while keeping a button depressed &c.

I use the unit with a 6120 and Stratocaster. Both sound quite good through this versatile baby.

It gives a very sturdy impression.

The actual pedal is a bit shorter than normal wah pedals, but that's not really a problem.

Problem: On most stomp-boxes, you can adjust the balance between volume and distortion. Not on this one: the more drive, the more volume. This renders the drive function useless to me, because I like to play clean and with drive at the same volume (an extra level control would solve this problem). If this problem would be solved, I would gladly get rid of my tubescreamer and use this one as my sole (!) effect box.

This pedal is not easy to setup, but once setup is dead simple. Many people have complained about how complicated it is to switch between the various options. True, but how many voicings do you go through in the run of a session? Set it up the way you want it and just use it.
I have programmed mine twice, and now have exactly what I want and will probably not change it for several months.

Programmability - 5
Use - 9

The Wahs are good.

Distortion/OD are good, but do not provide for on-pedal tone control. I use BD, MT-2, Pi, and booster. They seem to be pretty good models of the originals and suit my music. The booster does seem to add some colour, however.

Noise suppression is ok.

This is a pedal, the rest of my gear is irrelevant. Try it with your own as "sound quality" is subjective.

So far so good. Saying it is a "Boss" doesn't carry much water for me as this is a firmware based unit, not analog. Boss analog, however, is a sure bet and speaks well about their products in general.

Certainly would gig without a backup. It seems fine, and if it dies.. well that's where the fun starts..

Reliability to date is a 10.

Not used it.

Use it wherever you would a wah pedal. Find your own sound. Why does everyone want to sound like someone else anyway?

I program it to be switchable between MT-2 and booster with the foot switch. You can still access the other two memories with the button.

I get a single, useable, footswitchable distortion and the wah I want. The boost manual setting is "clean" and allows me to select another wah with the turn of a dial. If you need more than one wah voice in a song, I think you are probably over-doing it.

I would replace it immediately.

Used as a straight wah, it is very simple. (Toe switch turns the wah on and off.) A heel switch cycles through 3 memory locations. Both switches are stiff, and very difficult to operate from a seated position. To make use of the distortions and memory functions requires some reading of the manual, and changing distortions is fiddly. Manual is perfectly adequate (Handy to have some of the instructions on the bottom panel)

However, a previous reviewer said that only one distortion can be used at a time, and that the drive knob controls the level regardless of the memory setting. This is not true.
You can save up to 3 different distortions into memory, and have 1 more on the manual setting. You just have to change the distortion to a different type before you save to a given memory setting.
Also, the manual clearly states that if you do not have the drive knob turned up past "0" before getting ready to save to memory, you will not be able to adjust the drive level in that memory setting prior to saving.
Thus you can actually have 3 memory setting with different distortions set to individual drive levels, enabling you to switch to a memory location with the heel switch and call up a distortion type by itself (with the wah turned off).

My setup is Gibson LP Standard---->Boss TU-2---->CS-3---->PW-10 Wah---->Marshall JCM 601 combo---->DD-20(in effects loop)

I've tried the Wah before and after my Boss compressor, and it sounds better after the CS-3. There can be a little noise with the distortion drive turned up, but judicious use of the noise suppressor virtually eliminates hiss.

The wah models certainly give you a chance to experience a few of the classic wahs. Not having any of the original pedals, I am reluctant to swear to their accuracy, but you can hear the distinct differences in each setting, and the pedal has a great range. My favourite is the Vox wah; works great with clean and dirty channels.

I didn't buy the pedal for the distortion models, but again, it is well worth trying the various types. In use I just keep one memory setting with the Blues Driver (drive set to 3-4)and use it with the wah off (mostly) Sounds really good on the clean channel of my amp. Picking dynamics are clearly heard, just like the real BD-2 pedal. However, I wish those reviewing this pedal would stop making comments like "the distortions are a weak imitation of the real thing" Actually the distortions are quite accurate; what you don't have is the ability to tweak them to the same degree as on the individual pedals. {Seriously, if anyone reading this knows where you can buy a modelling pedal of any kind that actually puts 5 or 10 or 15 exact replica pedals in one small electronic package, with a stunningly simple user interface,for a fraction of the price of the originals, I would like to know.} Depending on your guitar, amp and other pedals, you can certainly find at least one good distortion here to fit your sound. You just can't expect to tweak all 8 models to perfection.

For live use the 2 memory setup is preferable so you are not cycling between 4 presets, as there can be a slight noise when switching through the 4 positions. The 4 memory use is better for trying out several different settings quickly (ie at home).
I find the sound quality very good, and the V-Wah is very quiet. The ability to adjust the wah frequency range makes it easy to fit the sound to your equipment, and prevents an extreme trebly sound (eg. on the Crybaby). The Univibe is just okay, but I don't use the other settings for the custom and advanced wah, or voice.

The pedal is mostly metal, and appears very robust. However, about 11 months after buying it, I started having a little trouble when switching between memory positions. It kept wanting to switch directly to the manual setting. A quick trip to Boss service (in Toronto) resulted in a software upgrade (IIRC; apparently the problem was not unheard of) and now the pedal is as good as new.

I've dealt with Toronto CS on a couple of occasions, for this pedal and my GT-3 (software upgrade); they are always prompt in returning calls and so far turn-around times are quicker than stated. They have always been very helpful.

I'm 45, still into classic rock, and trying to learn some blues. Think Gary Moore, SRV, Boston, VH, Aerosmith, Journey, etc. Played on and off 28 years. I bought this pedal to avoid having to work my way through a few wahs to get a perfect fit. I think this pedal works best as a sampler of different sounds, with the ultimate goal being to settle on your favourite 1 or 2 setting/s. The user interface is too complicated to make big changes in a live setting, but once you are dialed in, this pedal works great. No noise, no faulty pots, and I find almost no difference between bypass or user mode.

Don't like - 2 second wait for bypass, noisy and stiff switching
Like - built-in noise suppressor, frequency control, distortion options

If lost or stolen I would probably replace this pedal. Pretty hard to find another wah this versatile for the money, and I do use the distortions. The versatility is what makes this a keeper!

it not to hard to use. it is a boss pedal and you really dont need to be an engineer to figure it out.

ok this thing dose not sound good at all in my opinion. all the wah sounds are weak though it is pretty quiet and dont seem to suck tone like an unbypassed wah. but there is not enough sweep to the pedal and no matter how hard i tried i just couldnt find a sweet spot i liked so am sending my old crybaby out to get modded true bypassed.
gear wise i am using a 1963 strat with a twin silver face dont ask me what year it is with analog man modded pedals.

it is a boss i doubt that it would break unless ya threw it out of a building several floors up. and if it sounded good i would use it without a back up.

never dealt with boss never had a pedal break on me and some of them i have had since 1990.

well the only reason i gave it a 4 here is the fact it is dependable and it not to hard to use but the sounds on it are weak. a person is probably better off buying a wah and having it true bypassed and would have much more tonal qualities than with this pedal.

i agree with the comments about programming the distortion, i never use it (though i might try it this week so.....)
everything else is a no-brainer

it sounds great doing what i want it too plus it wont crap out on me like the cry babies do (ive had 3 die on me)
i can get the sound i want so it gets a 9

built like a tank i would have no need to take a back-up

i have ;lots of roland stuff and have always found them great at support

i play everything from thrash to jazz (lots of funk especially)
i would definately recommend this thing

As easy as a normal pedal wah: rock back to increase bass & forward to increase treble. The true-bypass mode is a bit of a trouble though, u hav to hold it like for 2 seconds, which is really not anything u're gonna waste ur time w/ in the middle of a song. There's also another additional wah bypass which only disengages the wah (not od/ds) when used. And ya, these switches r only possible to activate when standing up (yup, really that hard). Overall the normal sweeping is as easy as 1-2-3 period.
So,
Normal use :8
Other purposes:5

The wahs r definitely tasty & almost true to the original. But the wacka-wacka stuff is not possible though, it just couldn't do the kwa thing & also the reverse wah sweep (imagine aaoouu like in Joe Satriani's Souls Of Distortion). The wah is sweet but if u put it on the down position, it just goes oooomph, which is a bit of a disappointment. The wah itself produces no noise though....but when u put in the od/ds, everything goes hhhhhmmmmm (due to static hum)& when sustaining a note, it goes a bit eeeeeeee (no, not a harmonic, just somekind of a statical tonal degration) on the high end & really sucks! The built-in noise-supresser is nowhere as good as the renowned NS-2 & adds on to the eeeeeeee of the od/ds.
So my advise is to use it ONLY as a wah pedal & don't think twice to consider the od/ds.
Wah :8 (I'm reviewing this only)
OD/DS:4
NS :2

Reliable ONLY as a stand-alone wah pedal. Forget about the od/ds it also has, remember that u can't switch the whole thing into bypass easily. Only relied it as a wah pedal during gigs

Never needed it, the whole thing is tough as a tank & believe me, I've seen a Boss pedal w/o the cover (my friend's) still work as if nothing happened to it before.

As I said, only good as a stand-alone wah & nothing else. But the better thing compared to normal wah pedals is that it catches no dust in its systems & produces no noise (wah ALONE).
Overall it is a good product but I think Bosscorp should put more work into the swithching system & od/ds.

If you use it only as a wah, it's simple, but if you are using all the other things, like the heel switch to select among your own saved presets, then it is a little more complicated. Turn the knob to select which wah or any of the functions, turn the wah range knob for obviously the range of the wah, and the drive knob to add in some distortion or volume boost. Selecting different distortions if very stupid like others said, they should have came up with a better idea for that. It's very easy if you just use it as a wah, don't use it for saving presets or whatever else.

The wahs actually are pretty good, they all sound somewhat like the ones they are simulating. Just tweak the wah range to get the wah sound you want, it's that simple. Really, don't use the other functions that this pedal has to offer, they aren't that great. The distortions are weak, you can tell which one each is. The voice mode is too wierd, and the uni-v is pretty good, nothing to really complain or really talk about. You will get an annoying noise from the wahs if you don't have the noise suppressor turned up a bit, not feedback, but a swooshing sort of noise. You can really get any range and sound you want from the selection of wahs, from very wide and deep, to very thin.

I've had mine for about a year, it's a Boss pedal, it will keep going. If it did break or something, I have a lot of backup gear, so I don't need to worry. But, the pedal doesn't seem to be a cheap, low quality pedal, buily nice and sturdy, you can even adjust the footpedal itself, how loose or tight you want it. You can't do that with most wah pedals can ya?

You are either going to like the pedal or not, just try one out, it's very versatile. I do wish the distortions sounded better, they are too weak, and there should be an easier, more convenient way to change the distortions. Also, the voice mode is kinda wierd, they could have done without it. Overall, the pedal is a nice thing to have, it can compare to the Dunlop 535Q wah in some ways, but it isn't better than the 535Q wah.

In order to operate this pedal and use many of it's functions, is so dumb! It does have the regular toe switch like most wahs, but it also has some stupid heel switch, which I never wasted my time to figure out. The manual is very helpful, explains everything, but there is so much. Also, the manual is condensed on the bottom of the pedal, so if you forget something and are crazy enough to use this pedal for shows, you just flip the pedal over and check out what you want? Yeah, sounds pretty stupid, and you'll look like an idiot doing it. Rating it a 5, because there is too much to the pedal, you don't even need what's on it, it should have just been a wah, not all this other crap it also has on it!

I will start with everything other than the wahs 1st. The voice mode is quite a bad idea Boss had, you can use it if you want, maybe just to fool around with, but definitly not for anything else. The Uni-V isn't bad, but leave it to Boss to ruin a classic. The onboard distortions and overdrives are literally a JOKE! I at least thought before I bought the pedal that, since it's a Boss pedal, the distortions shuld be really good like all of there compact pedals... But, wow, they are so bad! They are weak copies off their own pedals and a few other companies. You can get them to sound decent with an EQ, but why? Ok, onto the wahs. I never used or tried out the custom wah, so I can't say anything about it. The advanced wah is like an enhanced wah, the wah sound will be more pronounced and be heard better over your other pedals, but not by much. The Dunlop wah is the best on the pedal, it's the best sounding and best overall for the pedal, can't even compare to a real Dunlop wah. You can get a really nice range with the dunlop wah. The Vox wah sounds nothing like a real Vox, it sounds just like the Dunlop wah, but with a little bit of added mid. And no, you can't get a Hendrix-y sound (opening part of Voodoo chile-slight return) out of this pedal, not with any of them, even with a lot of tweaking, not possible. The Morley wah is wierd, it is a deeper wah than all of the wahs on the pedal. They have the Q/Range knob for tweaking each wah. I own, or have owned each of the wahs this pedal emulates, and none of them can compare. One thing, if you use a Dunlop GCB-95, or any of their other wahs, when playing it, you get the constant wah-ing sound (if you want to know what I mean, listen to Joe Satriani's Souls of Distortion) evening when you let a chord or a note ring out, but with the Boss wahs, once you let a note or chord ring out, the wah dies out. I have a bunch of wah pedals, Vox V847 and V846, Morley Vol/dist/wah and the Vai Bad Horsie, and a Dunlop GCB-95 and 535Q wah. I bought the Boss wah before buying the 535q, i thought the boss wah could have been good, but it isn't. ALso, there are I think 3 or 4 memory locations you can use, but it's really not necessary. If you buy this to use it as a wah, only use it as a wah, keep one one, and just turn it on and off like a regular wah, don't waste your time with all the other crappy features on the Boss wah. I rate it a 6, because the distortions, voice mode, Uni-v, and most of the wahs suck on this pedal.

I bought mine when this pedal came out, not sure how long ago that was, but it still works like new. It's a Boss pedal, it's going to last you a long time. I have plenty of good wah pedals, I don't even consider bringing this pedal to shows as backup. If this is your only wah pedal, it should be reliable, I just don't bring it because I don't really like the pedal. I rate it a 10, because nothing went out on me yet, and shows no signs of wearing out when I actually bring it out for whatever reason.

They are a great company, I have called them up to get demo's of some of their stuff, they are very quick and helpful.

Overall, this pedal should have JUST been made a wah pedal, they should have kept out all of the other functions, I bet the wahs would have been much better. This is one of the more expensive wahs out right now, not even my Dunlop 535Q wah cost more than this thing!? I don't think this pedal should cost how much it does, it's really not anything great. Like someone else said, if you can pick from a bunch of wahs, don't go with the Boss wah. If you are willing to dish out $150, or whatever this pedal goes for now, buy the Dunlop 535Q wah, like $30 or $40 less than the boss wah, and is a TOP of the line wah, 10 times better than the Boss wah, more versatile, and sounds so much better. My Boss wah has been sitting in my basement with a bunch of my unused pedals. I rate it a 6, because for the $, you can get something way better.

- It's hard to get a good tone, because in order to customise a new wah setting you have to turn off the power (pull the plug), hold a button down while you plug it in again, then fiddle with the knobs. When you're done you can save the settings. Also, in this mode you only have access to the wah Q and presence settings, so you can't adjust Q and range simultaneously.

- This is a giant pain in the ass. If they ever make a PW-20, it should have all controls available all the time. Basically I want something like the 535Q, where you have a wah range and Q control right on the box. I would gladly pay more for the pedal if it had twice as many knobs that could make it so much easier to use.

I'm using an Ibanez JS1 into a Peavey JSX with a 4x12 XXX slant cab.

- The modelled wah sounds are excellent. You have access to every wah tone you ever wanted, plus a huge range that you never thought were possible.

- The distortion sounds are OK, but they don't compare to the dedicated effects they emulate. They are also hard to use for the same reason as the wah: you have to pull the plug, enter a program mode when plugging it in again, then adjust some of the settings, save, adjust other settings. Stupid.

I've only had it for a couple of months, and I don't gig.

This pedal can do it all. It's just so damn hard to use!

I've had this pedal for at least a year, it isn't the simplest pedal to use when you first start off with it. I really didn't like the heel switch or whatever it is, I never used it for the entire time I used the pedal. One really dumb idea about this pedal is how you have to change the distortion on this pedal. You gotta take the power supply out, turn the knob to a certain wah, hold down the memory button, and put the power supply back in? Pretty stupid, and not worth wasting your time over, because the distortions aren't very good. I did have to check out the manual when i first got it to find out how to do a few things, cause this pedal is more like a multi effects pedal, rather then a wah!?!

One thing I don't get it how Boss calls it a wah pedal when it has other, not needed effects? The wahs on this pedal sound kinda good, but I took this off my pedalboard to put my Dunlop 535Q wah back in, that is a wah pedal for ya! But, the Boss wah has all these other things on it like the "voice" mode, I think it is pretty stupid, it doesn't sound good at all unless you use the onboard distortions, which also aren't too good. The voice mode is pretty bad when I tried to use it with my own distortion pedal, you can't really hear it, and when you do, it just sounds bad, no reason for the voice mode. There are a few distortion to pick from, but all sound pretty bad, you can throw in an EQ after this pedal, but it's a wah, (or supposed to be) not a distortion pedal! There is also the uni-v, it's ok, but another unecessary effect. I won't say much about the uni-v, cause it really shouldn't be on this pedal, along with most of the other effects. Finally, onto the wahs... It is a pretty quiet pedal, they say there are no pots or anything to wear out, and so far that seems to be true. The custom wah is just terrible, doesn't even sound like a wah, I have no idea where Boss got that sound from, or even why they put in on this pedal? When I did use the pedal, I only used it for the "crybaby" wah, it worked for me while I was working on my Vox V847 wah and while I was saving up for my Dunlop 535Q wah. Now that I bought the 535Q wah, that's been on my board and will never leave my board unless I need to fix it or replace it. The Vox wah on the Boss wah sounds like a cheap emulation, which it pretty much is. The crybaby and the vox wah on the Boss pedal sound almost the same, which it shouldn't. The Morley wah on this pedal is just a deeper wah. They all sound almost the same, they each have their own small difference in sound, but are almost the same, just different wah ranges.

This pedal was my backup while I was working on my Vox V847 wah, and while I was saving up for my Dunlop 535Q wah. I had to make the wah work for me while I was out of a good wah pedal, it worked to an extent, but just couldn't give me the sound I needed. Luckily, I have a few wahs, I have a Morley wah, I don't use it because I don't like it. I have a Dunlop GCB-95, it was my best and favorite wah until I bought the 535Q wah, I did have the GCB-95 on my pedalboard along with the Boss wah, I usually used the Dunlop wah more than the Boss wah, actually, I rarely used the Boss wah. I guess this pedal is dependable if it will give you the sound you are looking for, but it didn't work for me, it can't even compare to any of the Dunlop wahs.

If you have the chance to pick from a selection of wahs, don't pick the Boss wah, unless it's what you really want, but if you can pick from either Vox or Dunlop, go with one of them, it'll definitly be the best way to go. I think if Boss would have concentrated more on making a wah pedal, rather than making a multi effects pedal in a wah, the pedal maybe could have turned out better than it is. They just jammed too many effects into one pedal, and most of the effects are pretty weak and bad. Trust me, go with Dunlop or Vox, even if you have to order one of them off the internet, don't buy the Boss PW-10 V-Wah, there are way better wahs out there!!!

not so easy. the heel switch is a good idea in theroy, to go through your three presets, however, I'm used to using my toe and it can get confusing. also to switch back to "bypass stage" you either click away at the heel switch and hear it between presets or hold the heel down for 2 seconds. 2 SECONDS!!! what the..... resetting the pedal and adding your own presets means sitting down with the book for a half hour or reading the instructions off the bottom of the pedal which is useless.d

The vox and the Crybaby wahs are pretty good the univibe is a great idea but it is noisy as hell when engaged. I only played around with the distortions a bit and found it pretty crappy. I'm running it through a Traynor YCV80Q and the amps distortion is FAR better.

Aside from having to reset it, which gets easy after 20 times, the thing is built very well. You could drop it with out thinking.

never delt with

I have had it for about a year and pretty soon will swap for just a crybaby. I can see that it would probably be good in the studio but having to wait 2 seconds for a bypass simply means good luck onstage. I actually only used once onstage and was nervous. the song called for wah and there was nobody there to borrow a normal wah from.

You don't have to be a rocket-scientist to handel this thing! But you can get confused with storing the sounds in the beginning. Take your time and think of it as a 19" rack unit that has a lot of possibilities. The manuel should be read carefully and will help you to go to the first pains of learning the device. Ofcourse you want to use it immediately, but then you'll be missing a lot and I'm really astound that there are people who discovered the heel switch after a long period of using the pedal!!! You should stay with the cry baby..... But serieus, it's not that difficult and sleeping with the manuel under your pillow you should know how to program this wonderful peace of engineering the next day......
O, and the pedal pressure for the toe switch you need is somewhat high. I sat on my chair and fell off while pushing the pedal to get the wah's going!! But standing up with big shoes it will be okay.

I,ve only had this Bossbaby for a week and tried it in my studio in front of a Marshall JMP-1 pre-amp and then to the mixer.... sound is very impressive!! Next week I'll trie it in the rehearsel room with the JMP-1, a Peavey Classic 50/50 tubeamp and a Marshall 1960AV (4/12) and I know it will sound awesome!!
The wah's are clean, strong and have a wide reach. There must be a favourite one for you....mine is the "cry baby" (I have an original, the Boss is the better one) and the "advance", very usable. I am not fond of the distortions but that's because I never use a stompbox kind of unit, I rely on the pre-amp for a pure distortion. I had hoped to thicken the sound a bit with the OD-1 or 2 option, but it gets muddy as soon as you only look at the drive knob. The noiselevel is, with the drive knob activated, very present (with gain on the pre-amp) and I don't like to use the supressor. Maybe I have to learn to deal with it more...... I admit. Programming the distortion type is odd but you get used to while playing with this sturdy metal box. The univibe seems nice for certain solo's or intro's and is of good quality. The voice isn't that human at all unless you're drunk, then it could resemble a bit. I think it is not very useful.....these kind of effects are used very now and then anyway, otherwise it will bore the audiance. I haven't tried the double resonance option and I think I never will, cause I like guitarsounds and not synthlike things out of my guitar!
The heel switch could be a addition for more preset sounds but I have to experience this one the upcoming time. As wah pedal it is unbeatable and knowing that it has a great sound AND reliability (no pot's and moving things in it.....) it will do the job for me. O, and you better buy the adapter with it.

It seems there is warranty so I can sleep at night with no problems on my mind. The cry-baby could be my back-up but it crawled under my mixertable after hearing the Boss......I just leave it there, crying....
I thrust Boss and expect no problems. I have the thing for a week only, so what can I say.

This unit suits me very well cause I play a lot of rocksolo's in our coverband (classic rock of the 80's). The wah's sounds are authentic and therefor useful. I've been playing for 25 years and the equipment I use is already mentioned above, but I also use an Alesis quadraverb and ofcourse some guitars like superstrats, Fender strat , Maverick
X-1 and Ibanez (oldie). I don't wanna think about it being stolen but I like the size because it fits in my guitarcase. I hate nothing about it but maybe I will once using it gigging or rehearsing....I'll let you know. The cry baby I have is simply out of date (I say this respectfully..) and won't serve me in the 21th century. The Boss will!!They promised me in the add...... I wil see. When you have an open mind for new developments like this and don't want to use everything at once, it will certainly improve your playing and sound. Wah is always stunning and very lively sounding when not overdone, that is.
So, have patience with it.....make fun and play music! That's all it's about......

Once you figure out what sounds you want out of it, it's a snap, but getting them can be a bit of a pain with having to unplug it and all. But as far as using the dials and switches it's pretty straight foward.

I use a Gibson lp special with this pedal third in my chain of about 10 pedals before my VS65R. When using the wah with my amps distortion or my Jackhammer, it just doesn't blend well, but when used with my mt-2, it helps tighten things up and sounds great. Sounds great with cleans too as it doesn't color the sound. When using the synth mode and matching it with a big muff (or using the built in distortion)...wow. All that said, as far a wahing goes, I still favor my crybaby 535.

Boss. Reliable.

n/a

I play mostly rock/metal but try to play a bit of everything. As I said, I favor my crybaby for general wah duties, but this thing does come in handy. I got it as a birthday present, and probably wouldn't have gotten it if I had to pay for it, but it's nice to have.

Too many options for a wah. you want a wah? Buy a damn wah... Simple enough to use, but why bother when the real deal is available?

I only had this one for a couple of days. At the time I was using my Warmoth VIP hollowbody with PRS pickups into a Boogie Solo Rectoverb head and 4 x 12. Sound quality? It was really awesome....after I turned it off and put it back in the box, took it back to the shop and swapped it. Actually, now that I think back, it sounded bad even just sitting in the box. Seriously though, these things are expensive and sound like garbage. Dont waste your time, buy a true real deal wah....Crybaby, Vox, Snarling Dogs (cool) or the bomb, a RMC Picture Wah (the coolest). Any of those pedals will absolutely shit on this thing. And I've had all of them, so I know! Some of the options on this thing are mildly amusing, but it sucks tone like a vampire....

Didnt keep it long enough to know. Heard Boss are very reliable, but I'm not so sure I could resist smashing it to pieces anyway because of its crap tone.

Never used it.

Trust me. Buy a real deal wah and forget this toy crap. why work around problems and worry about noise reduction and boosting volume levels because of its inherent suckiness, when you can buy a handmade RMC wah, and have a friend for life?

There is really no need for a wah pedal that is this complicated to use , sorry. Guitar playing is about technique , this thing is more complicated than most mixers, the heel bypass mode and the in built distortion - Give me a break!

Of Course it sounds good in fact it sounds unbelievale with distortion . Its own distortion/drive is a joke though (like the DS-1).
But if you don't use the drive it sucks your bloody volume ...hello?, turn the drive up and it bleeds your ears! As i said it sounds good if you hire an engineer to come to your gigs and compensate for volume loss and volume swell every time you break your foot using the heel bypass to switch the bloody thing on !!!!
The funky mode i forget what its called is my favourite, (shaft mode , whatever)
But as i said this thing is just not worth it ,the bloody hiss of it ,and you can still hear it with a ns-2 noise suppressor in your chain its like a fucking train , the built in noise suppressor itself is a joke ,cuts all your notes!
This is a sound quality rating though so overall i have to give it a 6

i Don't trust this pedal so how can i rely on it?

I feel i have to write this review to stop others from wasting their cash on it. I am a serious gutarist , and i now use a fulltone clyde deluxe wah pedal which are a tad more expensive but you get what you pay for. 3 modes,toe it on quality wah , very hendrixy, no volume loss/boost, no colouration - organic.
As Far as the boss goes , i havn't put it on ebay yet but i will have to as i am having problems getting rid of it - NOBODY WANTS IT!
some bloke wrote a good review ( a few down) on this pedal and listed
at least 8 problems catagorically which i respect, then he went on about how to solve them . Read this one carefully - I REST MY CASE!!!!
I think the reason people do this is becase they are too proud to admit to themselves that they got a raw deal when they purchased this pedal .SELL IT!!!!
And for all those pot heads who gave this pedal an overall rating of 9 or 10 do not know what a fucking wah pedal is supposed to be in the first place. They probably fuck up their bands songs by using the the fucking 'uni-v' funtion all the time , what in jesus christ is this function doing on a wah pedal in the first place , never mind those who think it sounds good!

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.

This pedal is crazy, I am very impressed with it. It is pretty easy to use, the nose switch is simple, push it down and it is on or off. The heel switch is kind of annoying, not very easy to use, but that doesn't matter, you don't really even need it. If you are cheap and buy it used and it doesn't come with a manual, wow, you are gonna be lost. IF you have no idea what to do, you need the manual. The pedal does a lot and you need to know how to do the stuff, once you read the manual you will know how to do it with no problem. The only bad thing about this pedal is, if you wanna change the distortions and overdrives on this pedal, like change from metal zone to big muff or OD-1 or OD-2 or any of the other dists. and overdrives, you gotta take out the AC adapter, put it back in when holding down the manual/memory button ,and make sure you change it to advanced b4 you put the ac in, then you can switch dists. and overdrives. If you need to use the many distortions this pedal has and you are playing a show, you better just get some extra pedals, it will get pretty annoying to turn it off, switch to this, hold button, power on, pick what you want, and save it. That isn't a big problem, but to use the diff. dists. and overdrives is cool to have, an awesome pedal worth the $$$. It models the Morley, Vox, and Dunlop wahs greatly,they are all packed in one and you can use the Q control (range knob)!!! A 9 because the heel switch is dumb and sorta hard.

If you want Vox V846, Morley Bad Horsie, and Dunlop CryBaby all in one and that sound like them, get this pedal. I have had used or had those pedals, they sound like it and better, except 4 the Crybaby, I like the sound of my Dunlop GCB-95 better than the Boss V wahs simulation. The pedal has a noise supressor in it along with the distortions, overdrives, wahs, custom wahs, bass wah, univibe, and voice! You can't get a pedal like this or any better!

I use it on gigs, I usually use the wahs and rotovibe or uni-v. I don't need a backup 4 this pedal even though I have a ton of pedals, wahs, dists., overdrives, and every other fx.

Never need to deal with em.

This pedal is the best, I bought it mainly for the wahs and Uni-v, the voice is awesome too, but only sounds good with the dist. on the pedal because my head's distortion is too powerful. I really like how they added the old Vox Uni-v, that was a great idea. You can't even compare this to any other pedal, it would kill any other pedal anyway! If they make a 2nd version of this one, I don't know what they would do, but Boss would make another insane pedal. This pedal made me get rid of most of my fx pedals, I don't use a lot any more because of this pedal, it takes care of what some of my pedals did, and the stuff on this pedal is of the best quality and sounds awesome.

All the complaints stated below are valid. i couldn't believe that switching between presets would not bypass the distortion; weird. That being said i decided to use it as a strict wah and if i wanted a univibe flavour i would just reach down and turn a knob. i also like the preset "synth" sound although it boosts my signal too much.

I really like the sound of the filters. I use the univibe sound quite a bit. the travel could be longer and smoother.

i gig without a backup. i play often and i don't woory about it.

This pedal definately inspires me. it's fun and i barely cracked it's possibilities. Maybe that is why i'm not frustrated with it. My suggestion is don't expect it to do everything. It's a great wah with extras.

This pedal is simple, but the best ever, it has three knobs, one where you can pick which wah or effect you wanna use, another knob lets you pick the range for the sweep of the effect you picked, and another knob where you can adjust the distortion. It has 3 memory places for you own creations, easy, just push the memory button, pick which space, 1, 2, or 3 and hold memory down, and it's saved! The manual is great, if you don't know what to do or what to start off with the manual can probably help you out, describes every feature of the pedal. This is my favorite pedal ever, it is almost like a "make your own guitar pedal" because there is so much stuff to pick from and edit and add or take away, for one pedal it does so much, sooo much! You can sit and play around with this pedal for a very long time to find what you like, so many things to choose from! Some people complained about the nose switch, but it easy, if you have ever used a Vox or Dunlop pedal, it is just like turning one on and off, just push your toes down and it is on or off, but with the Boss v wah you just gotta push your toes alittle bit harder, who cares, not a big deal at all, still the best pedal ever! I don't know about the heel switch, I don't use it, it seems hard to use, but there is no need to really use it. And no, there is no delay in turning the pedal on and off when pushing down the nose, some people said you gotta hold it down for a second or two, no you don't, just like a Vox or Dunlop, just push your toes down and it is on or off! I rate it a 9, only because the heel switch is kinda hard to use.

This pedal is insane, I have a bunch of fx, almost every kind out. I have been looking for a while to find the wah that I like, I finally found the Dunlop GCB-95 wah, that was my favorite, but the Boss V wah has it in it, and you can adjust the range on it, even better! The Boss wah has a bunch of wahs in one, pick from the custom wah(make your own), advanced, bass wah,Dunlop CryBaby, Vox V846, and Morley Bad Horsie wahs, and you can adjust the range on all of them! It is great, the Boss wah is more like a "create a wah pedal" because you can make any wah you want with this pedal. You can even pick a distortion, the dist. depends on what wah you pick, there are OD-1, OD-2, Guv'nor, Big Muff, Metal Zone, and I think a few more, and you can adjust the drive on all of them, really great! It isn't just a wah pedal, it has "voice" mode, you have to know what that does, simulates vowel sounds and stuff, an awesome feature and sounds great! One of the best things about this pedal, other than making your own wah, is it also is the old Vox Rotovibe/Uni-V pedal, just turn the knob to Uni-V and turn the range knob, it is just like the old Vox pedal, it is crazy! This pedal is more than most Boss pedals, but is worth it, big time! Who cares how much, you can do so much with it! If you even think about buying it, buy it, you won't make the wrong choice, it is great, you can't find a better pedal!

Boss made it, you know it is good. If you have any Boss pedals, you know that Boss makes the best stuff. I use this thing on gigs every chance I get.

Never have to deal with them, their stuff is built great. They don't make junk that will break in a couple days, so you don't even need to contact them!

I have been playing guitar for a looong time, and I wish Boss made this pedal a while ago! If this pedal was stolen or lost, I would get another without thinking twice about it! Really, this pedal is almost like a "make you own guitar pedal" don't waste your money on some junky fx processor, get the Boss PW-10 V Wah, the best pedal out! I just can't believe how much stuff this pedal has in it and what it can do! You are probably reading this because you are thinking about getting one, don't read any more reviews, go out and get this pedal, you won't be disappointed, it will be one of the best decisions you have ever made!

GENIUS the pedal saved my life. The only-minor- problem is that the Manual isnt that much help, i pretty much guessed how to use the settings but its not hard ive had id about 5 days and i know everything about it. So easy to use MEMORY button changes from RED>GREEN>YELLOW and MANUAL (colours pre set). heel switch switch between 1 particular coulour eg yellow and MANUAL (the settings on the board at that moment) and toe switch obviously on/off wah.

dont listen to any negative reports on the sound quility, the noise suppresor works a charm (it goes a bit dodgy when the batterys run out but what doesnt), also the distortions a excellent, unless you use eg the level and tone buttons on the knob gris then youve got nothing to worry about. they sound EXACTLLY the same as the effects they simulate. It saved me having to buy a fuzz, dist and mt-2. also i think it might have some kind of power driver built in because i have a marshall vs100(i play very loud) and it sounds just as good through a 10watt amp. the only addvise with this pedal is get a EQ, then your the dogs bollox.

Its boss, you could go insane throw it off a building, piss on it etc.... then still gig without backup.

once again boss, say no more.

brill buy this, your not only getting a EXCELLENT modeling wah, your getting a dist grid with it.

I am torn as to what to put here. Everyone seems to think this is really difficult to program. I am trying to put it into prospective. If you have ever used rack gear, and dealt with endless menues (take for instance the Lexicon MPG G2 I used to own) Then This pedal is NOT complicated. If you are used to only a pedal that has an on off switch...it's more complicated than that. It has more options than most pedals so it's going to have a bit more depth in it's set up. I think a quick read through the manual and 20 minutes playing with it and you will have climbed the steep learning curve ;-)

Well the sound is alright. it adds some hiss and I can hear a difference in tone but nothing that 99% of the music listening population would notice. I had a Teese Picture Wah and an Ultravibe as well as the Fox Rox captain coconut unit....the sound is not near that type of set up...but we're also talking 1/3 to 1/4 the price. so FOR THE MONEY I think the wah and Univibe sounds are usable. The distortions are not very good and I would only use them for practice in the bedrooom...get an external unit. The lack of in depth control on the distortions make the an extra thrown into the pedal that really don't have any use for me. I mainly use a Tube Screamer for my sound into a Twin Reverb- Strats and Teles

I would think it's as reliable as an AVERAGE wah. People seem to think that the fact that there are no mechanical parts (roller, teeth, pot) to wear out that this thing will last forever....well, electronics are more complicated, eventually break, and are harder to fix usually so I can't but this above an average wah like the reissue vox847 but I think it's solid enough in this price range.

Have not Dealt with customer support.

I set mine up to have the heel switch engage the univibe nothing else. So the toe switch gets my wah and the heel gets my vibe. I have two usable effects in one pedal for a decent price. For the money this is not a bad solution. I might step up to the plate and put some extra money into something else again but I wanted to try this and it's not a bad pedal at all. Good bang for the buck, some interesting features. A lot of stuff included I would never use (distortions) passable sound-

if you just want the wah its simple, just turn the type and range and your away.
If, however, you want distortion its an arse to set and change/switch of presets as nearly everyone else has said.

esp with zack wylde emg 81 + 85, or strat with hot rails into boss od20->pw10->roland cube 30
the noise suppressor is pretty handy especially on the od 20's extreme setting.
I dont use the distortion just solely wah presets on it.
The vox and morley emulations are pretty much spot on, cant really comment on the crybaby as ive never tried one. The only real difference in them is the rocker doesnt have as much movement as the modelled wahs.
the voice is pretty good, but i think the uni v is pants and just totally screws with the sound on my active pickups.
the bass wah is good as ive tried it on my mates ibanez.
the custom wah has some good variations in sound, but the manual doesnt explain what half the functions do (whats Q?)

very reliable.
built like a brick sh*t house.
although once my patch didnt save correctly

never needed

i play metal - maiden, metallica, slayer type stuff and its good for solos and riffs with shedloads of distortion. the noise suppressor is handy but just loses sustain on high settings.
overall its good, but if you gig with it , id get a seperate distortion pedal so you can change easier, but in the studio can still be used to its fullest.

I'll keep this brief - the operator's manual sucks! This pedal takes quite a bit of getting used to. It works better as a studio-orientated multi effects pedal than a gigging utility.
It's disadvantages are:
1.The pedal's distortion can only be switched off by the bypass function - this involves pushing down on the heel of the pedal for approximately one second - not practical in a live situation.
2. When using the Univibe setting, it can only be switched off by depressing the pedal into the OFF mode- it means you can't just stomp it on and off to get a vibrato/chorus effect - but so is the Dunlop Rotovibe.
3. The preset memories are very difficult to use on stage [ again because of the depressing of the heel of the pedal ]
4. There is a slight delay between depressing the pedal, and the thing you are switching on engaging - again not so good for gigs
5. The distortions take a bit of experimentation to get right- the default one is the Boss HM2 - which is not explained in the manual and is harsh.
6.The distortion can't be switched on and off easily in a live situation, or altered easily without unplugging the unit.
7.Some of the effects are a bit too gimmicky to be used in a live situation [ requiring EQ and adjustment ]

FANTASTIC!!!!
I found it good before or after overdrive. I use a Strat with Texas specials and a Fender 75 Head, I use a TS808, MXR Phase 90. Boss OC2 and several other effects, this unit is brilliant wherever in the chain.
The Univibe is Fantastic, the Morley Wah is too. The cry baby is good [ I prefer the Vox and Morley as a matter of taste] and Boss's own wah is also good.
I've connected a Boss LS2 Line selector [ a/b switch] to engage the PW10 into the signal path so I can switch on the distortion and Univibe seperately - this makes it far more versatile, so I can use my TS808 for solos and the Big Muff or RAT setting on the PW10 for nasty stuff just by pushing on the LS2. I'm giving it a 9 because the Distortion lacks a tone control and can boost the signal a bit too much unless used advisedly.

I had to take the first one back to the shop as it was faulty.

I play Blues/rock, been playing over 20 years, owned a cry baby for 10 years. This pedal is amazing for the money. I swear that the Univibe is as good as the real thing, and to have the choice of at least 3 excellent Wah Wahs, Distortion and some gimmicky studio sounds for the money is unbeatable. The LS2 really made it flexible, but it's a shame Boss didn't fit it with a simpler by-pass to save the extra 69 quid I had to spend.

The concept is great, the sounds are terrific, but the execution is not well thought out for live use - specifically, I'm referring to the bypass switching, and the mechanical switches themselves.

I'll start with the bypass - you have to step on the heel switch for 2 seconds before bypass kicks in. Too Long. Also, before the 2 seconds are up, the pedal "thinks" you are switching presets, and goes to the next preset (which is audible). If you have a massive distortion patch in the next preset memory, but all you wanted to do was bypass the pedal, you will be surprised to get the distorto-tones for the 2-seconds it takes before bypass kicks in. Surprisingly poor design for a live pedal.

Also, the toe and heel switches require far too much pressure to activate. I've seen others complain of this as well, and I thought I could live with it, but after several gigs, I just can't. a MAJOR nusiance, particularly if you play seated.

Another faux-pas - each patch consists of a wah sound and distortion tone - great idea, and it sounds great. But say you just want the distortion - no problem, just kick the toe-switch and the wah is bypassed. But say you want to dump the distortion sound - you either have to 1) reach down and futz with a knob, 2) do the bypass dance I described above, or 3) use up one of 3 memories with an identical patch, but without distortion. Badly done (and I really tried to make this work)

wah and distortion models sound terrific, really really good. Not quite as good as my magic early 70's crybaby, but close enough for jazz, and I could have lived with it (my crybaby has a subtley brighter, more organic sound to it, but it is subtle, and the pw-10 comes close to the overall vibe).

The pedal will hold up no doubt, and work as designed. It's unfortunate that the design is so flawed, and frankly I'm surprised that people haven't ranted about this. Boss usually does a better job than this, and I'm sure that the PW-20 will nail it at some point... ;)

Don't know, don't really care...

Sounds = 10
Usability = 2
Back-of-the-envelope overall avg = 5

I really wanted to make this work. REALLY. I'm sorry that I couldn't. The sounds are great. The distortions are actually quite good (surprisingly good - in fact I've considered just keeping the pedal for this functionality).

I'm a regularly gigging player - 30 years experience, I have an endorsement deal with a major guitar manufacturer, and I have a clue as to how things need to work and sound. Most of my gear is custom built, and I almost never use pedals. My name is omitted from this review because I'm not trying to brag, just wanted to tell it like it is, and let you know that I know what I'm talking about.

I just got back from a frustrating session with this pedal, it's 2AM and I figured I'd get this off my chest before I got sidetracked...

Your mileage may vary, of course ;)

The V-Wah is easier to use that what most others are saying. It is easy to get a wah sound out of, but the distortions take a minute or two. All the info is on the back of the pedal, and the manual is in-depth. I found it easy to learn, but difficult to master, as there are many sounds hidden in this thing that you will be entertained for ages.

I use this pedal with delay (DD6 usually), and various other pedals, and play it through a variety f guitars and amps, depending on the style I feel. It is quiet and the noise supressor makes the 2-3 loud distortions quiet. The sound quality is very good IMO. I have compared the Crybaby, Morley and Vox to their original counterparts and they sound very very good. I would rather this pedal than spending hundreds of dollars for the slight sound difference. The V-Wah isn't as loose as the other Wahs, making it a little slower to move, but that doesn't effect me. For those who are looking at these reviews to wonder whether or not to buy it (that's why I bought it, and I love it!), here's a brakedown of each feature the pedal has:
The Uni-Vibe: This is one of my favourite effects in this thing. It sounds beautiful with chords and a low intensity, with a clean sound. Works well for solos with distortion too. Has a nice chorusy feel and you get swirly sounds from it. Very nice and creative effect.
Voice: This is more of a gimmicky option. I was hoping for something where I could have a talking intro to one of my songs, but no, it just goes oooo and aaahhh like a burping baby. Is unuseable for songs, but for a breakdown you could compile a short speech with it, only if you set all the memory to different things. You see, there are 11 set options on the dial, with 3 vowels in each. One has eeee when the pedal is back, then iiiii in the middle and ooooiiii at the front. You have 11 of those so it doesn't really talk, it just sounds weird. I found a spot that goes la la la and sounds great for xmas carols, but not much use otherwise.
Next is the Morley wah. This is great and sounds different from the other ones. I've found that you don't want the same sound for every song when giging, so this pedal makes every song sound different. That's what I like about it. The morley is very useful.
The Vox: This has less sweep from the others and can replicate Hendrix sounds and other wonderful songs.
Crybaby is possibly my fav, as it just sounds so cool. Perfect for solos and you can even play clean without moving your pedal at all then occasionally just wriggle it around at the end of a lick. With distortion, you get a harmonicy sound in the middle of the pedal (in between back ond forth) so you can hit a power chord and slowly rock it into place for a great feedback tone. Great for ending songs and adding an extra bite.
Bass mix is very well done for the bass, but I've only heard (I don't play bass).
Advanced: If you don't feel like playing with the classic wah sounds you can use this modern one. It is my second fav as it has a huge sweep alowing for more possibilities.
The double Resonance is under 'custom' as the factory setting, and is that synth sound. It sounds good when you slowly move the pedal forward as the fat sound grows and sounds like the synthesizer. It has its unique uses so I'm happy with it.

Now on with the distortions. Most people say they don't like them, but I don't think it has anything to do with there sound (which is very good), but the lack of options in it. Let me explain, you have the left knob which chooses your overdrive or whatever, then the middle one is the noise suppressor, and the last one is how much gain you get (low is almost clean where up full is as dirty as possible). Now with the pedal they copy, they have like presence, shape, and other options that the V-Wah doesn't have, so this pedal gets their sound, but you don't have room for a lot of customization. I just switch between distortion sounds when I want somethign different for each song. Here's a quick breakdown:
The Blues overdrive is very good, the Metal Zone is great for heavier stuff, the Guv Marshal one is perfect for even heavier stuff where the Turbo overdrive and vintage overdrive have that sound with your tone in tact. That's what makes overdrives better than distortions, the ntone boost. The Boss distortion pedal is great for punk rock or wh

I couldn't afford a back-up, nor do I need one. Never has or will break down, will last forever.

Boss. Could throw it off a tall building, see it crack against bricks then reflect off and hit a street lamp, only to see the street lamp fall. Boss always delivers and you know it is high quality.
I would say that being on the Boss helpline would be the most boring job ever. Who rings them for help? Exactly. Has any Boss pedal ever broken down anywhere? Rarely, I have a better chance of winning the lottery than seeing this brick break down.

I play Hendrix style cross bred with my own. I've been playing several years and would replace this pedal if it were stolen, of course, I would find the thief and chokeslam his dog first. I love everything about this pedal, but would like an extra knob for the distortion. I compared it to several other product and the difference was subtle, frankly you'd do better buying this instead of 15 other pedals. It opens up so many doors creatively, and I would highly recommend anyone interested in wahs to buy one. It has many great features that I love, and I will be using this pedal for many more years. I bought it for the voice mode and crybaby, but ended up not likeing voice and loving everythign else. I can and will use this so much, that I would pay twice the amount I bought it for. It is now my favourite pedal and it has changed my daily guitar time from 3 hours to 5 each day. I can garuntee that you won't be disapointed with this pedal, and urge anyone who is tempted for it to just buy it. Well done Boss.

Not hard to get a good sound out of this pedal: Just step on the toe of the pedal (Hope you weigh alot...) and wail.

There are 4 patches you can save, and load at runtime. I've had this pedal for about 5 months. I wasn't too impressed with the thinking behind the patch editing scheme. It seemed hard to use. However, I didn't actually know how to use it until last night. I was talking on the phone, and I absentmindedly picked up the wah and noticed instructions on the back of it. "Hmmmmm", I thought, "I had no idea there were 8 different kinds of distortion available, and there was another switch on the heel of the pedal." Doh! When the manual (which I quickly skimmed when I got the pedal) referred to the "heel" switch, I thought it meant that you were supposed to hit the little push-button on the front of the wah with your heel. (I mean the actual button, not the one under the toe of the rocker pedal.) That would only work if your foot was the size of a cat's and you had heels made of concrete. Noise gate? I had no idea... Crap! I usually am more thorough than this.

Having made this discovery, I'm a lot more impressed with the usability of this pedal. To create and save a patch, you basically perform a strange ritual of holding down a switch while plugging something into the input jack. Then, the "wah range" knob becomes a selector for distortion type, the "drive" knob becomes a tone control or something, etc. You adjust things till you get a sound you like, then turn the pedal over again to see how to save the patch. It comes unplugged. Oops. Start over. You sure wouldn't want to try this live! Still, there's a lot of stuff packed into this pedal. I'm going to mess with it a lot, and it will be cool.

Feature-wise, there's a lot of stuff in there: Uni-vibe, which is cool for contemplative 70's love songs, cry-baby, morley, vox wahs, distortion, a "voice" thing which won't fool a single Frampton fan, and a couple of others. Too bad it can't also be a volume pedal. That would be nice. I never buy a pedal that can't do at least 2 different things. This one does 6 or so, but a volume pedal would be a useful addition.

On the "weigh alot" issue: You won't have to worry about accidentally (dis)engaging this pedal. The effect is turned on and off by pressing down on the toe of the rocker pedal. The force required to do it is more than I can exert when sitting down. Standing up, esp. when I'm wearing a pair of jamming/scoring/butt-kicking boots, it's about right. I might take it apart and see if there's an adjustment for that. I like to sit down when playing at home.

As you move the pedal, it goes "wah. waaaaah. waaaawaaaawaaaaah." Cool. Plugging into the front of a distorted patch on a Tri-A.C. with this thing is totally addictive. This thing wails. Lots of harmonics squeeze out, and the whole thing is very emotional when sufficient distortion and delay are involved. I like the cry-baby type wah the most. The Uni-Vibe setting is interesting. The distortion, now that I know how to turn it off (!), will also serve as a nice boost.

It doesn't seem very noisy. I've used it with a couple of different amps. It goes "wah" on every one of them, as expected.

Well, hmmm, the rocker pedal is made of machined aluminum, there's a thick rubber tread in the middle of that, there are big bolts holding it onto the body of the box, and the wah effect is apparently controlled optically (see "Hall Effect"). The body appears to be a sheath of black plastic on top of something more substantial. I fancy it's titanium. I bet it's not though. I think it would be pretty hard to tear this pedal up. Not that I'll try... It's cool-looking.

Relative to the reliability of an actual Cry-Baby wah I had when I was a teenager, this thing is like a tank. That other wah was a piece of junk. It popped and crackled, was constantly going out of adjustment, and the wah effect was controlled by a rack and pinion setup that was vulnerable to dust, cat hair, beer, and spit.

As for gigging without a backup, I can only say this: I don't care about my audience enough to cancel a show because I can't go "wah" during a solo: "We rock you Omaha! Oops, sorry Omaha! Wah is broken. We do not rock you Omaha! Thank you! Goodnight!" If it stopped functioning, I wouldn't use it, and finish the gig like a true professional. Well, a professional who uses batteries in his pedal(s).

Never dealt with them.

I'm overjoyed at my recent discovery of the fabled heel switch, now that I know where it is... I'm a lot more impressed with this pedal overall than I was. It was pretty cool anyway, and the heel switch makes it that much more special.

I play all kinds of stuff involving wah pedals: Mostly porno soundtracks, and a little REO Speedwagon and Hendrix. If it were lost or stolen, I would have no wah, and would miss it. I would buy another, because it has a heel switch that I haven't seen on any other wah pedal to date.

Getting a godo sound was a breeze as soon as I realized how much better it sounded put in front of my effects. After that, man, it just wailed. I'm still playing with the editing features and looking through the manual, but acutally editing is only easy. I mean, you have to be stupid to find it complicated. I mean c'mon, 3 knobs, 1 on/off switch, 4 banks. Really guys...
I've read a lot of comments on here also that the switches are hard to engage. I had mixed feeligns about buying it after reading it, but went ahead and bought it. All I have to say is...you guys must have the weakest legs. It doesn't take very much to engage these. Just a little extra effort...duh, so it doesn't turn off when you're using it. But far from hard.
The manual is clear and well defined.

I'm currently using a couple of guitars (Washburn HB-35, Epiphone Les Paul Custom (with Gibson pickups) and a Fender Strat) into this wah, into a Boss ME-33 and then to a Peavey Studio Pro 112. I love this rig and have fine tuned it to a some sweet sounds. I wondered what it would be like adding this pedal in and if there were any changes I had to make, but it fit in perfect. It took a little bit of tweeking to get when I wanted but what doesn't right? It was only a few minutes before I had the wah I was looking for (mainly cause I knew what I wnated). Still working on the Joe Satriani sound!
This is a very strong sounding pedal. A great wah, and I love the UNI VIBE sound. Adds a lot of versatility to a rig. Opened a lot of doors for sounds and being creative. You can adjust it to whatever wah sound you want. It's great. I use it for solos with distortion. But is great for any wah sounds. If anyone wants my seeting for my wah or ME-33 let me know, you won't be disapointed.

Boss never ceases to amaze me. Thsi thing looks amazing, but is built like a tank. I have the adaptor so it'll never die out, so I'd use it without a back up, and will actually during my bands next gig. The grips on the pedal are great, and it is 100% durable. But what I could get over was how despite the toughness of it, it was incredibly light. It can't weigh more than 3-4 pounds.
Besides, why would you buy something and have a backup. Why would you buy somethign you don't have faith in?

Have never dealt with Boss - never had a reason to. Not even with my ME-33. Not a glitch.

I play in a rock band, that play a lot of different things from Our Lady Peace, to Creed, to I Mother Earth, to Bon Jovi (just to name a few from our upcoming set list), to many other things. I also play in a jazz/rock band, and a acoustic type band. On my own I like to listen to/play Joe Satriani, Van Halen, (good rock). I'm a guitar nuts I love guitar and I know how a guitar should sound, that why I use the best of everything.
I won't tell you how old I am, cause people tend to judge skill by age, so if you really want to know email me.
It'll never be lost or stolen...who would be stupid enough to let that happen? haha. But for argument's sake, I would replace it for whatever reason, unless it like broke on it's own...
I love just about everything about it. What I don't liek I jsut don't use. pretty simple. I love the wahs, the control you have, I'm sure the distorions are good if used right (I use my ME-33). And I like the Uni Vibe. This definitly helps me make music.
For those potential buyers, anyone wo said or says this is hard to use, they are full of it. It's very easy to use, you know, if you are a decent or better guitar player looking for a good wah pedal with lots of versatility. And if you are very picky like myself.
Feel free to message me with anymore questions! later everyone.

How easy is it to get a good sound out of it?
This pedal is really easy to use, if you read the manual through at least once.

How about Editing patches?
Getting to use the different distortions is a bit unproffesional, having to hold a button with one hand while using that hand to help you put in the power source or guitar plug. I dont use the distortions though. Changing the wah sounds are a breeze, as are saving the patches.

How is the manual for it?
The manual is thorough, if you can hold your laughter through the engrish.

My setup is an ibanez Rg120 > Pw-10 > DS-1 > Delay and Reverb> computer or my 30 watt.

The pedal is considerably noisy, only if you use a distortion pedal after the wah. I get no hiss at all if i put my DS-1 before the wah, but then my distortion sounds old school, and weak wah.

The wah is incredibly strong, stronger than anything ive used. I can get considerable wah at the 24th fret at the high E. Every wah sounds good, but my favorite is the "advanced" setting. If i put it with a low sweep range i get a WOAW WAA. to good to be true. The vowel sounds are a bit useless, as is the u-vibe, to much hiss on the vibe.

I can get a funk wah, to a kirk hammet enter sandman wah.

Its a boss, it looks bulletproof, and if a burgler comes ill hurl this baby at him and knock him out or probably kill him.

Yes i would gig without a backup, its never failed me, and its digital so its likely it never will.

Did'nt have a need to call em'.

This wah is almost perfect. No wah wah is perfect though, but this pedal gets the closest bet. This wah is way more versatile than anything ever heard.

If this were stolen or lost, i would get something cheaper. Mainly because im a kid and saved up for this pedal for a while. If i had the money i would definetely get another one though.

I love the wah sound, but i hate the hiss. My favorite feature is again, the advanced setting, it sounds different than the three other wahs.

I compared this to a dunlop 535q and the dunlop gets thumbs down compared to the boss.

I wish this pedal had a more customizable bypass. I wish i could bypass the wah AND the noise gate. If i want to bypass the noise gate i have to hold the heel down for 2 seconds, which i dont wanna ever do.

not the easiest pedal to use by any means, it takes a couple hours to get the hang of, but then it's easy. Also, you have so many different types of wahs, and paremeters within each wah to tweek, it is very flexible.

My rig goes, b-bender american tele, or g&l asat clasic, into vintage ross phaser, boss vwah, maxon cp101 compressor, akai inteliphase, maxon chorus fulltone octave fuzz, mxr noise gate, into a yamaha dg80 combo, with a boomerang in the loop. I play a mixture of jazz blues and fusion, the latter being my favorite. I also play in a cover band doing top 40 type stuff at weddings. That's partly why I chose this wah. I had a dunlop 535 cue, which doesn't compare to this one. I need several wah sounds at my feet during the course of a pop gig, and the vwah helps me do that. I use a budda like setting as my main wah, not so much low end, but pronounced highs, as well as a bad horsey type wah with more low end for the rockier stuff. The humanizer and vibe are cool, but not as usable and I have other pedals that get that job done. I have to say, the vwah's factory presets are cool, but the ability to adjust the cue and frequency anounciation of each wah type, and create custom wahs is why I like this pedal. If you've got the ability to tweek, why not?

I've had it for two months, and nothing. my buddy has had his for a year and it's still working fantastically.

Boss Cs is not the best, I had an old gx700 fx processor I needed help with, and I spent two hours getting switched back and forth till I gave up, no one knew what I needed to know.

I have to urge people to check out this pedal. I have owned a budda and a vox, and they both sound amazing, but it boils down to one thing, for a live situation, you need vercitility so why not have it in the vwah. I think boss did a great job here, and this is one of the few gems in their product line. I have been dragging my feet when it comes to the realm of digital fx and amps, but I finally broke down and bought some of the new toys, and I really am impressed with this pedal.

Speaking as someone who programs a lot and likes it, hey, you actually have to read the manual here - so it's necessarily obvious from the faceplate (though it's laid out on the backplate) Not dead simple, but not bad.

Yes! Finally, the ultimate wah I've been looking for. Advanced, Bass, Cry-Baby and Vox are fantastic, Morley is - like a morley (never been my favorite wah sound), voice is varied, but not radical enough for my tastes - still, if you think of it as another wah / envelope flavor it's good. Uni-V good. I also found several of the distortion / overdrive models quite usable. In particular, the Vintage OverDrive and the Blues Driver emulations have low enough noise and are transparent enough to suit my tastes.

5 year warrenty

Never had to find out

Anyone who ever had a buzz, a click, a crack, a pop or a just plain dead tone pot should thank the engineers at Boss! This beats each and every one of the many, many different wahs I've been through over the years.

I don't really dig the distortions. I prefer mainly the wah part of the pedal. Also, the front and rear toe switches are clunky and they're tough to activate. They're worse than a CryBaby.

Wah sounds great!!! Avoid the distortions... Use an amp or a dedicated distortion pedal. Patch switching is a pain in the butt and they dont't sound all that good for the trouble.

Built like a tank, you can trust it.

None needed

This pedal has potential but I would not recommend you go out and buy one to replace your current wah. I would love to just have the wah modeler instead of the distortion patches. I found a cool website promoting customer suggetions and improvements for the V-Wah hopefully Boss will listen. http://v-wah.50megs.com

The PW-10 looks a little complex when you first approach it... it's not a traditional Boss stomp in that you can't just plug and play, you've got to work out what controls what first. Once you know what everything does, no trouble. Loses out a little in the "ease of use" that it's packed so many FX into one item, but that's the tradeoff between having separate wahs and effecst in one unit.

The adjustments aren't too difficult once you know what everything does... turn the dials, and that's it unless you want to start storing sounds.

The heel switch is helpful for switching between memory presets. People may either love or hate the toe & heel switches... the advantage is that you have to stomp down hard to get it to switch, so you can't you change anything by accident, but that may be a disadvantage for people with a light foot action.

I run a Les Paul, or Strat into a Marshall Valvestate 100, with ernie ball volume, boss PW-10 wah, boss ce-2 chorus & guyatone md3 delay in the effects loop.

Full marks to Boss for the accurate modelling of the Crybaby, Vox & Morley bad horsie wahs, and I like the way in which one can adjust the sweep of them.

I've found the PW-10 to be less noisy than my old crybaby, both whilst active and not. The PW-10 also has the distinct advantage of optical sensors, so there's no dirty pots problem.

I also play a lot of funk bass, and am enjoying the bass wah function - can't compare it to another as I haven't owned one, but certainly it's smooth, clean and responsive.

It's a Boss... so i'd have no hesitation in saying that i'd use it without a backup. However! These things are pretty new, so I guess give it a few more years before I definitely say anything. Certainly it's built like a tank, and looks & feels like it would survive a direct missile strike. Very rugged.

Not anticipating having to call them for the next 20 or so years, if at all...

I play stuff varying from rock to indie, with a fair amount of funk thrown in (play the bass also, just can't help myself!). The Morley wah model is great for rock, crank up the drive and it growls at you most satisfyingly. The other wahs are also perfectly modelled. The jury is out on the distortion and voice functions - amusing but I think ultimately, the unit would probably be better without them - but the Uni-V effect is good fun, although I doubt i'll ever use it in recording... still, nice juddering chorusy sound.

I bought it as I was after a wah sound after losing my old crybaby, and was pretty happy to get three classic wahs in one. I bought partially because of the Boss-Roland pedigree, and I wasn't disappointed. If I lost it, or had it nicked, I would most certainly go out and get another one - it beats a crybaby hands down... not to take anything away from the dunlops, just this thing models it superbly, with optical sensors, and many more adjustable settings.

If you want a flexible wah, go the extra #20 or #30 and get this thing: for less than 100 quid it's worth it. Well done, Boss.

Simply stated, the best wah pedal I've come across in over 30 years of playing (damn has it been that long)..... Great sounds, like having 10 pedals in one, and I've had "virtually" every wah pedal ever made. This one replaces them all, and I used to be fond of my old Morley Power Wah. Read the manual and follow it for 10 minutes, editing/saving patches is easy.

Sound quality is superb, hands down. Low noise, adjustable noise filter for distortion effects. Easy to set wah and drive/wah memory setting to switch between the 2 (read the manual). In manual mode supremely easy to use. I just love this wah, it can do ANYTHING sonically, the pedal travel is fine, and correctly sounds like the "models" it emulates. You may not want to use the gain/distortion as your main sound, but it is very easy to set up a drive/gain stage to kick in with your heel or switch easily back to non-gain wah, or turn it off (front toe switch). I don't have a bad thing to say about this excellent pedal from Boss, not one damn thing..... it just sounds great and is easy to use.

Built like a truck, no hesitation in using it on stage or studio.

Boss is good w/customer support

Best damn wah pedal on the planet, and the Univibe effect is pretty darn close to the original, and even better because the original dampened the guitar signal when oscillating. Wah voicings are superb, noise level suppression is adjustable when selecting one of the overdrive simulations to load into memory (you can only use one at a time), but you can balance the overdrive gain to the non-overdrive wah volume. This pedal ROCKS! Get rid of your unreliable wah pedals and get this one. Don't believe me, get a Boss and compare it back to back with your existing pedal, I bet you'll toss your old ones out or sell them on Ebay. Price new is $149 on the web, I got mine on Ebay for $100 (used but in new condition). That's the end of my search for an old Morley Power Wah to replace the one that crapped out - I gave up on Vox Crybabys a long time ago, and the newer Morleys are crap, save for the Snarling Dog and Danelectro wahs - get the V-Wah and you'll be smiling right now the same as me.

The wah part of it is easy to use. But I think there is too much to be done in order to use the distortion effects. I'm still gonna use my Marshall Jackhammer for that.

Wah sounds good although I have't really compared it to the other wahs like Vox etc that this wah emulates. The voice thingie and the Uni-V sounds good too.
However, the distortion settings are too loud compared too the clean wah sound so I had to use my Jackhammer as a volume box.... Also I think the distortions brought a bit sharp metallic sound with them (i've only tried the MT-2(defaul tsetting) and OD-1 dist)
But it's primarily a as a wah I use it so I give it a niner.

Looks solid enough to me.

-

ease of use? it really depends on whether you have the patience to sit down with the manual. if you do, it ain't so bad, but if not, you are likely to put your hair out. each knob and button has several utilities and you need the manual to figure it out. so if you get this pedal used without a manual, best of luck yo you matey!

fantastic! i own two crybabies and liked them very much...until this pedal came along. the wah is very stable and smooth, there are no sudden peaks along the travel of the treadle. each wah type has its own characteristics and all of them sounded great.

my two wahs have crapped out on me so am not putting much hope on this one..but we'll see...

no reason to contact them yet

i have always loved the wah. and now with the new PW10, i can have 4 of them right at my feet, all for th eprice of one. you can't get any better than that. my only gripe is boss was too ambitious with this pedal, adding on the od option. i would have just push out the wah by itself as the wah on its own is awesome. this could have kept the price low and made it more appealing.

I've been using this pedal for about 7 months. It's a little difficult to work with at first, but once you find your favorite settings, It's a snap.
The trick is to pick a couple tones that are veratile and stick with them. There's 3 memories, plus a 'custom' position on the knob. If you only need a couple settings, you can pare back the heel pedal to act as a manual/memory two position switch instead of four. I ignore the distortions, although fine for pedals, I've got more than enough tube distortion elsewhere.
If you're frustrated with this pedal, you can simplify it down as far as you like, and ignore whatever you want. I use the manual settings for wahs, and use the heel switch (set to two-position) to go to a clean univibe. I've used it live & if you're comfortable with your settings, I don't think it would let you down. Don't even think of reprogramming live. Just get all your ducks in line ahead of time & they'll quack just fine. The manual is well written & complete. You really should read it completely and keep it handy when reprogramming. This pedal really does need a knob for distortion types. The distortions are OK, and there's a good variety, but if you've got tubes and/or a standalone dirtbox, it's much more convenient to ignore them.
To summarize, steep learning curve, but makes sense in the end if you can grok it.

I play this pedal through a Traynor YCV80 tube amp with an Ibanez EX240. It's the only pedal I need now, with the crunch on the amp being more than enough distortion for what I need.
For wah quality, this thing sings. I've been playing for about 13 years, & I've played on a few different wahs, and I couldn't tell much of a difference on the default settings.
However, screw the default settings.
The killer feature on this pedal is the ability to move the sweet spot on any of the wah types. Like the Crybaby, but want more bite on the low end? Just turn the wah range down a bit. The Morley setting growls even more with the range at about 10 o'clock, when soloing on the low E area. Set at about 2 o'clock, the range is over-the-top for solos on the high strings. You could probably use the heel switch to go between the high & low settings to switch 'em on the fly. That would really freak people out.
The Univibe effect is pleasantly surprising. It seems out of place on this pedal, but is a sweet sounding bonus. I would have traded the somewhat lame voice effect for a volume pedal setting, though.
This pedal takes all the classic wahs, puts them in one pedal, and makes them more customizable than you could ever pull off with analog hardware.

It says 'Boss' on it.

Never dealt with 'em, but I'll bet they're as bored as the Maytag guy.

Good: The wah tone. That's what I bought it for. The tone is sick, and you can make it even sicker with a twist of the knob. Versatility! No pots = No crackling. You remember how your Crybaby would lose its cheese after a couple of years? No more. You'll never need another wah. The Univibe is sweet too.

Bad: Distortion settings are a bigger pain in the arse than they're worth. One more knob would have made a huge difference. I thought the voice settings were kind of useless.

Don't bother with the distortion or the voice settings. Well, unless you want. It's your pedal. I'd trade 'em for a volume pedal setting in a second. Just use it for the sweet, sweet wah fruits it offers. See them? They call you. Take them.

-Great manual, as long as you keep track of where you are in the editing process

-No problems actually doing it, but editing the distortion, making a custom wah, etc. are pretty cumbersome with the whole power down/up routine

-The toe switch really sucks- i'm 160 lbs, and i have to stomp with my heel to kill it, while the rest of my foot messes with my settings (anyone up to doing a mod on an otherwise great chunk of equipment?)

-without changing the presets (eg distortion), it's really easy to change your basic sound

-The wah models are dead on

-the uni-vibe is perfect, except it doesn't go fast enough for my tastes (i really want a Leslie cab, except that i'm a college student). The slow settings (barely past heel down) with max depth remind me of Dave Gilmour's phase sound when run with a chorus/flange (listen to Pink Floyd's Breathe for a good example)

-the noise suppressor bites the big one, as you need it when you use the distortion, but you can hear it fighting to kill the sound at high volumes unless you crank it (which kills any semblance of sustain whatsoever)

-the distortions are kinda distinguishable from one another, but all you really need is the boost for solos- let your amp (or dedicated stomp) do the distortion for you, as it sounds better, and has an EQ

-the voice mode sucks, as any fast pedal work absolutely robs you of good tone

-i still am undecided on the "double resonance" effect, as i can't find a practical use for it yet

-i get really noticeable lag (sound drops out) when i heel switch my presets, and there's a different distortion model on the next preset

-As long as I have the adaptor (batteries just don't cut it), i'll go anywhere, without a back up

-slightly less features would actually make my rating go UP- they tried to pack too much into such a small box without providing enough active control over everything.

I would like to come forward now to ask all wusses not to submit reviews on this wah. Come on people, anybody who gave this pedal anything under an 8 for ease of use, has clearly only owned it for about five minutes. This pedal is a work of fricken genius! I've owned MINE for about three months, and i actually know how it works! So if you can't figure it out, grab the owners manual and (amazingly) you might just figure it out. if you can't figure it out after reading the owners manual, then don't EVER operate anything mechanical down to a telephone! UNDERSTAND? Great.

o man, go out and try one that's all i can say. i'd like to be the third to rate this a 17.:-)

it's a boss, come on yo'.

i've pretty much said all i need to say at the top. Great pedal. Great sound. A bit of a battery eater, but hey, that's why they made an adaptor. awsome pedal.

How anyone can honestly give it above a 5 is a mystery. It is
very, very hard to use. And by the way the switches (one for toe, one for heel) are very , very hard to PUSH. So how can you press them when you are down on your butt trying to program it! I think if this pedal made it easier to find and set distortions and had less programming options it would be much more successful. If it had no distortion it probably would not make me so angry. Some of these "easy to use" submissions must come from Boss employees.

The wahs are great and can be adjusted for range which is great.
But the distortions: hard to find, hard to save, and they all have a ton of midrange. When did this love for midrange squawk and honk arise? I thought mid scooping was the trend. Better to have left them off. I can't envision anyone using this as their only or primary source of overdrive. Not that they suck but they are just very hard to find and switch and very time consuming to adjust. Just imagine taking 15 minutes at band practice trying to get a sound you found in two hours on your butt, you get the idea. Save it you say, well there are only 3 places to save and you cycle through them with your heel. OH JOY!! And when you call up your distortion with the back of your foot the drive goes to where the knob is set, not where you saved it at!!! Too many bells and whistles here. This is a wah wah pedal that can potentially make about 1000 different sounds. But that's like having to reading about the ass for an hour every time you have to fart.

I have only had five pedals go bad in 30 years and that's when I try to tinker with them. This is just not a factor for me I guess. As I said before however, if you rely on this for your distortion you must really love obtuse and anal retentive programming.

What, like I'm going to call Tokyo and get a chance to tell them how
stupid they are!!!!!!!!!! I've been trying for twenty years to get someone to make a flanger with a foot pedal on it to sweep the manual.
YEAH, IT WOULD BE GREAT. And while I'm ranting... Why do none of the fancy ass processors allow you to go dry left and wet right.
So frigging basic, it's on many recordings....BUT NO!!!!!! You can't
program any of these floor guitar processors like the GT3 to give
you a dry distortion from left and a wet only reverb from right. WHY!!!!

I can't use a pedal that makes me furious, even if it has some
great wa sounds. They should have left out the distortion and the
noise gate. The noise gate will actually cause your sound to fade out. Very nice when trying to sustain a note, NOT!! If I was'nt so lazy I'd put it on E BAY for $45.

From the first moment you take it out of the box, plug it in, turn it on and start messing with the knobs, this pedal [like most BOSS pedals with multiple settings] becomes truly engaging. My suggestion would be to sit in a room and have a "getting to know you" session with the pedal before you even think about touching the manual. After you are acquainted with the basic functions, the manual provides you with tons of easy to follow directions on how to further manipulate the pedal. Now, the problem for some may not be so-much-the-directions-as the process of programming the pedal. Saving presets, setting distortion types, etc. all have a different process to them [unplugging the pedal, pushing buttons, turning knobs...] that require nothing more than a little patience. Outside of that, this pedal is incredibly easy to use.

My setup goes: Les Paul Studio [into]>Fender PT-10>BOSS PW-10>ProCo RatII>BOSS CE-3>BOSS CS-3>KORG Dynamic Echo>[out through] Music Man HD130 Reverb Head/4x12 Cab. The WAH on it's own always sounds great. With a little bit of chorus and/or compression you can get some nice harmonic undertones to come out. With distortion [unless you use the pedal's on-board distortion(s)] the final signal likes to feed back when the pedal is rocked all the way forward. This can be adjusted somewhat by the "wah-range" knob. One of the best/noisiest sounds you can get out of this pedal is by putting it on its 3rd factory preset [a kind of distorted synthesizer emulation], turning on echo or delay, and strumming a chord or single note while slowly sweeping the pedal from low to hi tone. This creates a tremendous swell of horribly beautiful noise that sounds something like a very large space ship swooping by, or what it must sound like just before your head pops.

Very dependable. No need for a back up.

N/A

I have been playing for 12 years now. Before this pedal, I had a limited edition Dunlop Crybaby which got the job done quite well. Then the PW-10 came out, and once I realized that it could successfully emulate the sound of my Crybaby, as well as create the sounds of multiple other wahs, I was sold and traded in my Crybaby. The styles of music I play go: Jazz, classical, metal, ambient, progressive, math, and straight up rock. I use this pedal more for effecting the dynamics/tone of my guitar within a song, rather than as a tool for wanking out a solo. But, it is also very versatile within the wanking realm. With all of its options [did I mention it also has 8 different distortion settings, and can be used as just a distortion pedal?] this pedal is quite ideal for me.

I bought this for use as a wah and as such it is child's play to use. The distortion and programming features require a bit more attention but none it is rocket science. Unlike some of your other reviewers, I found the manual helpful and easy to understand.

I'm skinny. Maybe that's why I haven't experienced the problem of accidentally tripping the heel switch. You know, guys, it's the sound that's supposed to be fat -- not the players.

My setup: American Standard Stratocaster > Boss CS3 compressor > FV50H volume pedal > [wah goes here] > trusty Zoom 1010 multiFX > Boss tremolo (TRsomething) > Boss DD3 > Marshall Valvestate 30 (clean channel only; I'm saving up for a better amp!)

The V-Wah isn't at all noisy. The photelectric potentiometer is a dream, offering smooth tone transitions and no unpleasant mechanical surprises. If only the vintage wahs whose sound this babe models were a quarter as good at this.

In terms of the sounds themselves, this pedal is pure heaven. I don't want to comment on how close the sounds are to the originals modelled; taken for themselves, they're great. The Bad Horsie setting is wonderful, especially for reggae and funk (well, at least I think so). The Voice setting is a great gimmick but it can get old really fast if you use it tastelessly.

The best thing on it -- as some of your other reviewers have found -- is the Uni-Vibe setting with the pedal-controlled vibrato speed. Look, I have to confess; I never knew what a Uni-Vibe was till I got this pedal. There were all these sounds on Led Zeppelin's Physical Graffiti and on other albums I love that sounded tasty but I never knew what made them. I do now. This one effect alone is worth the price I paid for the whole pedal.

Somebody gave this a 17 for sound quality? Way to go.

Haven't owned it that long or gigged it yet but it looks pretty solid and I've learned to trust Boss gear. I'm easy on my stomp boxes anyway -- like I said, I don't weigh much.

Don't know. You mean this isn't manufactured offplanet by super-intelligent advanced using a technology barely distinguishable from magic?

I play rock -- all kinds, and my definition of rock is a broad, broad church with a congregation that includes Hank Williams, Robert Johnson, Tom Waits, Nirvana and Beck. I'm not a big metal or punk fan. My favourite guitar players are Jimmy Page, Ry Cooder, Andy Summers, Neil Young and Keith Richards, not necessarily in that order. I don't play like any of these guys but the settings on my cheap little Zoom multiFX box mimic (or mock if you prefer) some of the tones frequently used by those heroes.

It don' signify. This wah is a great match for any kind of music that features wah guitar. It is intrinsically musical in the way it responds to the player and can lead your playing in interesting directions if you let it.

If it were lost I would instantly go out and buy another. If it were stolen I might go out and buy a gun.

First of all, I'd like to slam craig james (who submitted a review for this product fairly recently) on being a complete technical IDIOT! THIS PEDAL IS NOT HARD AT ALL TO USE!!! EVEN IF IT WAS IT WOULD BE WAY WORTH THE MONEY ANYWAY!!! seriously, getting started is a little bit confusing, but it's not that bad when you get to know the pedal.

On a scale of one to ten, this pedal scores about a 17! This friggin pedal will all but cook you breakfast (and do the dishes too) if you want it to! It literally has about 20 different effects pedals built right in. My favorite feature is the classic wah sounds (especially the Morley Bad Horsey), but i also love the EIGHT types of distortion as well as the more modern sounding wahs.

I know you've heard that all bosses are bomb proof, but this one seems just a teency weency bit cheeper than most. i'm gonna baby mine, and i think it's gonna last me a while.

Five friggin year warrenty. that's all.

"What style of music do you play? Is this a good match?"
It doesn't matter what style music you play, this pedal does it all. The reason most of us buy effects pedals is for the sound they produce. (duh). I have to give this one a ten+ just for the superb sound that it produces. (rock on)

The PW-10 is a great wah, but you MUST read the manual THOROUGHLY if you want to use this pedal to its fullest potential. turning the knobs on the pedal is easy. accessing the distortions and other gadgets is tough, but the manual trells you everything you need to know.

my setup: BC Rich P7 Mocking bird / BC Rich NJ Beast ===> V-wah =====> BOSS MT-2 ====> BOSS GE-7 ====> Marshall MG 30

This pedal is excellent in everything it offers EXCEPT the distortions, which sound somewhat weaker than the pedals they are based off of. This pedal is worth the money regardless of the distortions. Mo, Vo, and CBY Wahs all sound excellent with their own personalities. Bass wah is designed for bass, but works well with guitar too. the advanced is similar to the CBY-Wah, but with a wider range.

The voice wah is very interesting to play with (theere is a suggested setting called "oh yeah!" which makes it say just that!). The Univibe is also a nice effect. You can create your own custom wah, but the default is a synth sound, which i really like.

overall, awesome sounding wah!

Its a BOSS. Built like a tank.

Never had to deal with them.

I play most metal and some blues. This wah pedal is excellent, and i suggest everyone at least try one!

It is easy to get a good sound out of this way right off the bat, especially in "manual" mode where the sound output is dialed in in "real time", so to speak. I'd knock a few points off b/c I feel that this wah almost has too many features, believe it or not. You do need to spend time reading the manual but it is well worth the effort. The manual is thorough and explains the unit well. I don't know if some of the features such as the voice sounds or even the distortions are necessary, especially since you have to disconnect your chosen power supply and hold the memory button down for two seconds while reconnecting the power, just to get to the distortion options. However you can then program them into 1 of 3 memory banks for recall on the fly. For such a long list of features, a couple more memory slots would have been nice. Better yet, cut out some of the aforementioned options and bring the price & simplicity down. The wah sounds are fantastic, which is what really matters. My only other gripe is the heel switch function. I tend to place enough pressure down on the heel (from using the more traditional wahs) to engage the wah's memory options which playing. I just have to lighten up on the heel pressure...

My setup = USA Fender Strat w/ Humbuckers -> V Wah -> MXR Phase 90 -> Ibanez TS9 -> Boss MT-2 -> Fender 2x12 Hot Rod DeVille. The pedal is not noisey at all, and the distortion effects have a noise supression option to quiet things down too. A nice addition. This pedal would work well with any kind of music: rock, metal, blues, disco, etc.... I use it for rock/blues. There are not a whole lot of options to tweak the distortion settings compared the the actual pedals they model, but they sound great as is. You can dial in the Drive option (gain). The wah sounds are fantastic. The pedal allows you to tweak the heck out of your wah sound via "Q", "Range", and "Presence" settings. It gets an A+ in that department.

I've only had this particluar pedal for a short period of time but given BOSS's record I do not anticipate any problems. I do not gig out too much but it feels dependable; a combo of metal and heavy duty plastic. I don't think anyone really needs a backup wah, you can get by without one unlike a blown tube or broken string.

I have not had to converse with or deal with BOSS/Roland support.

I've been playing for about 13 years. I've owned a Dunlop Crybaby and still own a Vox reissue wah (which gets serviced by Dunlop by the way, in the event of a problem). The BOSS V Wah is a no-brainer replacement. I feel that the Dunlop and Vox style pedals (or any potentiometer-based wah for that matter) will inevitablly break down. The problem with the Dunlop and Vox ones is that they break down far too soon, at least in my experience. And I mean within two years, and that's with light use. They get scratchy/squeeky and sound aweful. The V Wah won't do that due to it's infrared-based technology. The Morley's operate based on the same principal (optical). Simply put I dig the wah features/sound and since it likely will not break down anytime soon I think it's well worth the money. I am knocking off a point b/c as I wrote previously there are probably too many options for most musicians, given this application. But of course you *don't have* to use the extras.

Okay! Frig! This think is so hard to use, well not to use but to get it to sound right! I have been back and forth to the store that I bought it from and between the two of us it is pretty much useless. One minute it'll work the next it is like a screaming feedback. If you do what the manuel tells you, you'll get even more screwed up! This is the hardest pedal to use in the world I think! Schools should have a course specifically on how to use this thing! I've owned it for about 2 months and have only used the Uni-Vibe effect life in fear of blowing people's eardrums if I use the distortions on it!

Okay, yes the wahs do sound good and the uni-vibe is rocking. When the distortion do work they do sound good, but all because it is so friggin hard to use I'm gonna dock it 3 points because I'm really mad at this pedal. The sound is good but I would easily buy any of the orginals (for example an Electro Harmonix Bigg Muff or a Vox Wah) over the emulated version any day!

NO!!!!! I can't depend on it! It honestly freaks me out to turn it on incase it screecches right in my ear! I'd trust a wah more if I made it myself then this one although it is built pretty good!

I haven't emailed them yet, but I am going to! The support that the store gave me is great considering I've been there 50 million times trying to figure out how to work the stupid thing!

One of the hardest things for me to buy was a wah, then I HEARD this one and was blown away. I tried out the demo and I liked it. I bought it and POW! It sucks the bag! If it was ever stolen I would pity da foo who stole it! The sucky thing too is that the music store I bought it from is store credit only! How bad does that suck! Unfortunatley this kind of blew my mind set on boss, I always thought that their effects were cool, but this one is a pile of junk! If I ever buy a boss pedal again, I'll have to try it out for like a week first!

Not difficult to use-Didn`t get "manual"-got store demo cheap!-this is a solid pedal-like a rock.

1961 Es-355 and other jazz guitars-Fender Princeton and twin amps-I bought this for "Univibe feature alone"!-the best damn hammond organ sound I ever heard-Period I`m not an effects player but this pedal is the One effect that is truly Super a WINNER!!-Hammond Heaven!!-Forget those other reviews nothing "SillY about this awesome Sound

8 months and going strong-I use it all the time No Problems!!..

Havewen`t had need for contact- my unit is fine!!

Maybe someday I`ll use all this pedal can do-I get killer comments every time I play on sound quality and "Hey you sound just like a Hammond Organ.. Man is this thing the balls!!!..

Fairly easy to use the presets right out of the box. The only negative is that when I turn on my pedalboard it is automatically on. Then what happens is sometimes the distortion knob gets turned up in transport, even though I am careful with my pedals and I am trying to figure out if one of my cables is causing the distortion. The other problem with it being switched on on power up is that then I am trying to fix my tone in my signal chain for 10 minutes before realizing that my V-Wah is ON. Doh! After a few months of gigging with it I am finally getting used to checking the WAH first if I am having tone probs.

I haven't used any of the saving features so I cannot comment on them. The presets have worked well enough for me.

Running a American Deluxe Fat Strat through the V-WAH, DOD Octoplus, AW5 Autowah, DOD 670 Flanger, Boss EQ pedal, IBanez CS9 Chorus, Digitech X-Series MAin Squeeze Compressor and Digitech X-Series DigiDelay. All these go into a Fender DSP Stage 160 Combo.

I don't notice it is noisy but I have noticed some of the treble is gone which I make up for with my EQ with out too much noticeable hiss or anything.

The effects are great. I like all the presets. The Uni-Vibe is phenomenal enough to warrant getting the V-Wah. You can control the Univabe speed with the wah mechanism. Beautiful stuff.

I haven't been very pleased with the distortion setting on it. Boss should stick to increasing the usefulness of the Wah and Univibe settings - making them even more phenomenal - and lose the distortion aspect of it. They are trying to make the pedal do too much IMO. Advice. . .stick with making it hands-down the best wah, vibrato, vibe pedal/modeler ever. Everyone already has distortion.

This is a main feature of my live rig, and I always get positive comments on the Uni-Vibe especially. I do use it w/out a backup, though I have a vintage Ibanez CS-9 that can approximate a Uni-Vibe Leslie sound in worst case scenarios. But in general I have gigged w/out backup or incident for the last 8 months.

Never dealt with boss. No opinion.

I am in an old-school funk band complete with horn section so it does the job perfectly. I also write alot of original funk/jazz stuff so it works well with the Charlie Hunter, John Scofield style of funk/jazz I like to record.

If it was lost or stolen I would probably get another. Hands down favorite feature is the Uni-Vibe. Very lush vibe.

My only suggestion is to lose the distortion and concentrate on user interface and expanding the vibe and wah features.

First off? I found that you have to press down quite hard to turn the effect on and off. Secondly if you have the drive knob past ?off? the drive (distortion) stays there even if the wah is turned off???. Thirdly, if you decide to turn the effect off and then press down too hard on your heal is you do so it active?s the three memories which is embarrassing. If a pedals is turned off it should stay off.
Apart from them three things the pedal is very easy to get to grips with, just select what settings like and what wah you want and its ?whack whack? heaven.

Initially the sound is good but the bloody ?noise suppressor? kills the treble coming from the pedal. It makes it sound like you have turned the treble down on your amp. I play detuned stuff but I should still get similar treble. I did a direct comparison with my old 1995 Cry-baby and there is loads more treble coming from my Cry-baby. On the other hand you can get a juicy amount of different sounds, I love the ?VOISE? and ?UNI-V? there real fun to play around with. The three wahs are good too apart from the lack of treble. I?m not struck on the drive its ok, I don?t think I?ll be using that. I have only played it through my old 15watt practice Marshall at current and not through my Mesa head at band practise yet. Which should be fun ;-)

It looks and feels really reliable, its takes 6 AA batteries as apposed to the standard 9V which makes it feel like a kids toy when putting the batteries in. The ?official? Boss adapter in the guitar shop cost #23, which is robbery, so I said ?no thanks?.
I haven?t had it long enough to see how long the batteries last but I think it will be for a while.

It?s a good, versatile wah wah pedal with plenty to keep you busy. Good tones and a part from the three things I mentioned in the ?easy to use? section. It?s a nice pedal to have and play with.

Out of the box and using it with distortion without turning on the noisegate or putting any of the distortion available on, I was pleased with the sound, using the Crybaby setting, which was very good, as was the Bad Horsie setting. With a clean sound, it was top draw, especially with the Univibe setting. It was easy to get a good sound out of it, which I was expecting from other reviews.
The features of this wah offer the new COSM technology, eight distortion/overdive effects, such as the Boss MT-2 and the Marshall Guvnor, a noisegate, different wah modellers, such as the Crybaby, Bad Horsie, Vox wah and voice box plus more, and editing patches which are useful to have when storing your customisable wah which is another great feature.
One problem though. If you lost the manual, you would be completely screwed. This wah would be difficult to use without it. The manual is very detailed and helpful, but changing distortion and sounds would be difficult without it and a bugger to do on stage, turn off wah, hold memory button, turn on power, etc.

I am using a Ernie Ball MusicMan Steve Morse guitar and an Epiphone Les Paul through a Marshall MG100DFX (planning on getting a MXR Dime Distortion pedal, are they out yet?? no reviews on it).
It is noisy without the noisegate switched on, but with the noisegate on, there is not a lot of noise. It is noisy if you are using distortion on the amp on full and the distortion full on the wah, but you only need the distortion at quarter of the way round for the sound to get as distorted as possible.
The effects are great, but you need to use certain ones for the certain sound.
Steve Morse doesn't use much wah as far as I am aware of, but his guitar is good enough for me when coming to his sound (just need a Peavey 5150 for that heavy Deep Purple sound). With the Metal Zone set, and the Crybaby setting on, you can recreate a good Kirk Hammett sound from the Black Album. I don't usually it for blues and stuff, e.g. SRV, Ten Years After, but for metal and hard rock it is great, Wylde and Dimebag.
The distortion is great for adding that extra bite, and the Univibe is amazing as well as the talkbox setting.

This wah is rock solid, built by Boss of course. I would gig with it without a backup.

Have not had a problem with it as of yet.

I play rock, metal and blues, and I would say this wah is versatile enough for all these styles. I have been playing for about 3 years now and have a Korg mulitFX pedal which I do not use anymore. If it were stolen, I probably would get another one, but then again, I would be very much tempted to get the Dimebag Darrell Crybaby From Hell.
I love the sounds, hate the fiddley parts of using it, changing distortion for example.
I would reccomend it for sure, as long as you keep the instruction manual safe.

The distortion set-ups are a pain, but in spite of that it is way easy to dial in stuff the way you need them. I mean, this is actually a wah pedal with a few extra bells and whistles by way of the distortions. If you need a versatile distortion, get a dedicated pedal for that. I really like the ease of queaking the actual wah ranges. I hardly use the distortions since it places the distortion in front of the wah effect. I usually prefer the wah first in my chain, with the exception of very slight/mild overdrive prior to the vocal "vowel/alphabet" wah to accent the human quality of the vowel sounds. I love the vowel stuff incidently.

Best wah I've ever heard. Period. I've played for almost 18 years and have played most all of them. I would rather have this one pedal rather than all of the other originals combined. It is unreal how good this thing actually sounds and responds to playing nuances. And it is totally quiet in and of itself. Absolutely a must for studio stuff, and it is way quiet on stage at loud volumes too. The noise gate in my opinion is very transparent and doesn't interfere with the tone of my strings. Does a tremendous job at delivering very organic tones, at least for my primary set-up (a beloved Ibanez RG7420 going into a Line6 FlextoneII XL, with other pedals like a whammy, Line6 Filter Modeler, Digitech SynthWah, Digitech XP-300 Space Station, etc.....too many to list....configured as needed). The actual tones I can pull from the V-Wah are so good, especially the "Advanced" wah with the range set at the lowest setting. The Vox and Crybaby settings are faithfully somewhat narrow in their ranges just like the originals, and the Morley sounds great. Also, the bass wah is great. I occasionally use it on my Conklin 7-string bass and it sounds noticeably good.

Solid and I love the way it feels when you step on it to engage it. It's perfect in every way and still feels as tight as the first day I got it, and mine was actually a floor/demo model from the Indianapolis Mars store that went out of business, so I am assuming it had lots of use prior to me getting it, though it was basically in mint condition when I bought it.

The folks at Roland are usually pretty nice on the phone, but it is very "big corporation" feeling and sometimes they can be stiff on the customer service (especially if there is a $ to be made on stuff like manuals), especially with other pieces of Roland gear I've owned in the past.

Most incredible wah I could buy, especially for reliability, quietness, and tone variations. I would do anything to replace it if it were lost or stolen. I bought it on a whim when it was on clearance and I didn't really try it until I got it home, and it has proven to be my best friend. Ranks high on my essential tools list along with the SynthWah and Whammy pedals. Can't imagine not having it.

This is something you have got to consider... it is not easy using the built-in overdrives & distortions & stuff... If you want this to be just a wah-pedal and nothing else but a wah-pedal, this thing gets a plain 10. Just set your wah-type, wah-range, click the toe-switch & go. Also to consider if you have your sounds set in the memory & you want to get over to a friend to have a little jam, well... basically you take a guitar & this pedal. Which makes it a nice thing to have around, it can be a real cool multi-effect unit and about the best wah-out there without the hassle of taking an entire floorboard with you. So all things considered...

The sound just plain rocks. I have a modest setup which I'm still in the early stages of building, but I know what sounds good, I've played a lot of stuff over the years.
Cort M-500 Mirage/Jackson flying V -> PW-10 -> FV-50 -> Peavey Bandit
All wah-types are very convincing, in some cases you have to be a wah-expert (which I'm not) to hear the difference between the pw-10 & the real wah. The built-in distortions are all very good, it's too bad you cant tweak those too much, but they are all very usable.
The morley is SPOT-ON the sound of kirk hammett. For modern new-school stuff you definately want the morley-wah. Also gets you the sound of Mark Tremonti from Creed. The noise reducer works great, I hear people saying that it eats your sound... well I have to disaggree.

I can rely on it in a gigging-situation to work without too much trouble.
Gosh, yeah yeah "BOSS = tank", "It's a BOSS", "I trew it under a speeding train and it still works", "I took 5 shots at it with my shotgun and the buttons weren't even moved"... This is almost becoming a stupid question if somewhere on the product it says "BOSS"
It is solid metal, if you hit someone on the head with this thing you migt kill him.
Tip: leave batteries in the unit so the settings stay stored and as a backup if you would accidently would pull out the plug of your adaptor.

Never dealt with they
I'm probably going to die before this pedal does... so I believe I won't need it.

I've been playing for nearly 8 years now and this is my first contact with wah pedals since 4 years. (I used to play them all the time). If this thing got lost or stolen, I'd probably go hunt down a thief, but without a single doubt buy a new one. I compared this to a crybaby, a morley and a vox wah... And let's be fair at this, why the hell go through the maintainance hassle the crybaby and the vox bring with them, if you can have this thing... Why the hell would you choose between 3 wahs... If you can have all 3 of them. The beaty of this thing is that the Morley wah on this pedal is convincing enough to be the real one, but it's cheaper... This thing certainly inspires towards new things, and also makes you feel one of those wah-heroes you wish you where. Or just how about making your own custom wah, which also is a powerfull feature to me. This is definately a MUST-BUY (or at least take a look at it :)) for every leadplayer or anyone that wants a wah added to his setup. My message to boss is to just make the distortions and memories easyer to use, and maybe add the functionality of tweaking the distortions a bit. Peace!

The manual is comprehensive, but typical of most Boss pedals, it's not an "all-in-one." Yeah, it has more types of "wah", but against my Crybaby, it just isn't there. Too much tweaking is required to get a sound you want. Then, if you switch instruments, you have to change settings, etc., etc.,. I have time to practice; I don't like wasting time programming or fine tuning pedals. The factory settings sound horrible.

I have Gibson SG and a Strat Custom with Texas Specials, into a Marshall AVT 50. Great sounding instruments/setup. But I think the PW-10 actually degrades the overall sound. I don't use it any more. I use the Crybaby instead. The noise suppression is marginally effective, especially on the Strat. The Uni-V sounds silly. The Voice setting is poor as well. The overdrives are either weak or too distorted. The Gibson can handle it a little, because of the humbuckers, but it kills the sustain and harmonics on the Strat. Worst of all, the Crybaby setting doesn't sound like one at all!

One thing I do like about Boss is the power daisy-chaining. Very reliable. But if you need to use batteries, the PW-10 requires 6 AA batteries, unlike most pedals which require a single 9V. So now you have to have 2 types of batteries in your pedalboard, if you need to use them. If you forget, or don't have enough, the pedal is worthless. Not only that, it's huge. It takes up too much floor space; you have to position it right to connect it in-line with other pedals with right-angle mini-cables. Poorly thought out and engineered.

Never dealt with them. What are they going to say? "You might like it someday!"
This PW-10 is going straight to the chopping block. Part of customer support is making a decent product in the first place; I wish Boss and Roland engineers would finally employ their multi effects units' capabilities into the individual pedal units.

I play rock, blues, etc. It doesn't sound good at all, in my opinion. Lost or stolen? Big deal. I'll just sum all the questions up in one statement. Boss products are rugged and "reliable" in terms of their ability to withstand punishment, but this is just another of a long line of poorly engineered pedals that lack versatiltiy and sound qualities. I don't get it; their muti-effects units are so good, but the individual pedals don't cut it, and are WAY overpriced. That's why they're always changing their line-up. Buy a Crybaby or Big Muff. Those have been around a long time, and there's a reason for it. Try to find one of those used. Good luck! See what I mean?

I'm a bass player, and just like Cliff Burton from old Metallica, I'm using this pedal for my bass solos. For me it's great. You can simply make two presets, one with Distrtion, and default leave clean, when on the stage, you can use Heel Switch to change effect. Everybody complains about use, for me it's very good Wah for all fast bassists who like their solos during the concert...

WoW!!! 8 types of distortion and 6 types of Wah, including Uni-v and Boss Humanizer... I'm using the presets for Electro-Harmonix Big Muff Pi and Morley Bad Horsie, it works eXtremely good, just like from old videos, when Cliff played on them together...

Boss, as we all know, builts effects just like tanks. For me- Immortal...

I've called once there and I was nearly shocked! They were nice for me!!! :)))

I'm Black and Thrash bass player, I use Peavey International Series V-Crusher and 150W Hohner Bass Amp. Actually, for me it's the best Wah on the world, If i'd lost it, I'm shure I'd buy another one, or maybe two :)))

If you're looking for just a wah pedal, it's simple. The problem is, however, when you want to used the built-in distortion. To much unplugging, plugging back in, hold this, hold that, just too boring. Save yourself the headache and don't use the distortion on this pedal.

Right now i'm using a Paul Reed Smith guitar into my old Fender Chorus M-80 solid state amp. I find the distortion to be very fragile, and by fragile I mean that sometimes the sound changes from what you set it to. As a wah pedal, I was sold on this thing because the guy at the shop lined up this one, a Vox Wah, and a Crybaby and to tell you the truth, I liked this one better. But in addition to the wah sound it has an excellent Uni-Vibe emulator, which I use religiously. The best example of a sound you can get from it is the Kenny Wayne Shepherd --- Last Goodbye song.

Mine's been banged up...it's a Boss, built like a rock.

Non-existant.

I play a wide variety of music, on my Paul Reed Smith I play heavier stuff...a la Nickelback, Metallica, etc. On my Strat I play blues stuff, and recently i'm obsessed with Kenny Wayne Shepherd (amazing). If it were stolen I think i'd buy it again. i love the uni-vibe sound...hate the distortion it provides.

Bottom line, if you find you become bored of specific types of sounds rather quickly then i'd recommend this pedal because of it's range. Otherwise, i'd probably suggest buying a Vox and Crybaby simply because you'll eventually want one anyway.

Ease of use? Yes and no. The wah side is brilliant. Takes no time to dial something really cool up and go. The distortion side is a real hair puller. Too much tweak and shut things down, hold memory button, dance around in circle. You get to the point of being able to get a level set and find out that it responds differently to different amplifiers. Frustrating.

Godin LGXT>Morley Volume pedal>Mesa Boogie DC-5 or Crate VC5212>In effects loop>Boss GT-3 and Line 6 DL-4 Delay modeler. The wah effects all sound great. At some level, they are better than the originals. This is due to the fact that they are quieter and more precise than what they are emulating. Had several different Crybaby's, a Dano-Wah and even played through Vox and Budda-Wahs. This is so much more consistent. To a wah purist, this argument may not fly. But I will sacrifice authenticity for clean dependability any day. Don't really like to constantly worry about maintaining other Wahs.

It certainly appears to be solid, no potentiometers to worry about. Use without a back up all the time. It's a Boss. They seem to be pretty well indestructible.

Dealt with Boss once and it was a complete cluster****. All of the cognitive stability of a crank smoking Golden Retriever with Tourette's Syndrome. Gave up and had local tech-geek fix problem. Manuals from Boss have improved immensely in the last few years. That means that they are just plain bad as opposed to completely and utterly incomprehensible

Funk. Gospel. Celtic. Atmospheric weirdness. I have been playing over twenty years in a variety of styles. I would definitely replace this for the wah options alone. They are 100% brilliant. I love how the wahs give you so many colors and tweeking possibilities. I must be missing the boat on the distortions. They all sound pretty one dimensional to me and are an absolute protological exam to use.

This pedal is easy to use ....and it's not. If you bought this product to be a wah pedal, and nothing else (like most people), it's dead simple. It's on or off with the tap of your toe, and has good sounding pre-sets for the classic wah pedals (Vox, Cry Baby, and Morley) at the turn of a knob. Pick one, stick with it, and it's a wah pedal. The problem (and some people would argue that it's a benefit), is that this pedal also has distortion built into it. It's a programming nightmare to dial in the type and level of distortion you want. Stick with the wah, and if you get tired of say the Vox sound, switch to the Cry Baby.

I use a variety of different guitars, and I plug this unit into (a really ancient) Roland GP-8 Guitar Effects Processor. For the most part, the amp I use is a Fender Dual Showman Reverb with a Marshall 4 X 12 slant cabinet (a cardinal sin I know). The Wah sounds are great to excellent (which is what you really bought the pedal for, isn't it). The Univibe and Voice settings I find slightly interesting but useless. The distortion sounds (once you find them - see ease of use) are good, however there is no tone control, which detracts from their viability. You need a distortion pedal to use in conjunction with this pedal, because the distortion sounds that the pedal has, have no tone control and are a real pain to dial in.

This thing is solid. I have a rather extensive Boss/Roland collection which has never failed me. I don't expect this to.

I live about 20 minutes away from the Roland Canada repair centre. I brought my GP-8 there once because a connection jack was worn out. It was fixed in a week, done right, and it was pretty cheap. I have no complaints.

I like this pedal. When I bought it, I was set on the Vox, but this one is just as rugged, sounds as good, is pretty close in price (about $ 25.00 more), and for that has a few extra sounds in it. I'll keep it.