DOD FX17 Wah Volume

Takes a few minutes to get used to. Mine was bought secondhand from a guy over ebay who sold it as is since he bought it from a garage sale and couldn't test it. The trim pots thta adjust the range and depth of the effect were off center of the holes so I had to remove the front plate to adjust them. Once you figure it out though, it's pretty straightforward.

The switch is kind of annoying - you REALLY need to give it a stomp on the back to engage/disengage the wah.

Wah: DELICIOUS! Personally, I find classic crybaby wah's sound to be really gross. Just my personal opinion, I find them too trebly thin to be used for anything apart from mindless wanking above the 12th fret. This wah, if adjusted nicely, can really let you shape your sound in a much more pleasing way.

Volume: Once adjusted, works perfectly. Nice and smoothe.

Well, it looks to be about 20 years old. Oldest pedal in my board, and it will probably outlast some of my newer stuff. The case is thick, the parts appear to be solid. I can't really forsee it crapping out any time soon. And if it does, I could probably find another one in even better condition if I tried.

The manual is still available online... apart from that, your best support would probably be on these forums :D

I play everything, have been playing for 3 years. If it were lost/stolen, I would find another one. I love the distinctive, warm wah sound it has - and the volume is solid too.
I wish DOD still made these - exactly the way they made this one. I would buy a new one and treat it with care. Though my used one is holding out fine.
If you see one of these on a table on somebody's lawn, take a chance on it.

Tricky, had some problems trying to get it to work... then suddenly it did, but i have no clue why. As mentioned, tweak the hidden pots with a small screwdriver to get the wah sweep u want.

Err, i think this pedal is really cool, prob a little bit of a collectors item just because it's so unique... it's certainly one of the most interesting ones i use. People go on and on and on about how much tone a dunlop crybaby will suck out of you're rig, but i would say that this pedal is slightly worse for that, so i have to take it out of my chain when not in use. Otherwise it's a nice wah sweep, sounds good with distortion.

Seems to be built well, and as it uses some kind of non contact optical cicuit to produce the wah sweep, there are less moving parts, so no wear and tear.

no

I would recommend this if you're into wahs, because it gives a different flavour than your dunlop, i think this would prob work great with a bass because the pedal tends to emphasise the bass frequencys where as crbabys tend to cut a bit more... if u can find one of these they tend to go for a few ?????? less than dunlops on ebay, so def reccommended.

Not easy at all.
Wah-Volume button in the side.
Ajustment screws to small and difficult to handle.You must choose your setting once and for all.
Too small for almost any foot.(When you're on stage some times you get confused.)

To get the sound that you consider good you MUST ajust it.It has two small holes in the front side under the logo.If you put a small screwdriver in the left hole you can ajust the width of the effect(wide-narrow)while in the right one you ajust the range (bass-treble).
If you select a narrow and rather bass adjustment you will be near a classic wah that can be played with a distortion.If you choose a wide and treblier ajustment you'll get a funkier result.But you must make up your mind what is that you want, because this is not a procedure that can follow all the time.
I think thow it has its own respectable sound.A very distictive one.No sudden changes.Nothing like the s***** VOX I had 25 years ago(that acted more like a switch than a potensiometer).
Anyway if someone needs a Dunlop sound then he better get a cry baby.

It??s made out of 2mm sheet metal(not 1mm like someone said).I think you may be able to even nail something with it.I have it for more than 12 years I think.It has been treated bad enough and it??s stil here.No loose screws no nothing.

I dont know.I dont care.

This is this Pedal's weakness, the Wah side of it that is. It can easily be adjusted to sound bad, which seems to be what happened to some of the units reviewed here, or to sound very, very good.

If you're not a tweaker this in NOT your Wah Wah! If you don't mind spending some time adjusting it to get a great sound than you'll be amply rewarded.

YOU MUST ADJUST THIS PEDAL FOR IT TO SOUND GREAT AS A WAH!

This is SO SUBJECTIVE and everybody gives 10's that I don't know if it means anything anymore, but there it is. As a Wah a 10.

This is NOT a CryBaby! Which to me is great. It has a different sound. One that I really, really like. But if you want one Wah to do the classic sounds, this probably isn't your choice.

THERE ARE TWO ADJUSTMENTS ON THE FRONT OF THE PEDAL AND BOTH AFFECT THE WAH SOUND! There is some wrong info on the WEB about this pedal and that might confuse some owners/users. Some reviews say only one of the adjustments on the front affects the Wah, which is incorrect. IT DOES adjust the Min/Max Volume of the Pedal if you have it switched to use as a Volume Pedal, but it also adjusts the Sharpness/Smoothness of the Wah Peak. If you don't like the sound of this pedal at all, chances are the adjustment in question is set wrong. It can sound VERY BAD if set wrong, and VERY GREAT if set right.

As reference I've played extensively with these Wah's: Budda BudWha, Clyde (Original One), Vox CryBaby, Thomas CryBaby, Dunlop CryBaby(s) (many varieties), Ibanez Weeping Demon, Boss PW-10, and many boutiques. Many of these are excellent Wahs, some of them aren't. I like the FX-17 better though.

Built like a tank.

They are still around and easy enough to work with.

Prices are shooting up for these on Ebay, so word must be getting out. If you haven't tried them and love Wahs, like me, it's well worth your time!

Very easy to use and easy to carry because it is almost size of a stomp box.

First I hated the sound, but after tweaking the pots i could get the good wah sound. I plugged my Squier into this wah then into DS1 and holly crap!!!! I could get EXACTLY the sound of early Joe Satriani!!! But the best thing happened when i tried to play with this wah in my band - it sounded perfect!!! once i decided to sell this wah and get Crybaby Classic but after comparing these two i took Crybaby back and i think i will never get another wah!!! it blew Dunlop wah away!!! it sounds very very very modern and thats what i like in it!!! it is easily switched on and off and does not have that awful on/off sound like Crybaby has.

it is built like brick!!! no pots to ware

N/A

If you are into modern music and like to experiment with sound this is the pedal to get!!!

The trimpots are quite difficult to access. I find that I have to rock on the wah to hear the settings, then bend over with the screwdriver to re-adjust to taste.

Then there's the switch. It takes a while to get adjusted to the "backwards" on/off, and if you kick it back to far you can accidently switch it off. but i've found a way around that, i glued some rubber to the base, switching it on/off would require extra heel-grease ;)

This is where it wins. You can approximate a cry baby/vox -like tone, but when you dial in the right frequencies, this wah has an amazing "chew" factor. I love it! It may not have the warmth of the potentiometer design, this is more modern and cleaner. great for funky stabs. If you require dirt in the frequencies, I found it good to place a light overdrive after it.

I'm using this with a souped up MIJ fender tele loaded with EMG-T's, a Barber Direct Drive and a locally modded BAMFX "Sushi" DS-1, into whatever amplifier i can plug into. The tone i get from it never fails to raise eyebrows, considering how under appreciated this wah is.

I set the wah sweep wider than usual,to I can back of the treadle into bassy frequencies (like a heavier robben ford wah tone), and just high enough so it doesn't shriek. if you're skillful, you can play through two ranges, by rocking your feet minimally within a frequency area. Lovely lovely!

The only beef I have with it is the loss of volume when you engage the wah. I'm finding a way to have it modded to give a bit of a boost when activiated. but it's a small issue, i'm just fussy about my sound ;)

Absolutely dependable! The specs ooze toughness. No scratchy pots, easy to service parts, and... a casing that is Ford tough!

I gig with it without a back up.

Great customer support! When I got mine two years ago, I emailed them for a copy of the schematic, got a reply within 12 hours. Great stuff! Friendly folks

I play a whole mess of stuff. I like to use this wah for color, and sometimes when I go through one of those psychedelic episodes, heheheh... I've been playing for.. damn, lost count, 16 years I think. It's been blues, jazz, and the beckian/landau school for me lately. I have owned countless wahs over the years, and this one has stuck because its been the most impressive.
I just wish it had a better unity gain / boost volume, and that the trimpots would be easier to access. that could be easily done through modding. come to think of it... its the only piece of gear that has stayed on my floor considering the revolving door of gear I have!

highly recommended, give it a stomp :)

Has a nice wide sweep-not for everyone, but having used it for 12 years now, I find it makes it possible to use various types of ranges simply by using different parts of the pedal's physical range. Just found out about the trimpots...due to the above, I don't have a need to tinker with them, but a novice to this pedal may want to tweak it in order to obtain the desired effect. I haven't used the volume function much, but it seems fine. Never used the voltage control at all.

Epiphone Les Paul, Yamaha Pacifica, into a Laney VC100 (used to use a Peavy Envoy 110). This wah is an integral part of my setup, and has been so in many acts. The only noise I've experienced was in the exremem treble position when I fed it into a very high-gain setting. At clean and resonable gain levels, it's super quiet. Noise is negligible. Never tried to use it as an imitation of anyone's sound: it doesn't really lend itself to that. The upside is that it's unique. I think it's a one-of-a-kind in my hometown. I love the honky mid-range stting as a filter. It accentuates harmonics in a beautiful way. The pedal works well for filter applications across its range, in fact: Heel=smooth, buttery, santana-esque. Center=good for melting people's faces. Toe=Good for giving people tinitus, creating an am-radio affect (played quietly)...without adjusting the trimpots, this setting can be painfully sharp (soundmen hate me), but used in moderation-well, more variety!

Dropped it once. Sent it back 'cause I thought I'd broke it. Now I think I was wrong, and just plugged it in wrong that day or something. Reason is that I've since used it on a zillion gigs, and it';s sustained more abuse than that ten times over. I'd love to have a backup, but don't feel I need one. That's saying a lot, since there hasn't been another piece of electronic gear made for thirty years that's built to last (other than Boss Pedals and this beaut). Score one for DOD! Why aren't all their pedals this rugged? It's worth mentioning that once the rubber pad wore out (the one that stops the pedal just shy of heel position, keeping you from switching it unintentionally). I just replaced it with a small pice of rubber-boot-sole. No problems since.

Above mentioned repair. I was dumb enough to purchase it from a dealer heundreds of miles from home. When I dropped it, I sent it to them. I don't know if they sent it to DOD or not, but it got fixed. It cost a bunch, and took a year. I feel fortunate to have gotten it dealt with, given the geographical issue. PLEASE NOTE: I do not know if this was DOD's fault or that of the dealer, so do not base customer service judgements on this alone! I'm just telling my story.

Funk, Blues, Rock, Metal-Good for all.
Playing 12 years. Simple rig: (paranthetical items represent gear no longer in use or used for rehearsals only) Guitar-FX17-(DODFX7)-(Boss Delay)-(Ibanez Tubescreamer)-LaneyVC100.

Would definitely replace it, were it lost or stolen!

I, for one, love the rear-end switch!!! I find it makes the swtiching of the effect less conspicuous...tone is dark when switched on, rather than jumping from neutral to bright as in front-switched units.

Pretty easy to use except that the on/off switch is in the heel position which is oposite of most Wah Pedals. Also, sometimes I accidentally turn it off while using it as a Wah Pedal which I need to find a way to fix.

Also, some trim pots are located on the opposite side from the battery compartment. You will need a micro miniature flat-head scredriver to adjust them. The left trim adjusts the Wah Sweep. The right trim adjusts max volume.

I also own a modified Dunlop Crybaby GCB95, so let me try to explain how they differ in sound. The DOD FX17 has 2 trim adjustments, left trim for sweep & right trim for max volume.

The Dunlop Crybaby GCB95 that I own as a very creamy, classic Vox-like tone especially when plugged into a tube amp. The Crybaby has a very vocal "Wah" type sound. It has a bit of hiss noise in the toe position. It has a true bypass switch mod which makes a loud click when turned on or off, but eliminates tone sucking.

The DOD FX17 can be adjusted to sound subtle almost similar to the Crybaby "Wah" sound, but the overall tone is much more compressed. I adjusted the trim pot on my FX17 to make more of a "Wow" sound. I really like the sound of this effect, but at times, I do wish it sounded less compressed. Yet, the compression can be useful at times & I have gotten some great recordings using this pedal.

The FX17 has pretty low noise especially compared to the Crybaby. Also, the FX17 does not seem to suck much tone when in bypass mode. Before I modified my Crybaby with a true bypass switch it was a horrible tone sucking device. And, the true bypass switch makes a loud "Click" sound when turned on or off. The FX17 Wah switches on and off very quietly in comparison.

The volume pedal also sounds great on the FX17 if you have the trim pot adjusted correctly. Although, I use a different pedal for volume now, I got some great recordingd using the FX17 as a volume pedal.

The FX17 will probably last me forever. I have owned it since it was first released....more than 10 years ago. It started to get scratchy sounding last year which surprised me because it has no potentiometer to wear out. I opened it up and blew out the dust with a can of compressed air and it works like new.

They still have the instruction manual for the FX17 at the DOD website even though it is discontinued. I don't really expect much support from companies these days, but I was surprised that they still offer information on a unit they are no longer making money selling....pretty cool.

I have been playing more than 20 years. I use a number of guitars and effects. My main amp is a 60 watt all tube 1995 Fender Blues DeVille 4x10 made in the USA. My main electric guitars are a USA Fender Deluxe Strat & Gibson MIII.

I play blues & rock. I record some of my own music and covers of old classic rock.

I wish the switch was located in the toe rather than the heel. I wish the Wah didn't turn off sometimes by accident, but I think I can easily fix it. I wish it sounded less compressed and a bit more musical.

If it were lost or stolen, I would look for another on ebay. I guess I have grown attached to this quirky pedal. :-)

Push-button on the side for selecting wah or volume. Little microswitch underneath the heel end of the pedal for on/off- which looks fragile but I never managed to break it. It did bend though, to the point where it became difficult to switch the effect on/off. Two trimmers on the toe end of the box for adjusting the type of wah you want- I think one shifts the entire range of the wah, while the other controls the sweep from flat to peaky. The wah is bass on the heel and treble on the toe, I don't know if that's different from/the same as crybabys/etc, but it means you're switching in/out via the bass end of the sound instead of the treble end, which might throw some people off. Battery compartment in the heel end of the pedal, easy to get to.

I never had a problem with the sound quality. Excellent pukey treble, but also great for filtering/slow wah effects. I was using it with my 76 Ibanez strat clone into a tubescreamer, then into a Peavey Classic 50 with the normal channel maxed out. Once I'd set those presets up the way I liked them, the pedal itself was very sensitive to where it was positioned. Great overtones. I recorded with it once and did an overdubbed cascading wah-noise type thing over the ending of a song, and it reminded me so much of the ending of Faith No More's cover version of 'Warpigs' from The Real Thing, the tones were so close.

Well, it got to a point where the microswitch was needing a real kick to turn it on/off. It's easy enough to fix it with a little engenuity, but I wish DOD could have put a higher grade switch into it.

The wah isn't based on a potentiometer either- the piece of metal on the left of the rocker pedal is actually part of a capacitor, which is slid in and out of it's wedge as you rock the pedal, physically altering the value of the capacitor itself. This means the wah won't ever 'wah-out', but probably also explains why the tone is so very different from vox/crybabies etc. I've always found those wahs are too dark anyway! But that little switch... sorry, it has to get a 5.

N/A

It's a good wah- different from the rest. Definitely worth a listen, but not for everyone.

I bought this pedal used, with no manual. I got a great deal, because the store and I both thought it was broken. The wah would cut in and out SEEMINGLY for no reason. And when it worked, it was very weak and trebly (more on that later).

But after I took it home and messed with it for a while, I discovered how to tune the sweep to get a good sound, and how to turn it on and off.

So, I have to give it a low mark for "ease of use". It's not very intuitive. To turn the wah on and off, you push the heel end of pedal all the way down (the opposite of most wahs). There's a button under the pedal that gets pushed then. Rocking it too far accidentally shut it off. That's why it kept cutting in and out in the store. I fixed this by adding another rubber pad next to the switch. Now I have to bear down a little harder to turn it on and off.

There's also a push button on the side that changes the FX17 from a wah to a volume pedal. It's nice to have both functions in one small pedal (it's about 2/3 the size of a Crybaby). But I wouldn't try to hit this button during a gig. It's not in a good location. You can't see it from above, and it's too close to the input jack.

After I took the case apart to explore, I found 2 trim-pots on the circuit board. The one on the right seems to adjust the range of the wah. The one on the left seems to adjust the intensity. After a few seconds of tweaking, I was able to get a great sound. I like my wahs a little on the bassy side, with just a slight treble boost when the pedal is all the way forward. I was able to dial this in perfectly.

There *ARE* two holes in the front on the case to let you adjust the trim-pots without taking the pedal apart. But they aren't labeled. You need a tiny screwdriver and you can't really see what you're doing. I found it easier to just take the front panel off.

Nothing was too difficult to figure out, but it's definitely not intuitive.

I'm using it with a Fender Strat, Epiphone SG, and a silverface Fender Pro Reverb amp. There's a tiny bit of noise when the pedal is all the way forward. But just about every wah I've ever used (Crybaby, Maestro Boomerang, Fender Fuzz Wah, and various Morleys) has made a little noise.

When I first bought it, the sound was weak. The sweep went from thin and trebly to MORE thin and trebly. But after a few turns of a screwdriver, I got a nice warm, classic wah tone. I just read a few of the other reviews here. I'm surprised that everone says you can't get a Hendrix sound out of this unit. I was able to get pretty damn close. But my ideal wah sound is a little deeper, and I was able to dial that in. I'm really happy with it. I did a side-by-side comparison with my Crybaby 535. The Crybaby has a slightly more vocal quality, but the DOD sounded pretty good.

I didn't notice any tone-sucking when bypassed.

Since it's an old pedal, and it's lasted this long, I think it'll hold up. It squeaked a little at first, but some WD-40 took care of that. The casing is solid steel, and it's held together with several heavy-duty machine screws.

Of course, it's missing the battery cover. I think that's a law for used DOD pedals. (How could so many people manage to lose them?) But this doesn't affect anything. The battery actually stays in place without it.

Now here's the best part. When I opened it up, I discovered that it uses some kind of sensor instead of a pot. So I don't think it will ever get scratchy (like my Crybaby is getting). Very Cool. I bought this as a backup for my Crybaby, but it may become my main wah.

I never dealt with them. I've heard that they're a typically unresponsive multi-national corporation.

I doubt anyone would support something this old anyway.

I play just about everything except country and opera. It's a good all-purpose pedal. The wah is great for rock and funk, and the volume function is great for any style. It has a jack for "Control Voltage", so I'm thinking it may be useful as an expression pedal too. (For what, I don't know.)

It's not quite as sweet sounding as the better Dunlop wahs or expensive vintage or boutique gear. But it's a great little pedal that you can find cheaply. It sounds better than any of the Morleys I've tried. It takes up less space than a standard wah. It's only slightly bigger than a typical stompbox.

If it were lost or stolen, I'd immediately look for another. I may pick up another one anyway, just as a backup.

So, it gets a 9 for being an incredible value. If the controls were a little better thought-out, and the sound SLIGHTLY better, it would be a 10.