Dunlop JH-1 Jimi Hendrix Wah Wah

Pretty easy to use. Takes a little while to get the rhythm going on your foot to keep time with the playing. Budget about two weeks here. One week if you're a soccer player. :-)

Sounds fine. I use it with a vintage tube amplifier.

One very useful effect is to use it prior to your overdrive pedal, like this: Guitar=>Cry=>Overdrive=>Amplifier

Run the crybaby at about 3/4 throttle and the overdrive on high setting. This will give you what I call the "guttural" or throaty sound. This doesn't seem to work with the VOX I tried as it doesn't stay put in that position (although it does have a wider range).

The POT has gone scratchy afer ten years of use in a dusty environment. I suspect some cleaning and pot lube would help here. :-) I do know that this is a common failure of the unit but spares are available from Dunlop.

I'll let you know when I finally break it. But the fact they make parts available scores points with me.

If your repertoire includes 1960's and 1970's pop music, you will need this pedal otherwise you simply aren't a player. :-)

as everyone else on this review has said... click it.. its on. though, theres no light to indicate when its activated (like on the rotovibe, and most morley pedals). obviously there is an tonal difference, but there are times where you dont put enough pressure on it and it doesnt turn off/on right when u want it to... in my opinion thats one of the last things i want to think about live. i dont want to stand over it and fuck up parts trying to hear the diffference in the middle of a gig. i have this problem with all wahs built this way, so i give it a seven cause although its strait forward... it is not as natural as my morley (bad horsey). also, theres not as much pysical play as a morley so ur ankle has to be alot more delicate to really shape the wah around ur tone.

its intresting. its the complete oposite of my bad horsey which is exactly what i wanted (nothing against the morely, i just like experimenting with the diffferent tones). The increased sweep is so wide, that i use it more as a tone shaper (e.g. give more whip to bends in solos, overly bassy, midy, trebbley tones for NIN stuff) . i mean, strait out, with some overdrive its a great hendrix sound, and for some rock/metal leads its cool, but its also fun for other tonal arrangement (this combined with the bad horey makes for nasty feedback) but save the morely for ur solos if ur going for a crisp wah tone when ur playing metal

but if ur going to use it for a strait wah, you'll find that all the way back, its really muffled so most of what ur expecting is in the top 2/3's of the pedal.

no problems yet, so far looks pretty sturdy

havnt needed them

i myself (playing for ~5 yrs) play all types of rock, jazz, blues, metal... just not emo.....anything...but....emo. my band plays metal (and yes we solo) its a great pedal for specific sounds. if u want an all around wah... look somewhere else. its very intense and it can make or break what ur goen for.. like that guy who posted about the Halen stuff... thats expected cause its too intense and fast and certain sections are seriously muffled. for that use a morley. but for what i use if for.. its great

It's a wah. Just click it on.

Pretty good, if your looking for a hendrix sound, though still not quite as good in tonal range as the ones he used (Though the only alternatives are getting a vintage wah from that era or moding the
JH-1. I found it to be able to do voodoo child quite nicely.

Looks pretty sturdy. Though the day after I got it the switch perminantly locked in the on position (you'd push down and it wouldn't click). Instead of fixing it myself and possibly voiding the warrenty I took it down to Long and Mcquade Lakeshore Music where it was bought and they let me trade it in for another. Haven't had a problem with that one since (had it for 4 months so far). But after the switch problem I might be inclined to have a backup at a serious gig.

Never dealt with dunlop.

I mostly play blues rock, hard rock, some metal, and occasionaly the odd punk or grunge. If you wanna wah that sounds like Jimi's and don't mind slight lack of tone variation, this is the pedal for you.

Though I find it funny how dunlop boasts in the manual that this is Jimi Hendrix' prefered variation and that he played crybaby's, when I get a live dvd of him and it shows a close-up on his VOX wah-wah.

You click it, its not hard the felt needs replacing after a while though.

I dont know why so many people complain about the sound, aside from when its all the way up it sounds great. But when its all teh way up its so trebly. i use it with a laney tf320 into a DOD fx64 - big muff - sd1 - hendrix wah - telecaster. It sounds really good aside from the treble and volume drop of the initial turn on. And, i can get the wicka wicka sound witch is strange seeing as no one else can. Very strange. IM giving it an 8 because of the volume drop.

Its VERY reliable, its hard as a rock. the only thing that will need replacing is hte felt. witch really sucks after its worn, makes it really hard to use. I got it for free, it wasnt really a matter to me weather it was reliable or not.

I play stuff like rush and experimental stuff and it works great for that ive been playing 3 years, if it was stolen id definetly replace it. but i really wish it was true bypass.

its a wah pedal!

it sucked a good amount of tone, i went from Van Halen to...muffled Halen. but its ok. still a very good wah. i love its range. rather Ladyland sounding. check out still rainin...still dreamin. youll hear what i mean.

dude said "use ZINC instead of Alkaline!" because it sounds "better"...what crap is that?. BATTERIES ARE BATTERIES GUY!!!! hendrix never modified any of his pedals. although he did indeed use a crybaby. the only thing that was modified from a stock instrument was his amp's tubes.he had them changed. thats it. yes, he did have pedals that were hand made for him, but no wah was modified. simply built, then given. you also have to consider that most or all wahs had the fasel in it. adding a completely different tone than what all have now. and they were bypassed alot better. this wah is good, i admit, as i was able to get that Ladyland sound which is pretty much all around sought after. great wah. but it does not infact nail his wah sound. he liked crybaby because it had better range, and swept alot easier. this pedal does not have enough range. listen to voodoo child, and tell me if that sounds dead on like this wah. not enough high end in this wah. but still a very good wah.

Basic wah operation here.

I'm using this with a Les Paul Std. and a Marshall AVT150 combo with the extension cab. I'm not sure what to make of all the bad reviews on the sound quality of this pedal. Admittedly it's sweep and tone is different from a Crybaby, but then if you want that sound then save yourself $20 bucks and buy one of those instead. I really dig the range of this pedal, and unlike others I dig even the lower bassy ranges of this thing. I'm running a Boss CS3 compressor in front of the wah, which definitely helps to boost some of the low-volume muddiness of the lower ranges, but other than that I don't have any issues with the sound of the pedal: it has a unique sound which may or may not work for you, so try it out. I for one dig the way I can go from a shrieking banshee to a feel-it-in-your-stomach growl with this.

It's solid.

Never dealt with 'em.

I've been playing for fifteen years or so, and recently turned to guitar seriously again and started playing out. I've played Crybabys and Voxen before and wanted something different. Again, try before you buy and make sure the sound works for you.

its easy to use as far as pushing the pedal up and down. but unlike some of the er...... other poser's .......er ....... i mean poster's, there is more to using a wah properly than just pushin on it like its a gas pedal. listen to hendrix the guy was a GOD and no one used one of these things like he could.it takes time to blend the wah action with your playing and string bending etc. dont listen to these bozo's that tell ya that anyone can do it, they probably suck big big time.i gave it a seven because of these facts.

this wah sounds better than my VOX reissue that cost twice as much as this oine. the vox looks better cause its chrome. but the hendrix pedal has way more usable sweep. goes alot deeper,and is more adjustable. you can get a real growl outta the low end on this thing.hendrix had his wah's modified to achive this, thats what this pedal is based on.make sure you use batterys, NOT the adapter, if you want real sound from this pedal, and use zinc batterys NOT alkaline, believe me theres a difference in TONE. i give it a nine .cause nothings perfect, unless of course hendrix or page is playing.

never had a problem. in fact my vox died on me(started gettin really scratchy) and the replacemet pot was stupid amount of dollars.thats why i bought this one used,for $80 Canadian.thats cheap folks. it was a real bargain.its bullet proof.

never had to call them. only a real dickweed would bother to call tech support for a $80 wah pedal.

i play all styles in a top forty and tribute bands for over 15 years.this is probably my 5th or 6th wah pedal.i use rack gear so i can cover all different players sounds.my gear: marshall JMP-1 preamp, ADA mp1 preamp ,Marshall el 84 power amp , alesis Quadreverb plus.rocktron intellifex, marshall 4x12 with green backs in it.fc 50 midi controller. les pauls and strats. its pretty 80's set up, but it works great and sounds killer. i hate the way new amps have gone LINE-6 blows big dog warts ,they suck big time!!! any way....this pedal is great . it does need true by pass feature however, but i could do that myself if i wasnt a lazy prick! see ya all later..keep rockin!!!!ps: learn how to play guitar solos! todays bands all suck huge .... most of them cant play guitar at all....

The JH-1 is easy to use, but having bought it used without a manual, I had no idea that there was a on/off toggle by stepping hard on it until reading these reviews. This is my first pedal and it was easier to use than I had first expected.

Basic set up, with Yamaha guitar, wah, and Yahama multi-effects amp. It took a fair amount of experimentation to get the desired sound (as in Hendrix' Voodoo Chile Slight Return). How you set the guitar pickup switch and effects settings has a major impact on the sound of the wah. This wah sounds good with high-treble from the neck of the guitar, combined with high-bass low/med-treble out of the amp. Also, it seems you don't want to always use 100% of the pedal -- lot better sounds can be had using thirds or halves of the pedal, depending on the sound you're looking for. Another major factor is the speed you press the pedal... some cool sounds come from a slow, half-pedal press and return. As for the wacka-wacka, it's easily had with a harmonic barre, and a quick snap of the pedal. Play with it!

The past reviews are right on one score, fully pressed and left there, you'll get a muted, bassed sound, and it'll seem like high E sounds like mid E instead (I still wonder if it doesn't actually shift the octaves a bit). Left in the middle (half-pressed), you get some pretty unusual octave distortion and long sustain in the mid-range. So I can see how some players would find that this pedal wouldn't fit their playing range.

On the other hand, this pedal gives a huge amount of range to play with... you just have to experiment. It's great for creating your own sound, which is what I'm after (even being a serious listener of Hendrix, Satriani, Santana, among others).

The exterior is built like a tank for sure, but the internals? I've got an old, used one that looks like it has lasted years and still going strong. There's no buzz, no radio interference (as mentioned in some other reviews), and no other problems.

I live in Malaysia... let's hope I don't have to deal with Dunlop anytime soon.

With import duty being what it is, US$80 is a pretty good deal for this pedal. I like playing "classic era" power-chord rock and psychedlic rock, heavy on the blues side (Hendrix Blues is a fav album). Although I've been playing two years now (both acoustic and electric), this is the first pedal that I bought. I'm not at all disappointed, as this pedal gives *way* lot of room to create your own sound, particularly if you're into psychedlic or blues. Would I buy it again? Probably, but having played with with JH-1, I'm curious now what the possibilities are with other wahs. Until then, this one is going to get a lot of (experimental) play time. :-)

First of all, I'm not a wha expert.
And I'm not a dedicated wha player. I like to use it on occasion to spice a solo or for the occasional funky tune.
I can only relate my limited personal experiences.

I've been given this by a friend some years ago (5-6-7-8 ??).
I didn't have a wha before and I really tried hard to love this one (cause it's a good friend) but I never really succeeded.
Recently, I could A/B 6 newer Dunlop Wha's and I must admit that the JH-1 is vintage, certainly, but also the worst among those I tested.

The sweep range is narrow.
Stock, it emphases on low-mids which might be OK for some blues using moderate overdrive.
It doesn't handle high gain well at all !
It was hardly usable for clean funky playing.

I messed with the internal rack/pinion which enabled to slightly adjust the main frequency sweep spot. When moving it up to maximum.
It's slightly better for your typical screaming high gain solos. But it's still not very good (my rating would increase from 2 to 4).
But then it becomes completely useless for clean playing, completely fucks up the sound with ear piercing high freq peaks.
I tried different rack/pinion positions during all those years ...

The only use I found was to have it after distortion to achieve
a phaser like effect.

I'm glad I eventually sold it.

BTW, among those tested, I liked the 535Q the most because it lets you adjust the sweep spot and Q value in order to find a usable tone for all applications (clean, overdrive, moderate and high gain)

Never had a problem during the many years I had it.
Eats batteries rather quickly. Adaptor is suggested.
I messed with the internal rack several times in order to achieve different frequency ranges. It always worked...

Playing since I was 20 (I'm 37 now) on various equipment, mostly
low to mid level quality. ("Low" being above the "Entry-Level" quality)

To me, it's just an old, out-dated wha unit that could still get
some restricted use.
But there is much better nowadays.

I can hardly imagine anyone achieving Hendrix like tones with this unit ... what the name seamed to imply ... ????

It's freaking wah..all you do is step on the SOB. Any moron can figure that out. I'm scoring it low just cause I hate the damn sound of the thing.

I played it with different stomp boxes, but mainly used my Strat with SRV pickups and my Marshalls. From the moment I bought it I thought..."Wow, sweet, I'm gonna sound just like Hendrix!" Well sorry son, I learned that it's not the gear, it's the freakin Heart 'n Soul. Anyways, Yes it does accenuate the lower frequencies; however, I find it completely hard to believe that Jimi actually had his wah's (which were just Cry Baby's) modified for lower frequencies ie. more bass out the the wah. If anything it sound like Jimi had his wah's set up to get more range, especially mid range out of his sound, it sounded like he got alot more range out of his wahs. Anyways, when I step on the bitch I started pickin up radio stations on my damn pickups! And believe it ain't the pick-ups cause my Vox NEVER did that. Bottom line: I hate the sound out of this thing, and I think any true Jimi, classic rock and blues fan would too.

Well I had it for only a year and I barely used it cause I hated it so much. However, when my radio was broken I did use it to pick up some baseball games hehe ;-P

Can't really comment on that.. Never called up Dunlop, I'm sure they're well aware it sux though.

I play everything: Blues, Classic Rock, Jazz, Alternative, Metal etc....
IMHO I'f you use the wah clean with no fuzz, distortion, you could get by , however any little overdrive and it goes to crap. Jimi would have definately been disappointed. Please don't get suckerd just cause it's got his name on it. In my opinion and experience got with a different dunlop, vox, or even a damn morley. Hopefully this helps. PEACE LOVE AND HAPPINESS.