Dunlop ZW-45 Zakk Wylde Signature Wah

Its a bloody wah pedal. But the adjustable sweep resistance is a great feature.

The first time I tried it I thought it sounded exactly like Kirk Hammett's rack wah setup. But the more I played it the less musical it sounded to me. It sounded almost like a gimmick wah. The voicing to just too extreme to anything less then screaming full out puking wah leads. It is absolutely awful for cleans or filtered sounding wah leads. I can see why Zakk likes it. I almost considered keeping it and running a two wah setup. Use the ZW-45 for extreme wah puking wah leads, and RMC Wizard wah for more classic and modern wah leads. I decided to keep the RMC Wizard wah as it does a very good job all across the board.

Didn't raelly keep it long enough to have any problems. Had it for 2 weeks

Its more of a gimmick wah. Doesn't really anything but puking wah voicing. Its the least veratile wah I've ever used. Not that great. But looks cool, and the adjustable sweep resistance is a great feature.

this is the most important, right? This is my second review. I only do this for gear that really blows me away.
I play an AmSer Strat into a fender hot rod deville 4x10 with a tonebone hot british. I got this to replace my morley pro II wah which was very harsh and it didn't have that classic wah sound. It had alot of gain and sounded muffled and it increased my volume way too much in the clean. it was useless other than loud high gain lead breaks.
In a nutshell, i found the wylde wah to be very natural sounding and musical in contrast to the original cry baby wah. The amps tone is preserved but the effect is placed on it in a very musical way. Y'know when you play a lead and put on the wah and it takes over and no matter what you do it sounds like gold... even if you f^&k up all over the place? This doesn't do that. The high end isn't as ice picky as the original, maybe it's a bit dulled in comparison but the tone and the monsterous mid range is great. Great tone, more SRV than Jimi. In fact, this is prolly closer to a vox wah but with true bypass, as far as i have heard.

i'm expecting it to be good, only time can tell. seems built well

overall, i'm not a metal guy. I like rock and blues. This thing is so musical and tasty, almost especially in the clean dept.

Step on - Step off. Easy.No knobs

This is the best wah i have ever owned. I own a Fulltone Clyde wah deluxe. The Clyde is great for clean sounding wah. If you want that type of throaty in your face wah - then this is it!I have tried to get that loud WAKA WAKA sound and nothing I have ever had pleased me like this Dunlop does.

Built like a tank - looks like it was made from tank parts.

Had issues with another product and they were awesome. They took a while to answer my emails but they answered me and took care of my problem.

After trying it out at the Guitar Center - I would have paid $200+ for this baby. What a deal!!!!

This pedal is very user friendly.I love the option of the rocker torch setting.This is very handy when you want to change the pressure of the rocker.comes with a torch wrench,guitar pick,manual.primo setup for the price of 104.00

While I have been using a 535 Q for years that recently crapped otu on me.I was a little dissapointed at first by the throaty sound and thought it lacked that true wah sound.BUT after removing the feet witch made it hard to turn on and off.I have gotten used to the sound and enjoy it very much now.A common problem with wah pedals and guitar players is that it all depends what amps you are using to get a good wah sound.I have used a regular crybaby with a marshal and had it sound amazing.then the same pedal on a cheaper line 6 and it sounds crappy.I recommend this pedal to all who want to buy it.

Seems very sturdy with its zinc housing.Dont forsee any problems.

never dealt with them

i have been playing metal for 25 years and while its not the best wah i have owned it will do for what I need and its growing on me slowly.I love the look of this pedal as well as the nasaly wah sound it gets.I hate the fact that there is not a selector nob to choose a wah sound or a boost button to give it an extra umph.

Well, it is a Wah pedal without any sort of knobs you can change, so it is pretty easy, but you can change the amount of "torque" (its what the manual calls it) which is basically how easily the wah moves up and down.

Setup: Strat w/Humbuckers-->Wylde Wah-->Distortion-->Fender Blues Amp.
Wow is the pedal noisey for me, it has a lot of fuzz when the wah is completely open, but for all the other parts, the fuzz isn't very noticable.
Well, it is a wah pedal, and it doesn't sound like a normal one at all. The treble is not all that high, and the bass is incredably low, and the sweep is pretty weak. The sweep I do not like for several reasons: You cannot get a clear WOW out of it, the pedal is very very touchy about where it is. There are no special 'sweet spots' they all sound pretty much the same quality as the other settings.
The pedal's bass is insaneley low, this is the reason why I scored it so low. With the standard CryBaby, a heel position sounds low, but with the Zakk Wah it is like you are holding a blanket over the strings of a bass guitar. This may be great for some, but I like classic and modern rock, this pedal doesn't fit me and I shouldn't have bought it.
The midrange is very high quality, it sounds spectacular, and the treble is somewhat weak because it is lower than most Wah's frequency's.
The distortion sounds absolutly fantasic, there is no other comparison of what Wah to buy if you use a ton of distortion, or evel a decent amount of distortion sounds great with this wah. This wah sounds pretty bad clean.

Built like a rock made out of metal. I have dropped it, chipped it, lost all the lubricant, smeared crap all over the electronics, bent it, and worn out some of the rubber. It still sounds great.
No backup is needed, it CAN'T fail.

Very good, I bought a CryBaby 535Q and wanted to buy a better wah with a "Fatter Tone" little did I know the Zakk Wylde Wah just came out, and well.... I did get a fatter tone. But this Wah's fatness is just insane.

I play modern rock, classic rock, Hendrix, and arena rock. The pedal does not match what I want, possibly because I want such a versatile sound.
If it were stolen/lost I doubt I would replace it, I would look for a different company than Dunlop because I compared to Dunlop and Morley Wah's. After ditching the CryBaby, I bought the Zakk, and while its an improvement, it't not great.
I wish the bass response was not so low, because that always throws me off and just gets me mad, but some people may like it quite a bit. For me, it definatley hurts my music experience if I don't pair it with distortion constantly.

YOU HAVE TO LIKE THE STYLE OF NOISE IT MAKES A LOT OR YOU MAY HATE IT!

It's a wah, press down with your toe to engage or disengage, how hard can it be?

I picked up one of these yesterday. After A/B'ing it with my 535Q, I decided to keep it and sell my 535. I've been through alot of wah's, I've had the Vox, DOD, Budda Bud, Jaques Singing Geisha (crappy sound, made of cheap-looking plastic), the original Morley, the Bad Horsie, the Mark Tremonti, the original Dunlop Crybaby and the Boss PW-10. Of these, I liked the Boss and the 535Q the best, I've been using the 535 for a few years now. Both the Boss and the 535Q are more versatile than the Zakk model, which has no switchable parameters, but for high-gain stuff I liked the ZW better. On the high-end of the frequency sweep, the 535 and the ZW sound almost the same, but the ZW has alot more low-end with your heel pressed down. It really has alot of bite and can sound pretty extreme if you go crazy on it. I went back and forth between the 2 pedals like 20 times before I made up my mind, it's not a massive difference from the 535 but I did like it better. I don't think the Dunlop wah's have true-bypass but I didn't detect any tone-suck whatsoever. I play heavy music, using either an Ibanez Jem or Gibson Les Paul Custom, the Zakk wah, and a Boss GT-3 multi-FX processor into a Framus Cobra 100-watt tube amp with a Marshall 1960AV cab.

I've only had it for a little while but it seems solid as hell, it's got a heavy die-cast zinc housing. I've owned the Dunlop 535Q for years, it's seen alot of abuse and I've never had a problem with it, and the housing of the ZW seems even sturdier.

Never dealt with them.

As I said, I've owned or tried almost all of the wah pedals under $200 and this is my favorite so far. It's not versatile, as there are no switchable parameters like there are on the 535Q or the Boss PW-10. Contrary to the review below, the included allen wrench doesn't change the sound or the sweep, it's for changing the amount of resistance the rocker has to being moved, making it tighter or looser, however you prefer. Personally, I don't care about the lack of versatility, I'm only looking for one type of sweep-range and sound from a wah pedal, and this one has it. I like Zakk's sound alot but I didn't buy this pedal to try to copy it, I just wanted something that sounded good, and this wah has the Italian-made Fasel inductor. For anybody who plays heavy music and is in the market for a wah, I'd recommend checking one out.

Wow, of all my years of playing I finally am the proud owner of my own personal "HOLY GRAIL" of Wah Pedals. I have been a wah addict as long as I could remember and have literally tried my hand at EVERYTHING out there and was never satisfied. The closest I ever came to personal satisfaction was my purchase of the Jimi Hendrix Wah but I still longed for something more, something that kept my fat, warm Marshall tone intact, and when I saw a display model of this pedal in the store I just had to try it and boy am I ever so glad I did.

You plug it in step on it to engage it on and do the same to turn it off. It's that simple!

I am not going to continually give my entire setup list on here as it just gets tiring to keep typing over and over again. I apologize but if you need to know then my list is under my MXR Wylde Overdrive review if you need to see it.

What makes this wah so special is two things. One is that it is the only wah pedal I have ever come across that keeps the meat and potatoes of your amps tone INTACT! The other thing that makes it special is that included with it is a long allen key that when you toe down on the pedal and put the key underneath, you can adjust the height of the pedal and therefore the amount of toe down and heel up motion of the pedal itself so that you can dial the pedal in to exactly where the pedals sound range suits your own personal taste. You can find your sweet spot, lock it in and that's it your done.

Now you are not a slave to a particular wah pedal tone. This alone was worth the price of admission and is a stroke of genius by Zakk and the boys at Dunlop! How could I not give it a 10 for that alone?

This thing is heavy and built like a tank! Oh yeah I can gig without a backup.

Never had to deal with them

I cannot say enough good things about this purchase. Just a great, fat, warm, expressive wah that lets you do the tailoring of its tone to meet your needs and not the needs of another pro player. Off the bat it too is the most pronounced wah of anything I have ever tried.

When Zakk and the Dunlop doods put this one together it was obvious they did it to meet the needs of the INDIVIDUAL guitarists needs in mind which really IMHO is the way to go these days. I know it sounds so cliche to just give a particular product a 10 across the boards but truth be told when all is said and done it is too hard not to be subjective with anything less than a 10 on this product. Everytime I bring this pedal which is on my pedalboard to a gig or a music store, every guitar player I ever talked to has asked me where they can get this pedal and I have only had it for a month now.

Very new, very hard to find, great pricing and total tone and flexibility is where it is at with the Crybaby Wylde. If you can find one in these early stages of shipping I suggest you not pass this one up.

Highly recomended!! Thanks to my Beserker Bro Zakk and everyone at Dunlop again for manufacturing the best wah pedal of a lifetime!