Geoffrey Teese RMC Picture Wah

Very easy to use.

Guitars: American Strat w/ Kinman Woodstock pickups & Gibson "The Paul" with Burstbucker Pro pickups.

Main Effects include: Keeley Java Boost>Teese Picture Wah>Pedalworx Texas Two Step>Keeley Mod BD-2>other various OD/Fuzz pedals, Boss Flanger, etc>Delta Blues 30-w Tube amp.

I was suprised that this pedal is NOT very noisy through my setup. Not weak at all - nice vintage, full sweep. Sounds good for clean & distortion settings.

Very reliable & well built - no problems. I don't think you would need a backup unless you were totally rough on the pedal, like Hendrix was (he carried many backups since he put his entire weight on it while playing).

Geoffrey Teese is the King of Wahs! Excellent response times to questions and wouldn't hesitate to upgrade or repair.

Very musical & compatible with any type of playing. I would replace this pedal if it were stolen. If you are searching for a QUALITY wah pedal, this is it. You will not be disappointed.

It is simple to use as far as wahs go, but of course it takes some skill to really use any wah effectively. Many other wahs have more tweakability, but this one comes with optimal sweep, center and Q, so I don't miss the extra knobs at all. I am deducting some points for the on/off switch being under the foot treadle. Every manufacturer has always done it that way, but it's still a bad idea.

This is the classic sound that everyone is looking for. If I could change anything, it would be the noise level, but that seems to be a given with wahs. Still, this is the quietest wah I have ever used and I haven't noticed any problems with radio frequency interference.

I bought one of the first prototypes used from a dealer. I noticed popping problems with the switch right away, but this is forvgivable considering the cirmustances. Other than that, everything seems pretty solid. Wahs have inherent weaknesses because of all the moving parts, but that is just the nature of the beast. If that bothers you, go buy a Pod and learn to live with mediocre tone.

This is why I am writing a review. When I sent an email to ask about a problem, I got a response within the hour! Not only that, Geoffrey sent a replacement part within a couple of days. The amazing thing is, that despite the fact that the warranty only covers the original owner, he took care of it anyway. This quality of service is a rarity.

Just go buy one, and thank me later.

ON/Off with foot pedal sweep.

A/B'ed this pedal with (2)Fasal inductor italian wahs, TDK inductor Cry Baby, TDK inductor Vox Wah, Vintage colorsound wah, newer Dunlop Jen Wah, Original Vox Clyde, Brown (stack of dimes) inductor Cry Baby wah, Fulltone Clyde, Vox reissue V847 & V848.

The Teese is hands down the quietest and most dynamic of them all. Great vocal quality on the bottom end , perfect sweep range (just the perfect amount of high freqency sweep). Smoother than an original Vox clyde (and the example I had was in my opinion the ultimate wah).

There is a lot of factors concerning construction of the wah circuit, every component must be matched just right. If this were easy (I've tried and modified many circuits) everyone would be selling the ultimate wah. Please give credit to Mr. Teese for his extraordinary efforts and stop complaining about the high price tag. Apparently he's got the ultimate formula and NOBODY else does. Listen with your ears not your pocket book or mind cluttering reviews like these.

Only the Carling DPDT switch gave me problems. I've used these switches in the pedals I make and they are unfortunately very low quality with high failure rate (very frustrating to pedal makers).

N/A

Everything covered under sound quality

Dead simple, nice travel.

The search is over: this is the one. The best sounding Wah you ever heard AND with true bypass. Jimi would have LOVED the Picture Wah.

I had an initial problem with the switch, but it was immediately solved by Geoffrey himself. I wish I had waited before I posted my first review on this site, but I take it all back. This guy could write the book on customer care.

This is a follow up to an earlier posting, where I had a problem with the switch. The update: I emailed the company on a SUNDAY, and had a personal response from Geoffrey Teese almost immediately. He provided directions to a fix, and now I am clam happy.

This is how it should be done. Kudos to Geoffrey - you make an outstanding product, and you back it up amazingly.

For that delicious vintage wah sound, this is the one. End of story.

It's a Wah - dead simple.

When it works, it sounds great - the kudos are well deserved. The main reason I got this was for the true bypass, so it would work with my germanium fuzz (my Crybaby decidedly did not), but it really is a great sounding Wah.

Here's where we run into trouble. The first one I bought had a terrible crackling/radio receiving noise with the toe down position (effect activated). I took it back to the store where it was confirmed to be a dud, and brought home another one that didn't have that problem. BTW, this was not NORMAL buzzing. I know what that is, and this was much worse, as the store confirmed.

Now, the NEW one I have at home is cutting out occasionally when I turn the effect off. Very disappointing for a new $350 (CAN$) pedal, especially since the store (Songbird in Toronto) doesn't have any more. Seems like some QC is in order...

Sadly, I guess I'll find out...

It's a great sounding Wah, no question about it. Hopefully, I can get this intermittent problem solved, and begin to rely on it.

I'm using it with (among other TB effects) a Fulltone '69, so I may end up adding the FOXROX mod, but I haven't decided yet.

It's a traditional wah. Quiet switching, smooth action, full usable range.

Excellent. It's got a sweet, vocal, vintage tone. Very expressive. No dead spots or bumps in the tone range. The entire sweep and tone range are useful, no farty lows, harsh highs, or honking or bumped mids. The pedal has unity gain, so there is neither a boost or a loss of signal gain when it is engaged. The organic and "transparent" tone (transparent in that it doesn't disguise the character of your guitar), and the unity gain and good switching make this pedal excellent for peppering rythm and lead playing with wah accents. These attributes make this wah very versitile: use it for all out wah, or seamlessly switch it in and out. This pedal nails the vintage wah tone, better than any wah I've used. I wanted a wah that would do the Hendrix and Clapton 60's sound, and also be a great wah for clean rythm playing, and this wah does both exceedingly well. This is my set-up: a Strat or a Tele to the Teese Picture Wah, to an EH Poly Chorus, to an EH Q-Tron, to a DeltaLab Effectron, to amp, either a Rivera R100 twin combo or a Rivera S120 stack, or a Gibson Falcon for recording. I'm currently playing in a reggae/funk band, and the Picture Wah is great for the clean wah sounds charcteristic of these styles.

Very solid: the case is a Dunlop CryBaby case, all top-notch vintage-correct components, a superior Teese potentiometer, a true-bypass switch, all hand bulit by Mr. Teese. Dunlop CryBabies are pretty bomb-proof, so this wah should be even superior as it is hand-built by a master wah guru. As far as a back-up, I don't think it's needed with this unit. I carry my own gear, and I've already got enough stuff to shlep around without carrying dupIicates; I don't get this whole thing about carrying a backup for every pedal, etc. I carry extra fuses, tubes, cables, batteries, and strings. I check and maintain all of my gear regularly, and I wouldn't bring a piece of gear to a live gig if I didn't have confidence in it. I can't see this thing going down.

Teese is great. He's very accessable, happy to answer questions, quick to respond, cares about the needs and satisfaction of players and cutomers. He's driven to create the best reproduction he can of the Italian Vox Clyde McCoy, and he's really succeeded with this pedal. When you deal with Teese, you deal with the man himself, and it seems to me that he's competely into what he's doing. I would much rather supprt Teese than some big corporation making a mass produced product for a few dollars less, and I'd much rather deal with the actual designer and builder of my pedal that some faceless generic customer service dpertment at a corporation. Teese is top-notch all around.

Works great for hard-rock, blues, funk, and reggae--all the styles I play and use it for....there may be other models better suited for the super-high-gain-triple-rectifier pop-rock, but for traditional wah-wah this is great. I've been playing since I was in short-pants, about 20+ years, and it's the best wah I've had...I've had it for about 6 month now, and I couldn't see playing without it. I would get another one, or maybe a RMC 3, if I lost this one....I thought about this, and the other alternative I've considered for replacing it if I had to would be to find a actual vintage McCoy or CryBaby, or maybe build-up my own from an older wah with parts (that would be a fun project). The price on these may seem high, but when considering the price of the vintage wahs, and the time and costs of building-up one yourself, I think that I would go with RMC/Teese again. The other wah that would be an option would be the Fulltone, and with the choice between Teese or Fulltone you've got two great flavors of great wahs....Teese has the nice touch of looking like an older wah, plus it's a picture wah with a picture of Geoffrey Teese's face on the bottom instead of Clyde McCoy's face--another nice touch (but has nothing to do with tone). If you have the opportunuity to actually play the Teese and the Fulltone side-by-side you should, just to see which one speaks to you more, but if you're looking for a really great straight forward traditional wah, the Picture Wah is it. I can't imagine someone being unhappy in this wah, unless they were looking for a modern modified wah, which is really a different animal. This wah helps me be much more expressive with my playing; I can't see playing wiyhout it, where in the past with other wahs I've had I could take-them-or-leave-them due to the mixed-bag of tone effect that they give (harsh highs, bumped-mids), but the Picture Wah really adds a lot and is very useful for both lead and rythm work, both clean and dirty. Thank you Mr. Teese!

Well, it's a basic wah, everything feels smooth, easy to switch......can't get easier than that.

Sound quality is excellent. Switching is quiet. Very vocal, very vintage tone. Very full and usable sweep, excellent tone throughout the range of its sweep. Not harsh on the top, not flabby on the bottom, no mid humps. The pedal is set for a unity gain, so it works really well for seemless switching in and out to pepper your rhythm and lead playing with wah-wah accents. etc. Due to the unity gain structure, quiet switching, and smooth, organic, transparent yet musical and expressive tone, this is a great and fun pedal to integrate tastefully and sparingly, or use full on. If you like a vintage 60's/70's rock and funk tones, this pedal is great.

The pedal seems to be built very well. I think it's going to be as durable as any good Cry Baby pedal. The housing is a Dunlop Cry Baby housing, and these have a good track record. Short of dropping it off of a building or driving over it with a truck, I can't imagine breaking it. The internal construction looks pretty good, simple and clean (although there are some "hanging chads" around the punced-out hole that the gear assembly travels through from the pot to the pedal...this will not effect the function of the pedal, but from a "boutique" bulid aesthetc it's a little odd to see). The only problem I've had with it is with the by-pass switch. Mine is from late 2002, and it has the new switch Teese is using (as far as I know, unless he's changed switches) that has a blue square plastic base (this is not the older and common Carling switch, and I've seen switches that look exactly like this blue switch in some Electro-Harmonix pedals). The switch will occassionally cut-out the signal when being switched. This doesn't happen very often, and when it does it requires another quick stomp to get the signal back, so it's two quick stomps, but it's a random occurance. It's intermittent, and it doesn't happen very often, but when it does it's an annoyance. After contacting Teese about this I was advised to raise the switch in relation to the body (I guess this ensures more force being applied to the switch), but the problem still occurs, plus, when the swtich is raised there is less switching resistance and that makes the switching action too light for my taste. I thought at first that it was me not pressing hard enough on the switch, but it does it with harder stomps as well as lighter stomps. One thing I will say is that it seems to be occuring less than before, so it may be a matter of the switch being broken in, but it still happens occasionally. Obviously I got a bunk switch. This happens, and I don't fault the pedal or Teese for it, it's a faulty component, but unfortunately is does effect the relaibility. I think probably the switch slipped through the switch factory's quality control, and being as it's an intermittent thing Teese probably didn't catch it. If I was to do a high profile gig with this pedal, I would install a new switch. This is ironic as my understanding is that Teese has started to use these switches as he feels that they are better than what he can get from Carling, but I've never had a problem with a Carling switch, and I'll probably switch it out for a Carling or a Fulltone switch when I get around to it. Right now, for what I'm doing with this pedal, I can live with it, but it's annoying, especially on a $235 pedal. I'd give it a 10 if it wasn't for this, but this switch is a problem and takes away from an otherwise excellent pedal, albeit this may be a rare occurance in that I happened to get a funky switch. BTW, other people have complained about the acousitc mechanical noise of the switching, but you can't hear it once your amp in on, so for me that is a non-issue.

Teese is very accessable and communicative, and he does seem to be on a mission to build the best wahs he can. I think he takes a lot of pride in the PIcture Wah (it's got his pricture and signature on the bottm), and the man seems to love what he's doing. He also seems to care a lot about the satisfaction of his customers, and answers e-mails himself and quickly. He did address the issue of my intermittent switch, but my impression was that he's finally found a switch that he feels is a superior switch and he has 100% faith in the performance and faultlessness of the switch. During a few e-mail exchanges where I was explaining how the switch was interemittent he advised raising the switch and that that would cure the problem, and that I had to get used to the feel of the switch (I never quite got what he meant by that). Eventually he seemed to accept that raising the switch wasn't fiixing the problem, and he offered to send me another switch for me to install. I can appreciate that Teese is doing it himself, and I think he's making a great pedal, and I support him. I can also appreciate that he must deal with a lot of anal calls and e-mails from picky "boutique" customers who feel that because they're spending $200+ on a pedal they're intitled to milk the builder's time and attention, as well. Nontheless, he is getting some bad switches (I assume that I'm not a totally isolated case), and it took a few e-mail of collective trouble shooting to finally establish that the switch wasn't working, which adds up to time on my part, and untimately more time to replace it. In the end, though, he will do what he can to resolve the probelm (offered to send a new swtich), and he's there and supportive. Also, when I was considering getting a Teese, I contacting Teese, and he was attentive to the sound I was looking for and recommended the Picture Wah, and he was right-on as far as listenting to what I was looking for a nailing it with the right rcommendation.

Excellent vintage wah tone and feel, probably better than most real vintage wahs. The switch problem with mine is probably not representative of most of the Teese pedals, so I would not let that stop you from using one. This is just a wonderful sounding wah, and it is all that it's cracked up to be. If it wasn't for my particular issue as noted above I would give it 10's across the board. If I lost it I would replace it, but I'd also check out the Fulltone Clyde. Seeing how I'm going to be doing some soldering already to make this wah work as well as it should (replace the switch), I'd also consider modding an old wah to get to this, but for wah that is as good as the best of the vintage Italian Clyde wahs, and brand new and ready to go, I really don't think there is anything out there like the Picture wah.

Just power up, plug in, and play.

This is the best wah I've tried so far. I currently own a Vox V847 Resissue and a Fulltone Clyde which are leftovers from my wah search. The Vox is very sweet sounding but is somewhat limited in its sweep compared to the Fulltone and Teese. Also, it's not true bypass and only takes batteries. To me, the Fulltone is a Vox on steroids. It sounds like the Vox but with a larger sweep which gives it more spank. The Teese Picture Wah, on the other hand, sounds a bit darker but warmer with more presence. It just sounds fatter! I suspected the Picture Wah was adding a little gain, maybe even compression, so for further comparison, I popped the back of my Fulltone and increased the bass and gain using the adjustable trimmer. After the adjustment, the Fulltone sounded more like the Teese, but not quite exactly. To my ears, the Teese has a certain raunchiness in the midrange which the Fulltone lacks. Very cool!

A side note: A tried all three wahs into a Banzai Cold Fusion for a clean boost and into a Fender Blues Jr. For some reason certain notes on the guitar would produce an annoying icepick like buzz which went away when I turned off the Cold Fusion pedal. It happened with all three wahs. I'm not sure what's going on. Is this the wah/OD interface problem I keep hearing about? E-mail me if you have any clues. Thanks!

Only had it a few days but it seems solidly built.

Bought this one used and haven't contacted customer support.

I'm beginning to love this pedal the more I play with it. It's warm and fat, yet raunchy and aggressive at the same time. The Fulltone is also a great wah, but it sounds a bit too refined for my taste.

All wahwah's take some time to get used to it's particular sweep, also not just anyone can make a wahwah sound good. It takes practice to co-ordinate what you are doing with your hands and feet, and what u r hearing in your head. I'll give it a 10 to keep the average up. It's no easier or harder than other wahs. (Except maybe a dod wah I tried once, what a piece of crap)

I'm using 2 chained Trademark 60's (Tech 21), Ts-9 Tubescreamer, Chorus on the effects loop. I use a Floyd Rose Classic Strat.
I am nuts about hendrix and Iron Maiden basically. This thing gives a VERY authentic hendrix tone, that is to say, it is very vocal and expressive. It has a very smooth sound, and is awesome, clean, slightly dirty, chunky, or high gain. 11 out of 10. The best wah i've used.

Dunno, only just got it. I'll definately keep my colorsound as a back up 'cause things break on wahs. Wires come loose, the switch and pot aren't covered by warranty becasue these things DO wear out. True wahwah players always should have a spare.

Mr Teese is unreal. At one stage I wasn't even considering one of his wahs 'cause they cost to much. ($530NZ) He still advised me of what wahs were good, and which were bad, and what pot to use in my coloursound. I must have e-mailed him 8-9 times, b4 I told him I was buying 1 of his, and he NEVER got grumpy. This man wants you to have a great sound, and will recommend the wah u need. he seems more interested in making great wahs than he is in making money.

I'm the only guitarist in a 3 piece rythym section. We play EVERYTHING. (pub stuff) We do funk, R'n'B, Reggae, Rock, soul, motown. Mostly Rock and reggae/top 40's tho. I've bene playing about 15 years, and for the purposes of this review will state that I am pretty good. I own a colorsound which admittedly does NOT have the original pot. The colorsound while different, does get close to being as good.

Basically, I used it at a gig for the 1st time last night (the day I got it), and I was blown away. My guitar was TALKING man, and I haven't even gotten used to this thing yet!

If you want a great vocal wah, with an amazing smooth tone, JUST LIKE JIMI, then buy this. You'll never want for another wah. If this thing gets stolen (I know karate), then I will be getting one shipped here pronto. Worth EVERY penny! Thank you Geoffrey.

It's as easy as tapping your feet.

I've owned this wah for awhile now and even though I'd like to try the RMC 3 but I don't really think about it too much. So I'm pretty satisfied, and that's says a lot since I go through a ton of gear. This wah is very vocal with a wide sweep range. It gets all the funk I need, no wah sounds great with Fuzz effects however, unless you like a ton of noise. I think other wahs might be as good in a different way but I can't imagine them being better? Variety is nice but I'm content staying.

It looks tough, lasted so far but I baby my stuff. Larry at SoulCactus is great and if I had a problem I'm pretty sure it wouldn't be too hard to fix.

Soulcactus.com check it out! Top of the line service and gear.

Overall I give it a 10 because it does what it does very well. No problems, sounds better than any wah I've heard or owned. Looks nice, should last a long time. I bit pricey but I'm not wasting my money trying out and selling wahs anymore so I guess it's a good value overall. I really hate to give out 10's for anything, especially all 10's, but I can't find any faults?