George Dennis GD-65 Parametric Wah/Volume

Simple I & O with 4 controls for Frequency, Level, Quality, and Minimum Volume. Depressing the toe of the pedal activates a switch to choose wah or volume. Pedal is easy to control; maintains any position throughout its range.

No manual needed.

Noise free optical control does not add hiss or crackle to your tone. Extensive range of wah tones possible with adjustments to the Frequency and Quality pots.

Not the wah you want if you're looking for the classic quack of a Cry-Baby or an over-the-top Dimebag sound. This wah has a smooth subtle sweep across the frequency range.

Mostly studio use. I have gigged with it without a backup. Seems to be built tough. I have had no problems in 5 years.

Minimalistic website. Never had reason to contact them.

I have been playing guitar for over 30 years. I play mostly original prog and ambient music where the noise-free smooth sweep of the GD-65 works well. If it were lost or stolen, I would get another.

I listen to and play a lot of UK prog rock i.e. Marillion, Porcupine Tree, Hackett-era Genesis, King Crimson, Pink Floyd; as well as UK rock, i.e. Beatles, Stones, Queen, Led Zeppelin, U2; quite a bit of Rush (through Signals); and Pearl Jam, Alice in Chains, etc.

guitars:
Blade RH-4
Mouradian LS-74
Gibson Les Paul Standard
Taylor 610CE

signal path:
aNaLoG.MaN BiCompROSSor---George Dennis GD65 PARAMETRIC WAH---George Dennis GD025 PANORAMA-STEREO-VOLUME---Mesa Rectifier Recording Preamp---(stereo F/X rack)---Mesa 2:Ninety Amp---(2)2x12 Celestion Vintage 30s.

stereo F/X rack (MIDI Controlled):
Aphex Aural Exciter---Lexicon MPX-1---(2)TC 2290 Dynamic Digital Delays---EQ---Gate

I'm writing about the older version with the three knobs on the side. can't tell about the four-knobbed newer version.
For a Wah Pedal, i think it is not that easy to use! If this is the first Wah pedal you ever used, it could be a bit difficult to tune a wanted sound. for me this is my fourth wah pedal, so at least i know which sound i'd like to get. anyway it is not easy to tune in "my" sound.
the manual is a joke. it really doesn't help you. but hey... it's not a multi-effect-rackmount unit. turn the knobs and LISTEN!

can i get the sound of my fave artist? well, if i'd want to get - NO. this wah pedal is - soundlike - totally different from my other wah pedals. i would go as far as saying that this isn't really a wah pedal... it doesn't sound bad on most settings, but it doesn't sound like a wah pedal and - my opinion of course - it's too lame. i think it's not versatile. if playing cords, the wah comes through best with fuzz or heavy distorted - but then it sound more like an envelope filter (think of u2 - discotheque). you can use this sound, but it's very special. for solo work, i got the feeling, that bassy and higher notes don't sound very good. the WAH just doesn't cut through. it's like there was a mix-knob at about 50-60%. the wah seems to get mixed in. i want a wah to cut through and dominate my sound.
i put it in different positions in my chain. it works best in 1st position.
it can be noisy. i mean - it's optical and that's a really great thing. great to play and wonderfully smooth in action and toggle. but if the high control is in the higher settings (where the wah cuts through the best) there is a nasty hiss.
somehow, this wah pedal sounds like a digital emulation of a wah... but - my digitech whammy wah does this better and is not tweakable (although the digitech sounds not sharp enough...).
i used this before a tube amp (hughes and kettner tube 50 - great amp!) and the crate powerblock. pretty much the same action in both.

i think george dennis did a great job with this - hardware-sided. it looks great (o.k. colour is not that great... :-) it feels smooth, looks sturdy. i think this would be a perfectly playable and gigable pedal!
i don't have backups. firstly i'm optimistic, then i need food as well. and - a good musician (which i'm may not be :-) should be able to improvise if something unexpected happens...

never dealt with them. the website is not very informative... and the manual is a joke... but somehow i like the company...

i play pretty much everything. mainly shoegazing and indie-pop stuff. 70ies. 60ies. 80ies. funky. rock. well...

still looking for THE wah pedal. i love the effect. i play wah pedals for 15 years... i used to play a allsound wv-200 which was damn cheap but great in sound! then the digitech whammy wah. which is not bad, but a bit - well clinical. great for recording, but live it's just not sharp enough... now i own a snarling dogs whine-o-wah which is the best so far, but you have three sounds and you have to like them. not tweakable, but changeable. and it's somehow a mixture between great and cheap... it's good but not THE wah pedal. and the george dennis... which will not be my favorite. i so wanted to like this pedal. it's very good in action... but soundwise it's disappointing.

maybe i have to go for a RMC by teese. but... 200 bucks?!

very easy to use. i wish the knobs had pointers.

using it with '52 reissue tele, fender and laney tube amps. extremely quiet. good sound. don't know or care about getting the sound of my favorite artists.

the main problem with most pedals these days are the input/output jacks, which are not high-quality chassis mounted jacks but cheap board mounted jacks that (1) cannot be easily replaced and (2) block the hole so that even if you do replace it, you have to drill another hole. the problem is compounded by the crappy mini-jacks that are used for power input on many pedals.
my input and output plugs fell out of this pedal so frequently (even with 90 degree plugs) that i had to use a velcro arrangement to hold them in. the power input situation was so bad that i simply wired it directly into the pedal. this bypassed the internal switch that selects either AC or battery power, so now the pedal cannot be run off a battery. i'm good with this sort of mod, having had to do it to so many other units, but most musicians are not - and why should they have to be?! i finally decided to make a custom cord for the signal output and power input, using heat-shrink tubing. this limits the distance the pedal can be away from the main pedal board, but these were the measures i felt necessary to feel secure about the connections.
bear in mind that this problem is far from being unique to this unit. it's a rather ridiculous situation when you have a $1500 guitar connected to a pedal board that cost maybe $700 or $800 to put together, and the sound is intermittent because of a few crappy 10-cent connectors which, until 3rd world slave labor replaced american/european craftsmanship, no designer of any integrity would have even thought of using. personally, i make up my own cables. the 90 degree plugs i use cost me over $7 each, which is more then many entire cables cost. then i use crazy glue to secure all the threaded parts, and heat-shrink tubing over everything after all the wiring is done. i have never had one of my cables go bad on me.
the problem is that the market drives everything and most musicians are profoundly ignorant of the cost cutting measures INSIDE the gear they buy, and that if a unit is not performing properly it is far more likely to be because of a connector than any major problem with the electronics themselves. naturally, this is good for the manufacturers because people will throw out old electronic devices rather than repair them. and then they will buy this year's new model which, sadly, may not even be built as well as the thing they just through out.

I really love this pedal. i tried a crybaby first but the actual pedal was so heavy and the mechanical action so crude that it took much too much effort for my foot to move it. (i play sitting down.) this one is really easy to play and the parametric feature is very useful. finally, the optical sensor gives the pedal a quiet precision feel which mechanical pedals do not have. but, as usual, a junky 10-cent part gets between you and your $1500 guitar, and your multi-thousand-dollar pedal board/amp.

This unit is easy to use. You have 4 knobs for frequency, quality, level for the wah and minimum volume for the volume pedal. I baught it without a manual but it's easy to use. An LED indicates if volume or wah is chosen.

I play it with a Patrick Eggle New York (DiMarzio instead of Kent Armstrong PUs) and a Peavy Classic 50. It is not noisy. I know there's somebody who has written it, but it's not normal (like all GD pedals). I compared it to my Cry Baby. The sound of the GD is less rough. Because of this and the fact you can choose frequency and level its more flexible and usable for softer wah sounds. Maybe distorted solo sounds are better with the Cry Baby. Frequency knob at 12 and quality completely up is similar to the setting of not parametric wahs.

Build very stable. The optical circuit prevents getting a broken poti.

I had some questions for an other product. Georg Burgerstein answered questions fast (but the german distributor didn't).

I play pop, rock, funk and folg stuff. For it's not as rough as the Cry Baby it's completes my sound very good. I play guitar for 15 years and for about 7 or 8 electric. I have other GD products (the tube, stereo panorama volume) and apart of some problems with the tube I'm very satisfied. I'd buy it again.

Dead simple. In and out jacks and 4 knobs which allow adjustment of minimum volume, wah volume level, shape, and intensity of wah. Switch from wah to volume by pressing down hard on the toe.

Here's the catch. The wah side is noiseless, but the volume side has a dreadful hiss. If this pedal is followed with a gain stage of any sort, the hiss is magnified to unacceptable levels.

The wah itself is pleasant enough in a Morley-esque fashion and is quite customizable, but whenever the pedal was not in wah mode, there was the hiss...

According to my vendor, 3 other units available for testing had the exact same problem. I can only surmise that this is a recent problem due to the other positive reviews.

Very sturdy construction, rugged housing.

I chose this pedal because I need a combination wah/buffered volume and I had heard good things about this one.

I would love to be able to recommend this pedal, but I can't. Despite the quality of construction and good wah sound, the hiss renders it unuseable and makes all the other ratings irrelevant.

Luckily, my vendor (Jon Hiller at Cowabunga Music) has been very good about working with me to exchange this pedal. I haven't been soured on George Dennis pedals completely, but I can't understand how such a glaring problem could have made it through the quality-control process.

1. This pedal is easy to use push down hard for volume and again for wah.The pedal is nice and smooth and lets out a good wow sort of wah. Not the best pedal to use for solos i think.

Like i said it lets out a good wow sort of wah.When you push forward and back the volume changes a little bit to but ya get used to it. About half way forward it gives a little fuzz. It does on mine any way.

I have only had it for 2 days so i can't be that precise on how reliable it will be but i'm sure it won't blow up on me.

The shop i got it from is excllent he has cheap prices and he is a real nice guy. I brought my guitar from there and if anything stuffs up on it he fixes it for free.

I play punk, rock whatever . I like the living end, Metallica, ACDC and lots of other crap. So it suits well. I've been playing guitar for about 4 months also have drums wich my brother plays. I would buy a different pedal if i lost it because i like using and having different things. It's a crap colour but it sounds good so i don't really give a crap. I don't like the knobs because it is hard to find the best position but i have the frequency and level on half, and quality and min volume about full.i wish it didn't use up the friggin batteries so quick but i found a adapter so it's no problem now. It makes nearly everything i play sond awsome. That about it.

Wah & volume. When pressed is wah, press again for volume. You're always in either mode. Can get tricky because if you want to go from wah to normal volume level you have to depress the switch - heel up and them get of the pedal without rocking it back becausethis is the maximum volume level. It doesn't really feel that natural.

More of a wow than a wah. Nice dynamic sweep but not very classic. Depends on your taste, but there wasn't really enough edge or 'quack' for my taste. Too smooth.

Broke after 30 seconds. It was second hand but I'm not too sure about those fibre optic gizmos, bit too fragile.

Took it straight back too the shop, never dealt with them.

This is a follow-up to a very complimentary review I wrote a few weeks ago, when I tried the pedal. Having briefly owned it I'm not quite so impressed. It has a great sound for certain contexts ie. doing you're own thing, that's why I got it, it's very original. However most people want to emulate others to some extent and I can't imagine any great records this has been used on.
This rating of 7 is if it worked.

Really Easy to use, very versatile. Nice smooth action.

I used an American Strat and a Bassman with this model. I also had a string of other wahs to compare it with. The Vox wah, Dunlop, and Hendrix whatever it is. I thought this wiped the floor them.

I do not own it and cannot say, I only tried it out.

I play everything except really heavy shit - y'know Thrash. I thought this pedal really did the business all-round.

One Rocker pedal, a on/off switch, and three EQ knobs. As simple as any other wah pedal, but getting a good EQ takes some practice.

The circuit in the pedal makes a little noise at the highest setting. But since their is no pot the pedal makes no scratching sounds when adjusted. The pedal is less noisy than my Snarling Dogs Whine-O Wah, but just not as cool.

I bought this pedal used from the local paper, the wah is structurally fine but the plastic knobs are cheap, and the rubber on the rocker is comming off. I'll probably fix the pedal but it's not a huge priority. Also the pedal is a nasty pink color.

I have never talked with the company. I doubt that I will bother.

I got this pedal because I needed a voulme pedal, not a wah. This is a nice smooth voulme pedal, but I still prefer my Snarling Dogs Pedal when I want a wah. I would use this pedal solo (without my Whine-O) only if I wanted to cut down my pedal board and didn't need my wah very much.

Simple as it gets....plug some cables in....turn your amp on. It's got 4 different knobs on it....Frequency, Level, Quality, Min. Volume. They're all self-explanitory. There might have been a manual...but I don't think so...you couldn't possibly need one except for something to read on the toilet.

OH MAN THIS IS GREAT! I use a cheap ESP LTD M-250 guitar with some beautiful DiMarzio Tone Zone(bridge), Dimarzio Air Norton(Neck) and a Duncan Stacked Humbucker(single coil, middle) pickups. I play it through a great Marshall Valvestate VS265R 2x12 stereo chorus combo. It's got all electronic optical switching..so it's silent, that's that. The effects are very strong...but you can make the wah suttle it you wish. I get all sorts of wah sounds with this...it gets very very low which is rare. It sounds like the Morley Bad Horsey wah...but better. The volume pedal part is excellent as well. On my amp....I usually have a slight touch of reverb on the clean, a lightly distorted rhythm channel...and a fairly heavily distorted lead channel with light chorus on all the time. I can't compare my sound to any other I can think of...but I play lots of Satriani/Van Halen-like music. This wah/volume is great.

It's very solid... Well put together. I wouldn't buy any other wah or volume.

never dealt with the company...nor have I heard of them before. It seems like a good group.

Like I said...I play Satriani/Van Halen style music...so hard rock. I've been playing for a while..and I've done a bunch of these so I don't feel like telling you my playing history....I origianlly had a bass on layaway at this store, but decided I didn't want it. I wanted a volume pedal....so I looked at their selection. They had these funny colored pedals there, a variety of different ones. The pink one caught my eye. It continues to blow my mind. Nothing better. The only wah I could possibly see as being better would be the Crybaby 535Q because it has such a drastic variety of wah sounds. Of course, this has the great volume pedal as an extra feature... I know it's a little known high end brand, and it's a funny color...but you buy effects because of sound not looks....and remember, Paul Reed Smith used to be a little known high end brand(give that some thought, even though it means little). I don't know how available these George Dennis products are all over...but I'd recommend finding one. I don't think I've ever given anything all 10's...but this wah deserves it.