Vox V847 Wah Wah

This has got to be the industry standard non-boutiuqe wah - it's been around longer than me - and the reason..... it sounds GOOD! when you look at it the physical sweep of the pedal doesn't look that impressive - but at the top of the travel you get that famous vocal change in sound that can be maniulated and in fact does translate into a wide sweep of warm musical sound!.

I play a strat older MIJ strat with texas specials w /orres-blues kaster mod and a custom strat like guitar(chandler carved top one piece) with a single P90 retrofit - I'm using this First in my effects VOX V847 > rocktron big crush > maxon 808 (like ts9) > eq > older ibanez delay > vintage vibro champ (class A) running 2x10s weber alnicos (yEaH)- before i introduced the Vox i tried morley and dime bag cry baby from hell and HANDS DOWN the VOX was best suited for my setup - i ended up selling the crybaby I'm sure it's right for someone (those guys gotta make living too) just not what i'm tryin to do - VOX was just warmer and more musical to me - MADE ME sound better ( i know hard to believe) - inspires me to play over my head. It's NOT a boutiqe! i can't give it a 10 for sound quality but for the money it is THE BEST your gonna find IMHO -

(and it WILL need true bypass mod installed COUNT ON IT!) i'll give this a realistic 8 but it's the best 8 your ever gonna hear! the boutiqes get the 10's but thats why they get the big bucks too.

These are tried and true reliable and then some , not plastic don't have to worry that you might crack it when you step on it (lol)
i would gig without a backup as long as it has a fresh battery(cmon).

never had a problem - thats the way I prefer it

been playin for many moons, if were lost i'd get another as fast as i could, it doesnt have any fancy features or gimiicks but it DOES have solid tone! i don't know bout you, but what good are fancy features if the tone's not there?? I 86'd the dimebag CBH it had lots of features?

IF money is no object then by all means check out the Teese line up of hand built wahs also try the fulltone clydes, also how bout a loan from your trust fund ? I wish it had other features but if you really want em, you can have the vox modded by several reputable Co's including Robert Keeley (super reputable) and have - true bypass - fulltone pot - ext vol control - different fasel red/yellow inductors even switchable - LED - DC jack - change resistors / capacitors to change the voice - of course by the time you add all that up you may as well have bought a teese - unless you do it yourself or over a long period of time - and AGAIN you WILL absoloutly NEED the true bypass done if you cant do it your self -or use a looper box - but imho if your on any knid of a budget - this is THE wah for the money (modifiable at any time) that will not break the bank - the better your existing setup the more this pedal will shine - if you got korean guitar and soid state amp w/ a 8 inch speaker - i dont know this pedal might still sound good - compared to the competetion - but if you have 335 into a plexi you can afford the teese - but if your in between like me ;) - you will not be sorry - it isnt like you can't swap it if you dont agree - im just saying imho it's the bomb!

I'll save the 10's for Teese, or Fulltone

it's NOT a 10 but it is the wah im using and i sound GOOD! and if you do the mods it COULD be a 10. - im just saying.

it's a wah, dont need to be a genius to start working with it.
not really easy to open the back of the pedal, but it keeps the vintage look of the pedal !
i whish it had a true bypass ...

hat's the sound i was looking for. less agressive than a Crybaby, more creamy.
i mainly play6 0's rock and stoner, just works very weel for this kind of music.
get a fantastic sound when placed before a tube screamer. i alson use it with a SoulBender (fuzz) works also well.

mine is around 10 years old, still works !

it's a classic.
dont need to spend a lot of money in a RMC or Fulltone while this stock pedal sounds so good

just wish it had a true bypass ...

Standard manual wah pedal. Easy to use, switch responds everytime I want to turn it on or off.

I would give this section and 11 if I could. I put this first in my setup before all my other pedals and it sounds great even with all of them on. By itself it is without a doubt the greatest wah pedal I have ever used. Vox has given me that tone I want and so much more. I was disappointed with the Crybaby because it didn't give me the tone I needed. The only brandS I can think of that may come in second to Vox is the Ibanez pedals or the Morley Bad Horsie wahs.

This thing is made out of pure metal. I would trust this pedal to outlive me. I would break down and cry if I had it lost or stolen, then I would go out and buy three more.

Never had to deal with customer service

I bought this pedal because Hendrix used it and I learned that he had great taste in pedals. I have been able to use this pedal for everything including Acid Rock, Reggae, Ska, Funk, Classic Rock, Hard Rock, Metal, Grunge and Blues

I have been playing for three years and I've played with almost every wah pedal on the market. From the worst of wahs by Digitech and Boss to some of the better ones by Morley and Ibanez but Vox beats them all into the ground.

easy

i was really disappointed, has no range and limited movement towards a crybaby that also sounds modern and agressiver dan v847
with fuzz distortion the sounds doesn't change, clean a little.

it is a solid pedal but a terribile imitation of the v846, if you want to spend the same money a dunlop sound much agressiver en cool or top quality clyde serie of fulltone

like al wah wah, just have to take confidence with the rage and your feet.

Funny that lot of people talk about jimi hendrix and true bypass, while all the wha's of jimi were not true bypass.
so? the sound is good a little different from the great v846, but, the tone don't looses intensity, the switch is silent, battery goes much longer and the sound is not as noisy as the other.
if you move the range your tones will be also different.
i use a strat 68, fender prevalv, axis fuzz of roger mayer and sometimes a few digital crap stuff.
oof course maybe a clyde of fulltone sounds cleaner, but it has also 3 switches to choose your range, finaly if you want just this modulation effect it is perfect and much depends on the product too.

i've been playing for 15 years, especialy classical, but also rock and latinjazz
i adore jimi's sound and all that vintage stuff
it is a good wah wah, they have almost 50 year experience
i also used others wah like jd jimi hendrix (was too extreme in high tones, so when you had to switch the sound had to fall violently), then crybabies (are a little without personality, the low tones are not clear and how more gain or distortion you use how less difference you'll note)
this pedal is good with fuzz, not so good with hard distortion & gain.
I invite you to use it with a good fuzz of roger mayer or fulltone 69
and you'll get what you need.

It's a wah wah.

Sounds like a wah wah.

Seems reliable. I've had it for a year and no problems.

Never dealt with Customer Support.

Been playing for 30 years. I use: JS1000 > wah wah > Tubescreamer > Triaxis > VHT Two/Fifty/Two.
I've had this for a year and just recently noticed how it sucks tone when plugged in, but not activated. My discovery was made when re-arranging my pedal board and had the wah wah set aside, not plugged in. I noticed a considerable difference in my tone. More color and stronger signal. I wish I had noticed this a long time ago. I'm going to install a true bypass. I suggest buying a Carling DPDT 316-PP switch to replace the original. Go to Fulltone.com for wiring instructions (thanks for the tip, Jeremy Skrenes!) For a measly $8.95, I'm getting my tone back.
Wish it had a power adapter jack.

it's a wah pedal. click it on, click it off. move your foot back and forth. congratulations, you can operate it. putting it at or near the front of your chain works best almost every time.

i'm giving this wah a solid 9, based on the mods i have done to it to improve sweep, volume, bass, gain, and reduce treble harshness. the 847 stock is okay, it is servicable to your board but can be a little harsh on the treble side to my ears, especially when combined with a fuzz or other gain pedal afterwards in the chain.

but, and i'll contradict everything skinnyjay said in his review before me, IF YOU MAKE SIMPLE AND CHEAP MODS TO THIS STOCK PEDAL YOU WILL FIND WAH WAH HEAVEN. just take the time and effort to look it up on the internet. there are plenty of suggestions for mods to resistors and caps that change the pedal's tone. this is true of any wah, really. they can all be adapted to fit certain situations, tone needs or to please your particular ears. to buy a wah like this vox, or any pedal really, and to use it stock without making adjustments is not wise. but with the mods i did, i promise you my vox 847 rocks and could be put up against boutique wahs, and still hold its own. it's that good!

the choice is yours: you can buy a higher-end wah and spend the money up front, or you can buy a solidly built, pretty good cheaper wah like the 847 or a Crybaby and then modify them to suit your tastes. i did the latter before investing in a Fulltone, and i'm glad i did. i have exactly what i want now.

one warning though: when it comes to mods, there's no one size fits all. i went through 2 stages of modifications. after the first set, i had a little too much volume gain and the high end was still a little biting. i changed the resistors again and fixed those problems with slight adjustments in values. read up on these things and you can do them yourself with a solder gun and a steady hand, or (like me) take them to your friendly, neighborhood guitar tech and let him go to work. a wah wah's circuit board is VERY EASY to pull out and work on. SO DO IT!

oh yeah, standard stock for this pedal right out of the box i would give it a 6.5 or 7. it's not bad, but it's not great either. i probably wouldn't give anything a 10 ever, so my 9 here means a lot. i also added the TRUE BYPASS switch to mine, which makes one helluva big difference to preventing tone sucking (which is notorious in wah pedals without one). very important to do that, so do it as well.

so far so good. a Vox wah is built pretty solid and there's not much to go bad on one that can't be fixed in a jiffy.

never have, never will. my customer support is my guitar tech guy. if you don't have one that you're up close and personal with, then good luck if you're not a handyman yourself.

i play blues rock and psychedelic San Fran style jamming in a band. i have used this pedal for about a year and a half. it fits well with the music we play, and i use it alot. with mods and the properly ordered pedal chain, it will fit well with a good fuzz/distortion pedal and a delay to give you some very "far out" tones. i have freaked out my bandmates with some of my guitar noise.

making mods is a trial and error type thing. be patient and you can customize a pedal to suit your own tastes. you don't have to pay $200 for a boutique name to have a boutique quality pedal. you really don't. and i have nothing personal against boutique companies; they're great if you have the cash to spend. myself? i love a bargain, and the vox 847 is one (although you have to invest another $30-40 on parts, mainly the true bypass switch). i think the pot that comes with it is fine myself, unless yours is worn out i wouldn't mess with it.

if the strat is the most modifiable guitar, the wah is the most modifiable guitar pedal. to use it stock, unless it's boutique or something, makes no sense at all to me. other people have done the work to offer suggestions for resistor changes, why not use their advice?

i think the Crybaby has a little more gain and bite to it than the Vox. the 847 to me has more of a classic funky sound. i'm not putting one over the other; they both can be great. it's just up to your ears. all i know is, Jimi used a Vox (it was a Clyde though i think) and Clapton used a Vox. that's enough endorsement for me.

i'd love to try a Fulltone Clyde just for a taste test (and almost bought one once just to try), but i can't justify selling my 847 for something so expensive. i can't imagine it would sound that better. i now have a wah modified exactly the way i want it and with true bypass. what more do i need? it works great as it is.

btw, the 847 does not have an external power supply connection. but guess what? you can modify it to put one in. i didn't, but there are instructions on the internet for doing so.

You have to remove the bottom to replace the 9v. Why not use an adapter? IT DOESN'T HAVE A JACK FOR ONE. Otherwise it's a regular wah.

It seems I payed all that money for some pretty chrome and a name. A name by the way that's owned by KORG. Reguardless, this is one over- rated wah. First, it has an extremely narrow range i.e. "not very wah sounding." I like my wah with a side of bacon, know what I mean? FAT. This pedal is very thin with very little bottom end. TOO Nasal would properly discribe it.

The rubber bummer pegs underneath the rocker part all became dislodged. I fixed them with super glue. Otherwise it works fine.

Never bothered. No sense in complaining about what is inherently flawed. I mean it works, but it still sucks.

Listen, if you want a good wah on the cheap get a plain old cry baby. Seriously. Don't bother with this thing. This is not the same pedal made famous by our heros. In fact it's completly different. What SHOULD you do? Well I bought a used budda wah for about $120, and it was exactly what I expect a wah to sound like. They're better than a cry baby (although far more expensive new), as the budda has none of the harshness, and has a broad range of frequency. I realize this is all subjective, but you can't deny what isn't there.

All you have to do is rock it back and forth and press harder for bypass... so I guess I'll give it a 10

I bought It used on ebay and I guess it was used a lot. I LOVE this thing, but this wasn't the case at first. I'm kind of a tone freak and I like to experiment with parts. anyways here's a recap... The pot that came with it was ironically... a dunlop! it was an old hot potz by clarostat or something like that. It was scratchy and uneven in sweep. I replaced it with a fulltone clyde pot (ICAR taper) problem solved. It cleaned up the noise and the sweep is beautiful. Sounds great now. But I wasn't satisfied! I wanted a deeper, richer tone!

I did some research about components and decided to replace the the stock resistors (metal or carbon film) with carbon composition resistors. This gave it a little more growl because these resistors distort a little bit when they are driven. I replaced the mylar caps with Orange drops. This was probably the single best improvement in tone. The sound difference was amazing. I also replaced the Inductor with a 500mh fulltone clyde inductor. (by the way I'm not a fulltone dealer or rep. I just used them Because I heard they're good)

It is so much better now with these mods, but there's more coming:
I am about to install true bypass in it, a DC jack plus higher quality BC-109 Transistors etc.... I could spend hundreds on this pedal. It's now almost up to boutique wah standards.

Low noise, works well with my tubescreamer and fuzzface. I use a strat and a '74 twin amp. sounds like clapton, page, SRV, hendrix... Stock I would have rated it 6 or seven Now it's 9 because it's very vocal,, it says Wah. It will be 10 when I'm finished modding it.

Built like a tank, I can depend on it. I don't think it should ever quit especially when I get the power supply. So I give it a 9

Haven't had to deal with them yet

Great for blues and classic rock.
Been playing for about 2 years.
Would probably buy a modded wah if lost or stolen, to save money.
Love the sound, Looks awesome, some of the stock parts were cheap.
I thought the stock sound is better than the crybaby, ibanez and morley wahs.
Wish it had an LED. Great expression tool. Overall 8 . sounds great but it's very basic in terms of features.

Its really easy to stomp on, before i bought this i tried a Jim Dunlop Crybaby original which was great but it was almost impossible to stomp on it so its not 100% you get it on everytime, thats why the vox wah wahs are better

My guitar is a Les Paul(Epiphone) and my amplifier is a Marshall MG 15DFX, the pedal sounds great clean but when distorted it makes noise when you push it down, i solved this by buying a Boss noise supressor pedal and now the wah pedal doesnt make a sound even if distorted, i suggest you buy this wah wah and Boss NS2 to make it quiet(also kills the hum without affecting your tone). I can play the Voodoo Child intro with this pedal so choose this wah wah Tank.

You can trust this pedal, cause is strong and made of metal.

I play Hard rock, Guitar Shred, Country, Blues and Punk rock.
ive been playing about one year now, i also have a boss Equalizer GE6
,a Jim Dunlop MXR distortion + and Boss Noise Supressor NS2(my best pedal). IF someone could steal my wah wah i would get the same wah wah. I love the sound and the looks of it, I dont really wish it would have anything cause its a re issue well maybe a dc adapter.
It helps me making funkier solos. PEOPLE DONT WHINE ABOUT THE DISTORTION NOISE JUST BUY THE BOSS NS2 IT KILLS ALL THE HUM OF PEDALS AND PICKUPS GUARANTEED