Electro-Harmonix Wailer Wah Pro

The Wailer Wah Pro is Electro-Harmonix's take on the classic wah pedal, released in 2026. It is an analog pedal built around what the maker calls a custom band pass filter circuit, which Electro-Harmonix says creates a tone that is "sweet and smooth with just enough bite," with high-gain responsiveness and clarity without unwanted howl¹. It is an upgraded version of the original Wailer Wah, swapping that pedal's polymer body for a rugged aluminum alloy die-cast chassis¹.

A wah pedal sweeps a band pass filter across the frequency spectrum as you rock the treadle with your foot, boosting a narrow band of frequencies that moves from low to high. That is the "wah" sound heard on countless recordings, and the Wailer Wah Pro handles it with a foot pedal and a footswitch, along with input and output jacks¹.

What the Wailer Wah Pro does

The Wailer Wah Pro is a straightforward wah: you plug your guitar into the input jack, run the output to your amp, and rock the foot pedal to sweep the filter. The manual section of the product page lists the controls as the foot pedal, the footswitch, and the input, output and power jacks¹. There are no knobs to set, which keeps the operation simple: the pedal is either on, sweeping the filter under your foot, or off with true bypass in the signal path².

Electro-Harmonix describes the sound as coming from a custom band pass filter circuit, and says the pedal "excels at high-gain tone responsiveness and clarity without unwanted howl"¹. Howl, the squeal a wah can produce at certain sweep positions with a loud, distorted amp, is a common complaint with wahs, and the maker positions this circuit as avoiding it.

The die-cast aluminum alloy chassis is the main hardware upgrade over the original Wailer Wah, whose lightweight polymer body Electro-Harmonix claimed was rugged but which reviewers treated as a lighter-duty build³. At 9.92 x 3.4 x 3.0 inches, the Pro is a standard wah-sized pedal that fits a normal pedalboard footprint¹.

Power: 9V battery or 9.6V adapter

The Wailer Wah Pro ships with a 9V battery in the box, and can also run from an optional 9.6VDC-200mA power adapter, which is not included¹. Its current draw is listed at 6mA¹, low enough that a battery lasts a long time and a small pedalboard power supply runs it easily.

The original Wailer Wah had the same arrangement, a 9V battery included with an optional 9.6VDC-200mA adapter not included, and Guitar World's review of that pedal noted a jack for non-stop power from a 9VDC adapter⁴⁵.

From the Crying Tone Wah to the Wailer Wah and the Pro

Electro-Harmonix has a long history with wahs, from the original Crying Tone and Queen Triggered Wah in the 1970s to the Next Step series of the early 2010s¹. The Crying Tone, released in 2012 as part of the Next Step series, was an unusual design: it had no treadle at all, and you rocked the whole pedal with your foot to sweep the filter. Guitar World's Paul Riario found it "unlike any other wah you've ever played, and a whole lot of fun to have your foot freely rock the pedal," though he noted it takes some finesse to control⁶. It ran on a 9V battery or optional power supply, with input and output jacks and a full sweep range⁶.

Guitar World's Paul Riario found the Crying Tone Wah unlike any other wah he had played, and a whole lot of fun to have his foot freely rock the pedal, though he noted it takes some finesse with your foot to control it⁶. The wah has a full sweep range⁶.

MusicRadar's review of the Wailer Wah described the lineage plainly: Electro-Harmonix "has taken the innards of its interesting, yet slightly flawed in practicality, Crying Tone wah and put them inside a traditional pedal for a budget price"⁷. That traditional pedal was the Wailer Wah, released in 2016 with a lightweight polymer construction, a rack-and-pinion operating mechanism, and no knobs or switches, just what MusicRadar's news coverage called "a throaty wah tone"²³. It launched at $62.75², and MusicRadar's buying guide later gave its launch price as $62⁸.

MusicRadar's reviewers called the original Wailer Wah "definitely a wah for those on a budget, or for home/lighter live use"⁷, a verdict that points at the polymer enclosure as its practical limit. The Wailer Wah was discontinued in 2025⁴, and the Pro, released in 2026 with the metal chassis, is the current version of the design¹.

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