Fender Fuzz Wah

The Fender Fuzz Wah puts a fuzz and a wah in a single housing, and the way it combines them is unusual. MusicRadar's review notes that putting fuzz and wah in one pedal is not exclusive to Fender, "but the way it's implemented is"¹. Instead of a conventional rocking treadle, the pedal uses a slim top plate that slides sideways to control the fuzz, while the wah and fuzz can each be switched on and off on their own.

The pedal is part of Fender's Classic series, a line of reissues of the company's original pedals¹. It is a large, heavy unit, and the reviewer found that bulk keeps it firmly underfoot¹.

Fuzz and wah in one pedal

Combining a fuzz and a wah in one box is an old idea, and the Fender Fuzz Wah sits in a long line of pedals that tried it. The Ibanez WF10 Wah/Fuzz Pedal, produced from 1987 to 1996, combined a wah-wah and a fuzz in one pedal and could be used as a wah alone or with the fuzz switched in². Morley has packed fuzz and wah into one pedal in both its Classic and 20/20 Power Fuzz Wah models³⁴, and Morley's Power Fuzz Wah is a modern reissue of its acclaimed 1970s version. The Shin Ei 6TR Fuzz Wah and 8TR took the same approach in the 1960s, with the fuzz wired before the wah⁵⁶.

What separates the Fender from most of these is flexibility. Where the Shin Ei units hard-wire the fuzz ahead of the wah, the Fender lets you choose the order yourself, and where the Ibanez WF10 offers wah-only or wah-plus-fuzz, the Fender gives each effect its own footswitch¹²⁵.

The controls and the sideways treadle

The Fuzz Wah's most distinctive feature is its treadle. Rather than rocking front to back like a standard wah, it has a slim top plate that travels independently side to side, about an inch in either direction, and this left-to-right motion increases the amount of fuzz¹. The wah side of the pedal covers a wide bass-to-treble range that the reviewer found does not get too extreme, sweeping the mid-range for what he described as an organic, expressive vocal quality¹.

The rest of the control scheme:

The sideways treadle is a different solution from Fender's own Tread-Light Wah, a conventional analog wah released in 2020 with a three-way frequency selector, a range knob and a switchable internal buffer⁸.

Power: 9V battery or adapter

The Fuzz Wah is powered by a standard 9V battery or a 9V power adaptor¹. That matches the rest of the fuzz-wah family: Morley's Power Fuzz Wah pedals run on one 9-volt battery or a 9V adapter³⁴, and the Ibanez WF10 was likewise a battery-era pedal⁹³⁴. No current draw figure is published for the Fender, so if you run it from a power supply, any standard 9V output will do.

What reviewers said

MusicRadar's review of the Fuzz Wah was positive, calling it:

The reviewer also noted the pedal's size and weight, observing that the bulk keeps it firmly underfoot¹.

Questions