Lerxst Amps, developed in partnership with Morley Lerxst Blah Blah wah pedal

The Lerxst Blah Blah is a wah pedal from Alex Lifeson's Lerxst Amps brand, developed in partnership with Morley and announced in August 2024¹. It is an optical wah with a pair of footswitchable circuits: one classic wah, and one Blah circuit that applies a secret blend of filters for vocal, synth-like tones¹. It was a limited edition of 500 units, sold exclusively via Reverb¹.

Morley describes the pedal as the newest addition to the Lerxst line of guitar effects pedals, a collaboration between Alex Lifeson, Lerxst and Morley². The Blah Blah uses Morley's switchless optical wah circuit as a springboard, and its Blah Blah circuit is derived from the vintage Morley Pik-A-Wah³.

The two circuits and what they do

The pedal's core idea is giving a player two wah voices in one box. The wah side aims at the classic wah sound, with what Lerxst and Morley describe as a wide enough frequency response to suit modern players¹. The Blah circuit is the other half: it applies a secret blend of filters to the guitar signal for what the makers call the "Blah talkie" effect, a vocal, talkbox-flavored filtering sound¹.

Morley's product page traces the Blah Blah circuit's lineage to the vintage Morley Pik-A-Wah, and says the whole pedal uses Morley's switchless optical wah circuit as a springboard³. Switchless operation means the wah engages when you put your foot on the treadle, with no separate on/off stomp to hit first.

A buffer is also built in, which Morley and Lerxst include to protect against tone suck when the pedal sits in a longer signal chain¹.

The controls and footswitches

The control surface is simple. A silent footswitch toggles the Blah circuit on and off, so you can move between the classic wah and the Blah sound without bending down¹. On the Blah side, a Pitch knob adjusts how weird and psychedelic the effect gets¹.

Because the wah is engaged via an optical circuit, there is no mechanical potentiometer to wear out after years of use¹. On a conventional wah, the pot under the treadle is a common failure point as it collects dust and wear; the optical design removes it entirely.

Power and build

The pedal runs on one 9-volt battery or an optional Morley 9V adapter, and is compatible with most 9V adapters³. It takes 9V DC from a pedalboard power supply and draws 300mA¹, which is a substantial draw for a wah, so it is worth planning a power output that can supply it. The enclosure is a road-worthy steel build¹.

Who designed it, and where it came from

The Blah Blah came out of a collaboration between Alex Lifeson, his Lerxst brand and Morley². Morley's R&D team developed it at Alex Lifeson's request, and the pedal was carefully tuned by Lifeson and the engineers at Lerxst and Morley³¹. As Morley's Scott Fietsam put it:

Availability and what reviewers made of it

At launch in August 2024 the Blah Blah was available immediately, limited to 500 units and sold exclusively via Reverb¹. As a limited edition, it was finite from the day it shipped.

MusicRadar's coverage included the launch demo video, with Andy Martin of Reverb's Tone Report at the wheel, and reported that the pedal "certainly has all the core wah sounds you'd need, and a bit more"¹. The makers themselves were surprised by its range:

That versatility across clean and distorted settings is the practical takeaway for a player comparing it against a standard wah: the classic side covers the familiar territory, and the Blah circuit adds a filter voice that behaves more like a talkbox or synth envelope than a traditional wah sweep¹.

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