Morley 20/20 Bad Horsie

The Morley 20/20 Bad Horsie is a wah pedal from Morley, a compact reissue of the company's Steve Vai signature Bad Horsie design. It is switchless and optical: there is no footswitch to hit, you simply step on the treadle to engage the wah and step off to bypass it. Morley describes it as "Switchless, Optical and built like a tank," and says it continues the Bad Horsie design "in our now standard pedalboard friendly size"¹.

It launched in August 2019 as part of Morley's updated 20/20 line, which shrank the company's classic wah designs into smaller enclosures. Morley said the new Bad Horsie "has the same great tone and features as the previous Bad Horsie," now with a Flame Red paint job², and Guitar World reported it "is spec'd as per the Bad Horsie II"³.

A switchless wah with a buffer

The core of the pedal is the switchless, optical operation Morley has built its wahs around for years. Instead of stomping a switch before the effect responds, the treadle itself is the control: put your foot on it and the wah engages, take your foot off and the pedal drops out of the signal path. There is no click and no timing to worry about mid-phrase.

The 20/20 Bad Horsie also carries Morley's 20/20 Buffer circuit, which the maker says "prevents signal loss and maintains tone"¹. That matters for players running long cables or several pedals, because a buffer keeps the high end from dulling along the chain. Morley framed the built-in buffer as a selling point for the whole 20/20 line, noting that "Stand-alone Buffer pedals can cost $75 or more"⁵, so the wah does that job without taking up an extra pedalboard slot.

Other details from the maker's product page round out the build¹:

• MQ2 custom inductor
• LED indication
• Cold-rolled steel housing
• Quick clip battery door
• Glow-in-the-dark treadle grip

The controls and Contour mode

The pedal offers two wah modes: Bad Horsie and Contour Wah¹. Bad Horsie mode is the fixed preset voice carried over from the original design. Contour mode is where the tweaking happens: two knobs adjust the Contour (Tone) and Wah Level¹.

Gearnews described the same arrangement at launch: "The Contour Wah mode is controlled by contour/tone and level knobs, letting you customise the wah's voice to your taste"⁶. For a player who wants a set-and-forget wah, Bad Horsie mode covers it; for one chasing a specific sweep and level, Contour mode gives two knobs to dial it in.

Power: 9V, 12mA

The 20/20 Bad Horsie is powered by one 9-volt battery or an optional Morley 9V adapter, and it is compatible with most 9V adapters¹, so a typical pedalboard power supply will run it. RockBoard's PedalPedia lists the current draw at 12mA⁴, which is light enough that it shares a supply with plenty of other pedals without strain. The quick clip battery door makes battery swaps straightforward if you run it that way¹.

Bad Horsie versions and the Flame Red finish

The 20/20 Bad Horsie sits in a wider family of Bad Horsie pedals from Morley. The original Bad Horsie Wah and the Bad Horsie 2 came before it, and the 20/20 version is a pedalboard-friendly repackaging of that circuit. Morley's launch press release stated the new version "has the same great tone and features as the previous Bad Horsie" and "comes with a Flame Red paint job"². Premier Guitar reported the same: same tone and features as the previous Bad Horsie, Flame Red finish, $169 street⁵. Guitar World's coverage noted the 20/20 Bad Horsie "is spec'd as per the Bad Horsie II"³.

The Flame Red finish is the visual marker of the 20/20 version. Gearnews noted at launch that "The Morley 'Steve Vai' Bad Horsie comes in Flame Red finish"⁶, distinguishing it from earlier Bad Horsie models in other colors.

Within the 20/20 line itself, the Bad Horsie is one of several wah variants, alongside the 20/20 Classic Switchless Wah, the 20/20 Power Wah, the 20/20 Lead Wah and the 20/20 Wah Boost. The Bad Horsie is the one carrying the Steve Vai signature voice and the Contour mode controls⁶¹.

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