Morley 20/20 Mini Classic Wah

The Morley 20/20 Mini Classic Wah is a compact wah pedal from Morley, built around the company's MQ2 inductor for what Morley calls classic wah tone. In a Sweetwater demo video, Morley's Pete Fennec described it as delivering "classic wah-wah tone with a wide, smooth sweep that sounds good in a broad range of applications"¹. It belongs to Morley's 20/20 line, a pedalboard-friendly update of the company's classic wah designs introduced in 2019².

The pedal's defining trait is that it is switchless. There is no on/off footswitch: you step on the treadle to engage the wah and step off it to bypass¹. That makes it a different animal from a traditional wah with a toe-switch, and it is the feature Morley built the whole 20/20 wah line around³⁴.

A switchless mini wah with a classic sweep

The Mini Classic Wah sits in that line as the straightforward, classic-voiced option. Where other 20/20 wahs add features, such as the Lead Wah's wider frequency sweep and low-end boost, or the Wah Lock's three modes, the Mini Classic keeps to a single classic wah sweep⁵. In the Sweetwater demo, it was introduced simply as "the classic" of the range¹.

For a player comparing it against the rest of the line, the practical differences come down to what each model adds:

Electro-optical design and buffer

Morley's wahs have long used an electro-optical circuit in place of the mechanical potentiometer that conventional wahs use to control their sweep. In the Sweetwater demo of the Mini Classic Wah, this was spelled out as a practical benefit: "it avoids scratchy pots, thanks to Morley's famous electro-optical design"¹. Because nothing mechanical rubs against a carbon track as the treadle moves, there is no pot to wear out and go scratchy over time, a failure mode familiar to anyone who has owned a traditional wah for a few years.

The wah voice itself comes from the MQ2 inductor, the component Morley uses across the 20/20 wah line for its classic tone¹⁶. The 20/20 Classic Switchless Wah, the full-size sibling in the line, uses the same custom MQ2 inductor⁶.

The pedal also carries Morley's buffer circuit. In the demo, Fennec noted "it's got our buffer circuit"¹, and Morley describes the 20/20 buffer as one that "prevents signal loss and maintains tone" across the line¹⁷². For a player running long cables or a large pedalboard, a buffer at the wah's position in the chain helps keep the high end from dulling before the signal reaches the amp.

Treadle, LED and build

Operation is entirely through the treadle. Step on it and the wah engages; step off and it bypasses¹. Because there is no switch to stomp, there is also nothing to click or pop when the effect comes in, and no need to rock the pedal to a particular position to hunt for a switch.

Two visual features help on a dark stage:

• An LED on the side of the pedal shows when the wah is on and off¹
• A glow-in-the-dark treadle top, which Morley says lets you find the pedal on any stage¹

Morley fits LED indication across the 20/20 wah line, with the company's press release describing "handy LED's show when what's on or off"⁵. The glow-in-the-dark treadle grip also appears across the line's wah pedals⁸⁹¹⁰.

The Mini Classic Wah is made in the USA¹, as are the other 20/20 wahs Morley demonstrated from the line¹¹. Morley's 20/20 wah pedals share a cold-rolled steel housing and a quick clip battery door across the range⁶, and the line was engineered to save space on a pedalboard⁶.

Sweetwater's demo video walks through the pedal's features and lets you hear the sweep:

Click to load

Questions