Morley MINI Mark Tremonti Wah

The Morley MINI Mark Tremonti Wah is a limited-edition signature wah pedal from Morley, built to Mark Tremonti's specifications¹. It is one of three Custom Shop mini wahs Morley made for Mark Tremonti, Michael Amott and DJ Ashba, each limited to 500 units worldwide¹. Each pedal offers what guitar.com describes as "true tone bypass" when the effect is disengaged, and all three are robust and solidly made pedals, though the price of admission is high¹.

A high-gain wah with 20dB of clean boost

The Mini is part of Morley's Custom Shop mini wah family, which shrinks the company's signature designs into pedalboard-friendly enclosures. Tremonti's full-size T2 wah measures 231mm long; the Mini version is 114mm long, roughly half the length, with overall dimensions of 114 x 63.5 x 174mm¹. The chassis is rolled steel, and the pedal wears the "A Dying Machine" livery, a reference to Tremonti's side project¹.

The core of the pedal is Morley's electro-optical, potless wah circuit. The effect is generated not with a traditional mechanical potentiometer, as on a conventional wah, but via Morley's electro-optical circuit, which tracks the treadle position with light rather than a pot¹. All three Custom Shop minis feature sprung treadles, a concept that does away with the need for an on-off switch: simply pressing down on the treadle activates the effect, and lifting your foot disengages it¹.

The boost is the feature that sets the Tremonti designs apart. On the full-size Mark Tremonti Power Wah, the on-board boost brings in what MusicRadar called "a raucous 20dB extra gain, more than enough to get you noticed in a dense mix"³. Morley's own product page for the Tremonti wah describes it as "an aggressive 20 db Boost that activates with the Switchless Wah," with the wah sweep "carefully tweaked to Mark's preferred settings"². On the Mini, the boost control sits on the bottom-left of the chassis, so it can be set before a gig and left alone¹.

MusicRadar's review of the full-size Power Wah also characterized the sweep: it is narrower than a vintage-style wah, eliminating the scratchiest part of the high end, with a distinctly modern voicing at zero boost³. That narrower, modern sweep is consistent with the Mini's stated aim of a signature wah tailored for high-gain tones¹.

What reviewers said

Guitar.com reviewed all three Custom Shop minis together in January 2019. The reviewer found them "robust and solidly made pedals," though he noted "the price of admission is high"¹. The MINI Mark Tremonti Wah scored 6/10, with the verdict:

Simon Bradley, guitar.com¹

The review's practical criticism concerned the internal trim pot adjustment, which "proves rather fiddly. 'Set and forget' is definitely the best approach"¹. That remark was made about the Ashba unit in the same review, but the trim-pot layout is shared across the three Custom Shop minis¹.

Reviews of the full-size Tremonti wahs were warmer. Pedal of the Day's 2014 review of the original Mark Tremonti Wah found it "easy to use, and the fact that it can pump out 20dB of boost as well makes it that much more useful"⁴.

Who uses it

The pedal's signature artist is Mark Tremonti, the former Creed guitarist now of Alter Bridge, well known for his use of the wah³⁴. Morley says his signature wah "has been his right-hand companion on stage for over two decades"², and guitar.com notes that Tremonti often uses his wah for solos¹. Morley also states the wah works with guitar, bass or keys².

Tremonti's rig is unusual in that he does not use wireless systems. According to Morley, his rig can run upwards of 180 ft of cable, and by keeping two to three of his signature Morley wahs in the chain, the buffers in those pedals preserve his signal over those long runs⁵. That is worth knowing for any player comparing the Mini against Morley's buffered designs: the buffer behavior is part of what Tremonti's own setup relies on.

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