The fOXX Wa & Volume is a vintage combination pedal that puts a wah-wah and a volume pedal in one rocking unit. It was made by Ridinger Associates Inc of Chatsworth, California, in the early 1970s, the same company behind the fOXX line of effects that included the Fuzz&Wa&Volume and the Foxx Tone Machine. TONEHOME, the vintage effects reference, sums it up simply: "This thing sounds absolutely great."1
What it does
The pedal combines two foot-controlled functions in the classic rocking treadle format: rocking the pedal sweeps the wah filter, and the same motion or a switch position handles volume. What sets the wah apart is a selector for four different resonance settings, described by TONEHOME as "brite/mellow/funky/mellow plus," giving the player a choice of filter characters rather than a single fixed wah voice.1
For a player today it belongs to the family of wah/volume combination pedals, a format later makers such as Morley and Goodrich also worked in. Modern examples include the Morley M2 Wah Volume and the Goodrich Sound Volume pedal wa-wa, and simpler volume-only designs are covered on the Volume Pedals type page.
History and the fOXX line
Ridinger Associates Inc built the fOXX range in Chatsworth, California, in the early 1970s. The company advertised the Fuzz&Wa&Volume in 1971, and a photo caption on TONEHOME dates an example of that three-in-one version to 1975.2 The Wa & Volume covered here is the two-function version of the same pedal, without the fuzz stage.
The fOXX enclosures were metal, covered in a fuzzy flocking finish. TONEHOME notes that "they look more fragile than they are," and that the pedals hold up as long as the internals are left alone.2 Dave Hunter, writing in GuitarPlayer, flagged the practical consequence for surviving units: "The fuzzy flocking that covered the metal enclosures often worked its way loose and ended up inside the box, where it gummed up the wah-wah potentiometer."3 Anyone picking up a used fOXX wah today should be aware that the pot is the usual casualty of that shedding.
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Questions
Who made the fOXX Wa & Volume?
It was made by Ridinger Associates Inc of Chatsworth, California, in the early 1970s. The company also sold a Fuzz&Wa&Volume version that combined fuzz with the same wah and volume functions, and the fOXX name is best known from the Foxx Tone Machine fuzz used by players such as Peter Frampton, Billy Gibbons and Adrian Belew.
What did the fOXX Wa & Volume cost when it was new?
The retail price in 1974 was $64.95, according to the reference site TONEHOME. That was for the wah and volume combination pedal; the company's Fuzz&Wa&Volume added a fuzz circuit to the same format.
Sources (3)
- TONEHOME, TONEHOME - the World of Vintage Guitar Effects Pedals, 1974
- TONEHOME, TONEHOME (tonehome.de), 1971
- The Foxx Tone Machine Was the Fuzz of Choice for Peter Frampton, Billy Gibbons, and Adrian Belew, GuitarPlayer (www.guitarplayer.com), 2021-11-15
