TWA WR-3 Wah Rocker

The TWA WR-3 Wah Rocker is an envelope filter, the pedal type players usually call an auto-wah: it opens and closes a filter in response to how hard you pick, producing the quacking, vowel-shaped funk tones that a foot-operated wah pedal produces by hand. It was released by TWA (Totally Wycked Audio), distributed by Godlyke, Inc., and is built on the original Guyatone WR-3 Wah Rocker circuit, a design with a long history among funk and fusion players¹².

What it does and how it is controlled

The WR-3 gives you five knobs, which RockBoard's listing for the original design describes as letting you "dial in everything from subtle quack" to dramatic filter effects: Threshold, Decay, Range, Gain, and Blend⁴. The Threshold control adjusts the sensitivity of the filter, setting how hard a pick attack it takes to open it¹.

Two features set this version apart from the pedal it is modeled on³¹:

• Blend control. Premier Guitar's reviewer called the blend function "a notable upgrade over the original, which was limited to 50/50 blending only," letting you mix the filtered and unfiltered signals to taste³.
• Guitar and bass modes. "There's also a switch for flipping between guitar and bass modes," the same reviewer wrote, noting that the bass mode "introduces changes to the circuit tailored after Guyatone's Bottom Wah Rocker"³. That makes it a practical filter for bass as well as guitar.

Where it came from

The WR-3 is a reissue of a design with a strong reputation. Godlyke's page describes the original as "this diminutive funk machine" and lists an unusually wide roster of documented players: Guthrie Govan, Lenny Kravitz, Stevie Salas, David Torn, Bill Laswell, TM Stevens, Everlast, and Powerman 5000⁵. Pedal of the Day's 2016 review repeats the same list, naming Guthrie Govan among them⁶. The circuit has even been picked up by the DIY builder community: Griffin Effects sells a Wah Rocket PCB described as "a circuit based on the original Guyatone WR3 Wah Rocker"⁷.

TWA's version was announced in March 2016. Jonathan Graham, writing for Guitar Interactive Magazine, said the TWA Wah Rocker "nails the squawky, slippery, super-funked-up filtering of the vintage version," yet in "a more compact and affordable package"¹.

What reviewers said

Premier Guitar's 2021 review summed the pedal up briefly: "Solid build."³ Guitar Interactive's verdict on the sound was that it captures the character of the vintage original¹. Between the two, the picture is of a faithful rebuild of the Guyatone circuit with the blend control and bass mode added on top.

If you are shopping this corner of the filter world, the WR-3 sits alongside TWA's other dynamics-driven pedals, such as the TWA Dynamorph and the TWA DM-02 Dynamorph, and the formant-style TWA Little Dipper. For more on the type, see the site's page on filter pedals.

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