Vox Wah Wah

The Vox wah wah pedal is a foot-controlled filter effect that sweeps a resonant peak through the guitar's frequency range, producing the vocal "wah" sound heard on countless late-1960s recordings. Vox introduced it in 1967, and the pedal grew out of a midrange boost circuit from a Vox amplifier design, housed in a Vox organ volume pedal enclosure¹². It became, in the words of one independent reference site, one of the benchmark pedals for generations of players³.

A Super Beatle tone circuit in an organ pedal

The wah was an accident of amplifier engineering. In 1965 and 1966, Brad Plunkett, then a young engineer at Thomas Organ, was reworking a Vox amp to make it cheaper to produce. While replacing the amp's midrange boost (MRB) switch with a potentiometer, he discovered that sweeping the frequency created a dramatic "wah" tone⁷⁴. Vox's own history describes the pedal's creation as "an accident, discovered during the design of the VOX Super Beatle amplifier in 1966"⁴.

The circuit itself came from the mid control of the Vox Super Beatle amp, a design credited to Dick Denney⁸. Guitar.com's Huw Price explains the topology plainly:

The enclosure was borrowed too. Del Casher, a session guitarist working with Vox, suggested using a Vox organ volume pedal instead of a control knob so guitarists could use the effect while playing⁸. As JHS Pedals' history puts it, "they take a Vox Continental Organ volume control pedal, they take that mid control circuit out of the amp, and they put" the two together⁵. The first wah pedal was invented in 1966, and Vox produced it as a product in 1967⁵.

Why Vox first aimed it at trumpet players

Vox's executives initially believed the wah was a product for trumpet players, an idea JHS's history calls "a horrible idea"⁵. The Continental Organ Company thought the pedal might work better if marketed for woodwind instruments, which is why Clyde McCoy, a famous jazz trumpet player, was used for the marketing⁴. The pedal was designed to help guitar players sound something like a trumpet player manipulating a mute on their horn, as Vintage Guitar's reviewer Phil Feser recalled⁹.

The first units were made in Italy by Jen Elettronica as an OEM manufacturer and called the Clyde McCoy Wah-Wah, after the famous trumpet player⁶. The company even paid McCoy for the use of his name and face⁵.

Guitar players were slow to catch on. As of 1967 the wah still wasn't a hit with them, so Del Casher cut a demonstration record, made of cardboard and plastic-coated, with session drummer Jimmy Troxell to show how the effect works on guitar⁵. The gamble paid off: an unintended but music-changing use with electric guitar turned the wah into a vital tool for renowned artists such as Jimi Hendrix and Eric Clapton¹⁰.

Whose picture is on the bottom of a Vox wah

The earliest Vox Clyde McCoy wahs, made around 1967, carried Clyde McCoy's picture on the bottom plate. Vintage Guitar's review distinguishes two versions²¹¹⁸:

Guitar.com's history confirms the pattern: the earliest US-manufactured Vox wah carried McCoy's likeness on the baseplate, while later "signature" wahs had just an inscription⁸. Vox's own history notes the pedal was released in 1967 with an image of Clyde McCoy on the bottom of the pedal⁴.

Modern Vox recreations carry the detail forward. The Real McCoy and V846 Vintage wahs have a body molded from a 3D scan of the vintage model, with details down to the screws and font on the underside¹². Guitar World's review of both pedals notes they are "3D-scanned to recreate the exact body mold (even the parts you can't see)"¹³.

Vintage-style and modern Vox wah versions

Vox's current line mixes faithful recreations of the 1967 originals with modern reimaginings⁴. The main models:

Guitar World's Paul Riario reviewed the V846 Vintage and Real McCoy side by side and found real differences between them¹³:

He added that most hard rock and metal players will find the V846 Vintage the more appealing choice, and might even want to park the wah as a cocked-wah bandpass lead tone¹³. The Real McCoy, by contrast, he counted a near-exact replica of a classic Vox wah¹³.

The wider wah market also leans on the Vox originals. The Musician Sound Design Automagic Classic 20th Anniversary wah's first mode replicates the sound of the vintage 1967 Vox wah, and Morley's M2 Wah is a vintage-voiced wah. Third-party builders such as Chase Tone offer limited-production replicas of vintage Vox wahs, and JHS Pedals sells a Super Wah mod that loads the Vox wah down⁴¹⁸¹⁹.

Which guitarists made the Vox wah famous

Jimi Hendrix and Eric Clapton are the names most often attached to the early Vox wah, credited with driving now-legendary performances and songs¹. Vintage Guitar's review widens the list: the Clyde McCoy wahs "were widely used during live performances and on legendary recordings by players such as Jimi Hendrix, Eric Clapton," Jimmy Page, and Jeff Beck in the late 1960s².

The influence carried forward. Dunlop's history of the Cry Baby, the wah's American cousin, notes that those sounds "would profoundly influence subsequent generations of guitarists like Stevie Ray Vaughan, Slash, and many, many others"²⁰.

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