RAISING THE BAR OF WAH DESIGN BY KEVIN BOLEMBACH
According to effectsdatabase.com (a very informative and thoroughly
researched website that I highly recommend visiting), more than 300 new brands
of effects pedals and more than 2,000
individual effects devices were brought
to market in 2011. With more than 300
new models and close to 40 new brands
appearing on the radar in the first seven
weeks of this new year, this deluge of
stompers shows no sign of slowing down.
Despite this jaw-droppingly large
amount of releases, one vital component
appears to be lacking amongst the vast
majority of new arrivals: innovation. It
seems that many brands are playing it
safe, sticking with subtle variations on
tried-and-true concepts, rather than making any possibly risky moves that might
take them away from the general direction
of the flock.
Yet every so often a daring maverick
grabs the wheel and steers the industry in
a decidedly forward—if not slightly off-center—direction. One such innovator is
a small company called Plutoneium (
complete with intentional “tone” misspelling)
and their unique brand of “weapons-grade
sonic engineering.” This slogan is fully
realized in their flagship product, the
Chi-Wah-Wah.
As we all know, a Chihuahua is a very
tiny breed of dog. Likewise, the Chi-
Wah-Wah is a very tiny breed of wah
pedal—about the same size as a standard
Boss pedal, to be exact. But as the double-
entendre name suggests, there’s a lot of
energy packed into this tiny beast, and its
bark and bite belie its diminutive nature.
Every so often a daring maverick grabs the
wheel and steers the industry in a decidedly
forward—if not slightly off-center—direction.
The Plutoneium Chi-Wah-Wah uses a
pressure-activated treadle to control wah
sweep and speed.
example, the CWW’s casing is made from
1. 5 mm rolled steel and features a tough
powder-coated finish. The bottom plate
is attached by four sturdy Allen screws,
the nameplate is riveted to the casing, and
jack labels are actually etched into the
chassis. Top-mounted controls allow the
user to tweak the effect on the fly (we’ll
discuss this concept in a future column)
and knurled metal knobs with set screws sit
atop metal pot shafts. Bulletproof.
However, the unique aspect of the
CWW lies not in its construction, but
rather its ergonomics. Unlike a traditional
wah pedal where the bass frequencies sit at
the heel position of the treadle and treble
at the toe, the CWW is set up in a reverse
fashion with bass at the top position of its
tiny treadle.
While at first this may seem coun-terintuitive, the genius of this design
becomes evident when you consider that
the CWW’s wah effect is automatically
activated by simply pressing down on the
treadle. As soon as your foot applies
pressure to the treadle (its tension is adjustable), the wah effect engages and, starting
in the lower frequencies, moves through
the mid- and upper-frequencies as more
foot pressure is applied.
Plutoneium refers to this feature as
“wah-on-demand.” While it may sound
strange or even sacrilegious to the wah
purist, it’s actually much easier than having to step down hard on a wah treadle to
engage (or not engage—oops!) the switch,
then rock your heel back to grab the bass
frequencies first.
again the CWW has this aspect of wah
design covered in spades. The CWW’s
inductor-based circuit can be adjusted by
the level, contour, and gain knobs mentioned earlier to give the user a wide palette
of wah textures, ranging from smooth and
mellow to sharp, loud, and obnoxious.
When you’re done making the CWW
squawk, simply take your foot off of the
treadle. The pedal features a short time
delay where the wah stays active before
disengaging the effect using a buffered,
optical switching circuit. Dual LEDs indicate power and effect respectively, making
it easy to tell the CWW’s current status at
a glance.
Praises aside, there are a couple of
aspects of the CWW’s operation that
may bother some users. Since the treadle
is spring-loaded it can’t be set in a “
half-cocked” position, meaning no Michael
Schenker imitations. In addition, the
bypass delay does take some getting used
to and can be somewhat awkward if you
need to move between effected and clean
sounds very quickly. However, based on the
CWW’s ingenious operation, bulletproof
construction, exceptional sound quality,
and ultra-compact design of this pedal, I
believe Plutoneium has successfully raised
the bar of wah design and I suggest other
manufacturers take note.
KEVIN BOLEMBACH is the president
and founder of Godlyke, the U.S.
distributor for many well-known
boutique effect brands, including Maxon, Guyatone, EMMA, and
