Xotic Effects XW-1 Wah

After years of delivering ultra high-quality gain-based products and incredible envelope filters, Xotic tries it's hand at a wah pedal. Years in the making, Xotic wasn't letting this one out the door until it was the best, bar-none. Spoiler alert: it delivers.
When was the last time you saw such a robust feature set on a wah: true bypass switching, an active two-band eq, biasing control, Q control, a reduced size and self-lubrication? Never.
Let's start with the nuts and bolts. The true-bypass switching system is laden with gold-plated contacts, ensuring maximum conductivity and a purer tone. Ever had to open your wah, only to discover a wad of carpet fibers stuck in a dried-out ball of lithium grease? It's a real pain, and using an unlubricated wah can damage your pedal over time. The mechanism in the Xotic Wah is nylon and self-lubricating, for the most fluid action now or 20 years from now.
On the right face of the pedal is a set of four small control knobs. Farthest to the left is Bias. This control sets the voltage that the circuit receives. Lowering this control alters the character of the wah. Ever noticed a wah sounds different with an old battery? This is the control to replicate that sound. The next control is Wah-Q, which, without a physics lesson, means "bandwidth" or in this case, width of frequencies swept by the foot pedal.
The EQ circuit on the pedal is great, as it is governed by two bands—Bass and Treble—both with a boost and cut. The centers of the controls are detented, or "notched," and rolling them clockwise or counterclockwise gives a 15 dB boost or cut to each frequency. This makes many different wah sounds possible, from the bassy bottom end of a Mu-Tron C200, to the trebly snarl of a grey Vox wah.
What's more, the Xotic Wah is outfitted with a buffer circuit that makes the pedal play nice with vintage (or vintage-styled) fuzz boxes. This is something that has eluded pedal players for decades: Why can't wahs and germanium transistors just get along? At long last, Xotic has signed the peace treaty between germanium and wah. Now play nice, you two.
Each Xotic Wah is made in Japan and is wired for true bypass. It accepts a standard 9v Boss-style center-negative power adapter. The current draw is 5mA, so incredibly low that it has its place in even the most miserly power setup. Needless to say, it is isolated power supply ready.

AZ: www.music-blvd.com $350


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