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Express EBS Wah One review

N

niftydog

Jun 23, 2005
3,946
11
Canberra, Australia
#1
Hi guys,

Borrowed the Wah One for a few days from my friendly local music store. Here's my impressions:

Overall, it's very good. Kind of a subtle sound, and takes some tweaking to find a setting you like. However, the tube sim rocks, the Hi Q setting rocks, and the added bonus volume pedal is nice. It's certainly more of a funky wah than a rock wah, subtle, well behaved, clean and very controllable.

The most attractive feature for me was the fact that I could strum power chords as hard as I like on my Stingray and couldn't make the wah overload. This in itself puts the Wah One streets ahead of the Cry Baby and many others that I've tried. You have to try really hard to get it to start distorting, and when it did it was almost unnoticeable. Whereas you only have to look at the Cry Baby and it rips your head off with disgusting, harsh, cringe-worthy distortion. :D

A couple of bad points:

The range knob is useful and you can tailor your sound with it very effectively, however, the "width" of the foot pedal sweep stays constant at all times. That is, you can NEVER set this wah so that you can use the foot pedal to sweep from one extreme to the other. You pick a "range" and that's what you control. Some people will find this range too narrow and limiting. This is one factor that turned me off.

Inside, the unit I had contained post-manufacturing modifications. That is to say that the original circuit board has errors or omissions that are jury rigged after the mass production process. Not ideal, but not a concern either, just something to consider. Also, it hasn't impressed me with it's general build quality. All my other EBS stuff is just so good that when I popped this open I kinda went "oh..."

The worst things about it?
The DC connector is recessed so far into the case that nobody could find a power supply plug that would fit into the socket. As far as I'm concerned, this socket is completely and utterly useless. This is a surprise coming from EBS and quite frankly, it's very disappointing.

The battery compartment... I dunno... they just haven't perfected those things yet and this one doesn't inspire me with confidence. 'Nuf said.

So, it's really good, and as I said, for me it kills every other "mainstream" wah out there. If you're looking for subtle and refined, this is the wah for you. If you're looking for wild and hairy, look elsewhere.

Keep nice!
 
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#2
Thanks for sharing man ,
I have not tried it yet , but iv'e heard a lot of good stuff about it , also the new Valve Drive ..
But all EBS effects are great , though expensive ..
 
#4
I own this pedal and I'm extremely happy with it. The opening review summed up my thoughts about the sound quality of this pedal.

I haven't tweaked with it much to see exactly what it can do. I'd been searching for a specific bass wah sound for several years and found it very quickly on this - then stopped the tweaking - so there's a limit to how useful my comments will be.

One thing I will add is that with this wah, the bass still sounds like a bass - it still sounds like the bass you're actually playing. Amazing how so many bass wah manufacturers can't get that right.

Edit: Oh yeah, and the wah actually sounds like a wah rather than the sound of a foot stepping on decaying piece of fruit hidden inside the pedal and then transmitted electronically to your amp. Come on, that's the Dunlop Crybaby Bass (original) sounds like. I've got one here.
 
#5
Ale said:
Thanks for sharing man ,
I have not tried it yet , but iv'e heard a lot of good stuff about it , also the new Valve Drive ..
But all EBS effects are great , though expensive ..
Click to expand...

You're right, I didn't find a "cheap" Wah One in Sweden, was about the same price here in Norway. Would have thought it a bit cheaper in Sweden, but I guess not. Great pedal though. As with my EBS Octabass, the quality is exceptional.
 
#6
niftydog said:
i

The worst things about it?
The DC connector is recessed so far into the case that nobody could find a power supply plug that would fit into the socket. As far as I'm concerned, this socket is completely and utterly useless. This is a surprise coming from EBS and quite frankly, it's very disappointing.
Click to expand...

Bought a Ibanez power supply daisy chain plug, wouldn't fit in the socket! So I bought a EBS daisy chain plug and it fits snugly in the socket.
 
#7
Gatto Sintetico said:
How do you found the pedal in low pass mode?
Click to expand...
It's alright. Not my tastes though. But it works as you'd expect and you can get pretty dubby with it!

Bought a Ibanez power supply daisy chain plug, wouldn't fit in the socket! So I bought a EBS daisy chain plug and it fits snugly in the socket.
Click to expand...
Man, I would hate to think how much that cost. But, fact remains that it's a big annoyance - especially for those of us who use custom built power supplies.
 
#8
niftydog said:
Man, I would hate to think how much that cost. But, fact remains that it's a big annoyance - especially for those of us who use custom built power supplies.
Click to expand...

I totally agree with you. Small things like that can nearly make the whole purchase a waste of money. EBS should have done a better job there, especially since the quality otherwise is excellent.

I was lucky and had only a few extra pedals with no custom built supply and therefore wasn't a major extra cost issue.
 
#12
I tried out the WahOne last week, and I was a little dissapointed with it compared to the other EBS pedals. I found that it took a LOT of tweaking to get a useable sound out of it, and I really only got one sound that I liked after 45 minutes of use.
 
#14
great… this almost help me decide on getting the wah one.

i'm going to be using a wah for rock, wouldn't mind a wah with funk or me playing funk, but would this be for me?

i have a fuzz and an octave would this pedal sound good with these effects?

i have the mxr brick, is that going to be able to power this thing, if not what do i need to get?

thanks for this thread, and what are your opinions of the stnley clarke wah by ebs? is it better than the wah one?
 
#16
niftydog said:
A couple of bad points:

The range knob is useful and you can tailor your sound with it very effectively, however, the "width" of the foot pedal sweep stays constant at all times. That is, you can NEVER set this wah so that you can use the foot pedal to sweep from one extreme to the other. You pick a "range" and that's what you control. Some people will find this range too narrow and limiting. This is one factor that turned me off.
Click to expand...

The limited range is really an issue because you can't have a setting that will cover all 3 octaves of the bass.
You have to choose one octave or the wah effect will not be heard on the others.
 

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