The History of the Wah!

The Wah-Wah pedal was invented in 1967 by two guys named Bradley Plunkett and Lester Kushner. At the time Plunkett, a 25 year old engineer for Warwick Electronics (a division of Whirlpool, a major corporation that owned both Thomas Organ and Vox), was working on a less expensive replacement for the 3 position voicing switch on Vox amps. Kushner threw in a few ideas, and after Brad has messed with the design, the very primitive Wah-Wah circuit was born. According to legend, when a test was done using a guitar, it sounded so cool people came running it to see what was going on. The circuit was then put into a reworked volume pedal and as they say the rest is history.

When Vox first launch the unit it was being built in Italy and was called The Clyde McCoy Wah Wah pedal. For you information, McCoy was a famous trumpet player whose 1931 hit "Sugar Blues" first popularized the "Wah Wah" sound of the muted trumpet. Vox used his name on their pedal as a marketing effort, to clarify the sound it produced. The name "Cry Baby" came into effect when they wanted another brand name to sell through the wholesale channels in the music business. The unit didn't change one iota, just the name did. When Vox went under, there was no sales team to sell the Vox products. The Cry Baby survived because it was still being sold by the wholesalers.

Although many different companies have dabbled with Wah Wah production over the years (apparently by the late 70s there were some 50 manufacturers worldwide!) the Crybaby and Vox pedals have always set the standard by which all others are judged. Most of which are for sale at Musictoyz.com

Taken from the The Wah Wah Book