There's a new wah pedal in town. It's a bright red Dunlop Cry Baby, with a red star on the rubber foot-grip, and it is emblazoned with slogans such as "Sometimes history needs a push."
Who else could it be for but the Audioslave and Rage Against The Machine guitarist Tom Morello. Now, here is a man with a tone that transcends the boundaries of rock, a unique sound workshopped over the years via his compendium of MacGgyver-esque playing approaches, but his pedalboard perennial is the wah pedal.
It's what puts the renegade funk in tracks such as Bulls On Parade. It's what connects Morello's iconoclastic sound and fury with that of the pioneers who have gone before – namely Jimi Hendrix.
Morello's wah is an essential ingredient to that sound, and it's no big surprise that this new limited edition TBM95 Tom Morello Signature Cry Baby houses an identical circuit to his early-‘80s GCB95 Cry Baby.
The custom finish is very Tom Morello, what with the stencilled slogans: "You don't need a weapon when you were born a weapon." Well, indeed.
But we'd say anyone who wants to grab their guitar's frequencies hard and give it some aggressive talk, the 100K ohm Hot Potz potentiometer that's under the hood should get the job done. Hey, it might even make you want to sit down and practise the electric guitar for eight hours a day.
The Morello wah is not in stores just yet, but it is available to pre-order, with Sweetwater offering it for a very reasonable $129.99. The list price is $185.70.
