Best Cheap Wah Pedals (top 4 under $200)

QUICK HIT: A few cheap wah pedal recommendations rounded up from Jim Dunlop, VOX and Morley.

I don’t know what I would do without my Morley wah pedal. I bought that thing before I had a driver’s license and it’s still going strong, despite the fact that the bottom plate is a little loose and wobbly. It’s great when you can get right in between the lower and higher tone swells, where the sound kind of washes out and resonates a really nice ethereal effect.

I use that all the time, and am particularly fond of how it sounds with a delay pedal or a phaser.

Good, cheap wah pedals have a way of improving your other effects. It’s simple, but still one of the most valuable pedals you can have on your board.

Read more: Best pedalboards for guitar

As we target cheap wah pedals, we'll look at the following four options:

Best Cheap Wah Pedals (top 4 picks)

Luckily for us bargain hunters, one of the most popular wah pedals in history usually costs around $70.

If you check often enough, you should see some used and refurbished options for less, sometimes as low as $40.

The Original Cry Baby is one of the simplest, most effective and widely-used wah pedals to ever be created. Run from a Dunlop ECB-30 power adapter, the Cry Baby boasts a solid construction with a switch and on/off wah design .

Moving the pedal feels good under your feet and creates a thick, responsive wah tone that's incredibly addictive.

The only downside is that you get little in the way of voicing control or other features.

Then again, you probably won't want to change the tone.

Who uses the Cry Baby Wah pedals?

A slew of high-ranking guitarists use a Dunlop Cry Baby wah, many of whom have their own signature versions.

Here are a few names you might recognize:

Randy Rhodes (Ozzy Osbourne)

Tony MacAlpine

The Original Cry Baby is a catch-all wah wah pedal, good for any style and all skill levels.

While those wanting more control over their wah tone (voicing and tone controls) might want to opt for a more feature-rich wah pedal, those who just want the basics will be completely satisfied with this $70 purchase.

Sweeping the wah back and forth sounds great, producing plenty of definition and a nice swell to the wah sound that gives off a slightly vocal quality.

It's the wah pedal and one of the "safest" guitar pedal purchases I can recommend.

As I mentioned in the introduction, having a switchless wah is a must for me, as I'm to the point where I couldn't get used to having to click a button. 

It's a preference thing for most people.

Note that these also have spring function that causes them to jump back to the disengage position as soon as you move your foot off the pedal. In other words, you don't even need to intentionally move it back to its original position.

It's my personal favorite on this list.

Morley Bad Horsie Wah'S Ideal Buyer

The Morley Wah's tone is similar to the Cry Baby, with a sweet, vocal-like sweeping sound and a similarly basic setup. Primarily, you'll have to decide how you feel about the switchless functionality. That's the most significant difference between the two.

Otherwise, they're both good for the same situations.

VOX has a nice, smooth swell to their wah pedals, which is aptly demo'd by Gear Wire’s YouTube page.

Your on/off toggle is back underneath the foot controller, giving this pedal an eerily similar feel to the Cry Baby wah, without any major distinguishing features.

As far as tone is concerned, I'd consider the wah to be a slightly "sweeter" and more fluid sweep than the Cry Baby. Perhaps it could be described as the more organic of the two sounds. But, to be honest, it's splitting hairs to try and draw much distinction between this and the Original Cry Baby wah.

They're extremely similar.

Both are great pedals and tend to see a lot of use from professionals and amateurs alike.

Joe Satriani has used a VOX wah similar to this one (I believe he has a signature model now) for his entire career.

Once again, those looking for a "bare bones" wah pedal without any bells and whistles should be entirely confident about this option.

Like the Cry Baby retail is at, or in most cases under, $70.

At that price I like it for beginners, studio work and nearly any context you can think of.

Low-risk, high-reward.

This one retails a little higher than the others, around $85, but if you check out the demo, you can really hear the difference in sound quality, especially on the clean setting.

Liking the size probably depends on preference, though it might be a big plus for those of you running smaller pedalboards.

A button near the bottom right-hand side of the pedal toggles between wah and volume functionality, while the LEVEL knob gives you some basic control over both modes.

The new "Maverick" version is switchless and omits the volume portion.

The "switchless" feature is the same as what we see in the Steve Vai signature "Bad Horsie" pedal.

Step on to engage the wah and step off to disengage it.

As I mentioned, this is a feature that I personally love and wouldn't want to be without.