Guitarist and songwriter Peter Frampton – of Humble Pie fame – has put his name to a new Megawah effects pedal built by Gig-fx. Designed to meet his exacting specifications, the signature analog pedal features four settings to produce the established Megawah sound, but with a slightly warmer high end and more defined lower end response. Players can also choose a classic crying wah, an adjustable funky envelope wah and a variable rate autowah.
Like all Gig-fx pedals, the Peter Frampton Signature Megawah is encased in a tough, aircraft-quality aluminum housing. When the pedal is positioned all the way back, it enters by-pass mode to take the Megawah out of the effects loop. When pressed forward, it comes noiselessly into play – no more audible clicks between in-use and not-in-use. A bright blue LED is illuminated when the effect is on and a flashing red LED indicates the auto-wah modulation rate.
Gig-fx says that its pedal has a unique filter circuit to offer players a "wider range in order to enable the pedal to sweep from a low, funky bass response to a crisp high end without losing any of the famous mid tones that Wah pedals can provide. This wider range gives the pedal a much more expressive quack, wail and talk capability and also ensures that if the guitar is a significant part of the sound, none of the low end is lost when the Wah is engaged."
The Frampton wah uses optical control and is a mono model, unlike the original stereo Megawah. There's also a user-adjustable off delay, to avoid accidentally turning off the wah effect while rocking back and forth mid-solo. Gig-fx reports that the pedal also benefits from "better than true bypass" circuitry, which presents constant matching impedences to the guitar's pickup and to the amplifier to help reduce high-frequency signal loss as it passes through cables.
Five onboard controls face the player as the Megawah is being used:
- The four position selector switch gives access to the different wah effects
- An overall gain effect control allows for louder soloing when required
- If a player wants to tap into up to 15dB of peak amplification, then the resonance control takes care of the amount of signal available
- The envelope wah is triggered by a player's picking attack, and the envelope sensitivity control can be used to alter the talk or quack according to preference
- A player can also control the tempo of the Autowah using the rate control
The Peter Frampton Megawah has a 9V operating voltage and power consumption of 30mA. It's available now for US$175.
