Vintage Morley Wah's

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https://www.ebay.com/itm/Morley-Auto-Wah ... _500wt_971

https://www.ebay.com/itm/Clean-Rare-Vint ... 500wt_1204



Looking at these two pedals.........any experience with vintage morleys?

Any thoughts on the two? They may be the same model....one listing doesn't show the model number and the pics in that one are a little blurry on the model number plate.......suspicious?

I am under any delusions that they are anything like a cornish AC wah.....but I have tried a few wahs and have never been happy. These are a within a reasonabale price range and worth trying with a little positive word of mouth......
 
Go for the second one, they're the same thing. The first guy is nuts thinking he'll get that. I had 2 vintage morley tel ray wahs. The 2 that really bring the high prices are the power fuzz wah and the power boost wah, both because of the Cliff Burton hype (even though he only used the fuzz one). Those go for average about $200, the one you're looking at should be at most $150. BTW what's making you look at the auto wah one? Do you want auto wah or is this just the first thing you've found? And for the tone of these they are full range wahs, meaning they'll go from the lowest lows and the highest highs we can hear. Listen to Cliff Burton and Jason Newsted from MetallicA, those are on bass. And Frankenstein by Edgar Winter, I believe he used one of these as wel, but that's on a keyboard. You'll definitely not get a traditional wah sound from these, if you want anything you've heard on a well known record (for guitar at least) then you're looking at the wrong piece. These sound absolutely nothing like dunlops or vox wahs, the newer Morleys are close but still not the same. They don't have as much sweep as the old ones.

If you want just a regular wah but want to try the morleys then look at the power wah, looks the same, big chrome tank, but will be roughly $100. From there they just add different effects to it and you'll really pay for them.
 
jkkkjkhk":j7ujw054 said:
If you want just a regular wah but want to try the morleys then look at the power wah, looks the same, big chrome tank, but will be roughly $100. From there they just add different effects to it and you'll really pay for them.
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I have an old (70's?) power wah, chrome... looks like the ones listed but just one button. I love it, but it's old and got really buzzy. probably old caps and I also mounted a momentary on the pedal itself (before the bad horsie came out lol).

As mentioned, it has a very wide sweep that's very easy to control since it's so big. Sounds very natural, crybaby's have their own vibe, very cool vibe, but don't have the same warmth and, to me, are more mid-focused/quacky, and in your face sounding, imo. Unlike the new morley that use LEDs, they have small light bulbs that can be a pain to find... but the last time I had to look was the early 90's and I got a few of them, so I never even tried ebay or morley's site (since they didn't exist then), so it might not be an issue these days.

As jkkkjkhk mentioned, the newer ones just dont sound the same. I use a tremonti these days, and it's pretty good and the same vibe, but not quite there. I've seen schematics for all of them. the old ones run around 48v (iirc) and the new ones 9v, totally different circuits. the new ones are basically crybaby/vox circuits but modified for the optical resistor, and since it's not center tapped, like a pot, it does change it's dynamics/tone more than you'd think given the similarity of the circuit.
 
Saw one today that looked exactly like those at a local shop. Selling for $100. I played it and thought it was really cool! Wide sweep, really warm and vintage sounding, although it was a little noisy but killer nonetheless. I currently use a Tremonti as well which is more "screamy" and sharp sounding.
 
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