BLACK FANG

Assassin Series No. 001
50s Voice

Every wah has a target.

Riffs guaranteed. Inspiration expected.

This is not a neutral, all-purpose wah. It is a riff maker, lick maker, and idea generator, purpose-built around a very specific personality:

dark • throaty • vocal • warm • mid-rich • bend-responsive • gain-friendly • thick toe-down wail

The right pedal does not just change your tone. It changes what you play.

Sonic Character & Recommended Pairing

Each pedal is evaluated and tuned around the personality of its particular circuit and components. Some end up brighter, smoother, funkier, more psychedelic, more aggressive, or more traditional.

This one went dark, deep, and unapologetically vocal.

Its defining characteristic is the enormous contrast between the two ends of the treadle.

Heel-down produces a deep, guttural throat with a pronounced “OH / AW” vowel character. It does not simply roll off the highs and disappear into muffled darkness. There is a recognizable voice down there.

Move forward through the sweep and that throat begins to open.

The middle develops a strong, pronounced vocal resonance with plenty of body and midrange presence. Continue toward the toe and the pedal transforms into a thick, screaming upper-mid wail that cuts through a driven guitar tone without becoming thin, brittle, or ice-picky.

The result is a wah with a particularly expressive relationship between foot movement and guitar phrasing.

Sound Character

• Dark overall voice

• Deep, guttural heel

• Strong “OH / AW” vowel character

• Pronounced vocal midrange

• Warm low end

• Thick harmonic body

• Full vintage-leaning response

• Strong resonant character

• Smooth but aggressive transition through the sweep

• Thick upper-mid projection

• Screaming toe-down response

• Cutting without becoming thin

• Highly expressive with sustained notes

• Excellent interaction with bends and vibrato

• Particularly strong through gain

Defining sweep:
Deep guttural heel → opening vocal throat → pronounced midrange vowel → thick screaming upper-mid toe

The Sweep

The heel position is one of the things that gives this wah its identity.

Instead of becoming merely dark or muffled, it develops a deep, almost chesty vocal quality. There is enough resonance in the lower part of the sweep that heel-down can become a usable tone of its own.

As the treadle moves forward, the vowel begins to open.

The middle of the sweep has a pronounced human-voice quality, making it particularly effective for holding the treadle in one position and allowing the resonant peak to color individual notes.

Toward toe-down, the wah becomes considerably more aggressive.

The upper range produces a strong wail and cutting lead voice, but the fundamental character remains thick. The pedal does not suddenly turn into a narrow, brittle treble spike.

That contrast is central to this voicing.

Throat at one end. Scream at the other.

Bends, Vibrato & Lead Expression

This is where the pedal becomes particularly addictive.

The resonant peak interacts strongly with sustained notes, meaning a small movement of the treadle can substantially alter the perceived shape and emotion of a bend.

You can:

• Start a bend in the throat of the sweep and open the wah as the pitch rises

• Hold a narrow resonant position while adding vibrato

• Move the treadle slowly through a sustained note

• Accent the peak of a bend with a quick toe movement

• Find fixed positions that emphasize particular harmonics

• Pull feedback into different vowel shapes

• Turn ordinary sustained notes into much more animated phrases

There is a physical quality to playing it.

You can dig into a note, lean into the treadle, and make the wah respond as part of the bend itself.

That is a major part of what separates this pedal from a generic sweep effect.

Gain-Friendly Voice

This wah becomes particularly expressive when the guitar signal contains plenty of midrange, sustain, and harmonic content.

Overdrive and distortion give the resonant filter more harmonic material to grab onto. As gain increases, the pedal's throat and upper-mid wail become increasingly pronounced.

Rather than being designed primarily around pristine clean funk tones, this voicing is especially at home when the amplifier is already working.

Through gain, the wah becomes:

• Heavier

• More vocal

• More saturated

• More aggressive

• More harmonically interactive

• More responsive to bends

• More dramatic at fixed treadle positions

The result is a wah that feels particularly natural for lead guitar and heavily driven playing.

Recommended Guitar & Pickup Pairing

This wah performs best with guitars producing a strong, harmonically rich signal.

Particularly strong pairings include:

• Medium-to-high-output humbuckers

• Hot vintage-style humbuckers

• Ceramic humbuckers

• Alnico V humbuckers

• Higher-output P-90s

• Active pickups

• HH guitars

• HSS guitars using the bridge humbucker

• Modern rock and metal-oriented guitars

• Extended-range guitars with substantial pickup output

Pickups with strong midrange content, output, and harmonic density bring out the full personality of this circuit.

A powerful bridge pickup emphasizes the aggressive side of the wah, particularly its upper-mid projection and screaming toe.

A fuller neck pickup can emphasize the pedal's throat, warmth, and vowel character, producing an especially thick lead voice.

A Note About Low-Output Single Coils

This particular voicing was not optimized around traditional low-output Strat-style single coils.

In testing, those pickups did not produce the same fullness, intensity, or natural fit with the circuit that stronger pickups did.

That does not mean the pedal cannot be used with single coils. A boost, overdrive, fuzz, or driven amplifier can provide additional output and harmonic content.

But if your primary rig is built around extremely low-output vintage single coils and you want a bright, glassy, quacky traditional wah response, another Assassin Series voice may ultimately be a better match.

This particular pedal knows what it likes.

Amplifiers & Gain

Particularly strong pairings include:

• Driven tube amplifiers

• British-style gain structures

• High-gain amplifiers

• Saturated lead channels

• Vintage amplifiers pushed into breakup

• Overdrive pedals

• Distortion pedals

• Compatible fuzz setups

• Thick, mid-forward amplifiers

• Amplifiers with substantial harmonic saturation

The pedal can certainly be used clean, but gain reveals much of its personality.

As the guitar signal becomes more harmonically complex, the wah has more material to reshape. The throat becomes more pronounced, fixed positions become more dramatic, and the toe develops a stronger singing quality.

Playing Style

Especially effective for:

• Expressive lead guitar

• Sustained bends

• Slow bends

• Wide vibrato

• High-gain solos

• Pinch harmonics

• Feedback manipulation

• Fixed-wah lead tones

• Slow vocal sweeps

• Mid-sweep phrasing

• Heavy psychedelic guitar

• Doom

• Heavy rock

• Classic metal

• Modern metal

• Saturated blues-rock

• Fuzz-driven leads

• Long sustained notes

• Riff writing

• Improvisation

A Different Kind of Wah

There are wahs built around brightness.

There are wahs built around funk.

There are wahs designed to disappear politely into almost any rig.

This is not one of them.

BLACK FANG has a definite opinion about what a wah should sound like.

It favors throat, body, mids, gain, sustain, and vocal expression.

It is darker than a typical modern Cry Baby, but the darkness is not dead or muffled. It is resonant and alive.

It is thick without becoming dull.

dark without disappearing
throaty without becoming muddy
warm without losing attack
vocal without sounding thin
smooth through the sweep without losing aggression
screaming at the toe without turning brittle

Its Personality

The defining personality of this wah is throat and expression.

The heel has weight.

The middle talks.

The toe screams.

And the transitions between those positions become part of how you play the guitar.

That makes BLACK FANG especially effective as a riff maker, lick maker, phrasing tool, fixed-frequency filter, lead voice shaper, and idea generator.

It is the kind of pedal that makes you start moving your foot, hear one strange resonant position, bend into it, and suddenly find yourself playing something you were not playing thirty seconds earlier.

A different treadle position suggests a different bend.

A slow sweep changes the shape of a sustained note.

A fixed vowel suggests a riff.

A screaming toe position turns into a lead phrase.

New riffs, bends, licks, lead lines, and song ideas have a way of spilling out of your hands with this one.

Every wah has a target.

This one was built for dark throat, vocal mids, expressive bends, thick gain, and a toe-down voice that absolutely wails.

Riffs guaranteed. Inspiration expected.

The right pedal does not just change your tone. It changes what you play.