It started here. In 1975 I was in a music store in Milwaukee and saw a Gibson Maestro Volume Wha pedal for sale. A guitar player I shared the stage with had one he was very fond of. It was pretty reasonable and left the store with me that day. The love affair began and continues today. I mostly used it as a volume pedal to make steel guitar bends on my old Gibson SG sound more believable and to turn the volume off to change guitars without making noise. I put a battery in it one day and things changed forever. The Wha effect was unlike any I had ever tried before. The sweep was totally different from the Morley and Cry Baby versions. It was magic. made the guitars come alive. Enhanced the mid and upper mid tones and added clarity like nothing I had ever tried to use. I would save it till just the right time of the performance. If there was a guest player on stage, I used it to gain unfair advantage!
How long will it last? I‘m not a fan of effects and have never owned a pedal board, but that thing has been on stage with me every performance since the day I first put a battery in it. After an uncountable number of jobs I started getting worried that it would fail and the hunt began for a backup. The collector part of my personality took over and in a few months I had gathered up 5 of them. I carried one to a gig and when I punched in the Wah,,,, NO MAGIC????? How can this be? It’s a Gibson Maestro Volume Wha???
Modded? I took it and my original one apart and saw that there was a resistor between the two pots on my old one and none on the replacement. It seems that some electronic genius had modded my magic pedal. I have always been pretty lucky, and this was just one more example. I put the same value resistor on the replacement and VOILA!! the magic was there. I had told many people about the incredible sound I got from my Maestro over the years. I wonder how many guitarists found one only to discover it kinda sucked???? The other good news is that after 43 years, the original still works like it did the day I bought it. Get yourself a Gibson Maestro Volume Wha!!