G-Lab True Bypass Wah Pad REVIEW & DEMO (GG-399) How to play

How you doing, dudes?
It's Justin here.

Today, I'm going to do a
little review for you

of this funky, new toy called the
"G-Lab True Bypass Wah Pad".

Now, I need to explain
a little bit about what this does,

because obviously, you know

the Wah pedal is just a little plate.

So, what does it do, and
why is it so cool.

This is definitely going to be
on my pedal board from now on.

So why?
What's so cool about it?

So, first thing you need
to understand

is a thing called, True Bypass.

Now, True Bypass means that

when you plug your guitar
into an effect pedal,

that the signal doesn't go
through the effect pedal at all

until you switch it on.

Now a lot of, like, old classic
Wahs and stuff like that

don't have True Bypass.

What they call,
"Modern Boutique Pedals",

like the ones made by Robert KeeleyI

and that kind of, you know,
high-end effects pedal

they're nearly, always now
True Bypass.

And what it means is that

so the signal is going from the guitar
into your pedal.

And then out of your pedal,
into your amp.

Now, something that doesn't have
True Bypass,

the signal goes into the pedal
and kind of gets digitally effected,

like some the tone gets sucked out
out of your sound,

before it goes to the amp.

Of course when you turn the pedal on,

the signal has to go through
the pedal anyway,

and that's what you want,
you want the sound to be effected.

But when the pedal is off,
what you ideally want

is the signal to not go anywhere
near the pedal.

And that's what this pad does,
for your Wah-wah.

So, like I said,
a lot of the old Wahs

aren't True Bypass.

So just plugging in,
and plugging out of it

even when the Wah is not being used,

sucks some of the tone away.

It's usually like top end,
is kind of, a little bit less dominant,

it's got a little bit less bite.

Different pedals going to suck the tone
in different ways.

A lot of the modern Wah-wah pedals,
like the RMC and the Boudoir

and those, sort of, high-end pedals.

They have built-in True Bypass,

but most of them don't,
definitely the old ones don't.

So, what the idea would be is that
you put your pedal on the plate here,

and then you plug it in,
it's got like a little instrument

the "Output".

And then on the other side as well,
it's got a little 9V power supply.

And you can actually put the pedal,
to power your Wah-wah inside

the actual top of the unit here as well.

There's a space in there for a pedal.

It's also got a 9V "In",
so you could plug it into

your regular--
if you got a power supply

like a power bank or a generator,
or whatever that's powering

all your pedals
you can power it via this.

And it's always going to be true
but it's going to be bypassed

and this is the coolest thing
about this pedal is

when you put pressure,
as soon as your foot touches

the Wah pedal and presses
down on the pad,

it activates the Wah pedal.

Now this is a really, really cool feature

because what happens usually,
you've got like a little ON/OFF switch

in your Wah-wah pedal at the,
kind of the top end of it,

and you have to normally
put your toe for them

press really hard,
click the Wah-wah on

and then you're
using your Wah

And if you want it to turn off
again you have to press it again.

You often get a bit of a
"click" noise and stuff,

it interrupts the flow a bit of your vibe,
you know.

Whereas with this thing, all you do

just put your foot on it

you leave the Wahwah
in the ON position all the time

because it's the True Bypass unit that
switches it ON and OFF.

So your Wah-wah is set in the ON position

as soon as you touch your foot on it,
it's working.

So it means that you can kinda
be playing your solo

put your foot on

give it a
bit of Wah

lift your foot off

and the Wah
automatically turns off.

So this bottom plate here
is kind of like a pressure-sensitive plate

So it feels that pressure
of your foot going on

turns the Wah on.

It is a really, really, really
excellent idea

I'm surprised no one's
thought of it before

well maybe they have and
I've just never heard of it but

this is a really, really cool idea.

And also, it has a little light
at the top of this True Bypass Wah Pad

to let you know when your
Wah's being activated.

There's a couple of other cool tricks
that you can do with it as well

like setting your Wah pedal and then
pressing on the corner of the pad,

and that also activates the Wah sound,
it works kind of like a filter.

But I'll give you some demos on that
in a little bit.

But let's have a little bit of a close-up
look at this thing now

so you can see exactly what it does
and how it works.

Okay, here we are for a close-up look
at the pedal now.

You can see here, there's the
input and output jacks.

There's your little 9V power supply,
and these are just plugged to

kind of underneath the actual pad part.

Here's the top part of the pedal
and up here's the little light there

so you can see when you're using the pedal

Now if we just flip it around and
have a little look at the back there

you can see, here, this is your "Input"
where you plug the guitar in.

On the other side, is the "Output",
which would go to the amplifier,

and there's your 9V power,
so it can be supplied by your pedal bank

if you wish it to be.

So, what happens is your Wah-wah,
and I'm using here, my Keeley Wah-wah

You whack your ol' Wah-wah on top there,

and you see here, this is the
instrument cable

and that would go into there,
then you plug the other cable

onto the inside and
the 9V power supply onto that

And then here, you will plug
from your guitar into the "Input" of here

and out of that side,
and that would go to your amplifier.

So, as you will see, when I plug it in
in a sec, just putting your foot on

activates the pedal.

It's a really, really smart little idea.

This thing's really, really well-made.
Good solid construction.

You know, there's some instructions
on the back here

on how to replace the battery.

Really, really well-made. You see here?
Made in Poland. There we go.

This is a really, really, really cool toy,
I'm most impressed with this unit.

So, let's have a bit of a looksy
and have a listen to how it works.

Okay, so here we are all set-up
ready to go.

This cable here is going to my amplifier,

and this one over here is
coming straight from the guitar.

You'll see here, there's the little light
here that says "Active".

When I press my foot or put a bit
of pressure on the pedal,

you can see that little light
here comes on.

So it's as simple as that.

The Wah-wah is actually switched on

you might be able to see
the faint blue light in the back here

which means that the Wah-wah
is clicked on

like the actual Wah-wah itself.

And now you're only going to hear
sounds when I put my foot on the pedal

the Wah-wah is going to work.

The rest of time the Wah-wah is off.

Now, as well as putting
my foot on the pedal

I can also put my foot on the
edge of the tray here,

which is a really, really funky
effect, I'm digging this a lot

for a kind of rhythm-y sort of sound

You just set the Wah-wah
in a particular place

and put your toe on the corner here,
and that activates, you see,

by pressing on here, with my thumb here

I'm pressing it, you can see
the little Active light go on.

So, that's that. So I'll start off by
just showing you a couple of

the idea that it just works and
as soon as I put my foot on there

it starts working.

And then I'll just muck around a bit
and you can see some of the ideas here

that you can use of being able to play

and really quickly access a bit of Wah
sound and then go back to

not with playing with Wah.

(Wah-wah Pad Demo)

Well, I hope you enjoyed my little demo
on this "G-Lab Wah Bypass" pedal.

It's most cool, go and check it out
on their website, which is glab.com

or there will be some more
information on my website.

Take care, dudes,
see you again soon, bye-bye.