How can I increase my wah pedal's volume?

[6stringdrug]

I have just acuired a Dunlop JH-1 wah pedal, love the tone but it seems to be sucking volume. Honestly, when I step on it, it's like someone turned my amp down from 9 to 5. Any suggestions? I have a Vox v847 that is my number 1, but I dig this pedal and am thinking it may have a chance in my rig if I can get this problem fixed.

 

[wingsdad]

Is the battery fresh?

 

[6stringdrug]

brand new battery, even tried it at different amp volumes, there seems to be a 20 -30% sag in volume as soon as I kick on the effect.

 

[DeanEVO_Dude]

Short of redesigning the circuit, don't know if there is any way to change the wah. However, you could try to put a transparent, clean boost pedal after it (or before it) as well as putting them in an external effects loop (simple DIY build). You may be able to build a simple jfet transistor amp and tie the output of the wah to it before it is sent to the jack. I have thought about doing this (or bulding just a stand-alone) myself, but have not done it yet.
The problem is that a wah pedal puts a very heavy load on the guitar's signal and the circuit, itself, has a lot of signal loss associated with it due to what it does.

 

[duhvoodooman]

Have you tried running it behind a buffered pedal? That may help. But usually, wah pedal "tone sucking" only happens in really old (late '60s/early '70s) pedals, and it's mostly a loss of treble as opposed to a volume loss across the whole frequency range. Almost any wah made in the last 20 years should have a high enough input impedance that it doesn't suck tone to any appreciable extent.