Behringer HB01 Hell Babe 4-stars Reviews

Versatile and (relatively) cheap

This pedal is supposed to be based on Dimebag Darrell's signature Wah, the Cry Baby from Hell, which is usually £150-£200. This is pretty much identical, but it's 1/4 of the price.

The Hellbabe is optical, so there aren't any pots or moving parts that can get cat hair stuck in them. It also doesn't have a button to turn it on, instead activating when you put your foot on it and turning off after you remove your foot. You can adjust how long the pedal stays on after you take your foot off but the default setting is near immediate.

The sound is surprisingly good for a pedal this cheap, and is very versatile coming with several knobs, so that you can get the exact tone you want. I mostly use this for metal and it's great for that.

Initially, I thought that the pedal would feel flimsy and cheap, due to it being made of plastic. However, only the rocker is made of plastic and the rest is made of (I'm assuming) steel. Despite the rocker being made of plastic, it feels very sturdy and will probably last a few years of use at the least.

You can adjust the resistance of the rocker but, like the timer adjust, it feels great out of the box.

I feel like this is one of Behringer's highest quality pedals so far.

Cheap and cheerful

Very much like the sound and feel and the price. Wah pedals used to cost a fortune when I was learning.

These are notorious for having slightly badly aligned gap on the optical sensor which means the whole travel doesn't function. I've cut mine a bit to fit better, but it's quite hard to disassemble.

Nice pedal

Based on the price, it has good wah wah effect. The downside is that it needs a 9 v battery (or adaptor) to operate.

Wah wah why not?

Great pedal with great features at a great price.

Well made and solid. Another success from behringer.

Decent wahwah pedal

it does its job! =)

Great pedal for the money. Quite difficult to use, takes a bit of practice. Very happy with it.

Great option for gentle Wah

This isn?t an aggressive wah pedal and gives a really nice soft funk tone. With some additional pedals you can rock this up nicely.

Has nice features and is sensative enough for ambient tones.

Really flexible wah wah.. Highly recommended

Great wah for the price, but..

Pros:

- great price

- flexibility in finding the right sound - quite wide arrange of sounds

- light indicators when wah/boost is on

- well built

- boost function

- possibility to adjust wah switch off timing

Cons:

- there is an annoying sound/click when wah goes off (when you lift your foot) - not too loud, but still

- somehow I feel that it needs more space when you rock the pedal - the moving range of the pedal seems not large/long enough

- a bit too small knobs for fine tuning, Q, and boost level

All in all, at this price there is not much to complain - great value for money despite cons.

So, i would say the overall rating is very good, just not excellent :)

Good Pedal for the price

There is a short crackle sound while activating the pedal everytime when stepping on it. I've found this generally works better for bass guitars.

Very ambitious pedal for its price

It has been a couple of weeks since I own this pedal and so far I am pleased with it.

Behringer tried to put several features into this pedal and somehow still managed to keep the price low.

The good:

The pedal sounds good and the controls are not just for the looks, they do make a significant change on the tone/sound. Thanks to its versatile Q-control and additional fine-tune control, it gives the user a big room for tweaking the tone. The optical control is easy to get used to and (probably) more durable because it does not rely on additional movable parts. The pedal seems solid, it does not feel like it might break any moment. But most importantly, I could dial-in the wah-tone that I wanted, and I guess that is what matters the most.

The bad:

Since it does not have an on/off button, the pedal goes off when you lift your foot. This is nice but it causes an abrupt tone change. The time it takes to go off can be adjusted with a switch under the pedal but it only delays/shortens the tone change. it is inevitable. For example after lifting your foot, when you are already in the middle of the next riff/melody, the tone suddenly changes. But do not be scared, the change in the tone is not too ear-bothering.

Overall, it is definitely a good buy for its price. It has significantly more ups than it has downs.

Great product for its price

I bought the Behringer HB01 Hell Babe 2 months ago. My experience with it being the first wah pedal that I own is satisfying. At first, getting used to the optical sensor take some time, but after that it's like a normal 100 euro wah pedal.

Some of its cons are the build quality, which to me it seems like it is not build to last to much, and the fact that it has an optical sensor make it so you can't leave it on for solo for example, you'll have to keep your foot on it and keep it study for this.

Over all I think it's a great value-for-money wah pedal with tons of features and highly recommend it.

Good product

Good sounds and easy to operate. I just wished that is was made from metal and not plastic.

Great budget wah

Great features, but not the best sound in the world. For my practise combo setup its excellent and I am sure I could gig it as well. Looks solid.

Exactly as you'd expect a wah to perform. Does what it needs to. Easy to use. Quite big and chunky but this suits me

Decent Pedal

Good starter wah wah pedal for anyone looking to put their first pedalboard together.

Build quality is good. SImple to use and a decent wah sound created.

Good for starters. I wouldnt recommend this to people who are more serious about their pedals. but a good place to start!

Good Pedal BUT...

be careful when choosing this because while being true bypass is a good thing, this pedal does not have an on/off switch, which means once you step on it it starts working but once you let go it stops. When it stops the sound goes from the deep end of the wah back to your natural sound instantly, and the change in sound is very noticable and abrupt. You can change the time it takes for the effect to stop working from when you step off of it to when it actually stops, but it just feels like you never have full control over it, since its a time based thing and you cant just turn it on and off with your foot exactly when you want to.

Nice wah at reasonable price

bought this due to limited funds. Thought it sounded like it had a lot of features for the price. When it arrived I was very impressed with the build quality. It may have been made of plastic, but it was as solid as any metal wah I've ever seen. All of the dials allow for some serious shaping of the sound. It's not a cry baby by any stretch of the imagination, but for the price you would be hard best to find a better wah. The boost function is great for wah solos, you don't need to hit the amp boost first so saves a little tap dancing. Also being optical there are no moving mechanical pots to wear.

A great budget wah.

I've only had this a few days, but it's a fantastic piece of kit for the price.

The sound is very adjustable, it's versatile, and the fact I only have to move the treadle to activate it is a fantastic feature. I did have to adjust the off timer to stop it deactivating as soon as the heel went down, but once I'd done this it was perfect. The boost feature is handy too if you use wah mainly in solos. The switch to activate it is on the right hand side of the unit, and I've found that it's possible to carefully use the side of your foot to push it in. The boost only activates when you activate the wah.

The construction, despite being made of plastic, is solid and I can't see it being a problem. Behringer offer a 3-year warranty so in the event of failure it *should* be covered, but I've not had cause to test how good the warranty process is.

The only complaints I have is that there is a slight click when the wah deactivates. This is more noticeable with higher gain patches but, for me, this is no problem really. Also, the LEDs are underneath the heel, so you can't actually see them when your foot is on the pedal, but again, it's a nitpick rather than a problem.

Overall, if you're on a budget and need a wah, I wouldn't look any further.

What happened?

I absolutely loved this machine when I got it and played with it solidly for about 9 months. I found it easy to use and much more varied in tone than my Dunlop Cry Baby. Then I got into using a clean sound for a bit and when I next tried to do my spacy wah stuff, the thing had completely stopped working. All the lights came on but there was nobody home. The Cry Baby also broke pretty quickly but at least I could see what had gone wrong with that.

Behringer HB01 Hell Babe

Very unoversally usable with a wide range of adjustment, I've been happy with although I had my doubts being a cheap Behringer, but have started to recomend it to my friends who have been interested to buy their first wah.