who makes the wah enclosures?

[Phorhas]

well... a simple question..
=)

does anyone know?

[thomas2]

wah pedal manufacturer  :twisted:  a simple answer

[petemoore]

I might add: "To an otherwise difficult machining process"
 Seems like if you used a huge\er pot like 1 meg and tapered it just so, you couuld get full wah with just a small pot shaft range? I mentioned this idea a while back but never tried it. I suppose since were using three lugs of the pot in most wahs, you couldn't get the right taper. Maybe some 'wierd' use of a 500k dual and taper resistore or something would render a usable result...I guess I'm rambling because we'd have seen this by now...

[David]

I guess I'm rambling because we'd have seen this by now...

Actually, Pete, we have seen it.  Check out the guest article by Maarten de Huu on GEO about wah pedal construction.  His method looks like it would work.  I haven't tried it because I'd like to have the pedal remain in place where I put it.  Maarten's won't do that as described because he has a foam block to make it spring back.

[ExpAnonColin]

I've talked to line 6, teese, and crybaby as well as a few boutique builders about getting them.  I'm 1 reply-PM away from saying that it's not possible, and just buy broken wahs off of eBay for $15 or so apiece.

-Colin

[Phorhas]

wah pedal manufacturer  a simple answer

Well - somebody had to make them for vox to use back in the sixties... so I makes sense that these pedals were inended for a differant use - may for industry as speed controllers or the like...

I wondered if they are still in production for thier original use... that would make it alot easier to build good wahs by ourselves

[David]

I've talked to line 6, teese, and crybaby as well as a few boutique builders about getting them.  I'm 1 reply-PM away from saying that it's not possible, and just buy broken wahs off of eBay for $15 or so apiece.

-Colin

What's not possible, Colin?  Getting a premanufactured wah shell, or building one?

Based on past comments, I'd venture to say you're probably right about the former.  As to the latter, that one seems to come down to how much effort an individual wants to expend.

[Hal]

i bet the first wah prototypes were made in sewing machine speed controller pedals.

Either that, or a long slider that you would just push back and forth with your foot :-D

[ExpAnonColin]

I've talked to line 6, teese, and crybaby as well as a few boutique builders about getting them.  I'm 1 reply-PM away from saying that it's not possible, and just buy broken wahs off of eBay for $15 or so apiece.

-Colin

What's not possible, Colin?  Getting a premanufactured wah shell, or building one?

Based on past comments, I'd venture to say you're probably right about the former.  As to the latter, that one seems to come down to how much effort an individual wants to expend.

Yes, to get a premanufactured wah shell.  Building the circuit into there wouldn't be bad at all.  Even if you couldn't get a high value pot, you could use the pot to control an optocoupler of some sort, giving you a wider range of resistance.

-Colin

[David]

Well, I'm either too stubborn or too quixotic to let it go yet, but I would think one could always get a cheapie volume pedal from Musician's Friend, et. al. and use that as raw material.  The pot might even be right.  I haven't knuckled under to this yet.  Since my work is all gearer toward a custom, integrated project, an adapted volume pedal shell would be difficult to add on.

Hey!  Chew on this, guys!

We've been thinking that a wah pedal has to pivot where the heel contacts it, and the pot connection generally occurs more toward the toe.  Without a factory-built mechanism, this has left us with the ever-annoying question of how to make the pedal stay put in a fixed position.  Maybe it DOESN'T have to pivot at the heel.  Actually, maybe it SHOULDN'T pivot at the heel.  If we could come up with a way to reliably place a pivot point at the center of the pedal, then hook up an operational pot on one side of the pivot and a second, idle pot on the other side to act as a bearing, this might get the pedal to stay put when the foot is removed.  I would think pedal action would be a lot smoother, too.  Anyone got any ideas about whether this would or wouldn't work?

[puretube]

it`s a haptic ("feel") thing;

you wouldn`t wanna rotate your foot 270 degrees;

"flat" (parallell to the floor) is already too "toe-ish", with an elevated pedal;

[David]

... but I won't concede defeat yet.

Maarten's article addressed this.  I wouldn't need to rotate the pot 270 degrees if I used a larger-valued pot.  I admit I don't know how to calculate it, but it should be possible to determine what the value of the pot would have to be when the pedal rocks -- what? -- 45 degrees?

Wish I'd paid more attention in my trig class!

[petemoore]

Yes, but,...those werds :lol:
 For conventional wah-ing, don't you need the three lug pot wiring method?...one side from the wiper goes up in Resistance as the other goes down..in certain proportions?
 Bigger pot [and tapering?] and smaller shaft travel would probably be easie to figure out with a Twin T circuit, so that the pedal movement does what you want it to.
 I'm still 'working' on taper of a SS with Speed control actuated by a VOX 847 treadle. It turns the pot well but the med. speed to very hi speed control it very difficult to get any kind of predictable med to hi speeds [the ones I would like to be able to 'treadle'].
 So I'm at a standing still point in the project, quandried between figuring out pot tapers, or using a curved multi ratio speed drive for the treadle to the pot...which would be a cone or ball connected on the string so the last 1/8th [?] of the pots travel would be slower in relation to treadle travel.
 Plus the SS distorts or is less clear than I'd like, perhaps when I did the volume drop fix, I got too close to unity...?

[puretube]

last thing first: I`m a big fan of the active mixing mod on the SmSt...
(no, it`s not been offered yet, afaik - bet Gez knows what I mean - Mark of course, too);

the other, more on topic thing is: I bet nobody wants to hear one of the saddest stories of my life,
and how this accident turned pitiful me into having hundreds of prewired cogwheel-equipped 100k neg-log volume-pedal pots lying around...

:cry:  :oops:  :evil:

[brett]

With a magnet on one side and a Hall-effect (magnet) sensor on the other, you could make a wah from a large sponge.  The idea of rotating a pot is problematic, so why not do away with it?

I made a wah from two pieces of aluminium door frame and a hinge.  Usual crybaby circuit and a 1k transformer for an inductor.  Worked 95% as good as my JH-1, but never felt as sturdy as the real thing.  Given the balancing act involved, I reckon the weight of the shell is important.

just my 2c

[David]

the other, more on topic thing is: I bet nobody wants to hear one of the saddest stories of my life,
and how this accident turned pitiful me into having hundreds of prewired cogwheel-equipped 100k neg-log volume-pedal pots lying around...

Au contraire, mon ami!  I want to hear all about it!  I also know how to take away your pain.  How about if I just take some of those objects of your sorrow right off your hands?

[David]

The idea of rotating a pot is problematic, so why not do away with it?

Because I actually need to make a wah/volume.  I followed your Hall-effect unit with great interest when you first presented it.  Unfortunately, I didn't have the electronics chops to figure out how to incorporate switchable volume functionality.  I still don't, I guess.  If you have any ideas, I'm all ears.  I did like the astonishingly simple construction of your unit.

[cd]

Doesn't Teese get all his enclosures from Dunlop now?

[Hal]

With a magnet on one side and a Hall-effect (magnet) sensor on the other, you could make a wah from a large sponge.  The idea of rotating a pot is problematic, so why not do away with it?

I made a wah from two pieces of aluminium door frame and a hinge.  Usual crybaby circuit and a 1k transformer for an inductor.  Worked 95% as good as my JH-1, but never felt as sturdy as the real thing.  Given the balancing act involved, I reckon the weight of the shell is important.

just my 2c

cool :-D

[RedHouse]

Last year I did some work on the 3 brand new Wah pedals, the new Dunlop GB95-F "Fasel", a Dunlop JH-1, and a VOX 847.

I noticed they all had the same casting numbers inside the base of the shell... which made me suspitious... someone is making these and supplying the big guys.

BTW the internet versions of the JH-1 schematic are not correct (anymore) Dunlop  did away with the .022 cap across the wiper-to-gnd of the hotpot, and the .01 cap across the inductor. The new JH-1 has a .022 in place of the .01 that connected Q2's 10k emmitter resistor to the inductor.