Wah Wahs and some obviously easy mods...

[triskadecaepyon]

Recently I've been toying with some wahs, and I've been finding on the internet that there is all these "brightening" mods and "volume boosts".  Now, many people complain that you lose your high end of your signal, and I found a way to fix that.  My friend removed the white thing that holds the rack/pinion system and rolled the pot about 1/6 of a turn to the high end, and placed it back together.  And BAM the wah started off brighter and with more highs!  Bascially, you are changing the starting point of the wah on the Pot.  The original stock factory setup of wahs (especially Crybaby's) are very mellow, and many people are turned off by that.  Now you can easily adjust your wah to your liking.  I just wish I had thought about it earlier.  Any of you see this too?

[Fret Wire]

The pot adjusting trick has been around for quite a while. Here's a nice explanation:
http://www.happybob.com/marc/pot_adjustment_procedure.htm

It should always be the first thing you check on a wah. A simple adjustment may be what you're looking for. When you think about it, it will affect any future mods you do. Why do all the voicing mods, only to later adjust the pot, and find you have to re-voice again. Also, many come from the factory not adjusted properly. And a good excuse to clean off the rack and gear of the excess lubrication. Only the small contact area of the rack and gear need lubing. The excess usually put on by the factory just attracks more dust.

It helps to use a DMM to measure the pot value, and record the factory set sweep, plus your own settings. This gives you a good reference. If you have to adjust the pot later in the mod process, you have a recorded starting point/reference to return to. You can even graph out the taper and sweep of your pot/settings for future comparison with other pots. And dial in a new pot correctly on a previously modded wah.

[RedHouse]

One thing to make sure is that you FULLY depress the pedal, all the way into the rubber bumper that's glued to the bottom side of the pedal as far as it will go before securing the pot.

If you just rotate it untill it stops and tighten it down it will really put excessive pressure on the rack-n-pinion (and pot) when you use the switch to go into bypass.

For a wah that resides on a pedal board and doesn't use batteries, it's a cool thing to move the switch from the toe (top of pedal) and relocate to under the heel (bottom of pedal) area.

This lets you fine-tune the pot, and the treble side of it's sweep and keeps the switch from interfereing with playing in that area.
(a bit weird to get used to, switching on/off with a heel motion though)

[triskadecaepyon]

yeah I was hoping some info would come up... my internet searching went to no avail.  Anyways, I have some more questions.

1) is true bypassing a wah worth the effort?
2) is installing a "Q" cap change switch worth the effort?
3) Is there any way to increase the amount of sweep you can manualy get on the way other than taking those rubber things off under the pedal (i.e. those things that prevent you from scratching the casing when you go back and fourth)

[mrsage]

1) is true bypassing a wah worth the effort?

Yes!

2) is installing a "Q" cap change switch worth the effort?

I did some simple mods, including changing out some caps, and it was worth it. I like the "midrange" mod that smooths out the sweep.

3) Is there any way to increase the amount of sweep you can manualy get on the way other than taking those rubber things off under the pedal (i.e. those things that prevent you from scratching the casing when you go back and fourth)

I think those are actually there to prevent you from accidentally turning the wah off while you're rocking it. A lot of people remove them and simply adjust the nuts on the switch to lower it, thus lessening the chance that they'll accidentally switch it off. It's a pretty hardcore casing...but if you're still worried about scratches, you could put some electrical tape down.

[triskadecaepyon]

Is the midrange mod done with changing some resistor values?

[mrsage]

Sorry...you're right. Can't edit my post!

http://members01.chello.se/pastorn/fx/mods/images/dunlop/pcb5.jpg

Midrange mod increases the value of the resistor directly to the left of the 0.01uf cap marked in the picture. I used 2k2 or so.

I also changed the 0.01 cap to 0.015 for a bit more low end.

[triskadecaepyon]

I've been getting my info from this site.  Pretty helpful, has a ton of mods and a ton of info and pics

http://homepage.ntlworld.com/s.castledine/greenfuz/wah.html