Colorsound wah doesn't sound like the clips...

[azrael]

Seems to doing very little wah-ing...Any ideas?
I'm going to get some trimpots sometime soon, because I didn't know the gain of the transistor needed, so I probably need to bias it. The voltage was pretty high - I think it was like 7?
Which resistors should I be trying to change around?

I used the layout here:
http://www.diyguitarist.com/DIYStompboxes/DIY-Wah.htm
So it's the inductor-less one.

Differences would be that I didn't have the original ingenious Colorsound wah shell - so different treadle/travel. I also used a Black Bear 200K wah pot.

If all else fails, I'll try my hand at the Idiot wah...Then back to a Crybaby-type circuit, but with a better inductor, I guess.

[s.r.v.]

that wah says that it gets the full range of the pot. Crybaby's dont get much range at all if i'm not mistaken. That could be it. How do the fixed positions sound? I'm thinking of putting one of these into a 125b so i can have one wah fixed, one adjustable. trimpots would probably help too.

[azrael]

Yeah, the travel on the originals was completely different, since the treadle was designed differently. So maybe it's because I'm not gettin' enough travel? That would suck, because that's something I can't really fix.

The fixed positions sound pretty lame right now, but I suspect, again, this is due to biasing.

[axg20202]

If you haven't done it already, I would check that your transistors are definitely inserted the correct way round according to their pin-outs. When I built my latest wah, I had the same problem and this was the fix - stupid mistake but an easy one to make. I also use the same pot as you and find that its travel range is fine, but then I'm not using the same circuit as you.

[John Lyons]

Colorsound inductorless wah notes:
Make sure the transistor is correctly placed
A 2N5089 or 88, MPSA18, or any other high gain/HFE Transistor will work fine.
I use a 25K or 50K linear pot in the ones I've made with crybaby type shells.
Replace the 33K resistor to ground with a 50K trim pot to alter the resonance/sharpness of the wah. Great for noise effects and wild sweepable oscillation as well.

There is a clip or two here Just scroll down.

John

[azrael]

Oh, wow. 25-50K is quite different...

Where did you find a 50K pot with the pinion on it? Or how did you make one?

[John Lyons]

I've made some CS wahs with jaut a knob to adjust the frequency (non foot controlled) but I've either used a typical wah pot with a tapering resistor or made my own wah pot with a long shaft pot and filing a flat spot on the shaft and using the pinion sold at smallbear.

I temporarily solder a 100K-B pot across the 100K wah pot and adjust the test pot until I like the feel of how the foot rocker is working.
Then I solder in a fixed resistor once I find something that works well. Somewhere between 25k and 100K works well.

John

[azrael]

Oh, they have a seperate pinion for sale at SBE? I was at Radioshack today, and was thinking about flattening that shaft. Maybe I'll go that route.

I think I might set this circuit aside, though, and switch back to a Crybaby-style one, for now.
I just need a working wah.