Colorsound Inductorless Wah Mods?

Started by Jaicen_solo, January 29, 2010, 03:45:02 PM

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Jaicen_solo

Ok, i've built a Colorsound wah. It sounds pretty nice, although it's not that pronounced an effect. The filtering seems a little subtle, which i'd like to improve a bit. I have added a resonance control which takes it up to self oscillation. The main problem I have is that it seems to be too bright a wah. All the action seems to be at the top of the sweep, with very little effect on the lows.
Is there any way that I can get more mid-range and lows into the thing? I want to use it with a Tonebender fuzz, so when I put them together, it basically just robs the lows. You can't really hear the sweep with the fuzz. Clean it sounds a bit like a Phase45.
Am I right in thinking that boosting the signal into the wah will make the effect more intense? I know that a certain Boutiquer uses a mosfet booster in front of his wah pedal to add a little harmonic grit.
Any ideas??

tcobretti

I have an original Colorsound Swell pedal, and I think it's great, even when run into fuzz (actually it's my favorite wah yet when combined with fuzz).  The only mod I did was the remove the 47k resistor to ground at the end of the circuit, which boosted the output significantly.

However,     Paul Marossy and I have a theory that this circuit works better with the longer sweep of the Colorsound wah enclosure.  So, you might try some different pot tapers, or maybe even grind your own.  I ended up using a W (reverse audio taper if memory serves) of all things, but when I changed it out I didn't like the pedal nearly as much.  It is a little weird though; as you'd expect, I have a big dead spot in the middle.  But when you get the extremes it comes alive for some reason.

Jaicen_solo

Ok, scratch all that nonsense! I just noticed i'd put in 102 caps, rather than 153  :icon_redface:

I put in some bigger caps and that's more or less solved the problems I was having. I added the resonance control too, which gives a nice range from mellow to very sharp. Quite a nice little effect given the simplicity of the build.