Building a wah for use with distortion?

[rockgardenlove]

I'm trying to design/tweak a wah for use with heavy distortion.  So far it's coming along well, but do you guys have any suggestions?
Thanks!

[jonathan perez]

high gain being heavy metal?

all a matter of taste, my friend.

if you want it to cut through, i suggest you lower the input resistance and up the Q. the emitter of Q1 is fine at 470...assuming youre using a fine enough inductor. i think anything around 550mH cuts through VERY nicely, and gives a very "throaty" tone for heavy distortion. hell, its what I use! and im pushing it through a 6505+, that alone is almost too much distortion!

[rockgardenlove]

I've already done both, the input resistance is a 22k and the Q resistor I upped to 68k.  I'm using an old '80s Dunlop inductor for now, it sounds pretty good to me.  Q1's emitter I downed to 270Ω.  I changed the input cap to a .022 instead of a .01 as I like the lower sweep.  The 1.5K resistor got bumped up to 2.2k.

One thing is that I'm using one of the 200k Blacktops, and while the sweep is great, there's no "spank" to it like a 100k if you know what I mean.  It's lacking that bite. 

[jonathan perez]

yikes! i bet that wah sounds HUGE! up the q to 100k.

[rockgardenlove]

It sounds HUGE when clean or light distortion, but when really pushing the tubes it's still not enough for me.

I'll set the Q to 100k.

[Paul Marossy]

My 80s Dunlop CryBaby sounds great with just about any kind of distortion. And, shhh don't tell anyone, but it has the dreaded innately evil TDK inductor in it *looking both ways to see if anyone heard that*  

[Mark Hammer]

Actually, what you want is the reverse: a distortion that sounds good with wah.  Not all distortions are equally responsive to variations in the spectral content of their input signal, and will sound pretty much the same whether you're using the neck or bridge pickup, have the guitar tone up full or down full,feeding the guitar straight or sending it through a wah.

[rockgardenlove]

I've got it set up now how I like it.  350Ω Q1 emitter, 130k Q, 2.2k mids, 22k input, and a .022uF input cap.  Very nice, but one problem:
When in the heel position the transistors start to clip on hard strums.

Is there a way to fix this without messing with the wah too much?

[jonathan perez]

well, thats no surprise.

130k shouldnt sound tooooo fantastic, would it? RG keen states that after 100k, you start to lose the "wah."

22k may be too much, 33k might work fine, too...

maybe 330ohms+.022uF is too low?

i dunno...oh! try some lower gain transistors. you know, somewhere around 350-400.

[John Lyons]

Couple options:

Joe Gagans Freeper It's a dIfferent type of wah sound. Sound more "modern" not so much wacka wacka sounding.

The colorsound  inductorless wah. Get all the vocal wah atributes and is simple and in expensive. Highly modable as well.

Both of these have soundclips here: www.mrdwab.com/john/soundclipspage.html

John

[petemoore]

One thing is that I'm using one of the 200k Blacktops, and while the sweep is great, there's no "spank" to it like a 100k if you know what I mean.  It's lacking that bite.
  rockgardenlove
  Blacktop makes smooth/even 200k worth of sweep, I just put one in with..
  The new 'Pot selector switch' ! er...more like potvalue imitator switch. This put the snap right into the wah with a 200k = 100k wahpot via switch.
  The switch puts in/takes out the two 100k resistors spread across the 3 potlugs..simple, gets smooth 'or' faster sweeps, adjust the two taper/trim resistors for different responses!
  Puts the 'Shaft Swaka'  wah sound right in that thing with the 200k = 100k wahpot mod, may not be 'perfect' taper that way but it's working fine for me...puts a little extra swhift curve change in the wah sound just like it would on a pot resistance graph chart I suppose...maybe you could hear that, I like it.
 

[tcobretti]

Have you tried an output buffer yet?  It takes ten minutes to throw one together and mine really made my wahs sound better thru a lot of distortion.

My technique with wahs is to replace the key resistors (Q, Mid, and Bass) with trimpots (100k, 5k, and 1k respectively).  That way you can tune to your heart's content.  Just remove the resistor, solder in legs 2 and 3 (1 and 2 are fine also, just not 1 and 3), and bend the unsoldered leg so it acts as a brace. 

[alderbody]

I've already done both, the input resistance is a 22k and the Q resistor I upped to 68k.  I'm using an old '80s Dunlop inductor for now, it sounds pretty good to me.  Q1's emitter I downed to 270Ω.  I changed the input cap to a .022 instead of a .01 as I like the lower sweep.  The 1.5K resistor got bumped up to 2.2k.

One thing is that I'm using one of the 200k Blacktops, and while the sweep is great, there's no "spank" to it like a 100k if you know what I mean.  It's lacking that bite. 

The bite is gone since you are using such a low Rin (22K/ loads the signal and cuts treble) and a 2K2 mid (it also softens the treble/bass transition).

btw, i agree with the opinion about the Distortion pedal needing to be chosen so to work well with the wah.

[rockgardenlove]

I'm not a distortion pedal kinda guy.  I get my dirt from my amps.  ('68 Bassman, 5e3, Peavey Classic 30.)

Good thinking with the Rin, that never came to mind.  Thanks very much for that idea.  I'm not quite sure how much of an impact it will have though, hopefully it will help.