Wah Distortion

[soupbone]

I've played through a lot of different wah's,including Thomas Organs,Vox's,Dunlop's etc.,and I've noticed with all these wah's,that they all have a little distortion coming through.(Through a very clean amp.) There's got to be fix for this.Right?

[Seljer]

The distortion adds a bit of character  

The peak of the wah can easily add +18dB to a small portion of your signal, with high output humbuckers that means you need a lot of headroom to have the pedal stay perfectly clean. Adjusting the first transistor helps a bit (though you have to balance it out with total overall gain), running it off higher voltage also might help. Some of the newer Dunlop wahs have premphasis/demphasis before and after the wah circuit which may lower the signal in the midrange before it goes through the wah to help it stay cleaner...
The inductorless wah circuits tend to stay much cleaner if thats what you're going after though they have a slightly different response.

Read the Technology of Wah Pedals article at geofex.com  

[soupbone]

The distortion adds a bit of character  

The peak of the wah can easily add +18dB to a small portion of your signal, with high output humbuckers that means you need a lot of headroom to have the pedal stay perfectly clean. Adjusting the first transistor helps a bit (though you have to balance it out with total overall gain), running it off higher voltage also might help. Some of the newer Dunlop wahs have premphasis/demphasis before and after the wah circuit which may lower the signal in the midrange before it goes through the wah to help it stay cleaner...
The inductorless wah circuits tend to stay much cleaner if thats what you're going after though they have a slightly different response.

Read the Technology of Wah Pedals article at geofex.com  

Cool!I've read R.G. Keen's Wah Pedal article,but I was a little unsure about the unwanted gain.So,It basically comes down to the transistors you think?Thought about changing them to bc108's-9's.I would think there would be a loss in volume due to the lower gain trannies?I read that you can change the 68k r. to around 47k,but that's mainly for after you've made it true bypass.Hmm...Ideas swirling.