putting effect in wah enclosure?

[adam193]

I was watching some demos of the new Ernie Ball Ambient Verb, and thinking about putting an effect in a wah, and using the pedal to control a knob. like drive on a grit pedal or depth on a chorus....

Anyone ever do something like this?

[GibsonGM]

Sure! This is common, Adam.   

Easy Vibe, for me.  I have the rate pot where the wah pot would normally go, so I can control the speed of my vibe. I also have an LED that I can see from above, so I can roll forward to turn the effect on, then quickly find the speed I want before playing.  In case the drummer is at a different tempo than I had expected, LOL. 

I want to use one to send a control voltage to a tube preamp, to control drive (distortion)...THAT would be awesome, I think! Just have to work out the right way to accomplish it.

Welcome to the forum!   

[thermionix]

UVICS.  I think it would be cool to do one with a heel switch, so it gets faster toe down, yet it turns on and off at the slowest speed.

Hmmm...I have a Chicken Salad...and a GCB-95 that isn't being used.....hard part would be coming up with a geared dual-gang pot.  Would have to make one I suppose.  I know you can get the gears for D-shafts.

[robthequiet]

I've wondered if you could use a slider vs a rotary pot. Probably just as much effort as a rotary, but at least you don't have to match gears.

[Processaurus]

Putting effects in wah shells gets hung up on the pot. The one in there is weird- it is a weirdo taper, custom made just for wah wahs, and to make the sweep work with the circuit. Also, they have a custom, shorter rotation, from full on, to full off, like 220° (just guessing) rather than 270°, to make it work with the gearing, and the shell. What they did, was the pot has a standard 270° rotation, but, they made a custom resistive track, that is low resistance for the rest of the travel past 220° or whatever it is.

Addtitionally, the bracket in the wah shell is too thick for a standard pot, you need a long thread bushing.  I noticed small bear sells a special bracket for mounting standard pots. They carry a linear taper, geared pot as well, but when I boght one a few years ago, it was the standard 270° rotation, and you couldn't get all the way on or off with the shorter gearing in the crybaby shell. Maybe they got a different pot since, but I'd ask, before ordering.

Maybe some expression pedal lover could come up with a 3D printed gearbox, that could correct the rotation problem?

[thermionix]

^ "Effective Electrical Angle"...I think that's what they call it.  I had one wah pot with a different gear and it would use pretty much the entire physical rotation with shorter bumpers on the treadle.

[ElectricDruid]

Rather than put the effect in a wah enclosure, you could add an "expression input" to the pedal where it is. Wire the pot to the normally-closed connections of a stereo jack, and then wire the other pins to the board. With no jack inserted, the pot works as standard. Now find a normal volume pedal with a TRS/stereo jack on the end  - these are just a pot in a wah treadle enclosure with a plug on the end. Plug it into your new jack input and the pot in the rocker replaces the one in the pedal. Simple!

Well, not *that* simple mostly. You have to think about what *value* the pot is (100K is typical, so find 100K pots you could replace to useful ffect) and also the output wiring of volume/expression pedals varies quite a bit, so you might have to arrange things to suit the one you have. But still, it offers more open-ended possibilities than putting every pedal you might want foot control of into a wah shell.

HTH,
Tom

[Mark Hammer]

Twenty years ago, before everything went all USB, and we entered the world of Wii and similar gestural devices, there were computer car race games.  Apart from the software itself, the games would come with a steering wheel and a pair of foot-pedals.  The whole thing would plug into the joystick port on the back of the computer.  The "brake" and "gas" pedals would be spring-loaded foot-treadles, resembling a pair of rack-and-pinion wahs in a single chassis assembly.  Because of the requirements of the A-to-D converter in the joystick port, the pots were often 50k.

Keep your eyes peeled for these in 2nd hand or Goodwill stores.  They can provide a very inexpensive basis for expression control.

[rocket8810]

i've done it with a delay and had the treadle control the delay time, and i mounted the other controls through the shell. really fun to do. i'm also do it with a colorsound phazex that i have an original phazex wah shell for. the treadle controls the rate.

[PorkyPrimeCut]

Check out the BEZ FX Street Sweeper.

It's not that old but I think only a few ended up getting made. It's a phaser and you control the sweep with your foot. Really cool, if you like that sort of thing.

[pinkjimiphoton]

it just so happens that a phase 90 mounted in a crybaby shell, when the circuit has been properly molested, is a killer vibe.
i'm replacing my univibe with one. where the two 150k resistors join, make the wet side about 100k. this will give just a little more "wet" depth.

be careful drilling, crybabys are shaped weird and it's easy to stick a drill bit thru something where it doesn't belong. don't ask how i know this.