first time caller. anyone wanna help me ruin (mod) a morley wah pedal?

[adamjuresko]

heya,
I'm getting this in a couple days morley (cwa) and I'd really love to mod it. specifically i'd like to turn it into a distortion wah, like a real **cked up distortion wah. nothing subtle (think the metal zone of wah pedals)? I've never modded a pedal before, so I'm hoping this will be my first of many. i don't know if this is possible but really what i'd love is to have this thing shoot out white noise mixed with my signal if that's even possible. i guess that would be on the same level as those 'hurricane surf' wahs that are way to expensive for me. but if not then just some really nasty clipping distortion would be great. again, i've never done this kind of thing before so please keep that in mind if you have suggestions as to what exactly i need to fiddle with to make this thing basically a noise machine that i run a guitar through (while keeping the filter sweep). really looking forward to any help!

[Keppy]

Welcome!

The usual way of making distortion is turning the gain way up and then clipping it with diodes. To turn the gain of the opamp up, try a resistor between pins 2 & 4 of the opamp. Smaller resistor = more gain. To turn that gain into distortion, try some clipping diodes. Two diodes, each one connected between pins 2 & 8, but opposite directions (one diode has the banded end at pin 2 and the other end at pin 8, vice versa for the other diode.

For more info on the effect of these components, see http://www.geofex.com/Article_Folders/TStech/tsxtech.htm under the heading "clipping stage."

This turns your wah into a distortion circuit. It will probably change the sound of the filter but not eliminate it. It might be what you want or it might not, but it's one of the simpler ways to start experimenting. Good luck!

[highwater]

I vaguely remember reading that all the Morley *optical* wahs use the same PCB.

I'm not sure if this applies to the CVA (which uses a pot instead of LED/LDR), nor whether this includes their various fuzz wahs.

I don't have time right meow, but later tonight I should be able to open-up my Bad Horsie and see how correct my memory and heresay are.

(edited - see below)

---

P.S. - Does anyone know when and/or why Morley took down all the schematics they used to have on the website?

[adamjuresko]

thanks so much for the great info! feeling a little overwhelmed by the terminology but this site seems super helpful and i'm determined to learn this stuff and make this work.

[highwater]

I was VERY wrong.

The Steve Vai Bad Horsie (SV1), the Bad Horsie 2 (SV2), and the Power Wah (PWO) do use the same PCB. There's a check-box in the corner to mark which pedal it was assembled for. Even the optical fuzz-wahs use a different PCB.

Sorry if I got your hopes up on that front: I must have been remembering that a PWO or SV1 can be easily converted to an SV2, and inappropriately extrapolating (it was over two years ago, and it's a huge PCB).

The CWA is COMPLETELY different from all of those.

There does look to be enough room in the CWA for an experienced builder to fit a fuzz or distortion, but it's definitely not a beginner project. The mechanical bits will chew-up wiring if it isn't done right, and the PCB is tiny.

---

Unless you have previous experience re-working PCBs, your best bet would be to just build a distortion pedal that goes well with the wah.

[ElectricDruid]

The Morley CFW Fuzz-Wah does exactly that - sticks a fuzz circuit in front of the CWA-style wah circuit.

I could only find the schematic here:

http://www.schematicsunlimited.com/m/morley/morley-cfw-compact-fuzz-wah-schematic

You could build the "Fuzz" part of this circuit up into a separate enclosure and you'd have the Fuzz-Wah pedal.

Alternatively, you could do the same with pretty much any of the many wild fuzz kits there are in the world. If you haven't built m/any pedals before, that might be a good way to start, since you'll have all the bits you need. Fuzzes are a good place to begin since they tend to be reasonably simple.

https://www.mammothelectronics.com/collections/effects-pedal-kits
https://www.jedspeds.co.uk/fuzz

HTH,
Tom

[stallik]

I agree with the previous recommendations about building a separate fuzz. That way, you can be sure the fuzz sounds good with the wah. Once you're happy with that, you could always incorporate the separate fuzz into the wah enclosure and even make it foot switchable if you really want a single unit

[digi2t]

Gut it completely and build a Mutron Flanger into it.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/3awa2fwc3ntsl9n/Pedal%20Flanger%20Build%20Document.pdf?dl=0

Fuzz, distortion, and wah, are plenty abound. Mutron Flanger, not so much. 

[adamjuresko]

thanks again for all the replies! the reason i asked is because the wah I have now sounds great (mangled and distorted) when between my two distortions, but it's too quiet. and if I put it after it's too loud and not distorted enough. I thought about just getting a fuzz wah but they're usually kind of expensive. I picked up the morley compact because it was $17 and it's really small which is great for my pedal board. was hoping to mod it somehow because it would be fantastic if it had it's own distortion. well, it will be here in a few days so maybe i'll take it apart and see if i can circuit bend it? that would only involve soldering a couple wires if there's any good bends to be had.

[thermionix]

right meow

Super Troopers?  Nice.

[bartimaeus]

If the pedal's just too quiet, maybe you could just stick a tiny clean boost circuit in there?

[pinkjimiphoton]

the "black" morley power wah, power wah boost, power wah distortion DO in fact all use the same circuit board,
i've taken them and hacked them to add volume and distortion to a stock morley board.
you need to rearrange a couple jumpers and add a couple parts, but its doable.
of course, i forget exactly WHAT i did, as it was years ago, but it worked.

that said, i have one of those pcb's... complete... that i took out of another morley years ago to build the eh talking pedal project that ronin and dino worked up.

if anybody wants/needs it, pm me

[Transmogrifox]

There's not a lot you can do to make it massive noise and distortion without adding circuitry to it, but you certainly can make it louder.

Looks like the schematic I found shows a 470-ohm resistor to ground following a 2.2k & capacitor, so it has a boost to the highs at 7 kHz (all the interesting stuff is attenuated).

Replace the 470-ohm with something like 470k and remove the 0.01uF capacitor that is parallel to the 2.2k. 
Replace the 27k across the output jack with a 1Meg or more (or just clip it out).  The 27k on the output jack is supposed to eliminate switch popping, but it also loads down your guitar when the pedal is bypassed.

As for circuit-bending for noise or bad behavior you can easily make this thing unstable or marginally stable.  You can add a pot from the output fed to the op amp Pin3 through a capacitor + resistor.  Try a 10k pot, 500k resistor and 10nF capacitor and see if you can make it howl a bit when you crank up the pot.  If you find a combo you like, you could measure the pot resistance between the wiper and either leg and replace it with hard-wired resistors -- or just drill a hole and stick in the pot.

[adamjuresko]

thanks so much for all the great info! should be here today so I'll definitely open it up and see what i can do!

[adamjuresko]

well, i got this thing in the mail, and lol, it's awful, and not in a cool way. the tone suck and volume drop is insane so unfortunately it's going to be useless. I need a wah that can be left on at all times because i have other pedals i need to worry about so it looks like it's back to my behringer hellbabe. i do have a question if anyone can help me out with this hellbabe pedal: if i stick it in front of my distortion it sounds great but it's too quiet, and if i put if after (even with boost off and volume rolled all the way down) it's way too loud. does anyone have any idea on what i could do to fix this? i've searched on here a bit and found some mods but nothing that really addresses the volume. i'd really rather not have to get yet another wah and just work with the hellbabe if possible because it's switchless so i do like it for that

[ElectricDruid]

i do have a question if anyone can help me out with this hellbabe pedal: if i stick it in front of my distortion it sounds great but it's too quiet, and if i put if after (even with boost off and volume rolled all the way down) it's way too loud.

Ok, let me just check this: When you have wah->distortion, you get a quiet output. When you have distortion->wah, you have a loud output.

For that to make sense, the distortion would have to be limiting the level and the wah would have to be boosting it.

It's not uncommon for distortions to reduce the level - it's a side effect of the clipping. One typical solution to that is to swap the clipping diodes for either another type (like LEDs) of for series pairs of the same type. This raises the clipping threshold and lets more level through. It will affect the amount of clipping though, and swapping for a different diode type like LED will affect the tone to some extent. You might like the result. You could also add a boost after the distortion to bring the level back up.

An alternative solution to making the distortion louder would be to make the wah quieter. That shouldn't be too hard either. Stick a volume pot on the output.

HTH,
Tom

[adamjuresko]

i do have a question if anyone can help me out with this hellbabe pedal: if i stick it in front of my distortion it sounds great but it's too quiet, and if i put if after (even with boost off and volume rolled all the way down) it's way too loud.

Ok, let me just check this: When you have wah->distortion, you get a quiet output. When you have distortion->wah, you have a loud output.

For that to make sense, the distortion would have to be limiting the level and the wah would have to be boosting it.

It's not uncommon for distortions to reduce the level - it's a side effect of the clipping. One typical solution to that is to swap the clipping diodes for either another type (like LEDs) of for series pairs of the same type. This raises the clipping threshold and lets more level through. It will affect the amount of clipping though, and swapping for a different diode type like LED will affect the tone to some extent. You might like the result. You could also add a boost after the distortion to bring the level back up.

An alternative solution to making the distortion louder would be to make the wah quieter. That shouldn't be too hard either. Stick a volume pot on the output.

HTH,
Tom

thanks so much! i think adding a volume pot to the output would be something i can pull off and i'm excited to try it out