Wah pedals chasis?

[sir_modulus]

Yes you're right. When it comes to that issue, wether the pot actually sounds good or not, well...I'm gonna hafta agree with you here.

For me:

I've done the REAL wah pot test. I had a Vox V847, A Dunlop Crybaby (the xxx-95 one), and a Phoenix Wah, and I had six pots (2 Fulltones, 2 hot potz II, and 2 Northwest Audio Pro Pots).

Report:

Vox: The Hot Pots sounded really bad, as at first I just wasn't sweeping properly, but after a lot of adjustment, it sounded decent, but it was a very unlinear sweep, and swept too far in some areas. The northwest pro pot had one that failed, and the other one just was bad.....period (I guess I might of got duds, but it sure has soured me on those things (for $30....c'mon, get some quality control..). The fulltone was perfect here, as it gave me a very smooth linear sweep (circuit built with 1% tolerence on values, matched gain (370,372) BC108's, and a 502mh inductor (yes, I measured( Fasel, red, Small bear)). This pot was just perfect.

Crybaby: The Hot Potz fit perfectly here, (mainly because it was designed to), and it had a smooth linear sweep, but it was still the typical dunlop sound.. The northwest pro pot did okay, but was even worse than the Fulltone. The Fulltone had no sweep, and seemed to be way to shallow of a taper, so it just sounded bad....

Phoenix: Now this is a good wah pedal (just kidding....love advertizing for my company....), and what happened was that all the pot s sounded bad...This needs basically a Log taper, but just a bit different (It worked great, when I flipped the Fulltone around, But I'll find a good forward pot soon....

Note: I don't have anything against Northwest audio, I'm just really sour as I spent $60 on two pots, (and thats 6 weeks allowence....), and I got crap quality....one failed (when I soldered, the wires, the lugs (CW, and CCW came off...and now that I see, I guess this pot mighthave worked better in some other circuits..

Conclusion: You really can't rank wah pots by sound....they all work good in different pedals...but you can rank them according to build quality. For me, I'd put the Hot Potz first, then the NW pro pot, then the fulltone in a far last. The hot pot is sealed, and has those cool lugs that are hard to take off, the Pro pot is also sealed, but with a little hole, you'll find out you CAN lubricate it (the ones I had did not have graphite (or some other lube) paste all inside it (*cough*....hot potz...*cough*)). The Fulltone is like the Propot, it's just well...the overall build quality is not near that of the Pro pot....it's built the same way, but the propot has just better quality stuff....

Hope that Helps and clears some confusion,

Nish

[Fret Wire]

Sir Modulus: you summed it up a lot quicker and clearer than I did. I'm surprised anyone understood my point. The more I try to explain things, the less clear they seem.

Your tests are interesting. I have a pile of 847's and a couple of GCB-95's, and did the same thing. I like modding several wah's at once so I can quickly hear the differences without losing time adjusting. I haven't tried the Pro-Pot though.

The Vox, even though it comes with the Hotpotz I or II, can be dialed in better with the Fulltone type taper. But I can get the Hotpoz to sound good also.

I found the same thing you did with the Cry Baby, since it has a shorter throw, the Hotpotz' taper suits it better.

When you did this test, you illustrated how a different pot's taper affects the sound and sweep. I guess that was one of my points. You can make either sound almost the same with different ckt values. The pot whose taper suits the pedal's throw better will still prevail, but you can get real close.

More to the point, I'm seeing that the pot, inductor, and trannies are the constants, and the ckt voicings are the variables. I think you can become a prisoner of set ckt values (mods), which will limit the potential of the pot, inductor, and trannys. I'm finding that if you voice a wah, then change to a pot with a different taper, the values you had go out the window, so to speak. You then have to revoice and adjust the pot to get either the same sound, or the optimum sound the pot can produce. Just adjusting the pot won't usually work. So don't treat the pot as a set-it-and-forget-it component. Ignore set ckt values, and adjust to match the full potential of whatever pot you are using.

That was my whole point with the Clyde. The standard Clyde values are not important. Way back, they were arrived at with a pot, trannys, and inductor that aren't available today, only close replicas. So if you limit yourself by using the published values, you may not get the "Clyde Sound" which is the goal, not the parts used to achieve it. Actually, the Fulltone, and other Icar type copies are very suited to reproducing the Clyde sound. But the original values are only a starting point. If you put the same pot in a vox and cry baby, and voice both to match the Clyde sound as best you can, you'll find it took slightly different values and pot adj.'s to get there.

Even with a board set up with trimpots, it's better to adjust the pot, tweak the values, adjust the pot again, and keep going back and forth till you get the optimum sound for the constant components (inductor, trannys, and pot).

That's why I don't believe in setting a pot by the number of gear teeth alone. Measure it's sweep with a dmm in ckt also. Before you start your mod's, mark the original gear position, and record the resistance at toe up and toe down. You'll have a baseline, to go back to if your pot tweaks don't work out. After a while, you'll rely on the resistance settings more.

That's what I'm trying to plot out in black and white so it's repeatable. Not only a set of ckt values, but a set of pot sweep values that anyone can use for a set pot, inductor, and trannys. I have my own personal pot settings, but nothing all-inclusive yet.

Did that make any sense? :shock:

[dadude]

Very cool. This was the topic of the first post. It got lost in translation some where but I just wanted to show my findings. And this is where it gets fun!

The vintage VOX Clyde McCoy that I had in my shop sounded great! The best I have ever heard. It sounded just like Jimi Hendrix Voodoo Chile period. (that would be the tone I like best in a wah-wah by the way). It was a signature script version, not the picture version. I don't know if this really makes a difference but Fulltone claims it does. I have seen photos of these online. This one had the orange/yellow/black Mullard caps. Just mouth watering tone.

The original values were like this.
(Looking at the resistors and trying to find what type they were just to be anal).
1-10k 1/2W Carbon film
2-470k 1/2W Carbon film
1-1k 1/2W Carbon film
1-22k 1/2W Carbon film
1-68k 1/4W Carbon Film
2-100k 1/4W Metal film (one for the "Q")
1-470  1/4W Metal film
1-1.5k 1/4W Metal film

The transistors did not show a value on them but doing searches some people claim they used BC109's and BC173's (In my clone build I tried the stock and a set of NOS BC109's the BC109's did make it cleaner more like the wah effect in Pink Floyd's "Money")

2-.22uF  Mullard "tropical fish" (orange/yellow/black)
2-0.01uF Ducati 10000pF polystyrene caps
1-4µF Ducati polarized cap
1-100k pot (marked Centralab 100k) ICAR?

1-"Halo inductor" (I did not take a reading, sorry)

In my build I used the exact resistor types and values, I put NOS .22uf Mullard caps in, .01uf polystyrene caps, and used a 4.7uF polarized cap insted of a 4uF. I used the stock VOX inductor first and then installed a Fulltone inductor.

Now when these guys were building these back in the day, they just slapped this stuff together with what they had and at the end of the day got their paychecks and went to the bar.
My guess is they did not throw these things up on DMM's or spectrometers, or change any value other than what their foreman told them to do. It was a factory. I would bet that they adjusted the rack and gear to the desired effect and ship it, that's it.

That said my build was for the most part the same as theirs and with absolutely great results. With the stock pot (HotPotz I) and the stock VOX inductor (VOX 847) it sounded fantastic. After I put the Fulltone inductor it was almost identical to the vintage Clyde I had. Then I put the Fulltone pot in and it was a little bit better than a volume pedal. I tried adjusting it and nothing. I put the Hotpotz back in and off she went again sounding like the Clyde I had. I put the Fulltone back in, nothing, Hotpotz and again mouth watering tone. I have since built several of these for others and one for my self. All sound incredible.

If these guys were on the factory line with the same type parts I had and made a great sounding wah without tweaking the hell out of it, and I built the same sounding wah with out tweaking the hell out of it. Why would I put a pot in it that does not sound good with this circuit and have to tweak the hell out of the values it to make it sound like the original?

:wink:

[Hal]

musician's friend has a $15 plastic volume pedal.  Good deal?  I dunno.  Not really my bag.

[Fret Wire]

My guess is they did not throw these things up on DMM's or spectrometers, or change any value other than what their foreman told them to do. It was a factory. I would bet that they adjusted the rack and gear to the desired effect and ship it, that's it.

Right you are, but no doubt the designer did. Just like today, the designers test and prototype, and when it's finalized, the factory workers assemble to spec. They don't decide specs, and most would have no clue about the ckt workings anyways. A no brainer on that.

If these guys were on the factory line with the same type parts I had and made a great sounding wah without tweaking the hell out of it, and I built the same sounding wah with out tweaking the hell out of it.

Same answer as above. Well, maybe not. If this Clyde you had in your shop had carbon and metal films, they may or may not be original, depending on the year. The values are correct, however.

The Icar pot was from Italy. The Centralab from the US. The Icar's taper is different from most pots used even back then. The Centralab's taper is closer to the Hotpotz.

Then I put the Fulltone pot in and it was a little bit better than a volume pedal. I tried adjusting it and nothing.

Fulltone owes you a refund, definately a bad pot. Yes, the taper is different from the Hotpotz, but not drastically enough so there would be no wah or sweep. If a pot's taper doesn't agree with the ckt, the sweep might be dull or off the Q peak, but it would wah nonetheless.

The Halo was English, and the Fasel Italian. Take a look here and see if any of the inductors look familiar.
http://homepage.ntlworld.com/s.castledine/greenfuz/inductor.html

There is a chance that the wah you are using to make your point has been modded or worked on. Almost sounds like a mix and match of vintage type components.

Too bad you couldn't identify the transistors.

Too bad you didn't take pictures of it. When ever you get vintage equipment to work on, always take photo's. They'd be much appreciated by all here. Many companies then, as today, will substitute components due to availability or best price. EH was notorious for this.

Do you still have access to this wah? Some nice detailed close ups would be nice. You could even send them to Teese or Stuart Castledine, both of whom could easily identify it.

Was it close to this?

[dadude]

Yes it looked almost identical, except it had orange/yellow/black Mullard type caps.

The resistors were the same as in your photo. I looked online at an old radio supply place and he was showing those brown ones to be either 1/4 or 1/2 metal-film. They did not look like they had been replaced.

There is an old article on the web were Reese talks about a lot of these wahs coming stock with a Centralab 100k pot. He said these pots have an identical taper to the ICAR 100k. He even went so far as to say they mirror each other. This pot looked as stock as the rest of the pedal. Also he said the Centralab pots they put in those were from Europe.

I don't have access to this wah and yes I should have got photos. I've worked on a lot of stuff I wish I had photos of now.  

But I can tell you I had a Fulltone Clyde in a few months back and I have those values laying around here some where. I know those values were a lot different than that vintage VOX I had in my shop. I'll do some searching and post them asap.

I'm thinking that if I where to build a wah with those values it might spring that fulltone pot to life. (I still have it, they never have got back to me yet. ).

[puretube]

again a thread, which reminds me of one of the saddest days in my life...

:cry:  :oops:  :cry:  :cry:

Are you sitting on a stash of wah shells??!?!?   :?:

I wish I were...  :cry:

above pic is part of that day...