Joe Gagan Freeper Wah pic/mp3's (updated)

[tungngruv]

I perfed up MartyB's layout for Joe gagans "Freeper" wah wah as I just wasn't floored by either the stock dunlop crybaby sound or my Clyde McCoy clone (which was better than the dunlop). I built it  with a pair of BC108's and it fired right up (cool Marty!!!!). While IMO this is not the typical Voodoo Child wah sound, this to me was very different in a great way. It  "wahs" but it does so much differently: having it on doesn't make your tone real shrill when all the way forward nor does it mush out when backed off. Every tone from front to back is rich and full, not a bad spot in the whole pot rotation. Now I know what Joe meant by the sonic rainbow. Clean it's got the "Barretta" TV show sound and with a fuzz it reminds me of "Frank Marino live or Eric Gales". This one sounds so good I'm going to make a soundclip or two this weekend. A real easy build, and a cool alternative to the stock wah wah we've all heard before. Well done Joe and thanks Marty for the layout! Verified!!!!
http://home.grics.net/tungngruv/index.html

[Marcos - Munky]

Very intresting. I have a etched board for it, will be building one soon.

[Paul Marossy]

I was thinking about building that Freeper Wah. That'll keep my wah kick going a little bit longer. 

[tungngruv]

Build it Paul, it is unreal. It also got a lot better last night. I switched the BC108's around and re biased the 10k trim, makes it sound even better. I think I had the hot trannie in Q2 at first when Joe states it should be in Q1. I'm going to record a couple clips of it by Sunday but I'll have to wait a few more days to post them as my websites being redone right now (and I've swamped the web guru with stuff to put on it). If anyones interested I'll email a very small sample after Sunday, just until they are posted.

[Paul Marossy]

OK then, upwards and onwards on my wah trek! 

[Bender]

So is this a traditional sounding wah or does it do something else? Can you post or email me the schematic you have in your picture?

[tungngruv]

I just made two sound clips. They'll be on my site probably tomorrow(maybe sooner though). I have to convert them to mp3 before I mail them. I got the schem from this forum and perfed up MartyB's layout (in the layouts area on this site). Make sure to listen before you build to make sure you like it. I really like it best out of all wah's I've made. I also think I'm bent on using stuff that's not in the "traditional" pedal vein. So far, Skyripper, Freeper and Neoctavia....... Also, the gain is all from the Gagan SkyRipper. First is a Marshall set clean, the you'll hear the Fuzz turned on, then the range part. It gets a pretty good tone, I think. Also, I recorded real close to the wah so on the fast part, you'll hear a small clicking noise from the treadle hitting the switch, sorry!!!!!

[MartyB]

Okay, here's a plain vanilla short sound sample and build pic:

http://www.freewebs.com/martyb/freeper.htm

  Very unflattering.  I altered the build in four ways: jumped the 10k pot, used a ND104 9237 transistor instead of the MPS A08 (didn't have one), placed a 220 ohm resistor between the 9237 collector and the 1uF cap -  this eliminated a nasty hum tone with my transistor choice, and used a 1k trimpot instead of 500ohm.  The sound reminds me of a few things.  If you're familiar with the ELO song "Strange Magic"  it's similar to that effect.  Also the voicing effect is similar to the old jawbone/mouth harp sound (Clint Eastwood  western) .  Instead of the typical wah  W---A, it's more W--E.  It has some cool possibilities. I'm still making a cam so I can put it in a rocker pedal, so the sweep right now is just using a cheap pot and doing it by hand.  I think this effect would shine in combination with some other modulation effects.

MartyB

[tungngruv]

Hi Marty, I used a 1K trim also and turning it down a little past half worked perfect. Yours sounds similar to mine. My two clips (clean, then dirty) will probabaly up later tonight or tomorrow.

[MartyB]

Hi Tungngruv!  If you need a program for converting wav to mp3 I think Acoustica has a trial software that'll do it.  I ended up buying it and use it all the time.  I'm sure there's gobs of way to do this though.

http://www.acoustica.com/downloading.asp?p=2

[tungngruv]

OK,  Jerry, the guy doing my web got the soundclips up. Just got to the "sounds page" and take a listen.
http://home.grics.net/tungngruv/index.html

BTW, check out that "SkyRipper" tone!!!! Clean amp, gain from the pedal only and 1 Shure SM58 done short and sweet (RDV style )

[MartyB]

That's a great site and the sounds are too!   Which clip is the skyripper, I couldn't find it.

[tungngruv]

Marty, the Skyripper is the dirty tone on the freeper clip. I'm going to do a few SkyRipper mp3's but I have a house full of family at the moment and I'll have to move if I play anymore guitar today. Thanks for the killer layout Marty!!!!!

[B Tremblay]

What transistors did you use and do you have any pin voltages you could share?  I breaded the circuit earlier and found that there was a fair amount of distortion when the Q1 emitter trim was set to provide a higher resonance peak.  Is yours clean and "peaky" as well?

Thanks for sharing the clips!

[MartyB]

Q1:  PN2222
      E = 0
      B = 0.585
      C = 2.5

Q2:  9287 ND104
      E = 8.29
      B = 2.50
      C = 1.85

Yes, I had to fiddle with the trimpot quite a bit and try a few different trannies before I got the gain I wanted without dist, squeal, vol loss.  And I had to put a 220ohm resistor bridging from Q2's collector to the board side of the 1uF cap. 

[tungngruv]

I used 2 BC108's I got from Analog Tom, the hot one in Q1

Battery: 9.79v
I hope the next part is right, I took measurements 3x to make sure. Input jack plugged in, black lead to ground, red to each pin of the Trannies.


Q1
E = 2.77
B = .9001
C = 2.01

Q2
E = 9.44
B = 2.009
C = 1.361

I also noticed that I had rebias the 10K trim several times to dial it in, and the 1K had to be brought down just to get rid of some boost when the pedal switched on (it got a lot louder!!!). Also, the 1K if set too high brought in some distortion that took away the clarity of the wah tone. Hope that helps.

[joegagan]

tung, that sounds really good to me.
it is very similar sounding to mine and gives a good representation of the 'mellow' aspect of the freeper wah

it is good to listen without a preconceived notion of the 'standard' wah that we are used to.

a cool wah to me has a 'watery' quality, or something like sweet candy for the ear.

I like the part on your clean clip that has the fast wa, a very nice 'ear candy'/leslie/vintage feel

I am in Omaha( for a wedding), away from Freeper, can't confirm any voltages etc, but the posted observations about biasing are consistent with my experience. There seems to be a sweet spot where the gain is optimal for wide dramatic sweep, but right on the edge of squeal.
I can't remember any distortion problems , but it has been a while since I tweaked this up.

by the way your guitar playing sounds excellent as well!

[joegagan]

oh ok , marty b I realized you had clips as well.
Yours sounds like mine did during certain phases of the tweaking process
I think that effect has interesting possibilities, def. not the usual wah sound, but very nice.

[tungngruv]

There seems to be a sweet spot where the gain is optimal for wide dramatic sweep, but right on the edge of squeal.

Exactly right. Thanks for posting the schematic Joe.

[Marcos - Munky]

Very cool sound. I Will try to finish mine soon. I think it have a kind of Phaser feel.