Reverse Wah?

[jayp5150]

I can't recall if anyone has ever brought this up, but I've always felt that the sweep of a wah is "backwards" to me. For some reason, I feel that toe-down should be the bass side.

Anyway, I know that you could just flip the wiring to lugs 1 and 3 on the pot, but would the unique sweep of most wah pots cause a weird issue (or a wicked cool one )?

Also, would wiring up a DPDT to swap those two connections (so you'd have a regular/reverse switch) cause any problems in the circuit? I don't see how it would. I'm thinking keep the wiper wired as-is, and wire the switch like a phase switch in a guitar, right?

I will experiment with this when I have the chance, this is just something I was thinking of when I was driving last night. I know that when Dunlop offers me my signature wah, more people will buy one with a reverse/regular switch that one that's just reversed all the time lol *wakes from dream land*

[bumblebee]

I feel the same,its backwards for me,i been meaning to swap it for a while,I'll do it tomorrow i reckon.

Yea,a dpdt would work fine for a "both" option,think about all the times ya wired a guitar pot backwards when your learning....it worked fine but backwards hey!

[RickL]

Reversing the wires will work fine but you'll also have to adjust the position of the rack on the pot gear since most wahs only use part of the rotation of the pot. That is also the problem with using a switch to change between forward and reverse wahs. It will work in principle but you'll get either a good sweep in one direction and a crappy sweep the other way or a compromise in both directions that you probably won't be happy with.

I tried something similar using a Craig Anderton Dual Filter. I used a dual pot to sweep both filters, which sounded cool, but when I tried reversing the connections on one half of the pot to get opposite sweeps at the same time I was disappointed. The reversed filter sounded like mud because it was sweeping in too low a frequency range because of the position of the pot.

[Paul Marossy]

Reversing the wires will work fine but you'll also have to adjust the position of the rack on the pot gear since most wahs only use part of the rotation of the pot. That is also the problem with using a switch to change between forward and reverse wahs. It will work in principle but you'll get either a good sweep in one direction and a crappy sweep the other way or a compromise in both directions that you probably won't be happy with.

+1

[jayp5150]

I knew there had to be a down-side. I just hadn't had a chance to mess around with it. I guess I'll just hard-wire it backwards when it comes time to re-do my crybaby. It would still be worth experimenting with. We'll see.

Thanks, guys.

[Sir H C]

IIRC Electro-Harmonix wahs had a reverse sweep option.  Some of the early Japanese wahs were reverse too.

[bumblebee]

Reversing the wires will work fine but you'll also have to adjust the position of the rack on the pot gear since most wahs only use part of the rotation of the pot. That is also the problem with using a switch to change between forward and reverse wahs. It will work in principle but you'll get either a good sweep in one direction and a crappy sweep the other way or a compromise in both directions that you probably won't be happy with.

I tried something similar using a Craig Anderton Dual Filter. I used a dual pot to sweep both filters, which sounded cool, but when I tried reversing the connections on one half of the pot to get opposite sweeps at the same time I was disappointed. The reversed filter sounded like mud because it was sweeping in too low a frequency range because of the position of the pot.

Hahah,your right....i didnt even think of that.

So there goes the "both" option unless you could find a position in which the sweep is equall on either and more importantly,sound good.

[Shakal]

Maybe u can use 2 pots, rotating both, DPDT toggles between them.