Crunchy wah sound?

[sengo]

Hey guys,

After listening to The Burning of The Midnight Lamp and In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida a few too many times, I've become intrigued by how you make a wah have a really crunchy sweep? Is it the inductor, or the amp, or maybe a fuzz box with the fuzz all the way down? If anyone knows what needs to be done to a wah to accomplish this I would like to hear from you!

Thanks,

Nick

[JasonG]

The guitarist for Iron Butterfly had a custom wah / fuzz pedal. I have seen pictures of it it was real psychedelic. I have a Maestro boomer 2 and until I modified it it was super crunchy. I think it was the low gain transistors clipping. You could probably get the same sound by putting an overdrive in front of it. Maby build a 1 transistor booster and bias it so it clips.

[8mileshigh]

A custom fuzz wah ?  I could have sworn that he was using a Ge Fuzzrite.  Didn't they use Mosrite guitars ?

[alderbody]

Hey guys,

After listening to The Burning of The Midnight Lamp and In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida a few too many times, I've become intrigued by how you make a wah have a really crunchy sweep? Is it the inductor, or the amp, or maybe a fuzz box with the fuzz all the way down? If anyone knows what needs to be done to a wah to accomplish this I would like to hear from you!

Thanks,

Nick

It's the wah and amp mostly.

The wah has to be an inductor type, Vox style.

The amp should be Marshall - like...

Listen to the clips at the bottom of this page:
http://www.diystompboxes.com/userfiles/index.php?&direction=0&order=&directory=public_downloads/alderbody

It's my Wah into a Thor pedal (marshall sound).

[JasonG]

I don't doubt that at one time they did use a fuzzrite. Maby the fuzz/wah was a latter addition. I saw one of the 5 he had made for him on ebay. It looked like maby an el shine(?) with some mods.

[Marcos - Munky]

I use the Golden Dragon OD to get crunchy and as clean as possible sounds. Do a search for it, maybe if you try it with a wah you get the sound you want.

[sengo]

Lots of good responses, thank you as always! I listened to the Wah/Thor combo, I think that is exactly what I'm going for. Unfortunately I have never been able to get pedals using Jfets to sound good. Maybe third time will go better, but I have a Professor Tweed and a Blue Magic which never get any grit even with a booster in front of them. Time to do some putsing.

Nick