FASEL inductors. Someone explain!

[sevenisthenumber]

I'm wanting to try a new inductor in my modded crybaby but i have some questions that hours of searching haven't answered.

Questions:

1) What will the Fasel do to the tone vs. the stock inductor?
2) What is the difference in detail of the RED and Yellow Fasel?
3) Where is the cheapest place to purchase them?

Any help in this area would make me a happy person!

[Paul Marossy]

www.tubesandmore.com has a pretty good price on the Fasel inductors and also a short description of them. I honestly can't tell much of a difference between the two.

[bancika]

www.tubesandmore.com has a pretty good price on the Fasel inductors and also a short description of them.

it's more of a worship tale than a description Do they really sound noticeably better?

[ethanw]

I bought a few from this Ebay store pretty cheap:  http://search.ebay.com/_W0QQfrppZ50QQfsooZ1QQfsopZ1QQrdZ0QQsassZjustisinc

[YouAre]

I've had experience with the stock crybaby/vox inductor, the Red Fasel, and the ArielFX Halo, and I've found enough of a difference between all 3 to have 2 being switchable in my wah. I don't like the stock inductor, its just generic sounding. Can get muddy. The fasel seems like it saturates a little bit nicer with gain. It definitely "feels" high gain, and it does work well when I use it with high gain. Compared to the halo, its slightly darker maybe? The halo sounds "sweeter." Think what a vintage wah should sound like. Together in a wah, I get my vintage and my modern sounds. Well worth the nearly $50 they cost together IMO.

[ayayay!]

After trying the stock GCB-95 and the red Fasel, I can tell there's a difference easily enough, but whoopee.  I guess it's all about how much salt you like on your fries, really.  It's just a flavor, but not a dealbreaker for me.  I can get a stock wah to sound almost like it has a Fasel after some mods so it's a non-issue.  My two cents.   

[the recluse]

I bought my Fasel from the store on this forum.  Aron sells them for a very good price.

[aankrom]

I once read that the Fasels ended up sounding great in wah's because they were a bit crappy. The DC bias in the circuit magnetized the core a bit, and this produced a unique kind of asymmetric distortion. You would not see this in a brand-new Fasel inductor. You'd have to use it a lot and let it "mellow".

A good substitute is that cheap audio transformer that you can get at radio shack: you know the tiny 1kOhmCT primary: 8Ohm secondary. People have recommended this for use as a makeshift 500mH inductor, but you can emulate the Fasel by putting a floating variable constant current source on the 8Ohm secondary. Something like an LM334 or an FET-based one would be what you'd want to use. You can use an LM317 as a constant current source, but it won't give you a small enough current.

Some day I will post a schematic of a cricuit I designed. I haven't tested it yet, but it promises to be good. Mine is going into what I call a "Yowee Stick" (2 wah-wah pedal circuits built inside an analog joystick).

aa

[gribus]

Some day I will post a schematic of a cricuit I designed. I haven't tested it yet, but it promises to be good. Mine is going into what I call a "Yowee Stick" (2 wah-wah pedal circuits built inside an analog joystick)

I think this a go(o)d   time to publish a schematic for Wah

[MrStab]

http://www.geofex.com/article_folders/wahpedl/wahped.htm#inductor

elaborates upon Aankrom's point about their imperfections being exploited

[mac]

Some guys add a small magnet near the inductor. Those pizza ads in the fridge door work fine.

http://www.pisotones.com/Tri-Wah/Wah.htm

mac

[george]

I have a GCB-95

tried the mods to resistors with the standard inductor

Then I soldered in a yellow fasel and tried to tweak the mods to get a sound I was happy with.

Then I soldered in a red fasel and took all the above mods out because it doesn't need them to sound good.

Oh and the fridge magnet stuck to the top of the stock inductor ain't worth a pinch of sh*t.  Maybe because it wasn't a pizza magnet lol.

Haven't tried an ArielFX inductor or a Whipple but have to say a Red Fasel sounds pretty damn good.

YMMV

[mac]

Oh and the fridge magnet stuck to the top of the stock inductor ain't worth a pinch of sh*t.  Maybe because it wasn't a pizza magnet lol.

you can try a slice of pepperoni

mac

[Calambres]

Well, I'm the guy who wrote (maaaany moons ago) the cited article regarding the "fridge magnets" and all I can say is that it works. You may not like the result but it works for sure. It adds a bit of "grit" to the sound and, if you cannot hear it, rotate the magnet or flip it over until you get a change in the sound. The magnet must be the "foil" type and not very strong. It is not a radical change but fairly noticeable.

It won't work with inductors encased in steel that some wahs may have.

[strassercaster]

In myho the fasels are ok. you will get much more tone and range out of a halo like the whipple. The tone tank is awesome as well.i have a wah wah with 5 inductors. . it was my first project with guitar pedals. what are you wanting the circuit to do better or more of?

I found that the transistors are vey important in a wahw wah. Read the Geofex technology of the wah wah. the 33k controls a lot of the quack if you want more quack put a 47k or 56k resistor there. if you want more basschange out the .22 caps for .27. If you want more mids change the 1.5 resistor to 1.8k or 2k. if you want more bass you can also change the .01 cap too a .022. i put the .01 on a on off on with a .01 in the middle a ..0022 on the bottom and a .oo68 on top the .01 is always on so when its on the bottom i have a .0122 and top .0169 on top . nice range for different genres. i think the biggest and best change you can make though is the transistors. i like the older wahs so i put some bc109c in that i measure the gain at 250hfe this made it less distorted an mellower. i also put these on switches so i have low medium and high gain options . also if you want more bass you can take the 390 or 42o  ohm down to 260-330 ohms this has a big affect on the bass as well. once you get a decent inductor you can tweak it anyway you want. Have fun

[LightSoundGeometry]

In myho the fasels are ok. you will get much more tone and range out of a halo like the whipple. The tone tank is awesome as well.i have a wah wah with 5 inductors. . it was my first project with guitar pedals. what are you wanting the circuit to do better or more of?

I found that the transistors are vey important in a wahw wah. Read the Geofex technology of the wah wah. the 33k controls a lot of the quack if you want more quack put a 47k or 56k resistor there. if you want more basschange out the .22 caps for .27. If you want more mids change the 1.5 resistor to 1.8k or 2k. if you want more bass you can also change the .01 cap too a .022. i put the .01 on a on off on with a .01 in the middle a ..0022 on the bottom and a .oo68 on top the .01 is always on so when its on the bottom i have a .0122 and top .0169 on top . nice range for different genres. i think the biggest and best change you can make though is the transistors. i like the older wahs so i put some bc109c in that i measure the gain at 250hfe this made it less distorted an mellower. i also put these on switches so i have low medium and high gain options . also if you want more bass you can take the 390 or 42o  ohm down to 260-330 ohms this has a big affect on the bass as well. once you get a decent inductor you can tweak it anyway you want. Have fun

heya Billy!

we are in magnetism right now, havent gotten to induction yet, I am still working on a relay circuit with two voltages sources...its helping me understand the switching parts of a circuit though. 

Billy, there are two new HUGE builds on FX ..lol ..one is I think 36 x 38 with over 100 cuts

took me forever ..like 3 hours to get a relay working ..I may not make it lolol..shit is starting to get into straight filthy physics really fast ..

cant wait to put the MadBean Sun King together ..the board is 4 inches long ..noway in hell I am going for a layout like this on my own yet haha !








finally got the relay circuit set up right ..damn this shit gets confusing sometimes.

[flopoeko]

On Fasels now and then:

The vintage Fasels were 14x11 Pot-Core inductors, the current Fasels, both red and yellow (despite the latter being advertised as a cup core which is bs, I opened one up) are torroidal-inductors. The difference is that the current yellow ones seem to have more inductance than the current red one. They also both have a dc-resistance of about 16Ω, which is way less then the vintage ones...

[MrStab]

thanks for that, flopoeko, i didn't know that at all. i always had a feeling it was too good to be true for the exact same "defective" spec to be made for 5 straight decades. but then, i know zero about inductor manufacturing.