Let's talk wahs

[aron]

I have a lot to learn about modding wahs, but even more importantly, I do not know what a really great wah sounds like!!! Can someone provide a great example of a really "vocal" wah?? I mean, when great wah tones are described, what songs are people talking about?

[tehfunk]

I have a lot to learn about modding wahs, but even more importantly, I do not know what a really great wah sounds like!!! Can someone provide a great example of a really "vocal" wah?? I mean, when great wah tones are described, what songs are people talking about?

I agree, I modded my wah, but how am I supposed to know what is considered the classic sound that everyone is trying to achieve. I know it's about whether you like your own sound, but I just want to know what everyone else is always referring to when they say that great or classic wah sound.

[Exactopposite]

I have a lot to learn about modding wahs, but even more importantly, I do not know what a really great wah sounds like!!! Can someone provide a great example of a really "vocal" wah?? I mean, when great wah tones are described, what songs are people talking about?

some of my personal favorites:

Jimi
"Still Raining Still Dreaming"
"The Buring of the Midnight Lamp"
"born under a bad sign"
"room full of mirrors" (from disk 3 of the box set)

Curtis Mayfield
"(Don't Worry) If There's A Hell Below We're All Going To Go"
"superfly" the album

Prince:
"Sexy MF"

Derek and The Dominoes (live at the fillmore)
"why does love got to be so sad"

Robin Trower:
"Alethea" (from the "for earth below/ live" cd)

sharon jones & the dap kings
"Casella walk"

Isaac  Hayes
"Hyperbolicsyllabicsesquedalymistic"

my wahs are tuned to be the way that I like them , i can't make any comments on how much they sound like anything else really. if anybody else uses my wah it's not going to sound the same anyway because we play differently.

My vox style wahs have the following mods (i built the circuits myself for all but one of them)

330 ohm bass/gain resistor
10uf electrolytic to replace the 4.7 uf
100k Q resistor
true bypass
47k Input resistor
fulltone pot
all using some combination of bc108b or bc108c transistors
whipple or fasel inductor (red or ylw)

I  have another that has the q resistor removed and replaced the 1k resistor at the collector of Q2 with a jumper. It's kind dof a vox/colorsound hybrid i guess. if i remember right, this one has a red fasel.

I also a colorsound reissue that i replaced the board in with one that i built the classic colorsoud (with inductor) circuit on. It's built to the specs of the schematic that is floating around. it has a whipple inductor

I've got way too many wahs really.

[mistercoffee1]

For my Vox Clyde clone:
Pot - I like the Fulltone the best.  Why?  Because the bass hangs on the heel side of the sweep a little longer and has a good midrange to the sweep.  The DIYA 100k Clyde pots that I've found on ebay are the same functionally.
The HotpotzII sweeps too quickly out of the heel and has no middle of the sweep.  It does work great though for Tom Morello type quick wah action, so I like this in my 80's Dunlop Crybaby.
If I can find them, I like the original Clarostat and Allen Bradley Hotpotz I for old Thomas and old Dunlop Crybabys the best.
The only pot that I absolutely hate are the blue Bournes pots (I believe some were labeled with as Hotpotz around the early 90's).

Inductor - I like the Whipple the best.  It's got a great midrange as well as a sweet top end.
I've also got the Stack of Dimes in two of my Crybaby wahs, which I like; great with distortion.  Fasels are too inconsistent for me to call; I guess I don't use them because Whipples are so consistent.

Transistors - I like the BC10* variety, around a 400hfe on Q1 and around 380hfe on Q2.  With that, I run a standard 470 ohm resistor off the emitter of Q1 (or 450).  I also like the old 5117 found on Thomas and some old Dunlops.

Resistors - I like 100k parallel to the inductor on a Vox type.  My Crybabys have 33k parallel to the inductors.
Midrange resistors at 1.5k.
Input resistors at 47k with True Bypass, otherwise 68k without.
Sweep Caps - 0.01uF Polystyrene.  I would like to try 0.011uF, 0.012uF, I still like the top end that I get with the 0.01 though.

Finally, half bumpers on the heel and toe of the rocker.

[newfish]

So, in a fit of curiosity, I've just ordered a Fasel Red inductor for my stock Crybaby.

I've not been entirely happy with the sound I've had recently, so it was worth the nominal amount to see if there really *is* a huge improvement.

Will post results once I've replaced the stock inductor.

[Exactopposite]

The fasel will definitely make a difference. Keep in mind that the inductor is just one ingredient though.

[petemoore]

  I did a lot of fiddlingwith the 847.
  Inductor made it more quacky, so I figured it could use some mods.
  There are so many things that can be modded...
  And the new CB is much more usable, but still needs a replacement pot...
  And the 847 ? ... I think I need to pick a schematic and mostly start over on that one, I like wah effects, keeping them going for a while has always been a challenge greater than my wahs..

[noelgrassy]

I've never tried mixing up the gains between the 2 xistors. Thanks for the tip!

For many years I was happy with my "stack O'dimes" wah and my Maestro Boomerang. They both have inductors in the 500mH range. Funny how the Boomer
just needs a 25K pot to pull off his Wah duties. Oh, and be a volume pedal too.

Then I bought a RMC Picture Wah and thought it did a remarkable job of sounding like my SO'D wah. No revelation really. I bought a Whipple 'L' and made a
board around it. I'll drop it in to my Cry Baby and report back. I used BC109C in Q1 & Q2. I finally found some non-polarized 3.3uf caps which I will pair with a
.68 or .47uf film cap to see if the ideal is right around 4uf as seen in the Clydes. As you can see I'm a firm believer in Mojeaux and all it's mythological trappings.

The Whipple Board-


The Pedal Top!

The original board with SO'Dimes...

[newfish]

Well...

Spent the evening trying various mods to my Crybaby...

Replaced the Inductor (to Red Fasel) and its parallel resistor (to 47K) first of all - this did indeed make a difference.
Lots more character - to my ears anyway.

Next, I tried changing the 'sweep' cap from 100nF to 220nF and wasn't really that impressed.
Whilst it does shave some of the extreme tops off, the bass boost it also gives was way more than I was looking for.

...so I changed it back...

Finally, I replaced the stock 1K5 resistor (midrange mod) with 2K2 - and this gave me a much smoother change from bass to treble.

Sorry there are no sound clips, it's sort of late here and the rest of the family are in bed.

On the plus side, I now reckon I could take a Crybaby apart blindfolded!   

Thanks to Paul Marossy's excellent site on Wah Mods for the information.

If I'm OK to post a link, it's here...

http://www.diyguitarist.com/DIYStompboxes/WahMod.htm

Interestingly, I now prefer my Wah 'clean' as opposed to 'waaaaay lots of gain'.
Does this mean I'm becoming a responsible member of the community?

[YouAre]

My vox style wahs have the following mods (i built the circuits myself for all but one of them)

330 ohm bass/gain resistor
10uf electrolytic to replace the 4.7 uf
100k Q resistor
true bypass
47k Input resistor
fulltone pot
all using some combination of bc108b or bc108c transistors
whipple or fasel inductor (red or ylw)

I  have another that has the q resistor removed and replaced the 1k resistor at the collector of Q2 with a jumper. It's kind dof a vox/colorsound hybrid i guess. if i remember right, this one has a red fasel.

I also a colorsound reissue that i replaced the board in with one that i built the classic colorsoud (with inductor) circuit on. It's built to the specs of the schematic that is floating around. it has a whipple inductor

I've got way too many wahs really.

what's changing the 4.7uF cap to 10uF do?

Also, how does the whipple compare to the HALO (probably a tough question cause the differences are probably subjective) ? And where can i get one? 

[Gila_Crisis]

well, right now my wah is looking like this:

[Exactopposite]

My vox style wahs have the following mods (i built the circuits myself for all but one of them)

330 ohm bass/gain resistor
10uf electrolytic to replace the 4.7 uf
100k Q resistor
true bypass
47k Input resistor
fulltone pot
all using some combination of bc108b or bc108c transistors
whipple or fasel inductor (red or ylw)

I  have another that has the q resistor removed and replaced the 1k resistor at the collector of Q2 with a jumper. It's kind dof a vox/colorsound hybrid i guess. if i remember right, this one has a red fasel.

I also a colorsound reissue that i replaced the board in with one that i built the classic colorsoud (with inductor) circuit on. It's built to the specs of the schematic that is floating around. it has a whipple inductor

I've got way too many wahs really.

what's changing the 4.7uF cap to 10uF do?

Also, how does the whipple compare to the HALO (probably a tough question cause the differences are probably subjective) ? And where can i get one? 

the 10uf makes the wah sound fatter and less trebly. I got the idea from the colorsound  wah. You could also try a 6.8 uf there if you want to split the difference. The whipple IS a halo inductor. The guy who makes them only sells them on ebay. I have a couple of them but I have never compared them to another halo inductor. I have an eleca halo but I still haven't taken time to try it out.

[Gila_Crisis]

this weekend i changed the inductor on my wah. i always thought the inductor was the minor part in the wah-sound, but after reading a bit about this topic on the net i decided to give it a try.
in my vox there was the standard black-cylindrical inductor used by dunlop and i changed it with a yellow Fasel.

i'm really pleased with the results. now my wah sounds fatter and warmer than before!!!

[Gila_Crisis]

this weekend i changed the inductor on my wah. i always thought the inductor was the minor part in the wah-sound, but after reading a bit about this topic on the net i decided to give it a try.
in my vox there was the standard stock black-cylindrical inductor used by dunlop and i changed it with a yellow Fasel.

i'm really pleased with the results. now my wah sounds fatter and warmer than before!!!

[Wales]

 Question for those more wah knowledgeable than me.

One of my favorite uses of a wah is to leave it half %^&*ed to where there is a small oscillation to the notes as they go through. To me its kinda sounds like microscopic phaser or flanger. It is so tiny that a non guitarist would never hear it, but I love it!. It's hard to find the "sweet" spot, but worth it.

Now the question: I have found that not every wah will do this, I would say about thirty percent of the wah's I have played will do it (i have only try crybaby's though). And of course I traded my favorite wah cause it was just a crybaby that I could buy anywhere, or so I thought cause i can't get my present crybaby to do it. Does any know what i am talking about? Does anyone know what causes this and how I can mod my GCB-95 to do this? Maybe its the difference between a cheap inductor and a quality one, the cheap one can't be dialed in as precise is my guess.

[Exactopposite]

Question for those more wah knowledgeable than me.

One of my favorite uses of a wah is to leave it half %^&*ed to where there is a small oscillation to the notes as they go through. To me its kinda sounds like microscopic phaser or flanger. It is so tiny that a non guitarist would never hear it, but I love it!. It's hard to find the "sweet" spot, but worth it.

Now the question: I have found that not every wah will do this, I would say about thirty percent of the wah's I have played will do it (i have only try crybaby's though). And of course I traded my favorite wah cause it was just a crybaby that I could buy anywhere, or so I thought cause i can't get my present crybaby to do it. Does any know what i am talking about? Does anyone know what causes this and how I can mod my GCB-95 to do this? Maybe its the difference between a cheap inductor and a quality one, the cheap one can't be dialed in as precise is my guess.

I'm not sure that I follow exactly what you are describing.  My guess would be that increasing the Q resistor could make you more able to zeron in on the sound you are speaking of though.

[Wales]

My guess would be that increasing the Q resistor could make you more able to zeron in on the sound you are speaking of though.

Do you mean increasing the Q resistor or increasing the Q itself by lowering the resistor?

[Exactopposite]

increasing the resistor increases the Q

[MohiZ]

Does anyone know what's the difference between using an electrolytic or non-polarized cap from the inductor to ground? I'm talking about a "two-transistor wah of the classic Vox style" such as the one in this article:
http://www.geofex.com/Article_Folders/wahpedl/wahped.htm

From what I understand, it's important that the cap is big enough (at least 4.7uF), but on some schematics a non-polarized cap is required, while some schematics show a polarized electrolytic cap there.

[Exactopposite]

Does anyone know what's the difference between using an electrolytic or non-polarized cap from the inductor to ground? I'm talking about a "two-transistor wah of the classic Vox style" such as the one in this article:
http://www.geofex.com/Article_Folders/wahpedl/wahped.htm

From what I understand, it's important that the cap is big enough (at least 4.7uF), but on some schematics a non-polarized cap is required, while some schematics show a polarized electrolytic cap there.

it shouldn't be a big deal whether it's polarized or not. I've tried both and I couldn't tell any difference. Of course, that doesn't prove that there is no difference, but if there is one it's subtle at best. Making the value of that cap larger than 4.7 can make the wah sound fatter. Drop a 10uf in there and u should definitely hear the difference.