Opinions about Wah Inductors?

[dumbmonkey]

Hi everyone,
I'm planning on building a new wah in a Dunlop Bass Wah shell.  It's white; which I think will look pretty cool.  Anyway, I'm trying to make a decision regarding the inductor and it's a choice between a Dunlop Yellow Fasel and a Sabbadius Soul Inductor that is listed at Small Bear.  Has anyone tried both and have an opinion on which one I should go with?
On another note, if anyone is interested in the bass wah innards, get in touch.  I'd prefer to give them to someone, rather than have them sit on my workbench or thrown away.
Thanks!

[tubelectron]

Hi dumbmonkey,

I tested many of them, but sorry, not (for now) the ones you mention...

To be clear, while experimenting, I discovered that there is many other parameters in wah circuit designing to take in count that it seems IMHO impossible to give you a reliable advice about the inductor you should go with. If it is not already done, I suggest you to read R.G. Keen's web article "the technology of wah pedals".

Moreover, you may first try to "tweak" a bit your bass wah with its existing inductor first, and with other ones after - I thing that this circuit is a good basis to start.

In addition, there is many "unknown" inductors which would be able to work surprisingly well in a wah, despite their junky/odd look and original destination, such like miniature audio transformers, coils from industrial filters... Everything with a DC resistance between 10 to 100 ohms, and inductance (if you can measure it) between 200mH to 1H is subject to trials - with some tweaking about the RC values, gains of transistors, damping of the Q factor of the inductor, etc... Good surprises in perspective.

I do not have all my infos on hand but, for example, in several GCB-95 I measured 650-670mH / 15-18ohms, my Colorsound is a 800mH / 40 ohms, I used with success an industrial adjustable coil of 600mH / 70ohms and big 510mh / 25ohms toroidal coils. My Apollo wah (shin-Ei) is fitted with a miniature audio trafo. Some of them have been rejected because they were too much schock-vibration-noisy sensitive, despite their good wah performance. I think that the inductor you have in your bass wah is probably the same as the GCB-95, so you can try to convert it to guitar, as an exercise !

A+!

[23]

Yellow fasel to me is a bit grittier and les polished than the Sabbadius soul indcutor. To me the soul inductor is a good thing for coping mccoy picutre tone. Im not going into specifics or trying to align words in explaining the wah tone difference as everyone hears something different, just look at the number of Mccoy clones and non of them sound the same, but from what I hear in my head I stated in the first 2 sentences. I have a yellow fasel in a wah I tuned specificly for distortion....022 sweep cap, vol + mod, mids + mod, gain and bass + mod, tru bypass and realigned the pot for more bass, and when I say + I mean as high as recommned by stinkfoot. So to me its a gritty unpolished inductor, not hi fi tone at all. I ahve the soul inductor in guess what a MCcoy modded V847... tropical fish caps, polystyrene in put and sweep cap, sweep mod .015, 100k vocal mod, volume + mod and arteffect icar taper pot, pot rotated for a bit more treble. LOve this wah for clean funk and of course hendrix stuff, thus my opinion on the sabbidius soul.

so really not only is it the inductor is every freakin thing in it that adds to the sum...... put the inductor in and mod to the sound you want with it in there, if you cant afford to mod 2 wah socket the inductors and choose then mod.


sands

[Brymus]

I just "fixed" an original old V847 that belongs to the owner of the local music store. (he bought it at a yard sale 30 years ago)
It was noisy and had almost no wah.
I was under the impession that it was the pot and old inductor as everything else measured in spec.
But after playing with several inductors and a new pot,I was sure it needed a new red fasil.
In the end though a 5$  100K wah pot (in place of the more expensive ones I tried) and two resistors and the old inductor sounds amazing.
All the old Ducati caps were still good,and it had BC173B trannies in it.

Just saying like the post above you can make the inductor sound different by changing other components first.

You can see the 100R 220uf filter  for the power supply.
The board was gooped really bad,more pics in my gallery.
FWIW
While I was at it,I tried the Radio Shack 1k-8ohm tansformer as an inductor.
Its OK,but the Radio Shack 12V 300ma transformer sounds amazing when using the primary as an inductor,its just a wee big.

[ayayay!]

Its OK,but the Radio Shack 12V 300ma transformer sounds amazing when using the primary as an inductor,its just a wee big.

Amazing?  Please elaborate.   

[HOTTUBES]

Anyone tryed a Wipple inductor yet .......rumoured to be killer !! 

[Paul Marossy]

To be clear, while experimenting, I discovered that there is many other parameters in wah circuit designing to take in count that it seems IMHO impossible to give you a reliable advice about the inductor you should go with.

That's because you have to look at the circuit as a whole. The only thing that the inductor does in a wah is makes it a resonant circuit, it's not THE component that gives the wah pedal its sound like everyone wants to believe. There's a whole lot of other factors involved, too. The inductor is just one piece of the pie.

[Brymus]

Its OK,but the Radio Shack 12V 300ma transformer sounds amazing when using the primary as an inductor,its just a wee big.

Amazing?  Please elaborate.   

It just had more,Quack,or wah or honk or whatever is the vaguely descriptive word that fits.
A real shame cause it wont fit in a Crybaby except at the toe where the footswitch goes.
But I am sure there are other transformers that will work.

None of the inductors I pulled from TVs had enough inductance to use.
The 10K to 10k tranny from the bass fuzz works OK too, if you go to the center tap and one leg of the primary.
All my comparisons were done on my breadboard with a Mc Coy circuit and a 100K pot in a remote treadle.

[ayayay!]

It just had more,Quack,or wah or honk or whatever is the vaguely descriptive word that fits.
A real shame cause it wont fit in a Crybaby except at the toe where the footswitch goes.
But I am sure there are other transformers that will work.

None of the inductors I pulled from TVs had enough inductance to use.
The 10K to 10k tranny from the bass fuzz works OK too, if you go to the center tap and one leg of the primary.
All my comparisons were done on my breadboard with a Mc Coy circuit and a 100K pot in a remote treadle.

Gotcha, thanks.  

Anyone tryed a Wipple inductor yet .......rumoured to be killer !!  

It's cool.  Throaty.  I still like a yellow Fasel, but I still think you can get way more mileage with other mods first.

[Joe Hart]

I am interested in the bass wah innards!!
-Joe Hart

[Seven64]

i have a wah from 1981, and the SOD inductor is amazing!

[joegagan]

arteffect makes a SOD replica that i tried. tests out very well. they were making a halo replica but i am not sure if they have them in stock anymore.

[joegagan]

seven64,  i have also seen crybabies as late as early 80s with SOD inductors. they sound great.

[wavley]

arteffect makes a SOD replica that i tried. tests out very well. they were making a halo replica but i am not sure if they have them in stock anymore.

I have one of those ArielFX Halo's, it's pretty nice.  I like it a lot, but I can't say that it's a huge improvement on the TDK I was swapping out in a Thomas Organ Crybaby, I ended up putting the TDK in a newer crybaby and it ended up sounding great.

[23]

Correct me if Im wrong but I think I read somewhere that the mccoy wahs and the crybabys originally had the same inductor, just that the crybaby had a different "wrapper" so to say as in the name/description Stack o dimes and well the mccoy halo.   

[tubelectron]

Anyone tryed a Wipple inductor yet .......rumoured to be killer !! 

Yes, HOTTUBES. These are very good. I have both of them measured at : 516mH/29R0 , 508mH/28R8 , so fairly consistent.

Here's my tubelectron vintage talking wah with a Whipple - DIYed in an used CryBaby shell :




The Whipple inductor would be an excellent choice for the ClydeMcCoy VOX wah, IMHO.

But you can chose scratch parts by trial and error, like audio transformers or any, with success, as in my 2nd vintage wah, built in swell enclosure :



A+!

[23]

Nice!

[Joe Hart]

On another note, if anyone is interested in the bass wah innards, get in touch.  I'd prefer to give them to someone, rather than have them sit on my workbench or thrown away.

Do you still have the bass wah innards?
-Joe Hart

[dumbmonkey]

Sorry Joe, I don't have the innards anymore.

[23]

hey tubeelectron where did you get the inductor in the bottom pic? I see rathon but what exactly is it?

sands