Modified Digitech Whammy

[mccloud]

Another very newbie question...

A friend has an original Digitech Whammy pedal (not sure which mark, apparently its the blue one?  I will clarify this asap)  he wants to use it with a bass.  He says its not very responsive on the lower notes, its sounds pretty crappy until you get up to the 12th fret.

Is it possible to make a modifications to the pedal to make it suitable for bass guitar?

Any ideas would be great, thanks

[SISKO]

If its blue, then it is the bass Whammy -the only one- (guitar Whammys are red).
For the whammy to track well you have to set the input level correctly, that is the input level led should light when playing normally and when playibg too hard, the red led (clipping led) should light also.

Try that. Also, a compressor before the Whammy always help

[jpiddy118]

Compressor is a BIG help... old Boss 3-knob worked great for me.

[mccloud]

Thanks for that.. I've just spoken to him, it's def a guitar whammy, mark 2 (very dark blue almost black?).
Apparently the sound gets a bit 'muddy' on the lower notes, but sounds great higher up the neck.
I'm guessing it would be lots of work to mod it for bass?

Cheers

[jpiddy118]

ah i remember that one... came out right after the original red metal case model. It had some sort of footswitch to toggle thru the presets, as opposed to the rotary switch on the original. I think it sounded on-par with the original, although not as coveted... possibly not built as well IIRC. Don't know about circuit differences, might have used the same chip as originals, might not have. Borrowed one from a buddy once to cop a Pantera tune in an old cover band, ha.

Sorry, kinda spaced on your actual question... lemme look into it & get back to you ASAP!

[mccloud]

Awesome, thank you!!

[jpiddy118]

Did some digging and found that the only major differences between your friends Whammy (WH2) and the bass version are the presets. The bass model has a 1oct/5th setting that reportedly rocks for bass... none of the guitar versions have this. Justin Chancellor of Tool leaves his set on this (presumably why the bass version goes for so much on ebay ). Both units have the footswitches for toggling presets, and both have a questionable input buffer that tends to distort... this could be affecting the tracking. Both units supposedly use the same tracking & pitch circuit as the original, too.

[thedefog]

I had one of these for a while and sold it. Then later got a WH4 reissue and hated it. But I hated the Whammy II because of the stupid bypass/present buttons and dreaded level control on the back. But it definitely sounded better/tracked better than the WH4.

The only mods you could easily do (as long as they aren't surface mount components) would be to change the input cap value to something that would allow more bass to pass through... But then you may run into issues with the tracking on it if you do that. I'd let it be if I were you.

[mccloud]

Thanks for your help and advice guys... think I'll leave it well alone and tell him to save up for a proper bass version!