Best/worst Wah

JoeyBones · 2008-05-30T12:26:44+00:00

I've been through 3 wah pedals and am still not satisfied. My first was an old Cry Baby which was a bit noisy and didn't have enough of a sweep action for my liking. 2nd was a 535q. From what I could tell the sweep was a little better, but not enough for me. The weeping daemon I'm using know is nice because it has the auto on feature, plus the sweep action as almost a third more than the later 2. It's nice, but the tone I get with it is a bit to synth sounding (Don't know if that's the right explanation. My other gripe is the size. It's big !! I've been contemplating saving up for a Zvex Wah Probe, but it's really expensive and I want to make sure I can't get that kinda tone from another WAH. Any advice comments, suggestions will be appreciated.

Mr-M

Sorry, wrong quote. You get what I mean though, I hope.

JoeyBones

I think Jack White uses one and I like some of his solos. Weird and a bit too dark music over all, but I like the weird sounds he gets.

ralley

Joey et al,
An alternative to the boutique wah pedals is to get something like a standard cry baby and modify it yourself. There are lots of notes floating around on the net for how to do this. The biggest changes seem to come from changing values of a couple of components. If you look around you can find notes on changing the Q factor, vocalness, changing to true bypass, adding indicator LED's etc. If you want you can also look at changing out the inductor.

An often overlooked change is just rotating the pot - these things have about 300 degrees of rotation, the wah only uses 180-200 I think. Rotating the pot can make your sound more trebley or bassy.

One of these days I'll get round to trying some of this on mine... Still the biggest probelm with the sound of mine is the operator!

Rob.

JoeyBones

I might try that if the deal goes through for the 2 wahs. I'll see which one is closest to what I'm looking for.

Mr-M

RE:Whammy
Yeah, he does. Used it on a lower octave setting with a hollowbody guitar to do what sounded like a bass guitar on Seven Nation Army.

Also used by Matt Bellamy-Muse, Tom Morello-Rage Against the Machine/ Audioslave, Satch, Johhny Greenwood-radiohead and a bunch of others.

Mr-M

JoeyBones wrote I might try that if the deal goes through for the 2 wahs. I'll see which one is closest to what I'm looking for.

Hey Joey, did you get those Wahs? Check out this cool auto-on/ off mod for a Crybaby if you did:
http://www.instructables.com/id/Foot-on-pedal-True-Bypass-crybaby-wah-mod/
Along with changing the sweep of the pot, it might make a standard Crybaby into what you're after.

Wessel

How does the Wah on a combo pedal like for instance an Boss GT 8 compare to a stand alone wah pedal like a cry baby ? I have never tried either of the 2. But if it is a close comparison would it not be beter to buy a Boss Gt8 with all the other extras that come with it?

Mr-M

Wessel wrote How does the Wah on a combo pedal like for instance an Boss GT 8 compare to a stand alone wah pedal like a cry baby ? I have never tried either of the 2. But if it is a close comparison would it not be beter to buy a Boss Gt8 with all the other extras that come with it?

Generally I've found the wah on most digital modellers to be harsher and with less of a vocal quality than the real deal. Can't say I've played a GT-8 in the last year so I can't rightly remember that exact wah sound, but with any modeller I'd suggest a seperate wah, either in front of it or in it's effects loop (so you can assign it to specific presets). Reason being that a modeller only has one expression pedal; I find that more useful for adjusting other effects parameters and for volume so I like to have the wah seperate and also I prefer the tone of the real thing.

JoeyBones

Mr M wrote
JoeyBones wrote I might try that if the deal goes through for the 2 wahs. I'll see which one is closest to what I'm looking for.
Hey Joey, did you get those Wahs?

No. I've put it off for now. Have more urgent things to attend to and I'm trying to get my extra gear sold off before I buy anything else. I've got my heart set on the Wah Probe but it's gonna take some saving to get it. I've added the ISP decimator and a keeley compressor to my wish list.

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