Wah pedal

[snowgoon]

I'm trying to play a song with both wah and distortion but my wah comes out to strong.
there isnt any knobs on my wah pedal though to turn down though.

[Ripper]

try turning your guitar volume down and the output of your distortion up a little.

[snowgoon]

that didnt work.
there is now NO distortion at all. because my guitar volume is too far down.
I try adjusting this and its just piercing wah.
I dont mind the piercing for picking.
But it's bothering me when im trying to play chords with it.

[fraser]

did you try changing the pedals position in the chain around? seems to me i had this trouble years ago, and i needed to have the distortion after the wah- or before it. i cant recall which:smile:

[Ripper]

did you try changing the pedals position in the chain around? seems to me i had this trouble years ago, and i needed to have the distortion after the wah- or before it. i cant recall which:smile:

Yeah you can get some pretty cool sounds by switching pedal positions.

[fraser]

Yeah you can get some pretty cool sounds by switching pedal positions.

yup-
and you can get other cool sounds by duct taping 2 wah pedals together sdsre

[Ripper]

yup-
and you can get other cool sounds by duct taping 2 wah pedals together sdsre

I saw a fellow who connected two together with a rod, it sounded pretty wild.

[fraser]

I saw a fellow who connected two together with a rod, it sounded pretty wild.

yup it does- i think it was "house burning down" that jimi did it on, and srv on "say what". cool sounds for sure. i used to use a piece of 1x1 taped to the side legthwise on one pedal, so that the 2 wahs were out of sync, then duct taped together- id kick the 2nd one in for crazy sections on machine gun and voodoo chile lol.

its occured to me that when i used a distortion and a wah in tandem, i got as much distortion as i could from the amp first, then added dirt with the pedal, so the pedal wasnt cranked- then it was important to have the 2 pedals in correct order- i THINK distortion after wah- but im unsure- it was a dozen years ago since i used a distortion box.

[devnulljp]

By piercing, do you mean the treble is like an ice-pick? Is it a crybaby by any chance? One easy fix is to rotate the pot a notch or two on the rack gear to make it less piercing: http://www.happybob.com/marc/pot_adjustment_procedure.htm
You might be able to swap out the Q resistor to change the tone too, but I'd try the fix above first.
Those are both quick and easy mods.

Also, are you using a distortion or a fuzz? Makes a big difference.
(Which one(s))?
I've always found the stock Vox V847 to be less piercing than the stock Dunlop crybaby (the GCB-95 anyway).

Here's a few good links to easy wah mods:
General: http://homepage.ntlworld.com/s.castledine/greenfuz/wah.html
Crybaby: http://www.stinkfoot.se/andreas/diy/mods/dunlop.htm

Geoffrey Teese is a mine of info on wah pedals and associated problems: http://www.realmccoycustom.com/TROUBLESHOOTING.htm

[snowgoon]

yes its a crybaby but it has no knobs.

im not using my distortion pedal all though if i were to it would be my tube screamer.

[mhammer]

I made a Cry-baby clone for myself a couple years ago and found it lacked a very pronounced wah sound. Too subtle. Somebody responded to a query of mine and noted that the emitter resistor on the first transistor could be too large and that the gain of that transistor was not set high enough as a result. Sure enough, I dropped the resistance a bit (from the 1k that showed up in the schematic to something like 470R or so) and the wah came to life.

So, maybe what you need to do is cut back a bit on the gai of that first tranny to produce some subtlety.

Your first step is to go here: http://www.geofex.com/Article_Folders/wahpedl/wahped.htm and learn how your wah works. That will help you to identify what to change.

[devnulljp]

yes its a crybaby but it has no knobs.
im not using my distortion pedal all though if i were to it would be my tube screamer.
Try the pot rotation thing (note: it's not an external knob, you need to open the pedal and look at the pot attached to the treadle). I've been on a real wah kick of late looking for the perfect sound (The Teese WoF wah is fantastic, and I've got an old Jen on the way :), and that's the first and easiest mod to make to a wah that's too piercing. Just open it up, put the pedal in the fully closed position, loosen the screw on the clip holding the toothed stick thing, rotate the pot one (or two) teeth backwards, and retighten the screw holding the rack gear stick in place. That will make it less trebly when you kick it on.
The Q/vocal mod is the next thing to try (although it's a good idea to add true bypass and remove the buffer in that thing too: http://www.stinkfoot.se/andreas/diy/mods/dunlop.htm). Piece of cake. I put a 64k resistor in my old V847 in place of the 33k and it improved it immensely.

You could also try changing the value of the lower range by swapping out the 0.01uF cap for a larger value -- try 0.022uF.

The Whipple is a great inductor too, and everyone seems to love the Fasels, so those mods might be worth trying. That's a $20-ish part, although I snapped the leg off the whipple installing in the crybaby because the holes don't line up (it dropped straight into the Vox though), had to solder a wire on there instead, so be careful. Haven't tried a fasel...

All those are easy, cheap (and easily reversible if you don't like it) mods - I'm a clutz with a soldering iron, and I managed it without major injuries :D

"Easy" range adjustment: Takes some of the shrill highs out of a Dunlop Crybaby. This one requires no soldering skills at all, and I regularly do it to many of the wahs I service. To lower/raise the working range slightly, set the wah on a table, face down with the battery end towards your gut, and press the pedal down to the stop. Remove the bottom plate and locate the toothed bar that turns the pot axle. Move the treadle up/down a few times, to familiarize yourself with which way the pot turns as you press the treadle down towards the toe end. With a phillips-head screwdriver, remove (or just loosen it enough to turn it sideways) the white plastic flange that presses the toothed bar against the pot axle gears, and release the bar. Now you can manually turn the pot one or two notches back. Viewed from the battery end, you turn the pot towards you (it's clockwise, if you view the pot assembly from the left). There is room to safely adjust it two notches or so before the pot runs out of play.

Vocal mod: Replace the 33K resistor in series with the inductor with a higher value, like 56 or 68K. This will make the resonance peak of the circuit sharper (with a smaller "Q" value), which in turn makes the "wah" sound more like "woh".


Of course, your other option is to sell it on CL and go buy a Teese Picture wah, but that's way more expensive than a handful of resistors from ratshack...

[hollowbody]

Try the pot rotation thing (note: it's not an external knob, you need to open the pedal and look at the pot attached to the treadle). I've been on a real wah kick of late looking for the perfect sound (The Teese WoF wah is fantastic, and I've got an old Jen on the way :), and that's the first and easiest mod to make to a wah that's too piercing. Just open it up, put the pedal in the fully closed position, loosen the screw on the clip holding the toothed stick thing, rotate the pot one (or two) teeth backwards, and retighten the screw holding the rack gear stick in place. That will make it less trebly when you kick it on.

+1 - This 'mod' is probably the easiest one out there. Just be careful not to turn the gear too much, since a difference of a couple teeth up or down makes a huge audible difference. This really helped smooth out my Crybaby.

[snowgoon]

alright im gonna give that a shot then.