Wah pedals

[Don W]

There are so many wah pedals out there now. Which one would give me the "Voodoo Chile" effect. Is there one with a big "sweep" with a real pronounced "Wah" sound rather than a short kind of "oink" sound. I fully understand that it takes some skill to but I'm looking for the old 60's Voodoo Chile...White Room kind of sound.

[stephenT]

It's a difficult task and the sound can vary widely depending on the instrument and the amp.

A friend gave me a old Cry Baby Wah Wah Made in Italy by EME (Thomas Organ Co) that sounds incredible with my t90 (fairly high output single coil w/ p90 neck) into a Goodsell Super 17, an EL84 based amp. He came out to hear the band awhile back and was blown away w/ the sounds I was getting and he has a half dozen vintage Wah Wahs.

But use a lower output guitar in to a Fender style amp w/ 6L6s, 6V6s w/ the same wah wah and you don't get that "vocal" sound.

Here's a demo between two current products might help. The Cry Baby is closer to the Hendrix sound, the Vox more suited for funk rhythms.

[ch willie]

I used to use an Ernie Ball Cry Baby, and there was a way to adjust the sweep a bit, if I remember correctly.

Now I use a Vox, mostly because they have a wider sweep.

[Chickee]

Dunlop alone makes no less than twenty one different wah pedals. They run from the original CryBaby to all kinds of specialized sounding units. They do make a Jimi signature that may take you VooDooVille?

Keep in mind though, there was a lot more going on than just that wah pedal in Jimi’s signal chain. A Uni-Vibe, FuzzFace, a dimed Marshall or two, and I’m sure more than that. I wish I were there to have seen it first hand.

[Bob Womack]

I've got an old '60s Thomas Organ Co. Cry Baby and I've owned a couple of others. I've got to say that the very best lead wah I've ever used is the Cry Baby model in the old red bean Line6 POD. If you hook up the Floor Board you've got volume and wah side by side. Set up a driven Deluxe with an echo and then put your foot on both the wah and volume and do simultaneous wah/fades into echo and it is some mournful stuff! I've held onto my POD rig for that one effect in the studio.


Bob

[Don W]

Has anyone tried a Crybaby 535Q wah?....if so what do you think?

[patrickgm60]

Try the BBE Wah ("Ben Wah") pedal, before you decide. Analog, with a "harmony" knob on the side that's great fun. Sweetwater (among others) will let you return it, if not satisfied.

[Rudy4]

As stated earlier, it's going to be somewhat dependent upon how well your instrument produces its tone.

Any device that creates the effect by sweeping frequencies can't be effective if they aren't present in the signal presented to the input.

[FrankHudson]

Originally Posted by Bob Womack

I've got an old '60s Thomas Organ Co. Cry Baby and I've owned a couple of others. I've got to say that the very best lead wah I've ever used is the Cry Baby model in the old red bean Line6 POD. If you hook up the Floor Board you've got volume and wah side by side. Set up a driven Deluxe with an echo and then put your foot on both the wah and volume and do simultaneous wah/fades into echo and it is some mournful stuff! I've held onto my POD rig for that one effect in the studio.


Bob

Wow. My experience too, though I haven't setup my POD and floorboard in awhile--but like you my goal is often to sound like the Thomas Organ distributed wah. I have a Budda wah that works for many things, but isn't exactly that sound. Somewhere I have my old Thomas wah, but I recall I stopped using it when it just was a tone suck when disengaged. Maybe I just need to dig it out and try it with a buffer?

I think I've had decent luck with the wah models built into Logic using a standard expression pedal as the wah. Logic has more than one wah choice as I recall.

Coincidently, I just got a used Vox 847 wah yesterday. And I found it outright weird. I'm not yet sure if it's good weird or bad weird yet. Much more pronounced wah effect. I could use it to get the "stop the wah filter a the point in it's sweep so a note starts to feedback from the amp" trick, but it was so sensitive that I found that hard to repeat.

First I tried the Vox with a my SG with Firebird style mini-humbuckers and made most of the above observations. Then I tried it with a Fender "not-a-Hendrix" model reverse Strat. Completely different response, and not pleasing. I could have fiddled with amp settings and gotten a better sound, but in that I'm switching guitars back and forth a lot that wasn't a good sign.

In summary: Wah's differ. To some degree "Wah-tone is in your toes" but the OP should keep that mind.

[aknow]

Fulltone Clyde deluxe works well.
I've tried a lot of these, don't use them anymore. When you discover the right guitar that synchs with your Wah pedal, it is very cool indeed. Good luck.

[Beachrunner]

I've got both and honestly like both. I alternate them on my board.

As the above video suggests, the Vox is slightly brighter to my ears - with a slightly better sweep, IMO.

[ch willie]

Yes, the Vox has more treble. When I first started using it, I was afraid that the pedal would be unusable. But after playing with it a while and tweaking eq on the amp, etc, it's beautiful and verrrry "White Room".

I love the Ernie Ball wah. I bought mine in 96 and gigged it a lot. I've bought a new pot for it because the one on it is shot. But I'm hopeless when it comes to soldering, so I'm going to take it to a shop and see if they can take care of it.

Beachrunner has the right idea by having one of each.

The Vox and the Ernie Ball pedals are equally good; no matter which of these you choose, you'll have a good wah--that is, of course, if you want either one.

I prefer the Vox at the moment, and for what I play, it's the better pedal, or maybe I should say, it's more suited for what I do.

[tinnitus]

I read a guitar magazine article decades ago, describing the effects rigs employed by various big-time players. Most had racks and racks of complicated gear overseen by professional guitar/effects techs.

There was a note that Stevie Ray Vaughan sometimes used two Vox wah-wah pedals duct taped side by side to double the depth of the effect. I just did an honest search online and didn't find any pics to back that up, but it seems plausible. Anybody here with two pedals want to give this a try, just for fun, and see what it does?

Somewhat overwhelmed by the sheer amount of equipment and complexity of many rigs they described (some taking up entire pages), I had to chuckle when they finished with Angus Young's signal chain. Something to this effect:

"Gibson SG guitar, 20-foot cable, Marshal amp."

[Chickee]

Originally Posted by tinnitus

I read a guitar magazine article decades ago, describing the effects rigs employed by various big-time players. Most had racks and racks of complicated gear overseen by professional guitar/effects techs.

There was a note that Stevie Ray Vaughan sometimes used two Vox wah-wah pedals duct taped side by side to double the depth of the effect. I just did an honest search online and didn't find any pics to back that up, but it seems plausible. Anybody here with two pedals want to give this a try, just for fun, and see what it does?

Somewhat overwhelmed by the sheer amount of equipment and complexity of many rigs they described (some taking up entire pages), I had to chuckle when they finished with Angus Young's signal chain. Something to this effect:

"Gibson SG guitar, 20-foot cable, Marshal amp."

I don’t know about two wah pedals, but have read a few time that SRV used two TS808 Tube Screamers in line set a little differently to push his amps front end.

In fact, that is a reason I am currently using two drive pedals in succession on the new pedal board I’m working on. And like SRV, Trower and Hendrix, they come just before the wah and rotovibe pedals to increase the signal going in.

[tinnitus]

I've always liked two Tube Screamers and an overdrive, all turned pretty low and getting hotter as I move from right to left. I use them mostly one at a time, but sometimes in various combinations. With a two channel tube amp, that covers most/all of the "warmth," distortion and lead wailing that I want.

Mentioned this in another thread - the wah pedal is modded with a true bypass switch for a pure signal when it's off, and a wide throw pot so it really says "wah."