Your favourite wah?

[JaviCAP]

Hi all,

This morning I've been checking and cleaning my classic wahs. I just have 3 units now, even  though I've owned and tried many ones along the years.

Not very usual,  but my favourite one is a Morley  Pro Series II. Just  wah, but I modified it to work as volume pedal too.. As I said this, is my favourite one. Love the sound, very noticeable "waaaaahhhhh" effect, full  sweep usabele, never gets dirty. Using it with high gain distortions is easy and works really fine

I have too a Crybaby JH-1B modified to true byppass and led. Solid,, many lows, great sweep and a softer waahhhh effect  sound than the Morley. Many people hate this wah,  but I really love it.

My third one is a Vox 847, anoher classic one. Maybe is the one I like the less, as the sweep is very tight, and the wah sound is much more subtle than in the previous ones, but is great for funk and clenaer sounds.

Which wahs you like the most?

BR

[Vince]

I'd have to say the standard Dunlop Crybaby is my favourite. One that I didn't like though was the Zack Wylde one. The entire 'wah' seems to be right at the end of the sweep so it was impossible to control. It just sounded like a rapid auto wah.

[Snare227]

My favorite was probably my original run Ibanez WH-10.  Just a great wah.  I had a Fulltone Mccoy at one point, but no more than I use my wah, a standard Crybaby gets the job done.  I pull it out and play a few tunes with it and it ends up going back on the shelf until I feel the urge next month.  

[dodido]

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[toddvirgil]

I'm getting ready to mod my Vox 847 with a Madbean weener wah II board and a whipple inductor. I'll let you know how I like it once I'm done!

[induction]

I also like my Crybaby (GCB-95), but I modded it a lot to fine tune it for my purposes:

- replaced bjt input buffer with jfet buffer to remove treble suck in bypass
- replaced the 10nF sweep cap with 22nF to reduce treble range (no more ice pick in toe down position)
- put second sweep cap (100nF) on dpdt switch for bassier wah sounds (good for both bass and guitar)
- replaced 10nF input and coupling caps with 100nF for more bass response
- replaced 33k Q resistor with 68k for more defined 'wah' sound (sharper resonance peak)
- replaced 1.5k bass/treble transition resistor with 2.2k for smoother transition
- like dodido, I adjusted the pot travel to give the range I wanted.

The last thing was an iterative process including adjustments to the sweep cap and transition resistor.

These mods converted a half-decent cheap wah into a high performance tone machine. It gives me the range and transition that I like without extra crap on either extreme of the rocker position

If anyone wants to do something similar, I don't recommend copying my values exactly. Instead, spend some time trying with a breadboard trying different components. I say this for two reasons. 1) You may not want the same thing as I do, and 2) wah inductors have a pretty wide variance, and a lot of the above mods interact with the inductor quite a bit. The value I ended up with won't necessarily give the same result with a different inductor.

There's lots of good information on Geofex, FSB and many other places on the web.

[jalmonsalmon]

 Right now my favorite wah is an old early 70s vox king wah. It just sounds great, I replaced the pot with a Fuller pot way back when you can still buy those pots.
I also have vox 847 PCB inside a JH1 wah shell that was busted from Craigs List...
It has a whipple inductor and all the components are clyde mccoy spec'd except for the 100k resistor I have a 100k pot on there, and for the sweep cap, I put that on a toggle along with the "jimi" cap for a lower sweep and that wah sounds great as well... I think if I ever mess around with another wah, I want to get one of those vox grey wahs to toss in the mix!

[mirosol]

I currently have Ibanez WH10v2, Ibanez WD7 Weeping Demon and Danelectro Dan-o-Wah.

Earlier on i've had Morley Pro and Dunlop JH1. Got rid of them both as they sucked.

Soundwise WH10v2 is probably the best, but i just don't use it, unless i'm recording. Dan-O-Wah is nice plastic adornment/toy with sick upper octave and distortion added, but it is in no way road worthy. It is great item to look at though.

My favourite by far is WD7. The controls offer wide range of different wah sounds, but that's not why it is my favourite. The main reason is the auto-on/off. No switch to bother yourself with. Just start rocking. It is amazing. I'm trying to hunt down the JR version for reasonable price..
+m

[imre]

Uh, this might be a dumb question, but why isn't there too much wah clones around on the forums and here on tagboardeffects? They're expensive as hell, especially if you'd like to try out several ones..

[induction]

There are plenty of schematics around, and some layouts. But cloning a wah requires a wah shell, which is much more expensive than a 1590B or a Spongebob lunchbox or whatever else you want to use as an enclosure, and it's not simple to make them yourself. You can buy them from Mammoth, but you'll often get them cheaper by looking for a broken Crybaby on craigslist or ebay and buying it cheap. Even then it will usually be several times the price of a hammond box.

But if you do have a shell, there are veros on FSB.