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ihatemickjagger
11-19-2003, 08:41 PM
i want to start expirimenting with wah pedals, but i am clueless as to how they work, and what i'm looking at. I recently purchased my first pedals (BOSS Tremolo and Metal Zone distortion) and i really love the quality of their products...but i am also very curious about wah pedals. can someone explain exactly how one is used, and what the advantages and disadvantages of an AUTO-wah pedal are? Thanks.

holy reality
11-20-2003, 12:01 PM
the disadvantages of auto wah pedals are that they suck ass

the advantages are.... none that I can think of...

an autowah does all the wahing for you based upon how you strike notes, but it's kind of useless really unless you just want to sound kind of funky and are too lazy to move your foot up and down....

as for good wah pedals.... any teese wah pedals kick all sorts of ass www.realmccoycustom.com

dunlop 535qs are supposedly okay, I tried an auto engage dunlop though and it sucked ass, but I think it was broken....

I'm not fond of auto engage wahs anyway, you can't use them as filters......

some people like the Boss P... something digital wah.... the clips from musiciansfriend suck ass though... but I've never tried it.

psilomind
11-20-2003, 01:23 PM
Get a multi-effect...

Choler
11-20-2003, 02:07 PM
Don't get a multi-effect IMO. you cannot manipulate the individual sound like you can on single boss pedals.

But the wah I use is terrible it was a cheap $100 morley bad horsie, I go limp everytime I hear the name, but it does the trick. I use wah's basically to bring color into the music and for soloing, you can also be ceative and mess around with them. Anyways I was also looking into getting a new wah as well and other peoples inputs would be greatly appreciated.

deviatedwolf625
11-20-2003, 02:50 PM
I've been looking at the v-wah pedal BOSS makes as my Wah pedal, not sure what to think ... I know my friend's sucks ass (VOX) but I like Boss effects ...

psilomind
11-20-2003, 03:17 PM
I've heard nothing but good about Dunlop wahs...

They're cheap too...


But again, in my opinion you get just as much, if not more control over the wah from a multi-effect. This, in addition to a myriad of other useful effects, and the fact that it costs just as much as a decent wah pedal, makes the multi a slightly more feasible option.



And speaking from experience, avoid plastic construction when possible.

Dirty Sanchez
11-20-2003, 07:43 PM
Get a Dunlop Crybaby.

deviatedwolf625
11-20-2003, 08:06 PM
amen on the plastic construction ...

mesa-b
11-23-2003, 07:12 PM
ok as for what a wah does, It changes the EQ of your sound, when your toe is down, it's really treble heavy, when your toe is up, it's really bass heavy.

What kind? Get a dunlop crybaby (original or classic I say). They are built like friggin tanks (about four pounds of cast iron) and sound great

And auto-wahs are basically useless, the point of a wah is to be able to adjust your eq however you want to, but the auto-wah takes this ability away from you, so they suck, don't get one

but yeah, I got a dunlop classic crybaby with a fasel inductor and it kicks ass ($100)

happy riffing mah brother!

-James

baphomet
11-24-2003, 12:24 PM
I have a dunlop original crybaby, and it sounds like absolute shit. It has almost no dynamic range whatsoever, and sort of only alternates between a muddy sound and an unusable shriek. I've had it for about 5 years and never really used it much, on account of its headache-inducing tone.

Did I just get a crappy one?

What is this fasel inductor you speak of, mesa-b?

psilomind
11-24-2003, 12:57 PM
Did I just get a crappy one?
Maybe. I'm pretty sure the new ones with the Q knob are a vast improvement over older models.

But I've never actually played one, so I wouldn't know.

mesa-b
11-24-2003, 01:49 PM
I have a dunlop original crybaby, and it sounds like absolute shit. It has almost no dynamic range whatsoever, and sort of only alternates between a muddy sound and an unusable shriek. I've had it for about 5 years and never really used it much, on account of its headache-inducing tone.

Did I just get a crappy one?

What is this fasel inductor you speak of, mesa-b?


a fasel inductor is a kind of inductor made by a company called fasel (go figure)

they're made in italy and were pretty much considered to be the holy grail to "real" wah sound in the 60s and 70s. They were unavailable for a while, but now they're back again. It's hard to explain exactly what it does for your sound, but it just makes it sound "cooler"

and as for your crybaby woes, you might have gotten a bad one, cause mine sounds great and so does the one my band's other guitarist has.

as for what they "should" sound like, i found some sound clips, go to this site: http://www.musiciansfriend.com/srs7/sid=031123163922024194000060683352/g=home/search/detail/base_pid/151000/

and scroll down to where there is a list of sound clips, listen to the "dark and moody through a clean amp" and to both of the "funk" ones, that's what a wah does and "should" sound like

hope I helped

-James

holy reality
11-24-2003, 02:37 PM
if you want to hear some real kickass wah-ing
listen to this
http://www.angelfire.com/hiphop3/holyreality/Untitled.mp3
(note it's long......)

also keep in mind that the wah i'm using can be almost fully customized based upon: frequency, octave, sweep range, bass, mid, etc.....

i want to hear it through a fucking halfway decent amp with some fucking halfway decent pickups .........

baphomet
11-24-2003, 03:42 PM
Thanks for the info...seems like mine's just a bad unit. I'll look into maybe getting it tweaked at a shop or something, see if that helps.

Dirty Sanchez
11-24-2003, 08:50 PM
My crybaby is super sweet.

48&2
12-02-2003, 04:26 AM
maybe you just need to adjust the min/max values for your pedal, set it in a range of like 20-80%...

kingcrab4810
08-21-2004, 08:56 PM
check out morley wahs. fewer moving parts and better fidelity. the pedal component of the device controls a little shutter in front of an optic sensor. the more light to the sensor, the higher the sine wave modulation... and anybody on this thread who's posted compliments about the new dunlop's with the fasel inductor are DEAD right. the fasel creates overtones at different rates than newer (more modern) inductors. the end result is a more vocal sound. I'm currently using a fasel equiped crybaby in front of a Morley Bad Horsey. the Horsey has a slightly more throatly sound than the pro series II morleys, so I like it a bit better. I'll pick a specific frequency with the Dunlop, then modulate it with the morley. once you distort that signal it overloads the hell out of your pre-amp and you can get serious high gain feedback at lower volume levels that you can control by modulating the frequency with the morley... (just sharing destructive ideas that are bad for your hearing and your neighbors...) and if you like the boss metal zone, send it to bob keeley and get him to mod it. the moded version sounds much fuller and is more responsive. not to mention much louder.

Dr.GonZo
08-22-2004, 06:39 AM
I have a Dunlop Crybaby bass Wah and it's ok... well its kick ass actually... but if I could get my money back I'd get a Line6 Modulation Filter ("the purple box") and an expression pedal... god damn that box is hella warped.

kingcrab4810
08-22-2004, 08:43 PM
yeah, line 6 pretty much can't make anything poorly. I've never played anything by them that I didn't like or coulden't find a use for. my only beef with them is the fact that their pedals are REALLY expensive for being made in China, and I've had some trouble with them not being shielded well. I had to go through 3 delay modelers (green box) before I found one that didn't make a loud POP when I engaged any of the 3 programable switches. but even then, that was mostly my fault because the only thing I run through my amp's buffered FX loop is a Lexicon reverb. everything else is just in a pedal chain to the amp's main input. and there's so much crap in my FX chain that I should shut up and be glad it doesn't catch on fire when plug it all in.