Wah Experience

His guitar slung across his back, his dusty boots is his cadillac.

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spaceace76
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Wah Experience

Post by spaceace76 » Tue Feb 17, 2015 9:01 pm

Dave, what can you tell us about Jimi's wah's? I never seem to find much info on this subject in regards to Jimi, so your insight would be invaluable.

What does everyone else do to get into Jimi territory with these?

Tek465b
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Re: Wah Experience

Post by Tek465b » Wed Feb 18, 2015 10:07 am

I have to agree. Lots of talk about the amp, fuzz, but .. am curious about the wah, what did he get done to it, and what WE can try with our wah :) I guess there is not much that can be done with a wah, but am curious.

daveweyer
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Re: Wah Experience

Post by daveweyer » Wed Feb 18, 2015 12:39 pm

Jimi had a lot of Wahs but during the BOG period he seemed to favor certain ones. I have mentioned before that he liked a lot of range, and that he liked them to go darker.
I do believe that all his Wahs were modded, and that there were even a couple of Roger Mayer mods in the box.
My mods were from suggestions by Brad Plunkett, who obviously knew more about the pedal than anyone.
The mods included transistor substitutions, 2N3900A with green, blue or white dots, 2N3391A with white dots, pot substitutions, exponential curve units, sometimes increased inductance, capacitor alterations, rotation of the gear on the pot shaft to get more range, and a resistor on the output to accommodate the Fuzzface if it were not modded.
The majority of his pedals were Vox V846 models, but he is shown with the earlier models in several pictures, those lacking the Vox logo on the front.
If you can find an old 846 you'll have a pretty good start.

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spaceace76
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Re: Wah Experience

Post by spaceace76 » Fri Feb 20, 2015 6:47 am

Sounds like the transistors were in the lower gain category, right about where they should be based on what I can recall from reading about the circuit. Today's vox and dunlops use MPSA18's, which run much higher in gain and don't have many other characteristics that those models appear to have

http://www.datasheetarchive.com/dlmain/ ... 6000-8.pdf
http://pdf.datasheetcatalog.com/datashe ... N3391A.pdf
https://www.fairchildsemi.com/datasheets/MP/MPSA18.pdf

Potentiometers are a very contentious debate in the DIY wah community. Some say 100k, some say 200k, some say ICAR, some say who cares. There are lots out there, ICAR and otherwise, this one seems like an interesting candidate:
http://www.mccon-o-wah.com/products/pot ... n-o-pot-ii

I used to own one of those Dunlop Signature Hendrix Crybaby's, not this one:
http://www.sweetwater.com/store/detail/ ... matchtype=
but this one:
http://www.musiciansfriend.com/amplifie ... ects-pedal

Which claimed to be more focused on the low end of the wah sweep. This was before I was tearing pedals apart. I hated the sound of this wah (and I'm sure many others did too... very short lived product) and dropped in an area 51 board. But I never bothered to find out what they did differently, if anything. I remember musing over the board for about 5 minutes and saw a few resistor changes, and not much else seemed different. But what dave describes is a more effective method of getting low end into the pedal.

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Re: Wah Experience

Post by Tone seaker » Fri Feb 20, 2015 10:00 pm

I use a Italian vox V846 from 1969. You can find them for $300-400 and well wort it. I have giged mine for years with no repairs needed. I ajust the gear inside for the tone sweep i want and cut the little rubber feet off under the top wha part and lower the switch as far down as it will go and still turn on and off. This gives max range, If you change the components as mentioned still cut the rubber feet off and lower the switch and ajust the gear for your tone. You can hear mine at 3.05 in the link on my song http://www.soundclick.com/player/single ... i&newref=1 thru a 68 super trem :D

Mine
Image

Image

here is one
http://www.ebay.com/itm/Vintage-VOX-Mod ... 234ba5486e

daveweyer
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Re: Wah Experience

Post by daveweyer » Sat Feb 21, 2015 11:42 am

Tone Seaker has got the basic thing covered. That's pretty much what we did at West Coast; adjust the gear, make the pedal move as far as possible-- clear to the stop on the AB pot, change out the transistors for lower noise, and use a pot taper with the most exponential function--the change from dark as dramatic as possible.
I also added a resistor on the output for the FF units for a while.
I also went to 50K pots on some.
Those old Italian Wahs are about as close as you can get. If you can find one you can fiddle with the components to dial it in.
By the way, the McCon O Pot looks like a real good taper, there is a little bit more range of expression at the high end.

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Re: Wah Experience

Post by peter25 » Sun Feb 22, 2015 11:37 am

I'd like to add to Dave's story. Damn nice band too! Great song!! :hairband:

Tone seaker
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Re: Wah Experience

Post by Tone seaker » Mon Feb 23, 2015 3:38 pm

peter25 wrote:I'd like to add to Dave's story. Damn nice band too! Great song!! :hairband:
Thks :D

theactor19
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Re: Wah Experience

Post by theactor19 » Wed Apr 15, 2015 1:51 pm

awesome info here!

as per new production pedals that sound like Jimi's wahs, the clips over at Chase tone are very convincing!
http://www.GuitarToneTalk.com - Tone Tips, Pedal Reviews, Amp Reviews, Guitar Reviews. Helping you get amazing tone.

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Xplorer
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Re: Wah Experience

Post by Xplorer » Wed Apr 22, 2015 8:55 pm

yes, the italian vox 846 is fantastic.
here's mine, "restored". the original board had a problem, i also accidentaly broke one transistor as a newbieand replaced it by a bc109b . maybe changed the pot, i don't remember. but it's still quite authentic :

https://soundcloud.com/xplorer80/vox-846-italia

Tone seaker
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Re: Wah Experience

Post by Tone seaker » Fri Apr 24, 2015 2:42 pm

why by any new wha when you can buy the origonal Italian V846 for some bucks and it will last for ever. I have giged mime massivly for years with no problems

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Vintage-1969-Vo ... 7675.l2557

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