OT - Soundgarden wah wah pedal?

[FatMike]

Hi,
does anybody know which wah wah pedal Kim Thayil of Soundgarden uses? I listened to "Superunknown" and "Down on the upside" and figured out that my modded Cry Baby sounds very flat compared to Soundgarden's wah sound.

By the way, does Kirk Hammet of Metallica use a modded Cry Baby or a normal one?


Thanks,

Fat Mike

[black mariah]

I want to say Thayil used a Colorsound wah.  :?

[Branimir]

greets fatmike!!!!

i think i read somewhere that he puts the wah pedal after the distortion...
dunno, it always sounded too harsh to me when i tried to play like that...

oh yeah, i read somewhere too, that he put the wah rocker in the up position (bassy) for rusty cage and kept it there for the whole song..

dunno, he always had a wierd sound... that one on superuknown is reasonbly "standard", compared to the one on screaming life, for instance...



greets from croatia, hope i helped, a bit, or not, or whatever...
heh

[FatMike]

According to this interview I just found he uses Cry Babys and Colorsound wah pedals:

GP: You say you don't like the idea of being tied to an effect, but couldn't it be argued that you're tied to using wah-wah in virtually every solo?

KT: Not every solo. On this record it's only on a few. I didn't use it on Screaming Life or Ultramega O.K., and only a little on Louder than Love. I started using it a lot on Badmotorfinger. "Fourth of July" doesn't have wah-wah, but then again "Like Suicide" does. On "Black Hole Sun" I used wah-wah, but there's also a track of backwards lead underneath it to make it sound a little weirder. I like the wah because it can make things sharper and it really augments the noisy stuff. You know how some guitarists play with their mouth open or tap their foot? I use the wah like that -- it's a way of getting me to make it sing, and it enables the lead to cut through the lower frequencies. It gets harsh. And if I'm playing a real hectic, fast solo, the wah-wah gives it even more motion; it adds velocity and makes things sound accelerated. On certain songs I do make the wah-wah sweep regularly in rhythm, but I usually move it in order to accent my bends. So my mouth, my foot and my fingers are all doing the same thing. I use a Dunlop CryBaby with a couple different tone settings, but on Upside I used a Colorsound wah as well.

However, I wonder why his Cry Baby sound much better than mine... maybe I should modifiy my wah wah again...

[YouAre]

i can think of 1 thing, a vintage crybaby with the fasel inductor maybe? those mods can't replicate the fasel (unless you already put in the fasel as a mod :roll: )

[petemoore]

All Speculations aside.
 I would bet there's a mod, or 'super' quality of the wah, but probably nothing that can't be found with a nice inductor, and mods...oh and everything else that to me IS Superunknown...the Q of the Distortion, and what type..plus the rest of the chain.
 Long ago I had a DIST+ into CB wah that was very 'grindey'. Theyr'e long gone...
 I have an 847 VOX, but it doesn't like FUZZ [so far] in front...more testing and tweeking is in order, because I like 'grindier' wah tones.

[black mariah]

Thayil doesn't seem the type to give a damn about getting pedals modded. Either it was a vintage unit, or his amp is better than yours (and mine. My Crybaby's modded. :lol: ).

[YouAre]

Yeah, its been an observation of mine that those grunge bands like soundgarden, nirvana, and pearl jam didn't get mods. i'm a HUGE mike mccready fan and he doesn't modify his pedals or his guitars.

[dr]

.....wonder what chorus device Sondgarden used  for the rhythm in Black Hole Sun?......I like that sound.....

[space_ryerson]

Not that this solves anything, but he did endorse the Crybaby 535Q wah.

edit: according to Guitar Player, July 1996, Kim says the follwing things:

"'On Black Hole Sun' I used wah-wah, but there's also a track of backwards lead beneath it to make it sound a little weirder."

"I use a Dunlop Crybaby with a couple of different tone settings, but on 'Upside', I use a Colorsound as well"

He also says he uses a Ibanez stereo chorus and a rotovibe.

[TheBigMan]

.....wonder what chorus device Sondgarden used  for the rhythm in Black Hole Sun?......I like that sound.....

I thought that was a leslie/sim  :?

[Ed G.]

greets fatmike!!!!

i think i read somewhere that he puts the wah pedal after the distortion...
dunno, it always sounded too harsh to me when i tried to play like that...
oh yeah, i read somewhere too, that he put the wah rocker in the up position (bassy) for rusty cage and kept it there for the whole song..

I think wah is better before distortion, it helps to 'shape' the distortion better. Besides, I don't think he used a fuzz box, just his Peavey VTM amp gave that great grind.
I used to play rusty cage and it's definitely a wah set to one position, but it's not all the way up, it's at a point where it boosts those mids.

[tcobretti]

There is definitely some Kim Thayil where the wah is after the distortion.  I remember because it sounded like crap.  I think it's on one of the earlier albums.   However, by the time he had worked out his identity as a player (I'd say around the time of badmotorfinger), I'm fairly certain he was using the wah into a distorted amp.  

I always loved his playing; he was more of a noise-scape creator than a soloist.  I saw them in a bar around 1992 in Pensacola, Florida and it changed my life.  I still have the t-shirt I bought at that show.  Somebody threw a bunch of stickers on the stage, and Chris Cornell started sticking them to everything in sight.  I grabbed one and stuck it on my Les Paul as a reminder of how mind blowing a show can be.

Here's a crappy picture of it.