So I have a GCB-95 that I've never really been happy with. Joe Sat always had such an incredibly throaty wah sound that I fell in love with, but I was never sure how to obtain it. To my knowledge he even uses the same crybaby as me (I'll have to google that later for fun.. Just did and I guess he's used a lot of different ones.) but it is ridiculous how different our wahs sounded. So anyways after I started building pedals I went looking for mods, and of course there are some really well-known ones out there. Well, today I finally got around to performing them, and I just had to share with you guys and anyone else who comes searching for this later on.. cause wow!
Here's the site I pulled the info from: http://www.wah-wah.co.uk/diy.html (http://www.wah-wah.co.uk/diy.html)
(There are a lot more out there though that are basically the exact same thing)
Mods I did:
"Vocal mod" - 68k on the resistor in parallel with the inductor, instead of a 33k. I tried a 100k as well and thought it was better when this was the only mod I had done, but after I did everything else I swapped the 68k back in and it really made it sing.
Sweep adjust - 0.047uF for the sweep cap
Midrange adjust - 2.2k on the resistor between the base of Q1 and the inductor
It took a while to find the right values, but this combination was absolutely golden for me. I play with a big string gauge, and in drop C tuning, and I can't begin to express how much better this sounds with it. I get this huge throaty male-voice-sounding UUWaaah! kinda sound that was never obtainable for me before. Sounds great across my entire fretboard. It is a little less pronounced on that highest octave, but not enough to for me to really care. It's extremely useable now, and I have totally justified the extra weight on my increasingly heavy pedalboard. :P
Just thought I'd share. Anyone else try these or similar mods?
Hmm, I should explain a bit. By 'less pronounced on the highest octave", I don't mean less so than before the mods, I mean less so than currently on the lower octaves. And really as long as I'm using the bridge pickup it is still totally awesome.
Very cool. The mods seem super simple with such a difference in sound.
Yup! I strongly recommend socketing it all though, cause I had to play around with it quite a bit to find what was right for me.
This page:
http://www.geofex.com/Article_Folders/wahpedl/wahped.htm
also gives you some good ideas about what every part does for the sound.
I have a 535Q, you think the vocal mod alone would make this happen? I suspect I have the sweep already with the big silver cap dial, midrange adjust might just be handled by the Q dial...
The biggest improvement I got with my Crybaby (except the true-bypass mod, which is a must) was when I replaced the stock inductor with a yellow Fasel. One of those mods that make your bandmates go "hey, that's really better than before!"
Actually, I considered that.. but not wanting to spend money I did these, and then later when comparing the changes to videos on youtube, this has changed it even more than the yellow fasel mod, imho. And I'm not sure if I want to do the true bypass mod or not.. I mean, I don't notice any tonesucking issues. It's at the front of my signal, and I love my tone. It's probably one of those things though that you don't know what you're missing until you A/B it. At least for me. XD
What I'd like to hear is a bit more of a "grainy" sound, a little bit more broken up. Would the vocal mod or the yellow fasel do that?
The vocal mod doesn't make it more grainy, it just makes it sound more like someone's voice. There's a bunch of vids on youtube with the yellow fasel mod, so you can hear that one easy, but it doesn't make it grainier. If grainy is what you want maybe you should just get a stock gcb-95. That is the reason I wanted to mod it. XD
It is pretty easy to add gain to it, but it also comes with more bass response:
QuoteGain and Bass Response
Replace the 470 ohm resistor (some have 390 or 510) at the emitter of Q1 with a lower value. This increases gain, which is useful if you've converted to true bypass. The bass response is also increased. Too low a value here may introduce some distortion and make the wah sound muddy. Try 270 - 330 ohms to start with.
From what I hear I think I want a Maestro Boomerang...
Have you tried running a dirt pedal in front of your 535Q?
Quote from: ghostsauce on February 25, 2011, 09:08:21 AM
Have you tried running a dirt pedal in front of your 535Q?
Yeah I have my Axis Face in front, it sounds best there. It's not that I dislike the 535Q at all, it's great! I'd just like a little more "gnarly" sound.
snoo , you rang? some boomerang and others.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jaKNbV2406Y&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W_aBVa2rCMw&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SI7p5ex35YQ
Quote from: joegagan on February 25, 2011, 09:21:26 AM
snoo , you rang? some boomerang and others.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jaKNbV2406Y&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W_aBVa2rCMw&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SI7p5ex35YQ
Awesome tests, that's what I like to see. The bird liked em too! I had heard the last one already but it was a bit noisy to listen for the subtleties of the wahs.
that last one was made in a railroad car storage , we accidentally left the fan on, it was june, very hot.
The 535Q already has the vocal mod built in and is adjustable. Thats the "Q" adjustment.
Neat. Is that the only difference between the two units?
Quote from: BoxOfSnoo on February 25, 2011, 08:55:58 AM
What I'd like to hear is a bit more of a "grainy" sound, a little bit more broken up. Would the vocal mod or the yellow fasel do that?
As far as I heard (but only on youtube videos) the
red Fasel accomplishes that. Check the video on Dunlop's site where someone compares the standard Crybaby to the so-called Classic Crybaby (a new model which comes with a red Fasel stock).
Hope this helps.
Giulio
Quote from: ghostsauce on February 25, 2011, 08:52:12 AM
And I'm not sure if I want to do the true bypass mod or not.. I mean, I don't notice any tonesucking issues. It's at the front of my signal, and I love my tone. It's probably one of those things though that you don't know what you're missing until you A/B it. At least for me. XD
The true bypass helps a lot because the tone sucking forces you to add a little more treble from your amp. However, when you engage the wah, then that excess of treble badly comes out. At least, this was what I experienced. I was never happy with my wah because it "sounded" too trebly and piercing. So I did a simple test: I set my tone on my amp without the wah (just guitar-cable-amp), then I added the
engaged wah to hear how it would "sound" with the true bypass mod. It showed me how really good the wah actually sounded! So I soonafter did the mod (which, by the way, lead me to discover the world of diy pedal effects!).
Giulio
Quote from: BoxOfSnoo on February 25, 2011, 09:06:55 AM
From what I hear I think I want a Maestro Boomerang...
It's still one of my most favorites, and I have tried or built most of the inductor based wah ciruits that exist. :icon_razz:
This is kinda off-topic, but I think you'll enjoy it:
http://www.youtube.com/user/crybabydoc
The story of the wah-wah pedal.
Quote from: anti-idiot on February 26, 2011, 10:58:35 AM
This is kinda off-topic, but I think you'll enjoy it:
http://www.youtube.com/user/crybabydoc
The story of the wah-wah pedal.
Nice video. The only thing I didn't like is that they basically attribute all the character of the old wah pedals to the inductor. They seem to be oblivious to the variability of all the rest of the parts, too. Anyway, they probably did that on purpose so they can maintain the marketing hype about inductors and keep the average joe consumer guitar player in fallacy land. :icon_rolleyes:
Paul
Have you looked at this idea I have not had time to build it yet. It sims nice.
R11 and R12 are a 100k lin pot
Bootstrapped EF input and EF sweep cap driver stage. EF after the gain transistor to drive lower "harder" value loads allowing tapering resistors. Tune the same way as other whas to taste.
(http://www.aronnelson.com/gallery/main.php?g2_view=core.DownloadItem&g2_itemId=44227&g2_serialNumber=1)
I had such great results with the mods I mentioned at the beginning of this thread, that I decided yesterday to convert it to true bypass and remove the buffer. Not because I have ever noticed any tone-sucking issues, or because I have a stigma about buffered pedals, but I guess because I was bored. So anyways, I do all of that and plug it back in... TERRIBLE sound. It was completely un-usable.. I'm going to assume it was so bad because of the other mods I made.. like I had a very deep and thick wah sound before removing the buffer, but once it was gone it was too deep and too thick and the sweep was way way off & everything.
I can imagine that performing only the true bypass/buffer removal mod is enough to completely change the voice of the wah.. But anyways, I had to put the buffer back together by trial and error and install the old switch. It sounds amazing again, but man what a headache. I'd like to know if anyone has had great tone results after performing only the tb mod.
Quote from: Gus on February 26, 2011, 01:33:33 PM
Paul
Have you looked at this idea I have not had time to build it yet. It sims nice.
R11 and R12 are a 100k lin pot
Bootstrapped EF input and EF sweep cap driver stage. EF after the gain transistor to drive lower "harder" value loads allowing tapering resistors. Tune the same way as other whas to taste.
Uh.... no. Did we talk about this before?
Hmm, it still doesn't sound quite right to me. Does anyone have a schematic with the input buffer that has the resistors numbered? Need to double check that I did it right but I am coming up blank searching here and the web for it.
There should be plenty of gut shots online, so you could just match the resistors that way without needing a schematic (or even knowing the values -- just match the color bands).
-Joe Hart
I think the problem is that the buffer changes the sound of the wah, if you wanted to true bypass and remove the buffer you should have done it before modding. After removing the buffer and adding TB, you are going to have to re-visit your mods and adjust the values for the sound of the pedal without the buffer. People have reported that the Dunlop buffer makes the pedal brighter, so I'm not surprised that after removing it the sound has dulled.
When I decided to mod my Vox V847 (the older Dunlop-made version, not the newer Chinese one), I wanted to make it sound like the vintage Clyde McCoy wah I had when I was a kid. I used the info at Fuzz Central to do my mods. After analyzing how the modern Vox wah differed from the vintage circuit, I saw that it basically came down to the higher-gain transistors that Dunlop uses (MPSA18), and a couple of different values of resistors that they changed to accommodate those higher-gain transistors. I put in some BC109B's in the 350-400 hfe range, changed the couple of resistors to the vintage values, and just those changes made the wah sound a lot more vintage. I haven't even changed the inductor yet, but I plan to put a Whipple or Area 51 inductor in at some point. I also TB'd it. Of course, mine didn't come with the input buffer circuit. I was also planning on putting in an output buffer to make it work better in front of my Fuzz Face, but I recently made a discovery, I found that if I insert a certain compressor pedal in between the wah and the FF, the wah works with the fuzz and also the FF works by itself even with the comp on. So far, I've found this to be the case with both my BBE Bench Press (Ross comp clone) and my BBE Main Squeeze (Orange Squeezer clone). My guess is that those two comps have the right output impedance to work with the Fuzz Face. I haven't tried it with any of my other comps yet, but since I was planning on using a comp set to slight compression early in my chain anyway as a buffer (always on), it seems that I don't have to put the output buffer in my wah after all.
Anyway, good luck with your wah, hope you get it to your liking.
Al
Quote from: ghostsauce on March 09, 2011, 09:16:14 AM
Hmm, it still doesn't sound quite right to me. Does anyone have a schematic with the input buffer that has the resistors numbered? Need to double check that I did it right but I am coming up blank searching here and the web for it.
I could take a pic of my 535Q if you think it's similar enough.
Maybe you let some mojo out when you desoldered things? :)
Sure BoS, if you don't mind! Yeah, definitely leaked out some of the mojo. I have a sad.
Quote from: ghostsauce on March 15, 2011, 07:58:54 PM
Sure BoS, if you don't mind! Yeah, definitely leaked out some of the mojo. I have a sad.
OOh, I just opened mine, and it's all SMT. It probably won't help you then, right?
lol, nope. Thanks anyways though :P