Wah into distortion - what works and what doesn't

[Mark Hammer]

Since a wah bandpass filters whatever signal it receives, fuzzing the daylights out of your guitar prior to wahing simply provides more to filter.  The effect is quite robust.

Reversing the order - wah into fuzz - changes what there is to distort the same way that a pre-clip EQ would, except that your foot keeps changing what is getting clipped.  Although the impact of pre-clip wah-ing is always evident and measurable, the audible "wahness" is not always so.  I don't know what your experience is but I find there are plenty of occasions where  wah into overdrive sounds sweet and expressive and other instances where the wah effect is simply to change the color of fuzz and you can barely hear the filter sweep.  (The same might be said for distortions that are sensitive to changes in guitar tone control settings, and those that aren't).

It would be nice to be able to identify a set of conditions that would reliably peg a distortion design as sounding good after a wah (in the sense of a clear wah sound being heard, not whether you like it before or after the distortion) or not sounding good in that position.

So here is the question:  What is your experience with placing distortions AFTER a wah?  Are there any distortion/overdrive/fuzz pedals that tended to blur or make wah pedal positions/movement indistinguishable?  Are there any that you have found sound better than others after a wah?

For the advanced players, are there any design/electronic properties you would precict - or better yet, that you know - would improve the responsiveness to a wah placed ahead of them?

[Fret Wire]

Well, the Wah into a Fuzz Face has always sounded good, at least to me. But, the wah needs an output buffer for it to work. Then you lose the "clean up" ability with the guitar volume when the wah is on.

If you put an input buffer on the Fuzz, it seems it would have to be switchable.... better yet, foot-switchable, so the fuzz would still sound good by itself.

Is that what you're looking for Mark, what could be designed into an OD/Dist./Fuzz ckt so that it would always reliably work after a wah? Other than the fuzz, I think it's beyond simple buffering, as most store bought pedals have buffers, but don't all work well after a wah.

From one point of view, it seems like it should be built into the wah, as not to mess with any dist. type ckts. From a another point of view, the dist. ckt should be able to handle any wah placement in the chain.

Good questions you ask. :idea:

[puretube]

well, if you drive a Wah into a (hard) circuit, that is already on the edge
of clipping as soon as you only "look at the strings", the distortion (OD/fuzz...) won`t make much difference of what is feeding it;
(like some pedals will never let you know what kind of guitar is in front, since it makes all axes sound like the same chainsaw).

If you got "headroom" in the (soft) distortion - or say: "a higher threshold before clipping", the dist will only chime in (producing new harmonix),
when it gets "bitten" by the mid-bump of the wah-pedal`s frequency response, hence accentuating it even more: screaming out exactly the chosen center-frequency;

Also the (inherent) frequency-response inside the dist-circuit, which in turn is a pre-dist EQ, will either accentuate or flatten out the wah`s response in front of it...

[phillip]

I've always much prefered the sound of a wah BEFORE a distortion/fuzz/overdrive pedal.  Putting it after just doesn't sound right to me for some reason...it's way too "quacky" or something...it's hard to explain.  

The problem is that even after adding a JFET output buffer to wah pedals it still doesn't always work...the wah effect still gets shallow and very undefined.  I've noticed this problem with the Liquid Drive and a few of other dirt boxes.  It seems like the Boss SD-1 (and probably others), with the input buffer, seems to work more or less fine fine with an output buffered wah pedal.

Phillip

[Kleber AG]

I tottaly agree with Puretube
Some distortion/overdirve pedals almost have no difference in regard to "what" you're playing, or pickups selection, it happened to me before starting building pedals, used to use some racks, but I'll tell you these pedals designed around here are WAY better that almost ANYTHING out there.
You can see that people here almost always design pedals with lots of headroom, dynamics, pickups/volume sensitive, then a Wah would JUST shine through that circuits, every single nuance/tone/shape produced by the wah itself would be well threatened by these overdrive/distortions/fuzz.

Well a classic Fuzz Face circuit have almost no headroom when full up, but isn't it awesome sensitive when you turn your guitar volume down???

Thanks guys I really like this place! Thanks Aron!
Kleber AG

[Kleber AG]

Mark Hammer, thank you for your "dayly" help here!

hehe... sorry for a new way of hi-jacking a thread  :wink:

[Mark Hammer]

No problemo.

Incidentally, the issue of what sorts of distortions permit a wah to sound wah-like when inserted ahead of them is also analogous to the question of what sorts of distortions permit pickup changes to be heard.  Certainly just about all units will permit neck vs bridge differences to be audible, but does every pedal permit the difference between bridge and N+B to be heard?  Does it let you distinguish between position 2 and 4 on a Strat?

Again, it's not a question of what is better and worse, but what the design properties are that would permit you to know in advance...and maybe design around it.

[vanhansen]

Interesting subject and good questions many ponder.  I prefer my wah before the overdrive as well.  I run in to the wah, then a phase 90, then a BOSS Super Overdrive.  Since I've modded the daylights out of my crybaby, it sounds wonderful before the overdrive.  I've tried it after the overdrive and didn't like it at all.  It seemed to get more distorted or something and the wah wasn't very distinctive like it is in front of the OD.

[davebungo]

From my experience I would put the Wah in front of an overdrive pedal.  The problem with putting it after is that you tend to lose the compression provided by the overdrive pedal so the sound will be more peaky especially if you are driving a clean amp.