Sound Check The Wah-Wah
posted by on May 31 at 12:46 PM
Today, my people of audible grazing, we are with the Wah-Wah pedal. I have made you an icy beverage concoction. Sit back, deep in the leather sofa folds, sip, get lowly toned and easy. Shadows off the candle throw shapes on the wall that make go-go like movements. Let us undulate, or perhaps even hover. I’ll put some Jimi on.
Maybe you play guitar, or bass, and use a Wah.
What Wah-Wah do you use and why? The industry standard Dunlop Crybaby?
What are your favorite Wah-Wah songs or players or albums?
Where would sex be without the Wah?
Guitar players usually step on them, or maybe you adjust the amplitude of your signal automatically with an Auto-Wah. However your Wah is used, the stance of your sound shows a new face. The Wah takes it under water with love.
A Wah cuts one frequency while accentuating another. Toe down position is more treble, heel back is more bass.
Pg. 32 of Analog Man’s Guide to Vintage Effects says:
The Wah is really a type of bandpass or lowpass filter. The typical Wah uses a ferrite core inductor to create a resonant peak in the frequency of the signal, which can then be swept up and down by rocking the pedal back and forth. A gear attached to the pedal engages a potentiometer that changes a frequency of the resonant peak.
Dan Rapport, of Big World Breaks, and Red Eye Flight spoke:
I use a Budda Bud-Wah. I like it cause it’s true bypass. When you click out, you don’t lose top end off your signal. It’s completely out of your signal chain and is smooth and warm.I had a vintage Mu-Tron Wah for a while and really liked that one. They only made like a thousand of them. Santana and Thurston Moore are Mu-Tron users. It’s controlled optically, so it never wears out. It uses a photo resistor and a light bulb. Moving the pedal controls the light, which controls the amount of effect.
Camillo Estrada, bass player for Gabriel Teodros, Blue Scholars, and Big World Breaks uses a Dunlop Bass Wah. He says:
I think it’s the best Wah for bass. There’s not as wide an array of choices for bass specific Wah’s. Don’t forget us bass players, we use Wah’s too.
History of the Wah is somewhat vague.
Del Casher, a Vox employee, supposedly took a mid range boost circuit from a Vox amp and put it into a foot pedal. Then there was Chet Atkins in 1961 on a song called, “Boo Boo Stick Beat”, but they say that’s a tone control pedal.
In the 1930’s, a 19 year old trumpet player named, Clyde McCoy, messing with his mute to get a vocal sound out of his trumpet is really where the Wah was born. He got that “Wah wah wah” sound, and the earth was never the same again.
It's all about the Talk Box... Peter Frampton, anyone?
There would be no sex without the Wah. We would all be virgins. If there were no Isaac Hayes, there would be no mating.
Zappa, Zappa, and Zappa.
He often left it set in different positions to get different tones, using it as a filter or distortion device. In some recordings, he used the pedal in a conventional manner.
My Zappa Book says that he introduced Jimi Hendrix to the device when they first met in New York in 1966.
Camillo is a stud. Nice work at Sasquatch, guy.
Earl Hooker, heard of him? A Wah master. Cousin of John Lee Hooker. See the Memphis 'Sun Studio.'
Is the Talk Box a Wah?
I use a Dunlop. I've had a few. I break them while wah-ing AND stomping other pedals at the same time. They are inexpensive, easy to work on, and easy to tweak. Slip them +/- a tooth for extra squelch or a more mellow roll. One of my all-time favoritest wah songs is RHCP's 'Sir Psycho Sexy' from Blood Sugar Sex Magik. Very naughty.
I prefer the envelope filter (Edge on Mysterious Ways i think), no footsie multi-tasking. The e.v. wah undulates unlike an Auto-Wah in that it varies according to the intensity of string plucking force.
I must go with Jimi's Electric Ladyland as wah infused album.
I agree, no wah, no sex.
"Slip them +/- a tooth for extra squelch or a more mellow roll."
What does this mean?
Trent, thank you for my beverage concoction. I am deep in the fold and easy.
Ner na ner na chicah wow wow.
Hendrix obviously, especially the variations in Voodoo Chile Slight Return.
But Cream's In the White Room is pretty fun trip-wah, tambien.
What's ferrite?
I believe wha-wha pedals were invented for puh-puh pussies. Why do you think it's also called a "cry baby"? My bands' motto is, "if you aint finger tappin', then this is what will happen". Then we hold our fingers to our head (in the shape of a gun) and pretend to shoot ourselves. You need chops people!! No pain, no record deal. When I got my first neck tattoo, I didn't even FEEL it because I was thinking about this killer riff I had come up with at band practice.
The only pedal you need is distortion. End of story.
Byron "The Siren"
---Voltage Persicope (The NEXT Seattle band)
I answered my own Ferrite question -
1 : any of several magnetic substances that consist essentially of ferric oxide combined with the oxides of one or more other metals (as manganese, nickel, or zinc), have high magnetic permeability and high electrical resistivity, and are used especially in electronic devices
2 : a solid solution in which alpha iron is the solvent
Ferrite, no relation to 'ferret' -
1 a : a domesticated usually albino, brownish, or silver-gray animal (Mustela putorius furo) that is descended from the European polecat b : BLACK-FOOTED FERRET
2 : an active and persistent searcher
I don't know though, I guess there could be a wah playing person who is active and persistantly searches.
George Harrison had a song called "Wah Wah" that was a nice tribute to the pedal. Clapton wails away on the version that's on Concert For Bangladesh, and I think he plays on the album version as well. Fact checkers can call me on that one, cause it's late and I don't feel like looking it up.
The screaming, tortured wah-wah-wail that Jimmy Page plays at the end of Trampled Underfoot is hard to beat in my book.
i lost interest in the article after i realized you weren't actually making a cold tasty beverage called "wah-wah"...it's so hot
The Electric Prunes did a commercial for the Vox Wah Wah pedal in 1966. I use a Dunlop.
Voltage Periscope. All night long, baby.
Love these posts.
voltage periscope........Biggest joke in Seattle. Absolutely NO talent whatsoever...........Late.
MSN I NIIPET
MSN
Comments Closed
In order to combat spam, we are no longer accepting comments on this post (or any post more than 14 days old).