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Best Wah pedal / sound / setup - suggestions?


moreaupj
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Hi - anyone have suggestions on which wah pedal is best and/or suggestions on setup? I have not been able to get a wah sound that is nice and rich like a real cry baby, I would like one that provides pretty thick & varied wah tone. I keep trying ones but they just sound kinda thin and not that heavy on the wah. I don't know if there are setup tricks or other that I need to do to make this better. 

 

thank you so much! Paul

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Helix has two Cry Baby models: the Teardrop 310 and the Fassel.  (They add an extra "s" in Fasel, presumably to avoid legal issues with Dunlop)  
I admit I do not know which Fasel model it is supposed to emulate though.  There were a number of them and there were some significant differences.

 

I'm not that sure what you mean by "not that heavy on the wah".  Do you mean the wah does not sweep a wide enough range or do you mean there isn't any built in distortion?

You should probably make an attempt to clarify exactly what you mean by "thin" as well.  All wahs have the effect of narrowing the EQ peaks so they could all technically be described as thin.

 

 

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Are you talking about the 'resonance' of the wah sound?  Or the 'Q'...   

 

Resonance is how vocal or how throaty>bitey the wah gets.  the Q is the width of the sweeping range of the wah 'pot' essentially.  I loved that my Fractal had access to those two parameters and you could really create your own custom wah.  the GT series by Boss as well.  You can lower the min Freq settings and such, but the resonance and Q are set.  

 

For awhile I paired an OD block to engage when my wah did to help emulate the 'drive' that is in the Slash Sig wah.  I liked it, but eventually became too mad scientist with presets and that extra block before my amps became valuable for other things.  

 

I typically use the Throaty or Fassel model.  I'll lower the Min Freq to between 250-300hz depending on the amp/sound I'm using it with and the high I always set a touch higher than I really need.  I used the toe down position as my auto-off position...so I try not to go near 90%+ in the pedal travel, so I really want my top end bite to be around that 90% mark.  

 

Not sure that helps are stirs the pot, lol

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18 hours ago, MGW-Alberta said:

Helix has two Cry Baby models: the Teardrop 310 and the Fassel.  (They add an extra "s" in Fasel, presumably to avoid legal issues with Dunlop)  
I admit I do not know which Fasel model it is supposed to emulate though.  There were a number of them and there were some significant differences.

 

I'm not that sure what you mean by "not that heavy on the wah".  Do you mean the wah does not sweep a wide enough range or do you mean there isn't any built in distortion?

You should probably make an attempt to clarify exactly what you mean by "thin" as well.  All wahs have the effect of narrowing the EQ peaks so they could all technically be described as thin.

 

 

thank you for the reply - in terms of thin, i am talking about how much "wah" is in the wah LOL. so yes the sweep. just doesn't seem pronounced, not from a volume perspective but a  heaviness of wah. and agree on EQ, i didnt mean that.  i thought about using an external but if can get where i want would rather just  use the helix.  thank you

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12 hours ago, themetallikid said:

Are you talking about the 'resonance' of the wah sound?  Or the 'Q'...   

 

Resonance is how vocal or how throaty>bitey the wah gets.  the Q is the width of the sweeping range of the wah 'pot' essentially.  I loved that my Fractal had access to those two parameters and you could really create your own custom wah.  the GT series by Boss as well.  You can lower the min Freq settings and such, but the resonance and Q are set.  

 

For awhile I paired an OD block to engage when my wah did to help emulate the 'drive' that is in the Slash Sig wah.  I liked it, but eventually became too mad scientist with presets and that extra block before my amps became valuable for other things.  

 

I typically use the Throaty or Fassel model.  I'll lower the Min Freq to between 250-300hz depending on the amp/sound I'm using it with and the high I always set a touch higher than I really need.  I used the toe down position as my auto-off position...so I try not to go near 90%+ in the pedal travel, so I really want my top end bite to be around that 90% mark.  

 

Not sure that helps are stirs the pot, lol

i was talking about the Q - this is exactly what i was looking for thank you so much

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I use the Throaty wah in the beginning of the chain, for hi-gain sounds.  It works very similar to how the Morley Bad Horsey worked for me.  I leave all the default settings.  It has a nice sweep, nothing too crazy/piercing. 

 

For cleans, I use the Weeper wah also in the beginning, changing the mix to about 75 percent, or less, otherwise it's too icepick-y.  Otherwise, Weeper has a very nice sweep, like if you want to get that Slash solo sound.  For most of my needs, it's too much, especially hi-gain solo stuff.  I like the wah to be very transparent, not in your face, like Kirk Hammet, and so on.  

 

Also, you can add some EQ'ing or gain to the wah as well, it's completely customizable.  

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3 hours ago, theElevators said:

I use the Throaty wah in the beginning of the chain, for hi-gain sounds.  It works very similar to how the Morley Bad Horsey worked for me.  I leave all the default settings.  It has a nice sweep, nothing too crazy/piercing. 

 

For cleans, I use the Weeper wah also in the beginning, changing the mix to about 75 percent, or less, otherwise it's too icepick-y.  Otherwise, Weeper has a very nice sweep, like if you want to get that Slash solo sound.  For most of my needs, it's too much, especially hi-gain solo stuff.  I like the wah to be very transparent, not in your face, like Kirk Hammet, and so on.  

 

Also, you can add some EQ'ing or gain to the wah as well, it's completely customizable.  

thank you

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On 7/16/2021 at 12:36 PM, moreaupj said:

thank you

 

On 7/16/2021 at 9:02 AM, theElevators said:

I use the Throaty wah in the beginning of the chain, for hi-gain sounds.  It works very similar to how the Morley Bad Horsey worked for me.  I leave all the default settings.  It has a nice sweep, nothing too crazy/piercing. 

 

For cleans, I use the Weeper wah also in the beginning, changing the mix to about 75 percent, or less, otherwise it's too icepick-y.  Otherwise, Weeper has a very nice sweep, like if you want to get that Slash solo sound.  For most of my needs, it's too much, especially hi-gain solo stuff.  I like the wah to be very transparent, not in your face, like Kirk Hammet, and so on.  

 

Also, you can add some EQ'ing or gain to the wah as well, it's completely customizable.  

Just to piggy back on this.  If you like the more attack in the wah sound of 100% in the low register, but not on the high register...you can ASSIGN the min/max settings of the 'Mix%' to 100/75% or 75/100%.  That way when you are in the lower register you get more wah bite/edge, but as you progress through the sweep it reduces the mix to allow more dry signal come through.  I love doing stuff like this with other effects sometimes.  Such as adding a parametric EQ prior to the WAH and adjusting the +/- db and the Q/frequency to match the min/max of the wah as well.  I may set the Min to -5db/4.0Q/800hz and the max to +6db/4.0Q/800hz.  Just as an example.   Lots of impractical stuff you can do....

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