Small tip for the wah block, the tracking parameter

aziz

aziz

Power User
Well, here's a tiny, perhaps obvious tip for anyone who's bothered to read the manual. I took out my pedal board in order to put it for sale. Crybaby is the only pedal from my board that is modeled in the axe, so I decided to test it against the Axe wah. With the default settings, the Axe wah had less of "vowel" in it, and the real crybaby didn't cut the low frequencies so much, it sort of let them bleed through. So I reached for the resonance parameter first, but it turned out that actually the "tracking" was the right one to tweak, lowered that to 3 and now there's that increased "wah" I wanted. I've sort of neglected that one until now, because as a non-native english speaker, its name doesn't quite tell me what it does. If I understand correctly, it adjusts how much the height of the wah peak (which in turn is set by the resonance knob) gets smaller as you go up the wah range. So lowering that will make the peak bigger in the higher range of the wah, and therefore more vowel in the tone. Now, the pedalboard goes for sale!
 
Last edited:
Interesting, I just presumed (also having not fully read that section of the manual) that tracking was something to do with how it related to the midi CC commands and to smooth out the glitches. No idea where I got that from, nice find!

Spence
 
xpenno said:
Interesting, I just presumed (also having not fully read that section of the manual) that tracking was something to do with how it related to the midi CC commands and to smooth out the glitches. No idea where I got that from, nice find!

Spence
Click to expand...

Yeah, I've sort of thought that too, but that is the damping in the controller settings. Oh, and the bigger low end was matched with tweaking the "fat" parameter.
 
Last edited:
thanks!
the Crybaby has been my go to Wah ever since it was added, I'll have to make a note a play around with this a bit :)
 
Tracking controls how much the Q changes with the Control knob. The Q in a wah is not constant. The amount of Q change varies from brand-to-brand and model-to-model. It even varies between identical models due to component tolerances.
 
aziz said:
Well, here's a tiny, perhaps obvious tip for anyone who's bothered to read the manual. I took out my pedal board in order to put it for sale. Crybaby is the only pedal from my board that is modeled in the axe, so I decided to test it against the Axe wah. With the default settings, the Axe wah had less of "vowel" in it, and the real crybaby didn't cut the low frequencies so much, it sort of let them bleed through. So I reached for the resonance parameter first, but it turned out that actually the "tracking" was the right one to tweak, lowered that to 3 and now there's that increased "wah" I wanted. I've sort of neglected that one until now, because as a non-native english speaker, its name doesn't quite tell me what it does. If I understand correctly, it adjusts how much the height of the wah peak (which in turn is set by the resonance knob) gets smaller as you go up the wah range. So lowering that will make the peak bigger in the higher range of the wah, and therefore more vowel in the tone. Now, the pedalboard goes for sale!
Click to expand...

Excellent - I trying to get into a band that is playing late 60's early 70's rock and there is a fair amount of Wah. I've always gravitated towards the FAS Wah. I wanted to like the Clyde, but it was too thin. Saw your post later in this thread about the FAT control. Going to try both tips to see if I can get the Clyde to wake up.

THANK YOU SO MUCH!!!
 
Great information ! I have been playing around with too high track settings - now it sounds real ! Thanks :)
 
Great timing, just got my Mission pedal and have been wah'ing it up all weekend. I'll try this, I like the Clyde setting as well!
 
I ended up with resonance of 7 and tracking of 2.8. Also lowered the high freq a bit, now the sweep range perfectly in the sweet range without mud or icepick.
 
Tracking, resonance and fatness can get you the wah you want, and having it dialed custom per patch is killer.
 
Aziz - I have a Dunlop CryBaby.. and I adore it..
I tried your tracking setting at 3 and it was far stronger than my real one..
7 was closer..

kinda makes sense what Cliff pointed out
"It even varies between identical models due to component tolerances."
 
Awesome tip. I was feeling the wah was a little poor on the Axe and now suddenly it reacts so much better. Thanks :D
 
clarky said:
kinda makes sense what Cliff pointed out
"It even varies between identical models due to component tolerances."
Click to expand...
on one tour (before the Axe) I had various Cry Babys in rotation because they just liked to fail from time to time and not one of them ever sounded like the other. even if the components would be spot on, the actual mechanical movement of the pot could make one sound different to the other. so in that regard the Axe's Wah is far superior to all of them. it'll always sound the way you set it up and you can set it up any way you prefer :)
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom