Wah post - please help me find it!?

D

dirtypurple

Inspired
Hi,
There was a post a few months ago about the wah effect sounding a bit thin - as mine does. The poster suggested (I think) a filter block before hand that engaged with the wah.

I can't find the post anywhere - can anyone who remembers it help and point me at it?

Cheers
 
Hey Dirty, it was also possibly adding a Graphic EQ pre-wah as well to add some eq balls where you feel you need it. Works great, to me it helps with adding some great vocal qualities without having to crank the resonance and losing some of the 'sweep'
 
Thanks The_Kid - put one in front, and sounds much better thx.

The only problem now is that when using my Mission pedal, it doesn't seem to have that much "sweep" - it feels more like a step than a smooth wah effect. I have it set to auto engage.

Any one else had this problem?
 
Thanks Bakerman, I'd seen that one too.

The problem I have is that with my mission pedal, it just feels like it doesn't sweep uniformly or that much - almost as if the pedal would be better if it had twice the travel. Its almost like it goes from the lowest freq to the highest too quickly.
 
Here are my wah settings, you may have to watch the 'ball' in the modifier settings to see if its tracking your pedal right....

Graphic EQ
63hz - 0
125 - 5.5+
250 - 4.6+
500 - 3+
1k - 2.6+
2k - 2.3+
4k - -1.9
8k - -2.5
i add a 2db boost to the level of the GEQ block to help with a bit of slamming the wah a bit as some wahs have a built in gain boost.

Wah settings
type: Bandpass
FMIN: 290
FMAX: 2194
RES: 7.32
TRACK: 6.77
FREQ: Ext 1
Mod settings
Start - 0
Mid - 58.7 (I do this because I like the upper range of the wah to be more accessible and this relates directly to how I have my bypass modifer set which I will explain later)
End - 100
Slope - 63.8 (this is also tied into the mid setting. This slope allows me to hit the mid/upper range earlier in the sweep, because of my bypass modifer settings)
Damp - 8ms (this seems to give a more real feel to the movement/audio)
Level - 0.0
Bypass Mod settings
Ext 1
Start - 100
Mid - 100
End - 41.7
Slope 0.0
Damping 12ms
Auto Engage - Fast

All other settings not mentioned are 'stock' and not touched. This setup allows me to keep my expression pedal toe down (off) for all blocks I attach it to. Its easier for me to stand and sing with my foot on a controller and rock it back to turn something on rather than look down and push a button or hold my heel down in that position....just a personal preference.

My Bypass of 100/100/41.7 is my own trial and error and gives me the closest position i can get (may have to revisit to get closer possibly) so that in toe down effects are off...as soon as I move my toe up a certain distance, it goes above 50% and turns on all blocks associated with it. make sense? Because the ball is of a certain size on teh screen i can't really see where it goes below 50% to turn things off, so its a trial and error with how much play room you want to have before a block turns 'on'.
 
What values could I use if I wanted my pedal to work backwards from that (Toe up is off)? I tried swapping the values, and I think I just ended up getting confused. I ask because, for some strange reason, my pedal has a tenancy to "stick" when I use it your way. As in, the ball seems to get stuck about 85% down the slope, and the wah is then stuck on until I can get it to reset. Other than my retarded pedal, I was totally getting into the wah sounds I was getting from these settings.
 
You can use normal autoengage to get heel-down or toe-down bypass. Just set up the one modifier on wah freq. then enable autoengage (choose between slow/med/fast disengage timing), set off value to 95% for toe down = off.
 
Bakerman, I believe that I stopped using the autoengage function for awhile, because I didnt like the 5% as my pedal moved for that 5%. I felt I could get more travel out of adding a modifier to the Bypass parameter and trial and erroring when exactly the ball travels above/below the 50% line which would turn the block on/off...this gave me a slightly more usable sweep range for effects like the way...and also more 'instant' changing when activating other blocks.

Decerto,

If you want to invert what I'm doing by not using the auto engage, you would set it up like this.
Bypass Mod settings
Ext 1
Start - 0
Mid - 0
End - 58.3
Slope 0.0
Damping 12ms
Auto Engage - Fast (as Bakerman suggested and I 'forgot', this is really only used if you arent going to set the ball travel as I am, I believe.

By setting the bypass on the wah block like this, this would then set the heel down position as 'off', when you rocked the pedal forward, it would cross the 50% mark on the graph and activate the blocks wah/eq. The modifier for the FREQ parameter would not have to be changed because you are still using the expression pedal in the normal sweep direction where toe down is the treble side. If you wanted to invert the sweep where heel down is the treble side of the sweep, then you would invert the min/max settings on the FREQ/WAH block.

Make sense?
 
Yeah, and wow... That was WAY off from what I did. Mine was just broken sounding... I'll have to try that in a minute.
 
yeah, its been an interesting trial and error. I tend to not do things the way other musicians do. I hate having to stomp on a button to switch sounds. Usually cause I'm singing as well, and dont trust where my foot is going if I'm not looking at it. I recently just went from 4 preset/8 IA buttons on my ground control pro foot controller because I can control all 'changes' in my patches from my 2 pedals. I usually have the right one (expression 1) control lead/solo changes and the left one (expression 2) control all changes in amps/effects and such. its easier for me to stand with my foot on a pedal and rock it back, than to shift my weight, step on a button, readjust my weight while playing and singing and moving from rhythm to lead...unfortunately i'm not cool enough to have a techie do my switching live, lol.
 
I have a hard enough time walking and chewing gum let alone playing and singing. ;-)
Thanks for sharing your settings Kid and sharing the idea of GEQ in front of the Wah. I really liked the feel of the wah. Now I don't feel the Wah in the Axe is lacking.
 
The_Kid said:
Bakerman, I believe that I stopped using the autoengage function for awhile, because I didnt like the 5% as my pedal moved for that 5%. I felt I could get more travel out of adding a modifier to the Bypass parameter and trial and erroring when exactly the ball travels above/below the 50% line which would turn the block on/off...this gave me a slightly more usable sweep range for effects like the way...and also more 'instant' changing when activating other blocks.

Decerto,

If you want to invert what I'm doing by not using the auto engage, you would set it up like this.
Bypass Mod settings
Ext 1
Start - 0
Mid - 0
End - 58.3
Slope 0.0
Damping 12ms
Auto Engage - Fast (as Bakerman suggested and I 'forgot', this is really only used if you arent going to set the ball travel as I am, I believe.

By setting the bypass on the wah block like this, this would then set the heel down position as 'off', when you rocked the pedal forward, it would cross the 50% mark on the graph and activate the blocks wah/eq. The modifier for the FREQ parameter would not have to be changed because you are still using the expression pedal in the normal sweep direction where toe down is the treble side. If you wanted to invert the sweep where heel down is the treble side of the sweep, then you would invert the min/max settings on the FREQ/WAH block.

Make sense?
Click to expand...

So I finally got around to trying this... Now what happens is when I push the pedal all the way up, it kicks the GEQ and Wah off bypass, sometimes (Remember sometimes my ball sticks at about 85-90% on the curve)... And as soon as I move it just barely off of the toe down position (As in not even 5%), it puts them back into bypass. What did I do wrong?
 
To have toe-up bypass using a bypass modifier you'd want start/mid/end at something like 49/100/100. The dot has to be above 50% on the Y axis for the block to be engaged. I'd suggest turning damping up to something like 100-200 ms which will prevent it from bypassing immediately whenever you reach 0%.

But... you might find that normal auto-engage works nicely too. The main difference is where the effect will engage, no earlier than 20%. After that the full range of the pedal will be usable in the same way with either method.
 
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