WAH gutting and replacement - recommendations and views welcome

darcym

I picked up a limited edition Cry Baby case for the 95GQB model, the wah sound is pretty average to say the least but I only really bought it for the fun case. 

My plan is to replace the inside with something different.

I've got the wah's I like, couple of RMC's the Jam Wazoo, Dunlop Cantrell, and a keeley mod, these are all really great wah's and do their own thing, so what I was thinking for this wah was something different, something I normally wouldn't go for, as you can see most of the wah's are the classic vintage tone, or the dark quack from the Cantrell. 

Based on the limitations of the dunlop shell what would you suggest to me to replace the innards with ? a different better dunlop model ? a modded dunlop model, a mayer vision wah ? a castledine, something else ??? 

give me a wildcard suggestion that I may not have thought of and why you like it as a wah.

Thanks.

bbill335

I don't know if castledine's pcb will be a drop-in for that model. You could just swap out some component values to get the sound you're after. 

John_P

Mom sure you’re aware of the usual mods like swapping the inductor etc but as you have some great wahs already id be tempted to look at something more unusual for the case - a univibe or Leslie type circuit might be fun. 

darcym

got univibe and leslie covered, wouldn't change them for the world, thats why I'm looking for something totally different in the wah voice, 

Moe_Zambeek

Parapedal / parachute wah? 

stickyfiddle

BYOC. Massively tweakable and hard to get a bad sound out of it. 

ThePrettyDamned

If you want something different, is there a way to get the steve vai/tremonti style wahs in that box?

They're very thick with a massive sweep and a synth-like top end. Super fun. Not vintage or quacky at all, but you've got that... 

Of course, the best wah in the world is the old grey plastic ibanez wah that came out in the... 80s? Great sounding thing. John Frusciante uses one. 

Moe_Zambeek

Castledine drop in wah kits are 15% off at Reverb just now, btw.

bbill335

darcym said:

got univibe and leslie covered, wouldn't change them for the world, thats why I'm looking for something totally different in the wah voice, 

OK, here's something I think would be really cool...

You build a thick, meaty envelope filter/autowah into the enclosure, and you have it so that you can control either the intensity of the sweep, the resonance of the filter or the start frequency of the sweep with the rocker. Even better, you could have an option to control the filter with an LFO and control the rate/depth with the rocker.

I have no idea how you would do this but it would be an awesome pedal. Run an octave pedal before it and an overdrive after it and it would be SICK.

FelineGuitars

I built a fun wah myself using a great quality circuitboard I bought from a guy on ebay

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/2x-VOX-847-Crybaby-Wah-Effects-PCB-Board-Drop-In-DIY-Ver3-by-moutoulos/202067292547?hash=item2f0c263183:g:M7UAAOSwPe1UGFl6

I went and bought "old school " parts: carbon comp resistors, NOS Wima caps and a couple of Sozo caps and I had a red Fasel lying around


Was easy to do  - may try swapping out the red Fasel for a yellow one or a custom wound inductor


I have since added a 25k ohm pot on the side and connected it to the 33kohm resistor that controls the Q, so I can vary the Q resistor from 33k up to 58k ohms (the sweet spot is supposed to be in that range)
I have a clear perspex base on it and ideally I'd like to stick an LED into the perspex so the base glows when it's on.

bbill335

FelineGuitars said:

I have since added a 25k ohm pot on the side and connected it to the 33kohm resistor that controls the Q, so I can vary the Q resistor from 33k up to 58k ohms (the sweet spot is supposed to be in that range)
I have a clear perspex base on it and ideally I'd like to stick an LED into the perspex so the base glows when it's on.

I'm not very knowledgeable about circuits but in my wah tinkering, I think this resistor might be the most interesting part to mess with. I have a BBE wah and that uses a 10k in series before a 50k pot, but I'd be interested in trying it with a resistor/pot combo that could go from 10k-100k (apparently some vintage wahs had 100ks there) to see what value was best.

It's interesting, the wah pot in the BBE was a bit scratchy, I was having to clean it every time I used it. I swapped the pot for a replacement ICAR pot (not a cheap one) and it just didn't sound right in the BBE, despite sounding great in a GCB95 that I true bypassed and swapped some resistors. 

FelineGuitars

bbill335 said:

FelineGuitars said:

I have since added a 25k ohm pot on the side and connected it to the 33kohm resistor that controls the Q, so I can vary the Q resistor from 33k up to 58k ohms (the sweet spot is supposed to be in that range)
I have a clear perspex base on it and ideally I'd like to stick an LED into the perspex so the base glows when it's on.

I'm not very knowledgeable about circuits but in my wah tinkering, I think this resistor might be the most interesting part to mess with. I have a BBE wah and that uses a 10k in series before a 50k pot, but I'd be interested in trying it with a resistor/pot combo that could go from 10k-100k (apparently some vintage wahs had 100ks there) to see what value was best.

It's interesting, the wah pot in the BBE was a bit scratchy, I was having to clean it every time I used it. I swapped the pot for a replacement ICAR pot (not a cheap one) and it just didn't sound right in the BBE, despite sounding great in a GCB95 that I true bypassed and swapped some resistors. 

I have one of the BBE wahs (that got Vertex-ed) that I got from someone on the Fretboard and t sounds great

clarkefan

darcym said:

I picked up a limited edition Cry Baby case for the 95GQB model, the wah sound is pretty average to say the least but I only really bought it for the fun case.

Is that description right? If you mean an all-chrome one that came out couple of years ago, wow that looked amazing, I missed out big time on that one.  It was stupid expensive though.

Don't have any brilliant ideas really.  Maybe the BBE wah circuit dropped in would be best of both worlds, great vintage sounding and beautiful looking wah