Need Help w/Jimi Hendrix Dunlope Wah?

[mike]

My son's got a Dunlope Jimi Wah. Without hitting a string, when you rock the pedal back and forth it sounds kind of like you're listening to the ocean through a sea shell. It's not a buzzing sound. I mean it sounds just like the shell description.

I opened it up and there are no loose wires and everthing is connected. I unplugged it from the power supply and used it with a battery and it does the same thing.

Now, while at college, one thing he use to do is leave in plugged in all the time, even when he wasn't playing the guitar. Could that have done something? Personnally that's what I think did it.

Anyway, I've never taken a pedal in for a repair, will it cost more to have it fixed than just buying a new wah?

Thanks for any help you can give.

[lunaalta]

Not much help here, but I have an original 60s Cry Baby and I guess it got it's name 'cos the noise would make anyone cry, let alone babys.......

[vroom]

My Vox V-847 does that to my 5150 combo. Granted, the 5150 isn't exactly the quietest amp around.

[sumgai]

Noisy pot.

Take the bottom cover off and spray clean the pot. If it's completely sealed (some of them are), then you'll have to either replace it or take the pot apart to clean it. I don't recommend the latter, because if you mess it up, then you'll have to replace it anyway. Might as well save the time and headache, if the pot is sealed.

HTH


sumgai

[Ripper]

hmmmm?....My wah sounds like that too. Its a crybaby. It even sounded like that when it was new out of the box.

I thought that it was just the nature of the beast.

[sumgai]

hmmmm?....My wah sounds like that too. Its a crybaby. It even sounded like that when it was new out of the box.

I thought that it was just the nature of the beast.

Oh, wait..... is this one of those alleged reproduction units? They use FORD germanium transistors. (Found On Road, Dumped) These are very low quality, but they are germanium, so they squeak by in the "legally required to be truthful" department, but they are very noisy.

Just for the record..... A transistor works by passing electrons from one type of material to another. The point where this happens is called the junction. A junction is usually made of materials that are "doped" with a small amount of the opposing material (think "negatively charged" versus "positively charged" materials here). The electrons flowing across the junction encounter a certain amount of resistance in the flow, and thus they have to "work" to make the transistion. In that work, they generate heat, and the noise we hear is the heat of all those electrons working hard, and not coincidentally, colliding with each other in that mad dash to get to the other side. Quality units reduce this with better doping processes, but there are limits - eventually, some noise will be unavoidable. The only question that remains is, how much can we reduce it so as to make the transistor usable? If our scruples are low enough, we can mass produce a bunch of crud, and sell it to musicians - after all, they can't hear anything anymore anyway, right? ;D


sumgai

[RandomHero]

That sounds like the normal behaviour of noise through a wah to me.

[Happyguy]

I also have that wah, It makes that noise... I think its normal.

[sharpgt]

the seashell sound is normal. the guitar's pickups are probably single coils, right? the seashell effect is the 'fender hum' being wah-wah-ed. check. try the pedal with humbucker equiped guitar or with any hum cancelling set up. of couse it coud be any other source of e.m. interference in the guitar set up. there is a chance that the effect is made more noticeable because the wah-wah pedal does sometime boost

the point is: the seashell sound you are hearing is normal, it's a radio wave of some sort getting into the guitar signal chain and being wah-wah-ed.