Built-In Wah

[ijustwannastrat]

Talking to my dad about hacking a wah apart, he suggested that I simply put it IN the guitar. I laughed at first, but after a few moments thinking about it, I sort of got excited. If you switched the toggle AND pot with a guitar push-push (or push-pull) pot, you could probably fit the guts of a dunlop wah inside of a cavity. Any thoughts?

[sumgai]

stratty,

You ain't the first one to think of that, nor the first to do it!

It's all a matter of playing style, and what you find to be the easiest way to accomplish some task. If you want it in your axe, fine, do it! There may not be enough room now, but with a little handiwork using your router, you can make room. After all, that's what a pickguard is there for, to hide your butchering...... ain't it? ;D

HTH



sumgai

[newey]

SG said:

If you want it in your axe, fine, do it! There may not be enough room now, but with a little handiwork using your router, you can make room.

I might considering trying it out on a cheap axe first, before digging into anything that comes in the "your pride and joy" category.

I won't even begin to try to pull up the links we've had where something similar was discussed. Somewhere buried in the coffee shop, there's a video of a guy who built one into his guitar using a touchpad controller on the upper bout- but that may have been a digi-synthey type of thing, I disremember.

And I started a thread somewhere about possibly using a vibrato arm as an actuator, wah-like, on a volume pot down in the rear cavity, although that was more in the realm of "half-axed speculation" . And there's a couple of other similar threads about.

[dunkelfalke]

Wah not.

store.guitarfetish.com/onswwamiboco.html

[ashcatlt]

I kinda figured guitarfetish would have one these. It would be tough to acquire even a used wah in working order at that price. I'm not completely sure what the difference is between wiring it as a wah vs a "mid boost". The board doesn't look like it's much smaller than a Crybaby board.

I'm completely against the idea of onboard electronics, mostly because I'm against batteries. Also, if you build into a separate box you can use it for more than one guitar, not to mention other applications. Then again, nothing says the guitarfetish board has to go into a guitar.

[dunkelfalke]

Actually there are cheap wahs.
Here is one: www.zzounds.com/item--BEHHB01

[JohnH]

What puts me off on-board effects is controlling them, with the limited number of hands that I have (actually I have more than the average number of them), given that there is also playing to be done. That leaves feet which are free, but its hard to get your foot up high enough to press knobs on a guita. Hence its a good idea to put it all on the floor.

Actually, with a built-in wah, if you can pull off a credible controller arm, a bit like a tremmy, it might be cool!

John

[dunkelfalke]

On-board overdrive is quite practical and I really wish I could keep using it; but alas, my new Revelation ATX has got only three pot holes and I'll need all three (volume, EQ, rotary switch) and I can't bring myself to drill a fourth one into such a rare guitar.

[ashcatlt]

Dunk, there's always concentric pots. If one of your holes is filled by a rotary switch you could still have a total of 4 independent pots. Then, for OD, there's the idea of Passive Clipping Circuits

John, I'm pretty sure the OP here follows from my suggestion in this thread where he was talking about using the wah in a "set and forget" manner. I still disapprove of putting it into the guitar, though.

[ijustwannastrat]

I actually THOUGHT about it, and it seems a little useless now. I think I may just stick with the $30 loop box from GGG. I think i will eventually find a good on-board effect, though. Look at Matt Bellamy...

[newey]

Well, Stratty, I understand that this type of project may be wholly impracticable. As I mentioned, in a long-ago thread speculating about what I called "passive effects" (See JohnH's post in Design Modules on Shottky diodes), I mused about using a TremeLeo arm (errrr, vibrato . . .) as a sort-of wah device.

For what it's worth (probably not much), here's a graphic of roughly what I had in mind:



Forget the EEs, I need a mechanical engineer for a project like this! ;D ;D ;D

[dunkelfalke]

Feb 19, 2010 20:09:20 GMT -5 ashcatlt said:

Dunk, there's always concentric pots.

I know and I even have got one in my junk pile. The problem is that I want to use following parts:






Do you see my problem now?

[cynical1]

Feb 19, 2010 22:34:49 GMT -5 newey said:

...in a long-ago thread speculating about what I called "passive effects" (See JohnH's post in Design Modules on Shottky diodes), I mused about using a TremeLeo arm (errrr, vibrato . . .) as a sort-of wah device...

Now that is something I can get my head around. There's a couple of ways to make a mechanic link to a pot.

There's plenty of available small racks and pinion gears available that would fit into a tight space.



Rather then a rack and pinion set-up, what about this:

For 1:1, or...

for maximum pot rotation with minimum lever movement mount the smaller gear to your pot.

When I used to fix printers and office machinery I used a company called Stock Drive Products. Feel free to investigate all the miniature drive options yourself...it's a real enjoyable time waster...

Another thought, what could you do with one of these?



Happy Trails

Cynical One

[JohnH]

I wonder if the electronic circuit could be made very sensitive so that only a small turn of the pot acomplished the full sweep? Then you could directly couple the pot to a sprung lever with no intervening mechanics (ie, its a knob with a long stick on it)

John

[ashcatlt]

JohnH - One could always use a higher value pot and pop in a couple of taps to "shorten" the track and allow what you're talking about. I've read about this being done, and could probably find a link from diystompboxes is I had to... I can tell you that applying conductive paint to the ends of the track does not seem to work.

Most of the time a foot controlled wah is not designed to travel all the way between the two extremes of the pot anyway. You get quite a bit more torque out of the rack and pinion that you would twiddling a knob with your hand and if one was to exert that much force on the end of the pot's rotation, it could easily be damaged. This is part of the reason I ended up trying the paint thing. I want my volume pedal to go all the way in both directions, but it physically won't (even with the rubber stops on both ends removed). I'd say it's a good idea to keep this in mind when you're gearing up your whammy lever as well.

[JohnH]

Feb 20, 2010 16:02:23 GMT -5 ashcatlt said:

JohnH - One could always use a higher value pot and pop in a couple of taps to "shorten" the track and allow what you're talking about. I've read about this being done, and could probably find a link from diystompboxes is I had to... I can tell you that applying conductive paint to the ends of the track does not seem to work.

At one stroke, good idea, and shame if it doesnt work! How about those fine pens that are used for repairing pcb traces? A line of that on each side of the track, from each end, leaving the central short active section?

John

[ashcatlt]

I had a paint pen, and had my wife (who doesn't have the congenital shaking) put a little line along the track. Didn't work. I'd be happy to hear if somebody else could make it happen.

Apparently there is a way to pop a metal brad type thing into the track and connect wires or whatever to create taps. It's a little inconvenient to link from my iPhone, but I'll look around a little later.

[sumgai]

Feb 20, 2010 15:36:11 GMT -5 JohnH said:

I wonder if the electronic circuit could be made very sensitive so that only a small turn of the pot acomplished the full sweep? Then you could directly couple the pot to a sprung lever with no intervening mechanics (ie, its a knob with a long stick on it)

This is precisely what happens in a standard wah such as the Cry Baby - the pot rotates through approximately 90°, and the circuit is designed to use that range of variability as well as those parts of the track that the wiper never encounters.

The problem is obvious - one can't mount any smaller a gear to the pot's shaft in order to gain more "linear to rotation" conversion distance, the gear is already as small as can be, and still not break (too quickly). So, my solution would be to put the cart before the horse!

I'd mount a pinion gear to the axial fulcrum of my vibrato-like arm, and then I'd mount a rack to a linear potentiometer, sorta like those found in a standard mixer. Now if I needed greater linear movement, I can increase the diameter of the pinion gear until I get the desired results from the linear pot.

Should be easy enough to find the "sweet spot". All that's left to jigger up is the spring return action, or so I'd think.

HTH



sumgai

[ashcatlt]

Here's a link for center tapping a pot with an eyelet. We've talked about cutting the track on a pot, this is kind of the opposite. Can't see any reason you couldn't add two or more of these, if necessary.

I agree about the thing with only so many hands. That's why half of my electrics don't have V or T pots, and most of the reason I tried to make the passive volume pedal work...