Onboard Crazy Wah

[Noddy13]

I've had a strange idea, which, probably wont work... I've been looking at the wah-wah circuit diagram on generalguitargadgets.com and i was thinking that if i was to put that inside the guitar, and have a sliding switch which would control the wah and also a switch to turn it on and off. Or maybe have a sliding push pull switch ( if they even make them...) to turn it on and off and to control the wah. Any opinions, good idea ? bad idea?

Cheers Noddy

[weezerboy]

why not just use a dr q?

http://www.muzique.com/schem/quack.gif

[Paul Marossy]

So you don't really want to use it as a wah, but more like a filter with an adjustable resonant peak? I think that would be kind of cool.

[octafish]

So you don't really want to use it as a wah, but more like a filter with an adjustable resonant peak? I think that would be kind of cool. 

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+1

Sliding pots can be a real bitch to mount nicely. If you can make a nice neat slot in your scratchplate then go for it.

Edited September 27, 2005 by octafish

[Paul Marossy]

Sliding pots can be a real bitch to mount nicely. If you can make a nice neat slot in your scratchplate then go for it.

Yeah, this is true. I've done it well enough for small slider switches, but not a slider pot. Good luck!

[lovekraft]

Just a suggestion - if you're gonna throw a wah circuit in your control cavity, you might want to look for a design that uses a Twin-Tee filter rather than the traditional inductor wah. No sense in putting another big coil of wire to contribute to the noise floor, IMO.

[JoeAArthur]

During the '60s... there were several Vox guitars with built-in wah-wah, among other effects. The name "Invader" springs to mind... sort of a Mosrite style body. The wah was sort of like a whammy bar attached behind the middle of the bridge. I wanted one of those guitars back then...

[Mickguard]

Anyway, what you really want is something mounted directly behind the bridge, that way all you need to do is slide the heel of your hand back a little bit....with a little practice you'll be able to pick and wah at the same time....

Or how about this (I think it might already exist?): you mount a little spring sensitive pad in the BACK of the guitar, about where it'll strike your hip...you'll have TOTAL CONTROL...

But if you really want the slider thing, seems to me that you could use a tele control panel's switch slot (or a strat's for that matter)

[Paul Marossy]

Just a suggestion - if you're gonna throw a wah circuit in your control cavity, you might want to look for a design that uses a Twin-Tee filter rather than the traditional inductor wah. No sense in putting another big coil of wire to contribute to the noise floor, IMO.

This is a good point. Something like a Colorsound Inductorless Wah might work well for that. If you go with an inductor based wah, shield it very well. Disclaimer: No guarantees on its performance even if well shielded.

[tirapop]

I have trouble getting my hands and feet to work together. I thought it would be cool to have a built-in wah that operated by tilting the guitar... maybe a pendulum on the rheostat. Guitar held normally sounds normal. Tilt the head to the ceiling and WAAAAHHHH.

[Mickguard]

I have trouble getting my hands and feet to work together.  I thought it would be cool to have a built-in wah that operated by tilting the guitar... maybe a pendulum on the rheostat.  Guitar held normally sounds normal.  Tilt the head to the ceiling and WAAAAHHHH.

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Heh heh...and you can have electrodes attached to the muscles in your face...that way you can control the amount of wah with your 'guitar face'

[Paul Marossy]

Heh heh...and you can have electrodes attached to the muscles in your face...that way you can control the amount of wah with your 'guitar face'

Give it a few years, the technology is almost here!

[ansil]

a friend of mine had the idea to put a spring loaded wah into a stap so you could pull the guitar down.. and it would come on and wah. interesting idea. none the less.

as for mounting slider pots there actually a quite simple way to mount them depending on there length. make a template of a five way switch. and go from there. use a dremel with a cutting wheel and it will cut like butter. also if you take the time to make your template out of something like metal. then you can use a hotknife to make a clean cut in the pickguard.. [looking for diagram of diy soldering iron to hot knife] basically its an old soldering iron. that has a thick razor blade on it. i had my uncle tack weld this thing on the end of a soldering iron. its about 45watts so it gets pretty hot pretty quick. good for cutting plastic styrofoam etc.

i will see if i can post a down and dirty drawing of it.

[tirapop]

Heh heh...and you can have electrodes attached to the muscles in your face...that way you can control the amount of wah with your 'guitar face'

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Okay, lets just dispence with the wah and kick it up a notch... a guitar with a built in talking box: a little self powered speaker, a plastic tube, and a microphone. My mouth can say "wah" better than my foot can.

[ansil]

true true. but you are looking at the amount of signal you need to feed back into a microphone. how do you intend to power it????? and lets not forget the signal splitting. guitar to mini amp to tube to mic. to xlr to board. or the other endless ways. mic to transformer to buffer to stereo guitar cord. or perhaps just into the amp itself.

[TeiscosRock]

Anyone hear about this "Wag" thing yet? It's coming out sometime this fall... its a ring you put on your finger, which has some sort of wireless signal that controls stuff like wah-wah effects just from the way you move your hand. Not sure how it works... time for some research .....

[edit]

www.xpresense.com

[/edit]

Edited September 30, 2005 by TeiscosRock

[Paul Marossy]

The "wag thing"?! That's news to me. Sounds like something similar to the Z. Vex Fuzz Probe...

[guitarmonky55]

i had a cool idea for onboard wah stemming from a misconception i held in my early guitar days. i used to mistake the sound of a wah pedal for that of a whammy bar(i didnt know the difference between pitch change and tone change, seeing as i had absolutely NO musical background nor did my family). put a wah in the control cavity, and a small spring loaded mini whammy bar type contraption by the bridge. when you engage it the default position is the extreme toe position of a normal wah, and pushing to the body drops into the heel position of a regular wah.

are those inductorless wahs any good? because if i can build one that sounds good ill add this to my frankenphone guitar instead of just talking about it all the time.

[lovekraft]

You might want to try Tim Escobedo's "Idiot Wah" (this page - scroll down near the bottom). Simple, low parts count, low current - everything you'd want in an onboard thingumajig!

Mouser has the MPSA13 if you have trouble finding one.

Edited October 2, 2005 by lovekraft

[Paul Marossy]

A lot of cats like the Idiot Wah. I oughta build one just to play around with it.

[ansil]

the idiot wah is real nice and you can implement different values to change the range. however you can put a small little route behind the bridge and sheild it and drop a regular wah in there i haven't had any trouble.