Studio Pro WAH (prototype, non-bean)

[AllenM]

Over the past two years I read and researched all the variations in WAH pedals and the mods associated with them. During that time I started doing the basic mods on my Dunlop and VOX WAHs trying to build the perfect WAH (for me). At one point I got the idea that if would be cool if I could have two settings (one for clean and one for dirt) in the same WAH and then switch between them. My first design I went with an external enclosure with the WAH pedal being just the controller and with a couple of relays I could A/B the values I selected. After a long break and not really liking the way the 2 piece system was working I came up with the idea to have an enclosure made that I would mount a WAH chassis on top of and house the controls and mod circuits. Below you will see the results of that design. After completing this prototype I started taking it out to jam nights and letting fellow guitar players try it out and give me feed back and also noted which controls they liked and which settings seemed to make the biggest differences. The obvious cool feature was the A/B settings for two WAH tones and the biggest complaint of course was the size and weight of the pedal. So I am now in the early stages of creating an updated version which will actually fit in a normal WAH chassis and if all works out it will offer 4 presets instead of just two. I have my Weener WAH board in house and parts are on order from various vendors so I can start testing and prototyping the new version.

Wiring the BYOC WAH pcb for breadboarding the mods


Testing component values and inductors


Wiring the WAH chassis


Wiring the controls and switches


Installing the mod board


First assembly


Final assembly after some tweaks and the removal of some unneeded controls

[stecykmi]

holy cow what a monster

[GermanCdn]

My brain hurts just looking at all that off board wiring.....

[night-B]

  impressive! After a weener, I was going to build a V846. Looks like you are in an other level as mine!

[njkke]

This is the craziest thing I've ever seen! 

[nzCdog]

Wow!  What an epic tweakbeast!!!
That enclosure extension is great, did you fabricate it yourself?

[AllenM]

Wow!  What an epic tweakbeast!!!
That enclosure extension is great, did you fabricate it yourself?

I found a local metal shop and had it made. Of course they made it from 16g steel so the thing is a beast! But I only paid $50 for two of them so I have a spare in case someone ever decides they want one of these beast. 

This was mainly built to be able to really test the different mods and values so I could then create a full featured WAH with useful tweaks.

One thing that has been mentioned by some is that it is great for studio work since you can dial in so many different sounds that you can tailor it to the guitar, amp and track you are working on and even note the settings.

AllenM

[MattOcaster]

Very cool stuff!
What would you rate as say the most 4 important/useful mods for a Wah?

[monkeyssj1]

  wow is all i have to say

[AllenM]

Very cool stuff!
What would you rate as say the most 4 important/useful mods for a Wah?

First thing I noticed was when I was testing different inductors and WAH pots.. for me these two parts became the core of the sound. I ended up with a Whipple inductor and a 100k iCar after all my testing. This of course is based on the stock components in the BYOC build. I must point out that I am still learning about pedal building and how components shape the sound of a design and in this project I did not play around with the Transistors at all I just left them stock. On my next build I will be trying out an array of recommended Transistors and see how they affect the sound.

The mods broke down as follows... (see pic below)
R3 - Mids
R2 - Bass
R9 - Q or Sharpness
C3 - Sweep
VR15 - Fine Q
Toe - this is a pot inserted between the WAH pot lug to ground

So in the end I found that most people left the Bass and Mid set stock but the other four mods they would tweak the most. Those four mods really allow you to tune the WAH to taste and having the ability two A/B the sounds comes in handy when comparing the sounds.

[icecycle66]

 
...want...

[pickdropper]

Man, that's a really cool build.  Congrats on putting that together.

[sgmezei]

Wow. That is EPIC!!!!

[Stomptown]

Awesome man! Very creative using the external enclosure. Is that your own PCB design or did you order it somewhere? I'd love one...

[AllenM]

Awesome man! Very creative using the external enclosure. Is that your own PCB design or did you order it somewhere? I'd love one...

The PCB in this one was from BYOC (Build Your Own Clone).

AllenM