Sorry for the Hijack here, I mean...you can go hi-tech or you can just go lo-tech sometimes
....I can't intellectualize by the numbers.
For me, it all came down to the tone pot.
Years ago I modded my first Dunlop Crybaby following the 'stinkfoot' wah mods...dug through the parts drawer and gave it a shot.
Upgraded to a 3PDT, and bypassed the buffer
(***One thing for sure, I now need to plug a JFET buffer after the Wah pedal in the chain, or it barely works.*** )
changed a few resistors and capacitors. That seemed to darken things, and tamed the shrill high end.
...Upgraded with the 'Red Fasel' inductor from the stock coil. That changed the voice!!
That made a pretty noticable difference in the sound, nice, a lot more 'authentic' tone? But something wasn't quite right yet....The Travel on the pedal just didn't seem to be right, something was still missing I don't know.
I played around with the 'travel' a bit and tamed the ear drilling highs, but there was something in the mids I wasn't getttin yet...Shrieking high dropping down to a pretty flat bottom end. Underwhelming.
The Crybaby came stock with a 100K pot, and during research I randomly read on the google somewhere that Hendrix had a 250K pot, honestly I looked everywhere and could NOT find a 250K tone pot for a wah, hmmmm that's very suspicious....I wondered for awhile maybe this is some kinda well hidden secret sauce or something?!?!? Only one way to find out.
Lo and behold I tried ordering a Wah tone pot from mojotone, It was not a 250K pot, but a 200K I think?
Right off the bat it Crackled worse than anything, no amount of de-oxit was working!
I took it apart and saw the graphite was totally Scored and damaged somehow!!!? Unbelievable, there was NO WAY I did that, it looked like a factory defect!!!!
The part was a dud!!! Wow.
I politely notified them and was met with a muted response. They did not reply to my message, and those Wah parts had just mysteriously vanished from their site next thing I know. HM ok...Fine. I just paid about $25 bucks for this part. Great...Grand.
Out of sheer 'I AM AHAB!!!!!!!' towering force of will to power....I went down to the old local ma and pa guitar store a few towns over, bought a generic 250K tone pot for a guitar for a whopping $6 dollars.
Did some serious reaming and straight up Jammed the Wah pedal gear on it, stuck it in..Bam!!!
Who needs a freakin' specialized Wah pedal tone pot..., let's see what we can do.
YARRRR THAR BE THE SECRET TONE YE BE WANTING MATIES!!!
No way, I'll be dipped....There it is.
That Raw and gnarly midrange that just tears at you ferociously. When you make that 'OOoOOOOoooo' Face. Jumping out at me!!!
It really really made all the difference!!! Honestly, that was the secret sauce right there. It's alive.
.....that my ears perk up!!! right here, that's....Eureka!!! There we go.
Now If I could only just do something about those horrendous 6 pin Quarter inch Jacks they're using in their modern Crybabies. UGH!!!
For me the induction coil was only half the battle tone chasing the elusive dragon....You might hate the sound of my wah pedal, I mean, different stokes different folks, sometimes a Stock Crybaby will do just fine, you know? I'm not saying I made it better or anything.
I could have probably just built a better wah from scratch and tossed the original guts in the trash where they will do more good.
Can you tell I had fun at least?
So what tone pots are you guys using in your wah pedals?
