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Vintage threads from the first ten years

Wah ftswitch change? Or just raise amp volume?

7/13/1999 3:56 PM
fet	Wah ftswitch change? Or just raise amp volume? 1) My Dunlop Crybaby has always sounded good to me. But I've read here that I'll sound better with a DPDT footswitch in the unit. Question: rather than mess with my working, good-sounding wah, wouldn't simply turning the amp volume up a half-number compensate for the alleged "tone-sucking" effect of the original footswitch? 2) Tboy, you da man.

7/13/1999 4:11 PM
Dave Chun	The "tone sucking" phenomena exhibits itself when the wah is in bypass mode. You could turn up the treble a bit to compensate, but then the treble would also be affected when the wah is activated. The loading of the pickups by the wah circuitry (in bypass mode) causes a loss of high end. Check out RG Keen's tone sucking mod (www.geofex.com) for an easy fix.

7/13/1999 5:14 PM
Farrow	BTW, keep in mind that many newer wah pedals incorporate a transistor to buffer the guitar signal in bypass mode already. Open up your wah and count the transistors. If it has more than two, (assuming it's not a fuzz/wah or something fancy) then it's probably buffered and doesn't really "suck tone." Also, RG's JFET mod can be incorporated into lots of '70's and '80's MXR pedals (with and without LED's) to avoid tone sucking! Farrow http://surf.to/pharaohamps

7/13/1999 5:14 PM

Farrow

BTW, keep in mind that many newer wah pedals incorporate a transistor to buffer the guitar signal in bypass mode already. Open up your wah and count the transistors. If it has more than two, (assuming it's not a fuzz/wah or something fancy) then it's probably buffered and doesn't really "suck tone."

Also, RG's JFET mod can be incorporated into lots of '70's and '80's MXR pedals (with and without LED's) to avoid tone sucking!

Farrow

http://surf.to/pharaohamps

7/13/1999 5:19 PM
Mark Hammer	"Don't mess with success" is a good credo, and I commend you on your desire to keep it simple and uncluttered....but, I'm here to convert you. One of the inherent problems of using cable to connect your guitar to your FX to your amp is that you end up with more high end than you started out with. Why is this a problem? Because that added high end is not music, it's just cumulative hiss. If you start out with a clean hot signal, and have negligible signal degradation along the way, then the hiss is not that much of an issue, but most signal paths will have at least some signal degradation, if only via the cable itself. Although you CAN tweak things at the amp to restore what your guitar would sound like if you plugged into the amp with a 12" patch cable, that tweaking tends to goose all the hiss your signal picks up along the way. I must emphasize that this hiss disrespects humbucking pickups every bit as much as it disrespects single coils. You CAN use a noise gate to eliminate it, but they have their limitations and own sound colouration too. Unless you are prepared to spend big bucks, you usually have to play "around" them. All the kafuffle over "true-bypass" etc comes from the fact that - in most, but not all, cases - the standard SPDT footswitch found in many wahs and vintage effects results in signal loss and colouration of the signal since these switches always leave the input of the effect in circuit (the SPDT switch generally only switches between FX output and the FX input jack...which is, of course, tied to the circuit itself). Use one good 8' cable to the effect, and another one to the amp and there may be little reason to be unhappy (especially if your speakers lack much high end). Use one so-so 25-footer to the first effect in a series, and another 25-footer from the 6th pedal to the amp, and you're into signal loss territory. If the 6 FX lack true bypass, you're smack in the middle of that territory. Sticking in a true-bypass switch, whether it is a relay or something else is generally a useful thing to do for preserving your tone and not needing to rely on the amp controls to reconstruct tone amidst the colouration. The various complaints about absence of true bypass that you hear on this BBS stem from the annoyingly common finding that many effects seem to have been designed in anticipation of using a SPDT switch, so that when you shell out the extra shekels for a better replacement switch, you find that the bypassed signal is discernibly louder than the FX signal. Given that most folks will use an effect for soloing purposes, volume drop is not what they're looking for in an effect with true bypass. The wah retro-fit that RG has whipped up (and is posted on his GEO web-site: www.eden.com/~keen ....for now) is intended to achieve the lack of colouration that a true bypass gets you, while maintaining a volume balance between straight/wah when switching. You also won't have to hunt around for a DPDT switch. He may be a dirty egg-sucking Texan, a reprobate, and a low-life who is only an engineer by virtue of having duped a large number of people (I mean really, does Our Lady of the Armadillos State College even HAVE an EE department?), but I trust his ear implicitly. Build it and keep your treble control mercifully low. You'll appreciate it in between notes.

7/13/1999 5:19 PM

Mark Hammer

"Don't mess with success" is a good credo, and I commend you on your desire to keep it simple and uncluttered....but, I'm here to convert you.

One of the inherent problems of using cable to connect your guitar to your FX to your amp is that you end up with more high end than you started out with. Why is this a problem? Because that added high end is not music, it's just cumulative hiss. If you start out with a clean hot signal, and have negligible signal degradation along the way, then the hiss is not that much of an issue, but most signal paths will have at least some signal degradation, if only via the cable itself. Although you CAN tweak things at the amp to restore what your guitar would sound like if you plugged into the amp with a 12" patch cable, that tweaking tends to goose all the hiss your signal picks up along the way. I must emphasize that this hiss disrespects humbucking pickups every bit as much as it disrespects single coils. You CAN use a noise gate to eliminate it, but they have their limitations and own sound colouration too. Unless you are prepared to spend big bucks, you usually have to play "around" them.

All the kafuffle over "true-bypass" etc comes from the fact that - in most, but not all, cases - the standard SPDT footswitch found in many wahs and vintage effects results in signal loss and colouration of the signal since these switches always leave the input of the effect in circuit (the SPDT switch generally only switches between FX output and the FX input jack...which is, of course, tied to the circuit itself). Use one good 8' cable to the effect, and another one to the amp and there may be little reason to be unhappy (especially if your speakers lack much high end). Use one so-so 25-footer to the *first* effect in a series, and another 25-footer from the 6th pedal to the amp, and you're into signal loss territory. If the 6 FX lack true bypass, you're smack in the middle of that territory.

Sticking in a true-bypass switch, whether it is a relay or something else is generally a useful thing to do for preserving your tone and not needing to rely on the amp controls to reconstruct tone amidst the colouration. The various complaints about absence of true bypass that you hear on this BBS stem from the annoyingly common finding that many effects seem to have been designed in anticipation of using a SPDT switch, so that when you shell out the extra shekels for a better replacement switch, you find that the bypassed signal is discernibly louder than the FX signal. Given that most folks will use an effect for soloing purposes, volume drop is not what they're looking for in an effect with true bypass.

The wah retro-fit that RG has whipped up (and is posted on his GEO web-site: www.eden.com/~keen ....for now) is intended to achieve the lack of colouration that a true bypass gets you, while maintaining a volume balance between straight/wah when switching. You also won't have to hunt around for a DPDT switch. He may be a dirty egg-sucking Texan, a reprobate, and a low-life who is only an engineer by virtue of having duped a large number of people (I mean really, does Our Lady of the Armadillos State College even *HAVE* an EE department?), but I trust his ear implicitly.

Build it and keep your treble control mercifully low. You'll appreciate it in between notes.

7/13/1999 7:42 PM
Farrow	Mark -- good point about signal matching in vintage FX. I converted a Small Stone over to DPDT bypass and noticed how much louder it was bypassed. I fiddled around with the circuit to make it even, but I could have buffered it more easily. I'm just of the mind that when I'm not using my effects, I don't want my signal to touch any transistors, beneficial or detrimental. I want pickup, wire, amp. If I buffer, I'd buffer right at the guitar! Farrow http://surf.to/pharaohamps

7/13/1999 7:42 PM

Farrow

Mark -- good point about signal matching in vintage FX. I converted a Small Stone over to DPDT bypass and noticed how much louder it was bypassed. I fiddled around with the circuit to make it even, but I could have buffered it more easily. I'm just of the mind that when I'm not using my effects, I don't want my signal to touch any transistors, beneficial or detrimental. I want pickup, wire, amp. If I buffer, I'd buffer right at the guitar!

Farrow

http://surf.to/pharaohamps

7/13/1999 11:42 PM
R.G.	>>I'm just of the mind that when I'm not using my effects, I don't want my signal to touch any transistors, beneficial or detrimental. Why?

7/14/1999 8:24 AM
Mark	For me its that I dont care how good a buffer is, I still hear it (yes my friends tested me). True bypass is the way to go.

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