Tone control wah effect?

[treden]

I am interested in getting wah type sweeps from my tone control. Danny Gatton used this to great effect. I have a few of his instructional videos and he mentions that this is due in part to the pot.

In looking through previous posts, I didn't find a definitive answer. It seems that getting this effect relies on the pickups, the tone pot value and the value of the tone circut's capacitor.

I am playing a Japanese 62 reissue from the early 1990s. I have not made any modifications as of yet; all parts are stock. The current tone control does not have a wide sweep. The difference between all up and all down is not much.

One previous post mentioned that it is hard to get tone control and the wah effect with the same set up. Gatton's rig seems to work. Of course how much of that is teh engine and how much is the driver?

Any advice on where to start?

[Big Tony]

Originally Posted by treden

It seems that getting this effect relies on the pickups, the tone pot value and the value of the tone circut's capacitor.

Danny Gatton used early-model Joe Barden pickups, a 1 Meg tone pot with a .05 capacitor to create the wah effects. (according to Guitar Player, July 1993, p. 66).
Roy Buchanan used tone control wah effects with stock pickups, pot, and cap. The effect is not as pronounced on a stock Telecaster, but it helps to play at stage volume.
I haven't tried out the Gatton recipe, but when I asked about it in an earlier post the answer was that it didn't work very well as a traditional tone control.
Hope this helps.

[3rdDIY]

a .05 capacitor on a 250 linear taper tone pot for years.
It generally makes the overall tone a bit muddy, which I personally like, but I've had complaints from people who've played it.
It allows an "oo-um" sort of wah noise, with a sweet spot notch that kinda makes the guitar sound like it's blowing it's nose... This is with a single humbucker.

Leo's original Esquire switching had a feature similar to this, with one of the positions bypassing the tone pot and going through a 1MFD capacitor to make a bassy sound. Switching back and forth would supposedly create a "wah" effect, I guess.

[bo]

The .05 cap is what yer looking for as far as I can tell (mine actually has an .02 and .03 in series...). Be aware it makes the tone pot sorta "hair trigger" if you use it for plain ol' roll off. You'll learn you'll have to dial in the roll off in rather small increments. It's still a fun thing to have on yer Tele.