Wah pedal question.

[TonyTaylor]

I got a 70's dunlop wah pedal. Its all stock. Sounds amazing clean or with amp drive. But when i run clean and have my blues driver or big muff (germanium fuzzes seem to have a more subtle effect) it kindof does a harsh wistel of feedback when i go "toe down" for more than a split second. Is this normal of wahs. Is there a vox wah thats better about this problem.

 

[BigWillyInd]

I would say that is not common. Maybe some tinkering is in order...

 

[kyle wesley]

^Agreed. Not normal in my opinion. Try isolating your pedals. Is the wah sitting close to the fuzz (physically close)? Wah catch all kinds of sound waves. Maybe the answer would be to have more space between the pedals, or potentially a different order.

Start with the wah, then add and take away pedals until you find the issue. Maybe a germanium fuzz just doesn't play well with the wah?

 

[Ed Boyd]

Is the wah first in the chain?

 

[TonyTaylor]

Wah is after my tuner drives and big muff. I had a buffer between the big muff and the wah but took it out. No difference at all.

 

[Axis29]

I tend to run my Wah before my drives. Have you tried that?

Usually, the only thing in front of my Wah is my Shaky Jimi (Univibe clone) and maybe a tuner... but I haven't had a tuner on my board in a while.

 

[Ed Boyd]

I run my Wah before everything except the tuner. They seem to work better for me if they are first in the effects chain without any additional gain.

 

[eddie knuckles]

I got a 70's dunlop wah pedal. Its all stock. Sounds amazing clean or with amp drive. But when i run clean and have my blues driver or big muff (germanium fuzzes seem to have a more subtle effect) it kindof does a harsh wistel of feedback when i go "toe down" for more than a split second. Is this normal of wahs. Is there a vox wah thats better about this problem.

How is the treble set on your amp, pedals and guitar? Try turning down to 50% before toeing down on your wah and see if that helps

 

[TonyTaylor]

It has the same issue with multiple amps. Im sure the eq wont change it without sucking my tone away

 

[Mr. Lumbergh]

How loud is the amp, and how far is the wah from it? Does it do it with different guitars, or with a different pickup selected?
If I was guessing I'd say it sounds like something's gone microphonic; may be the inductor in the wah, may be the pickup.

 

[BenM]

It sounds like microphonic feedback to me. You said that you tried different amps, but you didn't say anything about the guitar. If your pickups have a slight tendency to be micropohnic you might not notice most of the time, but lots of gain (like you get from a fuzz) increases microphonic feedback, and toe down on the wah does the same; adding the two together will compound the issue.

Two ways to test this: Try different guitars. Try switching to a different pickup. If it goes away, you know it is a microphonic pickup, if it doesn't it still might be, it would just be more than one microphonic pickup.

Another thing is microphonic feedback will have a certain pitch that has nothing to do with the key that you are playing in. Is the squeal always the same pitch?

 

[Tle4]

Sounds like too much gain and your getting a microphonic squeal...

Don't know if it was mentioned but if you only get it with the Wah pedal all the way down, you can try opening your wah, loosen the gear for the pot, roll the pot back a little and put the gear back on. Just check it to make sure you got full range of sweep on the pot without the pot stopping before the pedals gear bottoms out... Check it both ways (up and down)