Turning a crappy wah into a volume pedal

[m-Kresol]

Hey guys,
so I want to turn a crappy Behringer wah into a volume pedal. I just bought the thing in good condition for the shell. I also plan to imply a boost which is activated with a 3pdt when applying more pressure to the front end of the pedal. Now, I just ran into a few questions and would love your advice:

* Which pot would you use for the volume? I tend to go with a 500kA...
* The wah wah was fitted with a spring. Once removed, the upper part always falls to the front end. Obviously, I want it to stay in the position I set it to. Suggestions on how to achieve that?
* I'm still struggling to get the movable top removed from the rest. anyone knows how that is supposed to work?

thanks,
Felix

[m-Kresol]

I just figured out how to get the top off and there also is a set screw to adjust the friction of the moving top part. So the only question remaining is about the pot

[jimilee]

Go with a linear pot rather than a log pot, it will bunch up at the if you don't . That's no good for anybody

[m-Kresol]

Thanks jimi.
Do you think 500k is good? Too much, too little?
Thanks

[drolo]

Thanks jimi.
Do you think 500k is good? Too much, too little?
Thanks

If you plug your guitar into it directly I would say 500k is a minimum, otherwise it will load down your guitar pickups and alter the sound too much. Now if it is preceded by a buffer (or a buffered pedal like a Boss), you could use even a 25k or 10k.

[m-Kresol]

thank you. I want it to be at the end of the chain since my boss FV-500L is made to be between guitar and pedal board. and there will always be a buffered pedal on my board.
I want it to be completely muted when in heel position, is that possible with these low values too? or does it even matter? wouldn't using a higher value pot just make it more sensitive?

[drolo]

The thing with these wah shells (at least with crybabies and the like) is that not all of the pot's rotation is used. If yours is like that, either you can have full volume but cannot rotate the pot completely to zero or the other way round, you can rotate to zero but not to maximum and will have a volume drop. One workaround would be to make our pedal active and have a boost to compensate for the missing part of the pot's rotation. Just a simple buffer booster with a bit of boost would do.

[m-Kresol]

ok, my plans are slowly coming together... thanks for all your advice
Drolo is right, the pot wouldn't be fully rotated, so I'm trying to make the unused part less by sanding away part of the heel of the moving top part. if it is not enough, which I think, I'll live with the small volume drop, since I rather have it all muted when in heel position.
The second thing I wanted to do is to add a switchable buffer - most probably the klon buffer since it's easy and effective. any other suggestions are highly welcome. Now the question remains, if I can still use a B500k pot even with the buffer engaged. Obviously, this is way more then necessary with the buffer, but I also want to use it without the buffer which would in turn need a bigger resistance value for the pot.
Related question: does a buffer affect my signal in a bad way if I already have one further upstream in my pedal chain? would you even recommend doing the buffer switchable or should I just make it buffered bypass and be done with it?
thanks,
Felix

[drolo]

Unless you have a situation where you really need it to have no buffer (for example in front of a Fuzz Face) I would just leave the buffer always in. If you are going to do the buffer, you may as well put another gain stage after the pot to make up for the volume loss of the unused pot section. You could even use that to provide you with some boost :-)

I don't think using the 500k between the 2 stages is going to be a problem (but I might be wrong)