Bigger, Fatter Weener

[pryde]

Helped my buddy get his weener-wah built using a wipple inductor, C1 15nf, C5 10nf, R4 220R and no Freq pot. I think it sounds great but he wants more out of it in live/band context. He says it is not loud enough, or has enough bass in the low sweep. I think his idea is to have a louder-boosted wah for solos.

How do you get the wah well above unity when engaged?
Can a volume pot be added to tame it back down if needed?
How bout more bass in the low sweep?

Thanks for help and ideas with this.

[Diamond]

Maybe you could increase the volume of the output buffer by decreasing R13. I recently built a Colorsound wah, where I increased the input cap to 22nF for more bass. That would be C1 in the Weener, but it also depends on your R2 value. You can also get more bass in the sweep by increasing C2 to 10uF.

[timbo_93631]

As Diamond pointed out, changing C1 to 22nF will add bass by widening the sweep.  Lowering R2 is the key to more volume, try something like 39k-51k to hear a boost.

[pryde]

Thanks for the advice so far. I forgot to mention that there is already a 47k in R2 and it apparently is not loud enough.

Here is a thought, is it possible to add a separate boost circuit inside a wah that would turn on when the wah was engaged? Maybe a vol knob sticking out of the side to control this separate boost circuit?

[timbo_93631]

Yep, here is the build report on a wah I did with basically what you are talking about.  Fatpants fit in nicely, and being able to control the fat/bass content was nice.  Maybe a Thunderpuss is good for this too, especially because you could have the board monted on the pot with that little PCB. 
http://www.madbeanpedals.com/forum/index.php?topic=2908.0

[pryde]

Yep, here is the build report on a wah I did with basically what you are talking about.  Fatpants fit in nicely, and being able to control the fat/bass content was nice.  Maybe a Thunderpuss is good for this too, especially because you could have the board monted on the pot with that little PCB. 
http://www.madbeanpedals.com/forum/index.php?topic=2908.0

Great. Somewthing like this might be the ticket. I am not sure how to wire something like this up though? Any sort of a wiring diagram or some pointers to do this?
Thanks for all your help

[timbo_93631]

you'd just take the output from the weener wah that you'd normally wire to the 3pdt and wire it to a DPDT that you'd set up as a bypass switch.  Here is a basic diagram:

[pryde]

Awesome, thank you. So then does the dpdt shut the boost off then? Just trying to make sure I understand the function of this option.

I was thinking the boost would turn on when engaging the wah, then control the overall loudness of the wah with the boost vol knob. Yes?

Thanks for helping the clueless 

[timbo_93631]

Yeah, you got it, it is just true bypass switching for the boost minus the LED, doing it between the weener board out and the 3PDT stomp you switch the boost in or out with the wah.  Wiring it from the 3PDT to the output jack would keep it on all the time.

[pryde]

Cool. It is making sense. I might go this route and hip you up with some questions if I run into a snag. THanks again for your help with this.

[pryde]

I added a AMZ booster (on vero) after the weener wah circuit per Timbo's direction, thank you  . This works very well and really jumps the vol even at 1/2 way.

My bro said he is after the Jerry Cantrell, AIC type wah sound. I guess he really wants it to handle higher gain where the lows are not so muddy. I can't seem to find a schematic for the Dunlop JC wah so I was hoping someone could offer some cap swaps on the weener to better acheive this.

Any ideas for modding the weener for higher gain stuff?

Thanks!

[timbo_93631]

That is a darker wah sound  try changing C5 to a lower value maybe starting with 0.033uf.  You might want to try something like 12-15nf in C1 at the same time.  These posts at DIYSB have some other ideas, like adding a 5k pot in parallel with the ground wire on the 100k pot:
http://www.diystompboxes.com/smfforum/index.php?topic=91315.0
http://www.diystompboxes.com/smfforum/index.php?topic=96081.0

[pryde]

Thanks once again Timbo! The links you provided say the 5k pot is wired in series with the ground side of the sweep pot. How would one wire this up? Not sure?

[timbo_93631]

I haven't seen a gutshot but i'd imagine it would be like a variable resistor.  I dunno whether or not the wiper would be tied to the other lug or if it would just be left unused.

[pryde]

Thank you very much. I really appreciate you sharing your knowledge. Just an update I added the AMZ booster, changed C1 to 15n and C5 to 22n. The wah darkened up a bit sounds great for high gain stuff like AIC. My bud should really dig this.