My weener needs help

[JakeFuzz]

I am going to recommend taking out the frequency pot. Just remove all of the leads to the pot and the 15nF should be in C5. The FREQ control does odd things to the wah sweep that I cant really explain but I always liked it better out of the circuit. Give it a try and see what you think.

[chordball]

I've just finished my wah, and I'm pretty much in the same boat.  Very light wah, not loud enough, etc. I am going to jump R4, or put a very low value resistor in there and see if that dirties it up.
Also going to go lower on R2, to increase output. Maybe something in the high 20k's....
I already have the 15n cap.
I also have a 12 notch 100k linear detent pot for the frequency. Doesn't do much until you turn it past the last couple of detents, and then it sounds like Bootsy Collins stole my guitar :-)

I've also noticed a weird pop when sweeping, only when the buffer is engaged. It's a deep pop, very noticeable, making the buffer unusable. Any ideas, Jake?

I haven't tried the weener buffer yet (it's bypassed while dialing in the main circuit), but I've been playing around with my BYOC wah. For the longest time, I thought I had some problem with the pot or maybe some e-cap problem because I got this weird popping/static type sound I'd never heard before. After trying a number of things, I somehow decided to adjust the buffer and what do you know? That was the problem the whole time. Past a certain point turning the buffer up, it created that weird loud popping sound. This may not be the case with yours, but if you built the wah stock it seems like that is one of the likely culprits.

I can't speak on the freq pot as I never installed mine. I can recommend using a rotary switch to select between a few range cap values.

Last but certainly not least, the transistors used make a big difference in the sound. I have tried the PN3565 and BC549C as spec'd by Bean himself. I have tried the BC109's that came with the BYOC. I've tried a BC107A in one spot (my other BC107A is in a fuzz....I need to pull it and try to BC107's together) with a BC109 in the other, I've tried MPSA18's, and also have some of the 2N2925's from Timbo (I actually think they're 2N2924's by the code on them).

Anyhow, from my experience with swapping transistors I've found that lower gain ones (BC107A for example) tends to have more bass while the higher gain ones have less bass and give more quack. By adjusting R4 you can add more bass to the higher gain transistors. To add more bass, you can also change the sweep cap. I've tried so many combos that I need to take a break and do another listening test later. I think I will build one wah with lower gain transistors and one with higher gain because it's too hard to decide which one I like better.

To give a little bit of reference, I have a 10n for C1, about 47k for R2, 1.5k for R5, anywhere from about 390-470 for R4 (depending on gain of transistor), and I've tested with C5 being 10n, 12n, 15n, 20n, 22n, and even popped a 47n in there for some deep envelope filter type sounds (10n and 15n seem the most usable however). I have Whipple inductor and the pot is a McCon-O-Pot.

So I basically have your standard McCoy type wah and it's anything but light or not loud enough.

Start simple by bypassing the buffer and get your wah sound dialed in before adding the buffer.

[octa805]

I am going to recommend taking out the frequency pot. Just remove all of the leads to the pot and the 15nF should be in C5. The FREQ control does odd things to the wah sweep that I cant really explain but I always liked it better out of the circuit. Give it a try and see what you think.

Just pulled all the freq pot leads. Have 15n cap in place and soldered my trannies in place. No real change.

Weird. I think I might just pull the trimpots next. I don't know.

[JakeFuzz]

Hmm, yeah that sounds right. I think the big problem with the freq control is that the bass content didn't blend evenly as you did the sweep (it would remain mostly like the 3n3 until you got to the end). With the 15nF in there it will probably be much better. I would just leave it out for now. I would maybe tweak with the trimmers or pull them like you said. Other than that I might try swapping different transistors (try some high gain ones like the 2n5089) and see if you like those better.

[octa805]

I mean, I have both trimmers at max and it's not enough so I'm guessing the range of the trimmers just isn't to my liking.

tardo question-I'm assuming full right on the trims is fully open? Seems that way to me at least.

[JakeFuzz]

Those trimmers are the Bourns 25 turn ones; I can never really find the center or the endpoints of those. I am not sure I've ever even gotten to the end of a turn on one of those. I am not quite sure which direction will make things more intense but I would tweak them both ways; the values they adjust sometimes have a sweet spot right in the middle. 

[octa805]

went home for lunch and played with all 3 trimmers in different directions

got it to be dirtier but not quackier.

when looking down at my weener, what do I touch to make it quack?


uh, no, seriously

[jeffaroo]

she usually messes with the tip 

[ch1naski]

after i'm done laughing, out goes the freq pot. i'm gonna try all the advice in this thread. You guys are very helpful around here. I'm a total noob at this, i used to screw with my old gear 20 years ago, but had no idea what i was doing. somehow I had managed to make all my wah's sound incredible. Not so much at the moment, tho. lol.

and......i broke the leg off my one and only 15n cap. 

son of a gun...

[ch1naski]

So....
I pulled the freq pot. Paralleled a couple caps to get 15n for c5. Put a 150 ohm resistor on R4. 33k in R2.  Tried it, and now I have more of a volume swell than a wah. Went to go switch something around and my input jack fell apart.

Time to step back.....
Start fresh tomorrow, I guess.....

Sent from my Nexus 7 using Tapatalk HD

[octa805]

went home for lunch and played with all 3 trimmers in different directions

got it to be dirtier but not quackier.

when looking down at my weener, what do I touch to make it quack?


uh, no, seriously

did some more trimpot turning and I just can't get it to get quacky like I want and in like the Jakefuzz sound clip. I can make it dirty which is kind of fun but not really worthwhile if it still doesn't sound like a wah.

seems to get the most quack on the bass end of things for sure so maybe a C1 change is in order.

maybe a change to R4 as well. blegh. Haven't had a project stifle me like this in a while.

[joegagan]

i was skeptical of the freq pot since the weener first came out. in many experiments, i could never get a pot to get a proper sound on two caps for the sweep cap. but i held back my comments as i had not built the weener, still haven't.

as far as getting  a wah to quack, you can move the entire freq range upward via a smaller sweep cap (.008uf for example ) but a lot of this depends on the mh of the inductor. if you have a 500mh inductor, a larger sweep cap is fine. but if you have a 650 mh inductor, the sweep cap might need to be smaller to get the same range.

there is no magic recipe for getting wide range ( except a delicate balance of all the elements involved, very much like tuning a race car for max performance). i have been building a lot of one-off wahs lately, modeling them in spice , then testing, back and forth. what i have learned is that getting the wide range is the synergy of all parts involved, kind of like playing  3 games of chess at the same time. everything affects everything else.
i think the sites that talk about adding a bunch of trimpots sometimes actually adversely affect some people getting good results as it increases the options to the point where it is hard to find the sweet spots.
a few notes:

the R paralleling the inductor is a minor player. mess with it last.
the R off Q1 base/ind is not that critical, in some cases lowering it actually sharpens the peaks, which is IMO part of what makes a wah sound interesting. flatter rounder peaks make for a boring mush. i have gone as low as 800 ohm in some cases.

changing the input r and the Q1 E R are both ways to raise and lower gain / lows or both. but they work differently and are very interdependent. tune both of these together. some whas react better adjusting the bias of Q1 at the collector instead. sometimes i just run Q1 e to gd and use a 100k trimmer on the 9v>Q1 collector

inductor mh and sweep cap are both doing pretty much the same job. once you get the gain dialed in, you can assess changes to the  overall freq curve using either mh or sweep cap changes.
you can move the mh up or down as much as 200mh with polepiece magnets in various configs applied to the sides or top or both. radical mh changes can occur when forcing two polepiece magnets into north/north config ( which they will not do unless taped or glued together)

i like low gain trans for Q1. i use lots of 2n2222s. hfe as low as 70, rarely over 180 for Q1. Q2 doesn't seem to matter much as long as it isn't 600 hfe .

you can get more treble by running a treble jumper 820pf series with 68k r across the wiper and out lug of the wah pot. (NOTE:) you may get squeals in some wahs, try raising the 68k til the squeal stops)

you can also get interesting effects by running a small cap 330p, 480p etc from 9v to q1 collector.

i don't care about output buffers. if someone wants to run a wah before a fuzz, a 250k or 500k pot at output does as good as a buffer anyday.

input buffers can help add treble and even out differences between single coil and Hb guitars.

sorry this drifted off of weener specific info, just thought i would share some of the stuff i've learned.

[ch1naski]

This is all welcome info. I have been thinking that it's more of a combination of the components that make up the filter, as a whole, that make the wah come together.
I have no electronics knowledge, audio circuit-wise, except for fiddling with things over the years just to make them sound the way i want them to. That said, I have always been able to get my wah's to sound great to me. And every time, it's been a different " tweak" that did it.
So I've never been able to have a definitive method. I was hoping, and still hope, that this circuit will teach me what it is that makes a wah that sounds good to me. Of course, like others, I have the great wah masters and their sounds in my head, as a goal for what a great wah should sound like. Unrealistic, maybe.... There's more to those great recordings and players, than just a pedal. But, I aim high.


Again thanks for the input.
BTW, are you the guy I have read about concerning a tone circuit in fuzz face's?  That name looks familiar....

Sent from my Nexus 7 using Tapatalk 2

[chordball]

i was skeptical of the freq pot since the weener first came out. in many experiments, i could never get a pot to get a proper sound on two caps for the sweep cap. but i held back my comments as i had not built the weener, still haven't.

as far as getting  a wah to quack, you can move the entire freq range upward via a smaller sweep cap (.008uf for example ) but a lot of this depends on the mh of the inductor. if you have a 500mh inductor, a larger sweep cap is fine. but if you have a 650 mh inductor, the sweep cap might need to be smaller to get the same range.

there is no magic recipe for getting wide range ( except a delicate balance of all the elements involved, very much like tuning a race car for max performance). i have been building a lot of one-off wahs lately, modeling them in spice , then testing, back and forth. what i have learned is that getting the wide range is the synergy of all parts involved, kind of like playing  3 games of chess at the same time. everything affects everything else.
i think the sites that talk about adding a bunch of trimpots sometimes actually adversely affect some people getting good results as it increases the options to the point where it is hard to find the sweet spots.
a few notes:

the R paralleling the inductor is a minor player. mess with it last.
the R off Q1 base/ind is not that critical, in some cases lowering it actually sharpens the peaks, which is IMO part of what makes a wah sound interesting. flatter rounder peaks make for a boring mush. i have gone as low as 800 ohm in some cases.

changing the input r and the Q1 E R are both ways to raise and lower gain / lows or both. but they work differently and are very interdependent. tune both of these together. some whas react better adjusting the bias of Q1 at the collector instead. sometimes i just run Q1 e to gd and use a 100k trimmer on the 9v>Q1 collector

inductor mh and sweep cap are both doing pretty much the same job. once you get the gain dialed in, you can assess changes to the  overall freq curve using either mh or sweep cap changes.
you can move the mh up or down as much as 200mh with polepiece magnets in various configs applied to the sides or top or both. radical mh changes can occur when forcing two polepiece magnets into north/north config ( which they will not do unless taped or glued together)

i like low gain trans for Q1. i use lots of 2n2222s. hfe as low as 70, rarely over 180 for Q1. Q2 doesn't seem to matter much as long as it isn't 600 hfe .

you can get more treble by running a treble jumper 820pf series with 68k r across the wiper and out lug of the wah pot. you can also get interesting effects by running a small cap 330p, 480p etc from 9v to q1 collector.

i don't care about output buffers. if someone wants to run a wah before a fuzz, a 250k or 500k pot at output does as good as a buffer anyday.

input buffers can help add treble and even out differences between single coil and Hb guitars.

sorry this drifted off of weener specific info, just thought i would share some of the stuff i've learned.

Very good info! I appreciate you sharing this with everyone. Now I have some more experimenting to do

Can you explain a little bit about why you prefer lower gain transistors?

[joegagan]

Cool, your method works, you dial it in til it sounds good to you.
I get your point about great players and great recordings.
I am the same joe gagan. I did not invent the input cap blend, many people had done it before me, but i made such heavy use of it in diy and commercial designs- so much that people started using my name to describe it. Many people have built the easyface since 2000, especially the input cap blend version.