Cry Baby: A doc on the wah wah pedal

[Vic2012]

I had a wah wah pedal about 13-14 years ago. I think it was made by Dunlop or something. I don't remember if it was a "Cry Baby." I always noticed that if you cranked up the distortion (gain) too high the wah-wah pedal just made it sound like mush. But a clean Stratocaster through a wah wah always sounds awesome. I haven't checked out the documentary but I will this weekend.

For the most part, he was just tapping his foot in time,

Yeah he was, and it sounded great. When I played electric guitar (a Stratocaster) I played the same way. I was amazed at how easy it was to do the wha wha guitar intro to Voodoo Child. I coulda been a contender when it comes to blues/rock electric guitar (mainly Fender guiitars) but life got in the way.

[nosebone]

Clyde McCoy

That's right!

I bought a Fulltone Clyde Deluxe a few years ago that has a volume dial on the side.

No volume control was my biggest gripe with Crybaby's and other wah's through the years.

As soon as you engage it your loudness drops a few db's.

Besides "wah-ing" or "crying" the notes, I like using the pedal to change the pitch of feedback.

[GuitarGeek]

Nice documentary -- thanks!

But they offer a paltry discussion of bass players using the wah pedal (and keyboard players for that matter). Chris Squire rides one for nearly his entire "The Fish" solo on Yessongs. It made a HUGE impression on me as a teenager. "What? You mean a bass player can sound just like Jimi too?"

John Wetton and Greg Lake used wah wah too. You can hear Greg using it on Pictures At An Exhibition, I think during The Gnome. The one place I can think of where you can really hear Wetton using the wah wah was Larks Tongues I.

I believe Bernard Paganotti may have used a wah wah when he was in Magma and Weidorje, as well. And on some of the live Soft Machine things, it sounds like Hugh Hopper was using a wah wah here and there too.

[Mister Triscuits]

After watching this I had to open up my old Cry Baby to see what kind of inductor it had (stack o' dimes, as it turns out). Looks just like this one:

DadsCrybabyLabled.jpg

[mogrooves]

Tony McPhee and Tony Hill are wah faves....

[yeselpkrimson]

But they offer a paltry discussion of bass players using the wah pedal (and keyboard players for that matter).

Not to mention Bill Bruford's wah wah bongos on "America"... Well, okay, probably best not to mention...

[No Pride]

I have a Roland modeling pedal around here somewhere, forget the model (which shows how much it gets used). It was actually bought for bass, and it has a good bass mode. My impression is that it's like most models; you trade about 15% sound quality for extreme flexibility. The wah models in Guitar Rig sound quite good to my ears but A) that's only in the context of what GR sounds like overall anyway, and B) have never put them against the real thing head to head, which, considering they'd then be going through real amps as well, would probably be a spanking

These days I use a Line 6 M13 "virtual pedalboard" for effects (I'll admit it; as I've gotten older, I've been willing to sacrifice some tonal mojo for the sake of convenience) and it has 8 different wah models. There's a couple of Voxes (including the Clyde) a couple of Cry Babies, a Colorsound and I forget what else. They're controlled by an expression pedal, which can also control a bunch of effects parameters and be used as a volume pedal. The one big difference I can hear between them and a real wah (and I have a real chrome Vox) is that they don't add that extra bit 'o grit. I miss that, but I don't miss changing batteries, extra cables and getting RF. Life is a compromise.

One of my fav wah-wah performances was by Dave Gregory of XTC on "Merely a Man", very Disraeli Gears-ish.

Yeah, it's awesome stuff. Funny, there's not a whole lot of guitar filling and soloing on XTC albums, but when there is, it's usually pretty stellar. That tune has some of my favorite Dave Gregory playing, along with "That Wave" and "That's Really Super, Supergirl."

[bobert]

I don't know a thing about playing guitar , but I love when these threads come up so I can check out guitar players (or any other musicians for that matter)talking about how they get the different sounds when they play. Lots of musical talent at this site , which is one of the things I love about it.

[Mikhael]

I've always had a wah, but only used it sparingly. I got tired of having to open it up and clean the pot, or replace the pot. So I got a Morely volume/wah. I really like these things. Clean, boostable, and adjustable in a weird way. They're optical; no pot (no scratchiness, dirt, etc.). Inbetween the light and the sensor is a piece of cardboard (well, it was on my model) with a "V" shaped slot cut out. It's the light passing through that slot that creates the effect, as the cardboard is attached to the stem of the treadle. The big thing about this (to me) is that you can replace that cardboard easily with another piece with the slot shaped however you want. This allows you to totally control the "taper of the pot" and determine the upper and lower range of the treadle sweep. I cut out about 4 or 5 different slot shapes, and found the one I liked. Killer!

And yes, according to the inventor, the Vox and Cry-baby had the exact same circuit. It was done so they could sell more to dealers that didn't carry Vox.

[Vic2012]

Saw the whole doc. Fascinating. Loved all the history behind it. Never even heard of Thomas Organ Co. and didn't know that Thomas owned the Vox brand. And Thomas was owned by Warwick Electric, or whatever. What a cluster fuck. That was really interesting. I liked the bit about when the wah wah went out of vogue in the late 70s and early 80s, then the heavy bands, as well as SRV made the wah wah sound fresh again. The history about Dunlop was really interesting too.

I had a Dunlop/Cry Baby in the late 80s. It was fun to play but I didn't really like the sound of the brightness when the pedal was all the way down (or was it up?). Then again I wasn't exactly playing it through a nice amp. I remember I had about 3-4 different pedals all plugged into a tiny practice amp. I had the wah, a Boss distortion, and a chorus pedal all going between my Stratocaster (my beautiful, American Strat that I ruined and turned into a worthless piece of junk) and the tiny amp. It all sounded like mushy soup. But it was a lot of fun. I miss those days.

[mogrooves]

I didn't really like the sound of the brightness when the pedal was all the way down (or was it up?). .......my Stratocaster (my beautiful, American Strat that I ruined and turned into a worthless piece of junk) and the tiny amp.

Just the opposite for me. In '68 I bought a Gibson wah whose sound was more like "wuh".

Sorry about your Strat; I had a '61 that I practically gave away in '71. Bad move.....

[Vic2012]

I had a '61 that I practically gave away in '71. Bad move...

In 1971 none of us thought our instruments, or comic books (and Hotwheels) were gonna be worth anything 20-30 years later. We've all made some bad decisions.....

Anyway, if you want to hear some killer wah wah lead guitar, Joe Bonamasa is just sick on that first Black Country Communion album. There was just too much ego in that band. It's a shame they imploded.

[syncopatico]

Zappa was another guy who played the wah pedal notched in the middle somewhere, as more of a uniform effect, without rocking it up and down to get that typical wah-wah sound. He also encouraged/instructed(?) the running of other instruments through the wah-wah, like violin and sax, of course..

[Calabasas_Trafalgar]

Gentle Giant - The House the Street the Room
Quicksand - Sunlight Brings Shadows

[trurl]

Gentle Giant also used a fair amount of wah-wah fiddle...

[GuitarGeek]

Gentle Giant also used a fair amount of wah-wah fiddle...

I think Simon House also played his violin through a wah wah occasionally, when he was in Hawkwind. Cyndee Lee Rule does it on a regular basis, as well.

I think there was an effects unit that was designed for woodwind instruments that allowed, amongst other effects, a wah wah type sound. I know you can hear Chris Wood using one on Traffic's On The Road album, and Nik Turner can be heard playing through what sounds like both a wah wah and octave divider on the Space Ritual Vol. 2 version of Time We Left.