ray charles,stevie wonder wah pot test.

[fernieite]

@Laservampire ---- "Squark", that is a great term for wah sound. and one i've never heard

I was wondering if that was a typo (assumed he meant squack or squawk) but then I noticed he's from Australia.

They sometimes have the craziest expressions...

[Laservampire]

@Laservampire ---- "Squark", that is a great term for wah sound. and one i've never heard

I was wondering if that was a typo (assumed he meant squack) but then I noticed he's from Australia.

They sometimes have the craziest expressions...

If you’ve ever heard the noise a cockatoo makes you’ll know why “squark” is in our vernacular.

[joegagan]

THANK YOU to everyone .

Answers will be announced sunday, midday my time,
Approx 2-3 pm EST

[rootfifthoctave]

2 and 4 are my favs, with 4 being the standout winner for me. Sounded pure Cream-era Clapton wah, while 2 (and 6 i guess?) were a bit more stooges 1969.

The problem I have with wah is that what sounds best with distortion often sounds a bit too trebly clean and vice versa. I'm sure one could install a pot/switch to swap between component values but I'm not clever enough to know how best to implement something like that.

[joegagan]

one more tease before the big reveal.

this is an article i wrote around 5 years ago after measuring 120+ wah pots using a 28 point measuring system and actual wah , so that the resistance readings are gauged the way we use, them, in the wah.

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
how to pick a wah pot taper. the basics.
there are basically two food groups when it comes to wah pots through the years.
1. ICAR
2. thomas/ dunlop crybaby hotpotz 1 & 2 ,+ all crybabies going back to at least 71.

1. the icar or similar taper was found in some voxes , especially the UK and Italian versions. this taper has been made famous by boutique wah makers in the last 20 years , it has a very linear range of sweep when pressed. it is NOT a LINEAR pot, but when measured in a wah, it actually runs through the range in a linear manner. people like it because in most wahs it lets you explore more of the full spectrum of expression. in most cases, the adjustment of an icar type pot has to be set to favor either bass or treble side, as the pot's range exceeds the actual limits of the pedal itself. our new SMOOTH pot eliminates this problem with our new ratio gear however.

2. the THOMAS ( same as all hotpotz). this pot taper was designed, i think, to make sure that the limited foot travel of the wah shell will get the entire wah range. there is an abrupt shift from mids to treble. some people actually prefer this action, it can sound very lively with minimal foot movement, which also sometimes seems 'quacky' or 'talky' to some people. players who are used to the THOMAS type taper sometimes think an ICAR lacks character because they like the faster action of the crybaby taper. we also offer a solution to this 'kink', we install a larger gear on the hotpotz2 to spread this transition out a little bit. this puts our modded hotpotz2 around 65% hotpotz, 35% icar, sort of a happy midstep between the two tapers. we call this our hotpoz2 'smooth kit', available on ebay for almost the same price as a regular hotpotz2. nice!

note - since sometime in the 80s, when dunlop started making vox wahs, the vox and dunlops all had the same hotpotz taper. this ran until vox moved their wah production to china in around 06 - 07. they now are back to more of an ICAR-like taper.

which one is better for you? try both and find out!
- joe gagan


++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

[joegagan]

[joegagan]

OFFICIAL
(No drum roll)
1 castledine
2 Hp2
3 mcConopot2
4 gagan smooth
5 ert
6 Hp1

[joegagan]

Thanks to everyone who participated, much appreciated.

Special mention, my friend innerflight got one correct, the one pot he guessed on. He nailed # 1 as castledine, but it helps that he owns a Castledine wah.

[Philip]

[Laservampire]

How about that, I thought #1 sounded like my Castledine.

I think so many people liked #2 because it was the most familiar.

Bit surprised about #3, those have a good rep. Sounded like my cruddy old broken Roland Wah Beat.

#4 sounded great, very vintage like the Castledine.

Couldn't get past the noise on #5

I think the extra resistance was causing the different sound on #6, either it wasn't going as low as the others or going lower, giving the squark on the heel down. Certainly had some character though, probably because the resistance kink was in a different spot.