# Auto Wah - Does anyone use one



## Robert1950 (Jan 21, 2006)

What is it good for, what can't you do with it. I haven't used a regular wah for 40 years. I bought one last fall, tried it two months and just couldn't get the hang of it as I remember it. Have arthritis in my knees and sitting down when I play did not help. I've watched a few YouTube vids. Some can get rather complex and create more sounds than I am interested in.


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## mario (Feb 18, 2006)

I am a huge Auto Wah user. Use it all the time but it is not like using a regular wah.....different beast. Great for Funk and Jerry Garcia stuff. Gone thru a few of them but this is my fav and on my board.


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## Cups (Jan 5, 2010)

I enjoy using them. I don't often but when it's not there I miss it. 

It's cool for reggae skanks and jazzish soloing. They can be tricky to dial in. When you tweak it for a certain pickup or a certain area of the fingerboard it doesn't always sound good when you change pickups . 

Overall it's a fun sound that can definitely give you a cool texture.


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## mario (Feb 18, 2006)

Cups said:


> I enjoy using them. I don't often but when it's not there I miss it.
> 
> It's cool for reggae skanks and jazzish soloing. They can be tricky to dial in. When you tweak it for a certain pickup or a certain area of the fingerboard it doesn't always sound good when you change pickups .
> 
> Overall it's a fun sound that can definitely give you a cool texture.


Perfectly answered. I always found it best on the neck PU and played with a clean tone. As you mentioned...really tricky to dial in but they sound great when you get it matched to your guitar and amp.


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## bzrkrage (Mar 20, 2011)

http://www.effectsbay.com/2015/02/deal-of-the-day-rocktron-7-deadly-sins-auto-wah/
Check out the video, past the 4:00 min mark. Great attack wah.


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk


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## Guest (Apr 13, 2016)

I do. I use a Mu-Tron emulation in my main gig patch. I solo with it on. It's flavour. I'll usually keep it in reverse mode.


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## hollowbody (Jan 15, 2008)

I use one on things like Superstition, Play That Funky Music and F#%$ You. 

I use it for things where I can't use a wah because my wah is way out front and I need a clean signal hitting my B9 for organ riffs. I'll alleviate this when I receive my T1m dual-out buffer. 

It's a pretty neat effect for funky stuff and leaves your feet free to do other stuff. 


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## Lord-Humongous (Jun 5, 2014)

I'm using one. Got rid of my Wah pedal because I found it difficult to play and remember to rock my foot! That's just me maybe but my auto Wah is just click it on and forget about it until the part or song is done. 


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## mhammer (Nov 30, 2007)

Regular user. My first was a Fernandes Funky Filter back in '77 or so, and graduated from that to an MXR Envelope Filter in '78. I currently have:
- a tricked-out MXR Envelope Filter clone I made, 
- a modded Behringer Bassballs clone, 
- a DOD EF440 clone, 
- an original EHX Y-Triggered Filter, 
- an original EHX Doctor Q, 
- a heavily modded Craig Anderton Bi-Filter follower, 
- a Roland Funny Cat clone, 
- a Seamoon Funk Machine clone, 
- a Mutron III clone that needs to get boxed up, 
- a Line 6 Otto Filter, 
...and maybe even some others I'm forgetting (including whatever comes on the Line 6 M5). Needless to say, I like them.

I'm really enjoying the EF440 I made for myself, using homebrew optoisolators. It's just an upward-swept bandpass filter, like so many others, but it's a nice vocal-sounding filter. The current reissue has an upward/downward sweep option, but I find downward sweep is generally not done very well. The attack time needs to be different and the start/end point of the sweep also need to be different. It's not a simple matter of flipping direction. We don't hear those two directions quite the same way. So instead, I added a 3-position Resonance switch. I may add another switch to select decay times.

You can actually do a lot more than play Disco Duck with them. In fact, for those which have adjustable tuning, like the EF440 has, you can turn the Sensitivity down all the way, and use the Range/Tuning control like a cocked wah, ahead of an overdrive.

Back in the day, I would use my old Univox compressor, MXR 6-band EQ, and Envelope Filter to get some striking "reverse tape" sounds, well before we ever had reverse-delay on digital pedals. We're talking 1979, here. I'd set the compressor for moderate compression, set the Envelope Filter for slowest Attack time, and moderate sensitivity, crank all the upper 3 sliders on the EQ, and turn the lower 3 sliders all the way down. The compression would do two things. First, it would stretch out the note. Second, it would allow me to just barely ride the Threshold of sweep, and reign in the width of sweep. Keep in mind that, since most of the harmonic content of a plucked string is at the start, more authentic reverse-tape sounds involve producing less treble at the start and more at the end of a strum. The filter would sweep upwards slowly. But since the EQ sliders for bass were turned way down, the early part opf the strum would be heard at a much lower volume, As the sweep went upwards on the filter, the dimed EQ controls would get louder and distort, such that it sounded like a string picked hard, but heard backwards. I'm kinda proud of that one. Never heard of anyone else doing it.

My modded MXR clone has variable resonance. If I set the attack time to slowest, turn the resonance way down, adjust the threshold for modest sweep, and feed it into a chorus, I can get thast delicious fretless bass drone from a fretted bass, and instant "Jaco tone" (albeit without the brilliance and chops).

"Riding the threshold" by means of using just the smallest bit of compression and setting the Sensitivity/Threshold just so, can get some great animation. I can nail the kind of bit-o-wah that you hear Todd Rundgren using at the 22:10 mark here: 




Recommendations:
1) One of the most useful features is an Attack time. It allows for better matching in the feel of the sweep to the requirements of the tune. One of the reasons why I love the MXR unit so much.
2) If used with bass, you want 2 important features: lowpass filter mode (one of the things that made the Mu-Tron so popular with bassists), and fast decay. Long decay is great for rhythm strumming. But bass has to sound solid and root the song. If the filter takes too long to sweep back down, it makes the bass notes sound flimsy and "inattentive", like they've wandered off somewhere. Fast decay on a filter, when using bass makes it sound more synth-like, more percussive and on-the-beat.
3) Optical filters will have the smoothest sweep, because the sluggishness of the photocells cleans up the envelope ripple. Filters that use FETs, bipolar transistors, or OTAs as their control element are often prone to audible ripple during the decay phase; particularly if your strings are old and a little worn at the frets. You won't necessarily hear the irregularities in the string's volume because of that, and because of how hearing works, but the pedal hears it and produces "micro-sweeps" in the audio range that people tend to report as distortion.

Here's a document I wrote a while back that "Commander" Keen was good enough to post on his site. It explains more: http://www.geofex.com/article_folders/ecftech/ecftech.htm

There, does that answer your question?


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## sambonee (Dec 20, 2007)

I bought one because I had an Electra 335 with MPC (had the auto wah and flanger). This is the recording of the jam. What a great guitar. 

One of my fav things is to set it with chords where the initial attack of a single whole note chord goes to max output threshold (like the wah full-forward). Then as the signs falls, the tone gradually moves to the opposite tonal spectrum (wah full-back). Like a Slow wah jumping to one extreme (the treble end) and slowly returning to the no treble end. Super cool.


Here is the envelope filter onboard my old tree of life Electra 335. 

__
https://soundcloud.com/https%3A%2F%2Fsoundcloud.com%2Fthe-hurley-jam%2Fbubosh-1-freds-home
After 3min mark


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## Robert1950 (Jan 21, 2006)

I'm interested in something with classic wah sounds, maybe a bit more, in which I can control the top and low end of the sweep.


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## mhammer (Nov 30, 2007)

Do you mean the amount of top and bottom end in the sweep, or where it starts from and how high it goes?


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## mrmatt1972 (Apr 3, 2008)

Use one on my Zoom G3 for Steely Dan tunes. Garcia was mentioned.


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## zontar (Oct 25, 2007)

I have a Boss AW-3--I love it.
I use it more with bass than guitar--but it's a cool pedal either way.
The settings give you up & down, and a vocalizer that gives something like vowel sounds (Although only the "OI" combination sounds close to the actual vowels--but there are other usable sounds.)
It's got other adjustments as well.

It has an expression pedal jack so if you want to use it like a wah pedal you can plug an expression pedal in to vary the sounds.
But lots of options out there.


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## Guest (Apr 14, 2016)

I just got the Mad Scientist Snow White Auto Wah. The Gear Pagers claim it to be the hands down best. It is nice, but takes a certain touch to make it wah like without synthy type artifacts or vowely glitches. 

These vids make it sound wonderful, but they players are extremely talented and have superb touch control with their picking hand... It is keeper for me.


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## ColForbin (Sep 10, 2012)

I use the Envelope Phaser 2 from Pigtronix. Not your standard mutron sound, but really cool nine the less. You can have the envelope on, or the phase shifter, or a combo of both. Really cool, musical pedal. Very different sounding auto wah.


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## Cups (Jan 5, 2010)

Always wanted to try a Pigtronix Envelope Filter and I owned an AW-3. Really great pedal.


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## JBFairthorne (Oct 11, 2014)

You know, I had ZERO desire to obtain one of these...until this thread. If she were here, I'm sure my wife would like to thank you all.


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## mhammer (Nov 30, 2007)

1) The Snow White is basically a tricked-out version of the DOD FX-25. That's not a diss. Rather, if you like the FX-25, you'll appreciate the extra features on the Snow White.

2) Much the same way that one can not see family resemblances between people until you look at them a certain way, or see them all walking down the hall side-by-side, or whatever, when envelope control is used, a bunch of effects that we mentally classify as very different beasts suddenly resemble each other. I have a Line 6 Liqui-Flange, that includes both envelope-control and triggered sweeps among its options. Normally, one would think that a flanger and a filter are two different things. But I gotta tell you, it makes one hell of an auto-wah when tweaked right. Same thing for pedals like the Envelope Phaser.

3) Whenever I run into folks who need to re-energize their playing, or feel they need a kick in the pants to redirect their playing and learn again, I often suggest an auto-wah as an appropriate (though certainly not the "best" or _only_) means, because:

it forces you to pay attention to dynamics, maybe a little more than you had previously;
it lends itself to thinking like a drummer;
it sharpens your awareness of rhythmic "feel" in a song;
it makes you think about your other effects in new and interesting ways.
4) As I may have stated elsewhere (I do tend to repeat myself a lot), bass players prefer, and perhaps need, to use a lowpass filter. While swept bandpass filters are fine for guitar, bandpass tends to sound thin as it sweeps upward. Bass has to hold down the bottom and make the root apparent, so that the others can add whatever flourishes are to be added. Happily, if one is using lots of resonance, a lowpass filter accentuates content at the cutoff frequency, so that it can have some of the same sonic character as a bandpass. Takes more parts than a bandpass, though. But it's why bass players love the Mu-Tron and all derivatives.

EHX attempted to tackle this challenge with the Bass Balls, which uses two staggered synchronized bandpass filters - one high one low, such that it retains more bass while simultaneously sweeping the harmonic content. The old Craig Anderton Bi-Filter Follower - from the late 70's - does the same thing too, except more cleanly. I built a highly modified version of a Bass Balls, and walk you through the basic circuit and changes to it. The sounds begin around the 6:40 mark. You will note the "ripple" as the notes decay. Filter pedals that use photocells/optoisolators to sweep, as opposed to transistors (as this one does) are a bit more immune to displaying the filter-wiggling you hear in this unit. Normally, your strings do this with respect to volume fluctuations, but your brain imposes a heard-stability on the sound. When that same fluctuation translates into a filter moving around...you hear it.


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## High/Deaf (Aug 19, 2009)

I'm far more likely to use an auto-wah than a manual one. I've never really been a wah guy and use it for shafty effects only. 

The M5/M9 platform has an echo patch called Sweep Echo with the repeats being auto-wahed (or is that Ottawa'd?). Not that useful for any songs I know, but fun to hack around with.


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## mister.zed (Jun 8, 2011)

Do I use Auto-Wah? You may have already noticed my profile and seen where I live. The funk capital of Canada! It's one of my favorite effects.

I regularly enjoy my MXR auto Q, EHX Bass Balls, the envelope setting on my GNX4 (which is quite awesome sounding) and my Digitech Bass Synth Wah.

But what I've really been jonesing for lately is the Source Audio Stingray Filter. It seems to be the most tweakable grandpappy of all filters. If anyone has one and wants to move it, do send me a message.


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## Guest (Apr 14, 2016)

ColForbin said:


> I use the Envelope Phaser 2 from Pigtronix. Not your standard mutron sound, but really cool nine the less. You can have the envelope on, or the phase shifter, or a combo of both. Really cool, musical pedal. Very different sounding auto wah.


That forum name screams Phan.


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## mhammer (Nov 30, 2007)

High/Deaf said:


> I'm far more likely to use an auto-wah than a manual one. I've never really been a wah guy and use it for shafty effects only.
> 
> The M5/M9 platform has an echo patch called Sweep Echo with the repeats being auto-wahed (or is that Ottawa'd?). Not that useful for any songs I know, but fun to hack around with.


Yep, set it for all wet, and the shortest possible delay time, and you have yourself an auto-wah effect.
Speaking of which, this place in town always brings a smile to my face. This is probably the only thread where it makes sense.: https://www.google.ca/maps/place/La...2!3m1!1s0x4cce06970a43d3f5:0x1003c0eed3178bbc


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## High/Deaf (Aug 19, 2009)

Arrrrrggggghhhhh! "My kingdom for an H".

So close and yet so far. Wa isn't even a word! LOL


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## Robert1950 (Jan 21, 2006)

mhammer said:


> *Do you mean the amount of top and bottom end in the sweep*, or where it starts from and how high it goes?


 I read this and the first time I thought each statement said the same thing in a different way. After thinking about it I think I mean the underlined above. I find the top end of a standard wah has too much treble for me. I'd lie to limit that. I like to keep the bottom end where it is, except for some funk.


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## mhammer (Nov 30, 2007)

mister.zed said:


> Do I use Auto-Wah? You may have already noticed my profile and seen where I live. The funk capital of Canada! It's one of my favorite effects.
> 
> I regularly enjoy my MXR auto Q, EHX Bass Balls, the envelope setting on my GNX4 (which is quite awesome sounding) and my Digitech Bass Synth Wah.
> 
> But what I've really been jonesing for lately is the Source Audio Stingray Filter. It seems to be the most tweakable grandpappy of all filters. If anyone has one and wants to move it, do send me a message.


You'll want a Hot Hand to accompany that.


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## Robert1950 (Jan 21, 2006)

Let me go back to the 60s... Tremolo was volume shifting*. Vibrato was pitch shifting*. Wah is tone shifting. 

Think of a wah with a full range of tone shift from 0 to 10. I for one never keep the tone at 10 on the guitar, usually 7 or 8 on the bridge pickup. I'd like to set the sweep from 0 to 7 or 2 to 8, depending.

I sort of get phase shifting (a little), but envelope filter - barely. 

* (we all know Leo got those confused)


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## mhammer (Nov 30, 2007)

Well it's not really tone-shifting in the sense you describe it. Tone controls adjust how much emphasis is given or taken away from broad ranges. Foot-operated wahs are bandpass filters that de-emphasize frequency content above and below some center or resonant frequency band. As the center-frequency moves around different content is allowed to pass through unaffected. The Q or selectivity of the filter determines how broadly the range of the filter extends. In much the same way that when a person is insisting on some specific action they tend to raise their voice the more specific their demand is, increasing the Q, to make the filter more selective, is generally accompanied by an increase in loudness as selectivity and "focus" is increased.

In auto-wahs, there is often a confounding of sensitivity and sweep width. If you don't want the filter to "travel" very far (i.e., start_ here_, but don't go any farther than _there_), you set the sensivity at less than max. But the trouble is that such settings may result in only hard strums causing anything to happen. If you turn the sensivity up to get more reliably-caused sweeps, the sweep may go farther than you want.

So what people often want is a "triggered sweep". That is, the extent of sweep from point A to point B is consistent, and the sensitivity merely determines how easily all of that is set in motion. EHX started use of such a system back in the 80's with the Microsynth and some of their e-percussion units. The circuit provides a "start" and a "stop" point. Start can be higher or lower than Stop. If higher than Stop then it sweeps down; if lower than Stop, then it sweeps up. Distance between Start and Stop determines how quickly the filter _appears_ to sweep (i.e., if it travels farther in the same amount of time, it seems like it's moving faster). Since the distance that is supposed to be travelled may take longer than you want it to, such systems usually have a means for re-triggering or re-initiating the sweep.

In one sense, this approach provides a bit more control, since the sensitivity can be optimized for your picking style, without having an impact on the sweep. In another sense, it can provide _less_ control since the width or distance of the sweep is somewhat predetermined; you can't make it sweep wider by adjusting your pick attack.


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## Robert1950 (Jan 21, 2006)

Thanks. Give me an hour to read this a few times and digest it.


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## mhammer (Nov 30, 2007)

Take your time.


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## Robert1950 (Jan 21, 2006)

I admit, I found it easier to understand a simplified 8 minute description of string theory (w/0 the math of course) the first time I watched it than this. Open and closed strings, vibration differences of the strings, how it can be used to explain the multiverse theory...


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## mhammer (Nov 30, 2007)

It probably helps to have a little background in analog synthesizers, since so much about these pedals is intended to mimic what synths normally. The major difference is that a synth "knows" when a key is pressed, and knows to start shaping the tone for whatever note/s you're playing. With an auto-wah, the circuitry "knows" that a new note or chord has been strummed based on how hard it has been picked.

The circuitry that represents or translates the strength of your strumming is often called an envelope follower, but is more properly called a rectifier. In many of your appliances, a rectifier is simply used to turn AC from the wall into DC to power something. In this context, the rectifier takes your guitar signal that goes both above and below some neutral or ground-reference, and turns it into a voltage that only goes in one direction: from 0vdc to something more than zero.

The rectifier circuit is often referred to as a "sidechain", because it is something that is effectively in parallel with the main part of the overall circuit. It's a bit like the car with the TV camera driving beside a clutch of bicycle racers. The car isn't IN the race, but is _portraying_ the race as it proceeds. Similarly, the sidechain/rectifier isn't part of your signal. It "describes" your signal, and that "description" is used to control the soundshaping part of the audio path. IN the case of compressors and noisegates, the sidechain describes the level, just like here, but is used to control the volume, and nothing else.


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## Guest (Apr 14, 2016)

"The Snow White Auto Wah (SWAW) circuit is based on a 1991 BJF rack mount remote wah circuit and is tuned like a real wah. The circuit was redesigned with envelope controls and built into small size pedal."


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## mhammer (Nov 30, 2007)

Player99 said:


> "The Snow White Auto Wah (SWAW) circuit is based on a 1991 BJF rack mount remote wah circuit and is tuned like a real wah. The circuit was redesigned with envelope controls and built into small size pedal."


They can say that, I suppose, but a gander at the traced schematic of the pedal and the basic FX-25 shows only cosmetic differences. Both are essential traceable to earlier state-variable filters, using transconductance amps. The only thing I've ever seen that comes very close to a true wah circuit is the old Boss TW-1 Touch-Wah, which has an honest-to-goodness inductor in it, and employs what is essentially a Crybaby circuit surrounded by a bunch of control circuitry to make it do stuff. Nice-sounding pedal, actually.
http://guitarwork.ru/electronic/firm/Wah_AutoWah/BOSS Touch - Wah TW-1.jpg


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## Guest (Apr 15, 2016)

I watched and more importantly listened to four TW-1 Touch-Wah demos and I would have to say the Snow White is a nicer sounding, more wah like pedal...

That said if I run across a TW-1 I will certainly be buying it.


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## mister.zed (Jun 8, 2011)

mhammer said:


> You'll want a Hot Hand to accompany that.


Definitely. Hot Hand is one of the coolest innovations in the guitar effects world I've seen in a long time. It's surprising to me that Source Audio does not get carried in Canada very much.


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## mhammer (Nov 30, 2007)

Steve's carries them, though I don't know how much inventory they keep on hand.

I briefly corresponded with the tech folks at Source Audio, and the Hot Hand is capable of outputting up to 3 control "signals". The two outputs native to the Source Audio units are 3.3V control voltages. Like all Line 6 expression inputs, the Line-6-compatible output is simply a 0-10k variable resistance. So, technically, one could also use the HH to control some pedals that use expression-pedal inputs that want variable voltages (which often includes those that require a TRS jack/plug).


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## mister.zed (Jun 8, 2011)

Yeah I've seen some of the older Source Audio pedals at Steve's a while back. Maybe it's worth another trip downtown soon.


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