# The use of an Auto Wah pedal.



## John Fisher (Aug 6, 2017)

I am curious how many use one instead of a normal Wah. Also the reason why? I have been playing around with my Vox 847 but I am getting a little old and I am using that as my excuse for lack of Co-ordination, LOL

I have watched a few Auto wah demos, but I think asking real users will help me with what it will actually do.

Thanks


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## mhammer (Nov 30, 2007)

I got my first one around 1977, and own or have owned a dozen or more; some commercial, some DIY clones. so I have extensive experience with them. Still worth reading this document: The Technology of Auto-Wahs / Envelope-Controlled Filters

Personally, I see them as different animals, and happily use both. The advantage of auto-wahs is that they can sweep faster than your foot can. They can also come in other filter types than the bandpass filter a typical wah has. The advantage a wah-wah has is that sweeps can be _slower_ than most autowahs can achieve, which can be useful in some contexts. I imagine there are some auto-wahs whose controls permit the same sort of adjustment, but mimicking what is commonly referred to as "cocked wah" is often difficult to achieve in the standard 2-3 knob auto-wah. That's not anything that makes wah a winner over auto-wah, just simply a trick which is easier to do with one than with the other. Same thing goes for downward sweep. Auto-wahs can do downward sweep easily, but wahs are difficult to wire for reverse sweep, since it would demand a different pot taper, and those sorts of pots are not usually available.

For my part, the most useful aspect of autowahs is that they encourage the player to sync their picking with the rhythm of the tune. That may or may not be your particular style, so it may not be especially advantageous to you. But it's what I think benefits some players. That said, not all that many autowahs allow one to adjust the attack time (how quickly the filter begins its sweep, whether upward or downward) in a way that better matches the tempo of a tune. That's one of the reasons why I always liked the old MXR Envelope Filter (I've owned two of them, and built two or 3 clones as well). It was the only one for many years, that had variable attack time, permitting slower swells. These days, EHX makes units with variable attack time.

One of the caveats with such filters is that strings misbehave in their decay. Though we don't hear the fluctuations in volume (paying more attention to pitch, sustain, and any vibrato), those fluctuations result in what is called "envelope ripple". That ripple results in very quick "microsweeps" of the filter. Some hear this as distortion. The cure is generally to either make the decay time very long, or very short. Very long smooths out the fluctuations, while very short decay makes the filter complete its cycle before the ripple begins to become audible. Though I used to try and build in variable attack, I found that it was difficult to do in a way that didn't interact with sensitivity. However, variable decay time has no such interactions, or at least not enough to be audible. Fast decay time results in more synth-like sounds.

Here's one I made some years back and sold to a guy somewhere in California. You'll pardon the lousy playing and background noise. But it illustrates the role that variable decay can play.




And here's another more recent build that aims for a cleaner sound.


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## Guncho (Jun 16, 2015)

When I think auto wah I think of Jerry Garcia duck sound solos which is cool in small servings.


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## torndownunit (May 14, 2006)

mhammer said:


> I got my first one around 1977, and own or have owned a dozen or more; some commercial, some DIY clones. so I have extensive experience with them. Still worth reading this document: The Technology of Auto-Wahs / Envelope-Controlled Filters
> 
> Personally, I see them as different animals, and happily use both. The advantage of auto-wahs is that they can sweep faster than your foot can. They can also come in other filter types than the bandpass filter a typical wah has. The advantage a wah-wah has is that sweeps can be _slower_ than most autowahs can achieve, which can be useful in some contexts. I imagine there are some auto-wahs whose controls permit the same sort of adjustment, but mimicking what is commonly referred to as "cocked wah" is often difficult to achieve in the standard 2-3 knob auto-wah. That's not anything that makes wah a winner over auto-wah, just simply a trick which is easier to do with one than with the other. Same thing goes for downward sweep. Auto-wahs can do downward sweep easily, but wahs are difficult to wire for reverse sweep, since it would demand a different pot taper, and those sorts of pots are not usually available.
> 
> ...


I'm a little high right now and that pedal has me fascinated.


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## mhammer (Nov 30, 2007)

Which one?


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## torndownunit (May 14, 2006)

mhammer said:


> Which one?


Phunkpunk


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## mhammer (Nov 30, 2007)

Buy yourself a bigbox EHX Bass Balls or one of these, and I'll show you have to make one.


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## Clean Channel (Apr 18, 2011)

...I'm just jumping in to say that I really miss my Prometheus DLX. Gonna get it again...


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## allthumbs56 (Jul 24, 2006)

I've got a Mini Qtron that can be a ton of fun when we break out that Funky Music


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## High/Deaf (Aug 19, 2009)

I've never been enough of a wah user to justify one. But now, with the Kemper, everything is available, so why not? I'll probably set one up somewhere along the way.


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## Chito (Feb 17, 2006)

Give the Mad Professor Snow White Auto Wah a try. It is very responsive to picking attack. BTW, I use both. I have this Auto Wah and also have a Plutonium Chi Wah Wah in my pedalboard.


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## mhammer (Nov 30, 2007)

There is an autowah program on my Johnson J-Station tabletop box that is outstanding. Not a reason to buy one of these boxes, but a real delightful surprise for a guy like me.

My first autowah was a Fernandes Funky Filter, that was one of the many licensed clones of the Mu-Tron III (see this family tree: http://www.effectsdatabase.com/model/musitronics/mutron/3#links ).


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## Clean Channel (Apr 18, 2011)

Yeah, I should have mentioned: even when I have an autowah, I never drop the real wah. Good to have both. I grabbed a Roger Mayer Vision Wah Special off this forum (and for a great price!) a few years back and haven't looked back; love it. I honestly just got it for a lark, as I'd never tried one, but was surprised by how much I liked it, so it became a keeper.


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## mhammer (Nov 30, 2007)

High/Deaf said:


> I've never been enough of a wah user to justify one. But now, with the Kemper, everything is available, so why not? I'll probably set one up somewhere along the way.


Much like wah-wah pedals, autowahs can be used ahead of distortion, OR after it. Both are valid. I used to like to compress my signal a bit to restrict the dynamic range, and feed a hot signal from that to my autowah, set to very slow attack. That would get me a reliable sweep on every note picked, but it wouldn't sweep very far, and the slow gain recovery on the compressor would make it settle back down slowly. I'd then feed the autowah to something that distorted, and "ride the threshold" of the autowah. The outcome may well have depended on the quirks of that compressor.


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## High/Deaf (Aug 19, 2009)

mhammer said:


> Much like wah-wah pedals, autowahs can be used ahead of distortion, OR after it. Both are valid. I used to like to compress my signal a bit to restrict the dynamic range, and feed a hot signal from that to my autowah, set to very slow attack. That would get me a reliable sweep on every note picked, but it wouldn't sweep very far, and the slow gain recovery on the compressor would make it settle back down slowly. I'd then feed the autowah to something that distorted, and "ride the threshold" of the autowah. The outcome may well have depended on the quirks of that compressor.


Good idea. Thanks, Mark. I can toggle both a compressor and autowah to come with with the same button, so less tapdancing. I'll try that.


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## Boogieman (Apr 6, 2009)

I have a Mu-FX Tru Tron 3X on my bass board. I like the way it reacts to picking dynamics.

I wouldn't mind trying another autowah pedal for my guitar board. I like the autowah solo tone of Edie Brickell & New Bohemians' "What I Am":






This is a live version on the David Letterman show, with backing from The World's Most Dangerous Band. The solo starts at 2:08, played by Kenny Withrow. Anton Fig on drums and Will Lee on cowbell (!). Now that's worth a watch.

I think the studio version has a much more pronounced autowah effect. Never cared much for the lyrics on this one.


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## mhammer (Nov 30, 2007)

High/Deaf said:


> Good idea. Thanks, Mark. I can toggle both a compressor and autowah to come with with the same button, so less tapdancing. I'll try that.


You're welcome. Just be sure not to introduce too much squish, because a unchanging-level signal doesn't yield much sweep!


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## SG-Rocker (Dec 30, 2007)

@mhammer,

Have you ever entertained the thought of marketing an auto wah pedal and calling it "The Ottawa" or perhaps "The Ottawa Auto-Wah"?

Give it a simple and intuitive interface and perhaps a mode switch that would approximate an EHX BassBalls.


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## mhammer (Nov 30, 2007)

Can't. There is already a place in town called Auto-Wa Upholstery & Glass that does automotive stuff. Besides, I couldn't come up with anything that EHX and Source Audio haven't already done.

Mark


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## Guest (Jan 30, 2019)

mhammer said:


> Much like wah-wah pedals, autowahs can be used ahead of distortion, OR after it. Both are valid. I used to like to compress my signal a bit to restrict the dynamic range, and feed a hot signal from that to my autowah, set to very slow attack. That would get me a reliable sweep on every note picked, but it wouldn't sweep very far, and the slow gain recovery on the compressor would make it settle back down slowly. I'd then feed the autowah to something that distorted, and "ride the threshold" of the autowah. The outcome may well have depended on the quirks of that compressor.


Thanks for the advice. I put the Snow White Auto Wah after my compressor and it works amazingly well. Yah!


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## John Fisher (Aug 6, 2017)

Thanks everyone, I got enough out of this that the Auto Wah is really not a sound I am after. The sounds I hear in my head (easy everyone), or trying to get is not auto wah, so that was really helpful. I will spend a lot more time with the Wah, or change the dirt options , or approach it differently

Wow I know that was quite a while ago but damn Edie Brickel looked so young


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## TheYanChamp (Mar 6, 2009)

Went balls deep with them for a while. Had a qtron, qtron +, mini qtron and a line 6 filter modulator. The FM lasted the longest on my board since it was very versatile even as a treble boost for leads, and I was big into Zappa style frequency control for feedback and such at the time. It was also huge. The mini qtron was very limited as it is only a three knob so hard to get the sweep and response you want. 

Sent from my H3223 using Tapatalk


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## TheYanChamp (Mar 6, 2009)

There are good autowahs that actually wah. I remember seeing a video of one that was yellow and sounded great but the name escapes me. 

Sent from my H3223 using Tapatalk


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## zontar (Oct 25, 2007)

I have a Boss AW3 Dynamic Wah that I love using.
It does have a jack that will allow you to connect an expression pedal to use like away.
I've never tried it, but I do like the auto part of it.


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## Guest (Feb 5, 2019)

Thanks to mHammer's tip (after compression) my Snow White Ottawa is really nice. Very wah like. It will stay on the board.


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## mhammer (Nov 30, 2007)

Nobody here seems to have had any experience with the EHX Enigma or Riddle pedals. Both appear to use an adaptation of a scheme that EHX has used for many years, since the Minisynth and Space Drum in the very early 1980s, where the direction and width of sweep, as well as the time-span to some extent, are set by the Start and Stop frequencies of the filter. In the case of the Enigma and Riddle pedals, that is complemented by some envelope control in the form of Attack and Decay controls.


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## Chito (Feb 17, 2006)

I was going to start another thread but I figured it's better just to hop on to this one.
I have had this for a bit now. I tried it once and it was okay and I know I can use it but I do have a JHS Snow White and a Donner Autowah which I only prefer because its a mini and fits in my other board. I think its obvious why I bought it. Or maybe not. But I think it's a cool pedal. Called the Ottawa-Wah.


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## mhammer (Nov 30, 2007)

Chito said:


> I was going to start another thread but I figured it's better just to hop on to this one.
> I have had this for a bit now. I tried it once and it was okay and I know I can use it but I do have a JHS Snow White and a Donner Autowah which I only prefer because its a mini and fits in my other board. I think its obvious why I bought it. Or maybe not. But I think it's a cool pedal. Called the Ottawa-Wah.
> View attachment 445490


Cute. I like the Centre Block / Peace Tower image.
The DOD 440 is a really nice auto-wah, IMHO. I like the filter design/tone, and the use of photocells for the sweep makes for a smoother, less glitchy sweep. It can be modded in a few ways. Here's one of them, from a January 1981 issue of POLYPHONY magazine..


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## player99 (Sep 5, 2019)

I bought a Snow White Auto Wah and it was disappointing. I am using a BYOC filter that is so much better than the swaw.


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## mhammer (Nov 30, 2007)

The BYOC is also a DOD 440 clone and is a form of bandpass filter. The Snow White is a state-variable filter, set for lowpass mode. In principle, the Snow White ought to be "better" than the 440, insomuch as it has variable decay and variable resonance. Lowpass filters *can *sound a lot like bandpass if the resonance is cranked, emphasizing the frequencies around the cutoff. The Snow White is better for bass than the 440, but the 440's bandpass filter has a nice vocal quality to it.


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