Hey what a great thread....

Quite a few years ago I remember getting very serious about wah pedals and seeking the best option because I've had enough of them to hear a lot of variation between them. What's always very relevant for example is when Joe says Hendrix's sound is brittle but he would be happy with the auto wah sample. To my ears there is no way I could cope with the auto wah sound as it's sound is brittle to my ears. It's all relative in the end. I hear noticeable differences in all the samples but Joe likes them all, no one is right and no one is wrong.... thankfully.

If I can dig it up, there was a lot of web posted research done by a guy with no commercial bias about wah pedals and the results of his Vox tests were fairly convincing. There were visible difference on a CRO (as one point) which was interesting fodder. Gets you thinking.. for a little while, and then the Cream reunion DVD comes out and who the heck cares about inductors anyway????

One other thing that's interesting is when you talk to guys who actually havevery discerning ears and the things they can pick up. Has anyone ever read what Eric Johnson has to say about tone, cables and batteries etc? Very interesting...

Another thing, if that eBay guys gets $650USD for that Vox, then mine's for sale too!!!

Cheers!

ORIGINAL: Mully
Has anyone ever read what Eric Johnson has to say about tone, cables and batteries etc? Very interesting...

I actually kind of thought about Eric in regards to this discussion, myself. He's a great example of smeone for whom this little bitty detail stuff really does matter. For Zakk Wilde, on the other hand, he's probably too drunk to ever know the difference.

Hey Joe (pardon the pun )...

yeah it's one of his better wah recorded sounds for sure. I think a lot of the early recorded Hendrix gear suffers as much from the recording process as anything... maybe he'd lost enough HF in his hearing to not hear the amount of treble he played with BUT, that can be mused over. I still really dig his wah chops on All Along the Watchtower.... very nice.

I'm not sure about him being a better lead player by the Gypsies era either. He was playing with a load more soul with a couple of brothers who were on the same page and his head space was totally different especially if you consider the amount of touring he'd done by that point. The early couple of years is full of brash enthusiasm as much as anything.

As for the amps.. you are very right. I can remember having a couple of Mesa Boogie IIC amps for quite a few years and never really liking the wah tone through them... never quite sounded round enough to my ears. Through the current HotRod DeVille though the Dunlop wah can scream and talk like anything. One thing I've also noticed with every Dunlop I've used is that you need to set the pot ratchet to the optimum setting that you like.

Cheers!

Has anyone ever read what Eric Johnson has to say about tone, cables and batteries etc? Very interesting...

I've never understood this crap about Eric Johnson being able to discern the difference in battery types and stuff like that. Why is that relevant? It's cool to care about your tone. I know I am very particular about it. I also realize though that no one else cares but me and that I'm just being self-indulgent.
Eric Johnson is an exceptional guitar player and if it was anyone else, I would have written them off as having their priorities out of whack. Of course, concerning Eric, this is not the case.

Come to think of it though, I recently played the "Cliffs of Dover" setting on the PODxt live and was suprised at how close it was to Eric's recorded tone. What suprised me even more was the fact that it was the first time that I realized how crappy that tone actually was!

Get yourself a Vox 847 and install a Dpdt switch. A company called Pedaldoc is selling kits to do this yourself and apparently the instructions are very clear the components of very good quality and they ship the items very quickly:

www.pedaldoc.com

[deleted]

no such thing as a dead thread when it comes to music! Well, I suppose I could come up with something, but...

I've owned a large number of wah-wah pedals (actually, still own most of them - don't ask).

The pedal that lives on the pedal board is a Teese RMC-3. I just love this thing, although it took ages to dial in the sound I wanted - make that sounds. I've considered "upgrading" to the one with external controls, but I'm just too cheap, and I don't play out often enough to rationalize the expense<G>!

In the studio I also have a couple of dinosaurs - a Vox Wah from my youth - the one with the picture on the bottom plate, and a Maestro Boomerang. Nothing I've tried can duplicate the sound of either one. So I drag them out from time to time and just have a blast.

While I would heartily recommend anyone shopping for a wah to check out the Teese pedals, like everything else it is a matter of personal preference/taste - there really is no "best" wah. Too bad too!

I love my old vox. I've owned several, but that's the one I never got rid of...

Genghis
<snip>The one analog wah I still currently own is a Wilson Wah, and I think it is actually just a bit more flexible even than the Teese I had, in take it to the extreme settings I like for driving a hi-gain sound and even beyond that point, but I can I also tone it back for a more traditional wah that works great for clean or lo-gain sounds as well.  I highly recommend checking these out.  <snip>

Dang, can't unsee this, my wallet may not forgive you<G>!

I haven't read through all of the suggestions, but I have tried many, even some custom modded wahs. The one that sits on my board now is the Zakk Wylde sig wah.