A WahWah pedal as Combi

[Marco Raaphorst]

It might be nice to simulated a WahWah pedal in a Combinator. Including the scratching noise and general noise. I have an old Vox Wah.

I am thinking about the best way to tricker that sample. It should have real time time-stretching because of scratching noise sample. Grain might work.

Complicated!

Any ideas?

[selig]

I modeled a cry baby pedal for the factory sound bank (“Don’t Cry, Baby”). The pedal was old but wasn’t scratchy. There may have been noise, but it was probably way above the cut-off frequency.

Some guitarists like to distort before the wha, which would give you some sense of noise with high gain. My point being, the noise would come from the guitar etc, not so much from the wha itself.

To my ear, the biggest thing to model is the frequency range and the fact that on many pedals the Q actually changes with frequency (which is why a simple band pass filter sweep doesn’t always evoke a 100% recognizable “wha” effect IMO.


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[guitfnky]

I wonder if you could use the ART's vinyl patch to raise its wetness only in the middle of the wah (so it's dry when the wah is 100% 'toe up' or 100% 'toe down'). the scratchiness in there might not sound like what you're looking for, and obviously it'll color the rest of your tone a bit, but maybe worth a try?

[Marco Raaphorst]

I wonder if you could use the ART's vinyl patch to raise its wetness only in the middle of the wah (so it's dry when the wah is 100% 'toe up' or 100% 'toe down'). the scratchiness in there might not sound like what you're looking for, and obviously it'll color the rest of your tone a bit, but maybe worth a try?

no it should sound like a pot crackling, not like vinyl.

[guitfnky]

I wonder if you could use the ART's vinyl patch to raise its wetness only in the middle of the wah (so it's dry when the wah is 100% 'toe up' or 100% 'toe down'). the scratchiness in there might not sound like what you're looking for, and obviously it'll color the rest of your tone a bit, but maybe worth a try?

no it should sound like a pot crackling, not like vinyl.

understood. just trying to think of how you could accomplish that without something crazy (and wasn’t sure how much of a stickler you might be for that detail). I guess you’re right that Grain would probably be the way to go. the grain position could be controlled by the footpedal, so as you sweep through, you get the crackling. not sure how you’d trigger the actual grain note playback, but I guess you could just draw in a song/section-length note in the sequencer so it’s ‘always on’.

[guitfnky]

or if for some reason you need to trigger only when you’re playing, I’m sure there are some ways to trigger note gate CVs based on volume of an audio signal.

[selig]

no it should sound like a pot crackling, not like vinyl.

Should the effect increase over time, and should there be a “Deoxit” button? Or would moving the pedal back and forth quickly fix the crackling? [emoji2957]


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[selig]

or if for some reason you need to trigger only when you’re playing, I’m sure there are some ways to trigger note gate CVs based on volume of an audio signal.

You actually need to trigger it when the pedal is moving. To do this you need to measure the difference between samples in time. If you subtract the current sample (or batch) from the previous and you get zero, you know the pedal is not moving. If you get a positive value, you know which direction it’s moving. And the bigger the value, the faster it’s moving (which can also affect the quality of the crackling).


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[guitfnky]

great point. that sounds like it would complicate things considerably.

I think the easiest solution then would be to just draw in that song-length single note so it’s technically always on, and that way the actual crackling would only happen as you’re sweeping through it, regardless of whether you’re actually playing the guitar (or whatever other instrument you’re using). just make it so that the sample is between the toe down and toe up positions, so when you’re at the top and bottom of the sweep, you’re not getting any crackling.

[selig]

great point. that sounds like it would complicate things considerably.

I think the easiest solution then would be to just draw in that song-length single note so it’s technically always on, and that way the actual crackling would only happen as you’re sweeping through it, regardless of whether you’re actually playing the guitar (or whatever other instrument you’re using). just make it so that the sample is between the toe down and toe up positions, so when you’re at the top and bottom of the sweep, you’re not getting any crackling.

What is stopping the sound from playing when the pedal isn’t moving?


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[guitfnky]

great point. that sounds like it would complicate things considerably.

I think the easiest solution then would be to just draw in that song-length single note so it’s technically always on, and that way the actual crackling would only happen as you’re sweeping through it, regardless of whether you’re actually playing the guitar (or whatever other instrument you’re using). just make it so that the sample is between the toe down and toe up positions, so when you’re at the top and bottom of the sweep, you’re not getting any crackling.

What is stopping the sound from playing when the pedal isn’t moving?


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if you use the pedal position to control the grain playback “head” (I think you can do this?), you can control where within the sweep the actual crackle is playing.

or did you mean in a real world wah, why wouldn’t the crackle be constant?

[selig]

What is stopping the sound from playing when the pedal isn’t moving?


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if you use the pedal position to control the grain playback “head” (I think you can do this?), you can control where within the sweep the actual crackle is playing.

or did you mean in a real world wah, why wouldn’t the crackle be constant?

Sorry, missed the “grain” reference, only heard “sample always on” part!

Carry on…


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[guitfnky]

gotcha, I probably could have put that more clearly (story of my life ).

[MarkTarlton]

a wah wah is simply a variable equalization boost. I researched this pretty heavily a couple years ago. it was accidentally invented when trying to redesign the midrange boost on amps. when the pot was rotated through it's range it made a vocal like "wah" sound, realizing if you made a foot pedal for this expression it would be easy for the player to control since you only have two hands.

I like to use the wah "parked" for a static sound like you hear on david bowies earlier records

[Marco Raaphorst]

maybe it's better to create a dynamic pot crackling effect first. just simulating that with some random noise samples I guess. that's easy.

a Vox wah is never clean. even without playing your guitar you can make those wackawackawacka type of sounds. Very dirty.

[selig]

a wah wah is simply a variable equalization boost. I researched this pretty heavily a couple years ago. it was accidentally invented when trying to redesign the midrange boost on amps. when the pot was rotated through it's range it made a vocal like "wah" sound, realizing if you made a foot pedal for this expression it would be easy for the player to control since you only have two hands.

I like to use the wah "parked" for a static sound like you hear on david bowies earlier records

The one's I've analyzed (mostly vintage) were filters rather than EQs - Tried to locate the frequency plots from the vintage Cry Baby pedal to show what I'm talking about, to no avail… ;(