This is the tale of [Chris], who discovered he was no [Jimi Hendrix] in his youth, and shelved his trusty wah-wah pedal as a result. Many years later as a bassist with more modest aims he brought it out of retirement and built a blend pedal kit to allow him to bring in a bit of wah to the mix when he wanted it, but as more of a Voodoo Grown-Up than the full Voodoo Chile.
The kit worked and he should have been happy with it, but for one thing. As he increased the mix on the loop box instead of getting more wah he simply got less volume. A bit of detective work reached the conclusion that the old pedal was inverting everything, and that he needed to put in a circuit to correct that when needed. A single op-amp and a switch, with the op-amp circuit dead-bug-style on the back of the switch, completed the modification.
Wah pedals seem to be a recurring feature here. We’ve brought you one made of Lego among many others, as well as one repurposed as a synth controller.
“Wah pedals seem to be a recurring feature here” as I remember it they were also a feature of electronics magazines of the 70s and 80s.
Wah pedals are pretty fun. I’m sure kids will be building them in the 2080s. Well, the kids that aren’t killed in resource wars or die of famine at least.
This inversion in audio chains with mixing is a real headbanger that many musicians run into and just shrug and miss out on what should be just another mode of mixing it up. I have it with a DL-4 and other stuff in a base station I made. It is one place where absolute phase is important for compatibility.
This particular usage of “headbanger” in the context of electric guitars confused me for a bit.
Outstanding. It is hard to not have fun with a wah.