You are correct. As much as I would like to like it, my old Area 51 drop-in kit is still what is on my board. I did break my old inductor but the new inductor that Dan sent from Area 51 made it sound even better.
I swear every time I'm thinking some crazy idea in my head about gear or tones asking myself " How does this work?" Or "Is this possible?" and go to research it Millstap has the video already made and explains every aspect of it you rule millstap!
@@millstap looking up vintage wah tones and I guess I never realized you can just modify the electronics and pinion and keep the shell now I'm hip to Joe Gagan and Sabbadius. The mass produced wahs just dont cut the mustard! Do you have a part number for the pots from cts?
@@nros5020 No, pots are very specific and somewhat proprietary, depending on the manufacturer. My favorite wah-wah is actually the very first drop-in kit I bought from Area 51. For some reason, that basic wah with no add-ons is killer. I have a bunch of them, even an original Dallas Arbiter that sounded pretty good for a while but was too noisy. I also have a custom made Clyde McCoy from Area 512 and it still is not as good as that old drop-in kit that I put in probably 10 years ago.
Boy that one's got a bright bark to it! I like it. I'll have to dig around and find my old broken cry baby now! Cheers! P.S. liking your new edits and look!
I LOVE IT ! I HAVE A BAG OF OLD CRY BABY PEDALS... I SWITCHED TO A VOX THAT HAS HUNG IN THERE FOR 15 YEARS. IT COSTS MORE FOR THE VOX... YOU GET WHAT YOU PAY FOR ! PLUS I LOVE THAT PICTURE OF JIMI STOMPING ON A VOX WAH WITH HIS BEADED UP MOCCASINS. JIMI IS GOD !
How much do you prefer this over the Area 51 wah? I’ve had an Area 51 wah for 2-3 years now and I’ve decided it’s time to upgrade. Tbh I was really disappointed with my Area 51 wah when I got it.. The quality of the pedal is great but it’s just not very “vintage” to my ears.. I just ordered Joe Gagan’s “Italia V2” which is the closest to the original vox sound as I have found. This Sabbadius is pretty close too, but I think Joe Gagan has it beat as well.
I was using my first Area 51 drop-in kit up until a few weeks ago when I pulled out the Area 51 Clyde Clone that didn't thrill me so much and was sitting in a corner. But I made an improvement to it and it worked out great. Actually, I got an old Dunlop (1990, Atlas Bradford/Clarostat) pot that coincidentally, I read that Joe Gagan used in the beginning. I had put my old A/B pot that came in my old '80's Cry Baby in my Area 51 drop-in kit and it made a big improvement. So I bought another one on Reverb and it worked out great in the Clyde Clone. The Sabbadius didn't thrill me that much either. The pot is super important as well as the inductor. The A/B's were made in Mexico and are for Extended Life. They are a completely different construction than the modern pots available which most people are forced to use nowadays. The modern pots that I have used don't last and start to get noisy pretty quickly. My next modern pot I was going to try was the Chase Tone but the A/B did the trick. I bet the Italia V2 sounds great. Is there a V1? What's the difference.
One other minor tweak concerns the signal capacitor on one side. Since they also have a production variance.....just a bit of swing can be very significant. Without looking at the schematic, off the top of my head, its a .02 cap that is typically used...and there are 2 on a stock board and I want to say its the lower one to the right in the original boards. Changing that particular cap out to a .015 disk cap can be magic....or a .01 disk cap. The ceramic disk caps can be microphonic and have a thing to them in a good way. Again in a factory production pedal in the era.....the variance in the caps could actually measure into this range but be marked .02.....so its in the lower range of that variance if the variance is 10% up or down. But one other thing, and I have yet to apply it to a wah at this point but very soon though......is a buffer amp on the end of the signal out. When you use other pedals with a wah…..sometimes they don't play nice together......a buffer amp fixes that. The modern pedals put a factory buffer amp in front of the guitar signal going in to the wah circuit.....and that's kind of the wrong place......it should be on the way out of the pedal. People make the add on buffer boards, they are very simple...but a buffer amp is designed to be a transparent device.
I'll give you a couple tricks for wah tuning First off, the input resistor is usually a 68K. It acts with the transistors in the circuit.....being carbon composition with a wide variance sweep up or down.....and though I haven't played with the transistor type that people have listed as being in their real vintage pedals as opposed to the modern pedals.....This 68K input resistor is key in the initial feed of the guitar signal into the circuit......but with that production variance for the value due to the carbons....this is where if you have 100 pedals out of a factory carton and you sort through them all and play them all....there might be a couple outstandingly great ones in the batch and some not so great ones. SO you want to slightly lower the 68K value. My personal opinion is around 50K. No lower than 47K though. Somewhere less than 68K you will hit a sweet spot where the interaction with the transistors imparts some signal distortion that can give the real spice of a wah. The next tweak is the resistor that's in the inductor signal line in parallel, which is typically a 33k resistor. The JEN Italian wahs have been listed as this resistor being 100K. This will give the WAH its wah and let you tune its expression...sharper or wider. There are 2 more basic tweaks for adjusting the low end response and the mid response......but you can find them on the net if you search, but for the sake of just fine tuning the pedal in...the 2 tweaks I put here will make a big difference when seeking the "TONE". Going to the wah pot...….the sweep is important and I use a common replacement that's 200K rather than the typical 100K pot or the hotpotz that Dunlop used. The 200K does give a great sweep. Dunlop makes a 470K sealed pot for its jimi Hendrix pedals and I recently put one in......I have like 7 or 8 wahs of various vintages and inductors. So I was side by siding the 470K pot with the 200K pot and it seems to have a bit more sweep but I haven't concluded yet. I have several stack of dimes pedals and one TDK......I feel the TDK has a great wah to it when its tuned in. The stack of dimes has its thing too but perhaps slightly more sharper. It would be like comparing the cream Clapton era to the same era Hendrix.....tonally they are different but within the same production time but Hendrix would most likely have a Thomas organ type and Clapton a European Italian jen. References have sited Hendrix with a TDK. A client of mine uses both a vintage TDK and a stack of dimes model side by side....both tuned in with the tweaks and with the slight variance in response. One final fine tuning you can easily do is with the wah pot. The two end lugs sort of determine the treble and low response in the rocker with the signal pathway. If you add a resistor in series with the wire to the lug.....you can enhance the response in the particular range. You can do one side or the other...or both lugs and you can scale up with a resistor to maybe 30K max......to find that extra you may want to get the fine tune in to the pedal. You shouldn't pound on the rocker pin because you might break the casting ear it goes thru....it may need to be pressed out on a press. The best I have tried to help a worn pedal is to use plastic fishing line threaded in and looped around...then knotted.....might take several times to help with the slack to get some interference drag
Interesting. The only thing out of your tweaks that I have messed with is the input resistor. On my Area 51 Clyde Clone, Dan put a variable resistor in it so we could go as low as 470 ohms to (not sure of the max but above 68K). Right now it is set on 470 ohms and sounds fine. I was able to adjust it while playing (trim pot) and I was trying to find a sweet spot. There may have been one around 50K as you mention. His original drop-in kit came with a 47K resistor. The Clyde has the standard vintage 68K and I felt like I was losing some gain when I would kick the wah in. I did not have as much volume loss with the 47K drop-in kit. He had me send it back and he installed the trim pot. We all thought the 470 ohm setting was the best but maybe not. I should go back and set it to the 50K mark. Both settings are marked on the trim pot plus I measure it with a DMM. As far as the shell goes, I'm lucky I didn't break it. It dawned on me later that I should have removed the nuts on the bolts that hold the tension spring in. At first I thought the treadle would come completely off but then I realized that the pin was still going to keep it from coming off unless it was completely removed. It's pretty messed up now but at least it stays in one place. It works fine. I thought the tension spring may have worn a groove in the pin and it was keeping the pin from moving. I think next I will try to push the spring up somehow to clear the pin completely and try again. I'm not doing that anytime soon though. I don't want to remove the wah kit. I've had 4 wahs, now down to 3 since I broke the Area 51 drop-in. I will eventually get a new inductor for it. My vintage Sound City wah is still the most fun and the pot on it is way off in the 300K range I think. It might be 260K. I forgot. I'll have to give some of your tweaks a try. Thanks.
@@millstap pull up the original schematic for a crybaby.....from the input jack to the beginning of the circuit will be a 68K resistor...that the one to adjust. It will get louder by a hair as you move towards 47K but I find it to be too much.....so moving back up slightly will be where the sweet spot rides. I'm not sure if it would matter if you're using a single coil guitar or humbuckers...but the humbuckers would be pumping more initial signal. There is a mod for the one transistor bias which influences the low end and that has a value like 470 ohms to like 330 ohms. So I've never seen the 68K with a pot inserted where it would drop that low to 470 ohms for that portion of the circuit. I usually put in a 20K pot with a resistor in series...like a 40K fixed resistor.....so I get that swing range with the pot to dial in
since your inductor came off the board....you might want to try the Dunlop fasel replacements they sell...the yellow & red ones. I had gotten both of them a long while ago and they were sitting in my box collecting dust because I never got that roundtuit thing....but I had a client that uses WAH and needed to rehab his......so I assembled my collection and tuned them up for the demo for him...so he could go thru his routine with each wah to determine which one he liked......so that's when I messed with the fasels…...I ended up using both the red and yellow in series and inserted into the board...…..it has its thing. Each inductor type has its thing when its all tuned in...…..but I favor the TDK's. I don't have a halo yet in the collection, but I found a substitute halo that might be the original supplier that everybody resales.....I just have to find it in my suppliers catalogues. I don't want to have to invest and buy 1000 of them hahahaha, I'd be sitting on them forever. I only occasionally do pedals and I hate solid state....so I have to be really motivated. But the wah in its vintage form is easy to deal with......the recent ones have gone to surface mount which I totally hate. Always shy away from the newer boards with the input/output jacks mounted on the board...the plastic jacks....they are the potential failure point to crack the board traces when you tighten the jack to the shell......or if you miss step with a straight 1/4 inch jack....that jack can leverage the jack right off the board after time...being plastic.....they are junk. They should be isolated the original way and wired to the board......but be advised that one of the jacks has the ground reference for the entire circuit.....and the shell is a dissimilar metal so it will corrode and cause a grounding issue with age...so you have to keep it clean. If your wah pot is an open type....somebody makes a rubber shell to slip on it to block the opening and keep dirt out.....you periodically have to spray them out as part of regular maintenance. I'm on my client about playing professionally and not checking batteries.....the wah performance tapers down as the battery gets worn out.....so I was telling him to keep measuring the battery to find the point where it craps out in performance.....and maintain the batteries. The dollar stores around here...2 9volts for a buck. I noticed you have a collection of amps, if you use an array...you should use a buffer amp distribution box. I had to build on for my client...he's running 4 to 5 amps on stage but was daisy chaining them.....so he lost signal as he connected them down the line. I built him a 7 output box for the 4 amps...so he has room to expand
Sorry I took so long to respond. They are $100 plus $35 for shipping from Argentina. He has not officially started selling them on Reverb.com but will soon I think.
Yes, I had read it needs to go out the instrument jack side. But, you gave me a great Idea and I think I know what was going on. I think the spring may have cut a groove into the pin and the spring was hanging up in the groove. The hard part is figuring out a way to push the spring up while you knock the pin out. That does not look like an easy task. Very little room to get anything in there.
Well, now that I watch the video again, I just realized all I needed to do was remove the nuts on the bolts that are holding the tension spring in place. Everything would have come right off. Then getting the pin out would have been much simpler. Oh well, that mistake cost me $40 for a new inductor. If it goes loose again, I know exactly what to do.
@@millstap right sometimes it can be a real pain in the rear, I took the straight spring off underneath one time and pushed the spine the wrong way and ruin that shell for good, Was never able the get the splined rod out
Ouch, this one hurt my heart a little! The Area51 is a tone-beast, one of the best Wah-Wahs out there and sounded much better than the Sabbadius.
You are correct. As much as I would like to like it, my old Area 51 drop-in kit is still what is on my board. I did break my old inductor but the new inductor that Dan sent from Area 51 made it sound even better.
I swear every time I'm thinking some crazy idea in my head about gear or tones asking myself " How does this work?" Or "Is this possible?" and go to research it Millstap has the video already made and explains every aspect of it you rule millstap!
That's crazy. What were you searching for when you found this video?
@@millstap looking up vintage wah tones and I guess I never realized you can just modify the electronics and pinion and keep the shell now I'm hip to Joe Gagan and Sabbadius. The mass produced wahs just dont cut the mustard! Do you have a part number for the pots from cts?
@@nros5020 No, pots are very specific and somewhat proprietary, depending on the manufacturer. My favorite wah-wah is actually the very first drop-in kit I bought from Area 51. For some reason, that basic wah with no add-ons is killer. I have a bunch of them, even an original Dallas Arbiter that sounded pretty good for a while but was too noisy. I also have a custom made Clyde McCoy from Area 512 and it still is not as good as that old drop-in kit that I put in probably 10 years ago.
Boy that one's got a bright bark to it! I like it. I'll have to dig around and find my old broken cry baby now! Cheers!
P.S. liking your new edits and look!
I LOVE IT ! I HAVE A BAG OF OLD CRY BABY PEDALS... I SWITCHED TO A VOX THAT HAS HUNG IN THERE FOR 15 YEARS. IT COSTS MORE FOR THE VOX... YOU GET WHAT YOU PAY FOR ! PLUS I LOVE THAT PICTURE OF JIMI STOMPING ON A VOX WAH WITH HIS BEADED UP MOCCASINS. JIMI IS GOD !
That is a very pleasing quack indeed 👍👍👍👍
How much do you prefer this over the Area 51 wah? I’ve had an Area 51 wah for 2-3 years now and I’ve decided it’s time to upgrade. Tbh I was really disappointed with my Area 51 wah when I got it.. The quality of the pedal is great but it’s just not very “vintage” to my ears.. I just ordered Joe Gagan’s “Italia V2” which is the closest to the original vox sound as I have found. This Sabbadius is pretty close too, but I think Joe Gagan has it beat as well.
I was using my first Area 51 drop-in kit up until a few weeks ago when I pulled out the Area 51 Clyde Clone that didn't thrill me so much and was sitting in a corner. But I made an improvement to it and it worked out great. Actually, I got an old Dunlop (1990, Atlas Bradford/Clarostat) pot that coincidentally, I read that Joe Gagan used in the beginning. I had put my old A/B pot that came in my old '80's Cry Baby in my Area 51 drop-in kit and it made a big improvement. So I bought another one on Reverb and it worked out great in the Clyde Clone. The Sabbadius didn't thrill me that much either. The pot is super important as well as the inductor. The A/B's were made in Mexico and are for Extended Life. They are a completely different construction than the modern pots available which most people are forced to use nowadays. The modern pots that I have used don't last and start to get noisy pretty quickly. My next modern pot I was going to try was the Chase Tone but the A/B did the trick. I bet the Italia V2 sounds great. Is there a V1? What's the difference.
Hey man, you should do a lesson on Hear My Train A Comin.
OH ! BY THE WAY... YOU SHOULD J HOOK YOUR WIRE LEADS AND TWIST THEM BEFORE YOU SOLDER, THE CONNECTION WON'T CRACK AND COME OFF SO EASY !
Suena tremendo! Nico hace cosas exelente. Desde cordoba al mundo...
JIMI wore New Balance 😁 Thanks for sharing sounds great BTW
One other minor tweak concerns the signal capacitor on one side. Since they also have a production variance.....just a bit of swing can be very significant. Without looking at the schematic, off the top of my head, its a .02 cap that is typically used...and there are 2 on a stock board and I want to say its the lower one to the right in the original boards. Changing that particular cap out to a .015 disk cap can be magic....or a .01 disk cap. The ceramic disk caps can be microphonic and have a thing to them in a good way. Again in a factory production pedal in the era.....the variance in the caps could actually measure into this range but be marked .02.....so its in the lower range of that variance if the variance is 10% up or down.
But one other thing, and I have yet to apply it to a wah at this point but very soon though......is a buffer amp on the end of the signal out. When you use other pedals with a wah…..sometimes they don't play nice together......a buffer amp fixes that. The modern pedals put a factory buffer amp in front of the guitar signal going in to the wah circuit.....and that's kind of the wrong place......it should be on the way out of the pedal. People make the add on buffer boards, they are very simple...but a buffer amp is designed to be a transparent device.
Could you direct me to the website you purchased this from? Would be much appreciated sir.
very cool stuff
I'll give you a couple tricks for wah tuning
First off, the input resistor is usually a 68K. It acts with the transistors in the circuit.....being carbon composition with a wide variance sweep up or down.....and though I haven't played with the transistor type that people have listed as being in their real vintage pedals as opposed to the modern pedals.....This 68K input resistor is key in the initial feed of the guitar signal into the circuit......but with that production variance for the value due to the carbons....this is where if you have 100 pedals out of a factory carton and you sort through them all and play them all....there might be a couple outstandingly great ones in the batch and some not so great ones. SO you want to slightly lower the 68K value. My personal opinion is around 50K. No lower than 47K though. Somewhere less than 68K you will hit a sweet spot where the interaction with the transistors imparts some signal distortion that can give the real spice of a wah.
The next tweak is the resistor that's in the inductor signal line in parallel, which is typically a 33k resistor. The JEN Italian wahs have been listed as this resistor being 100K. This will give the WAH its wah and let you tune its expression...sharper or wider.
There are 2 more basic tweaks for adjusting the low end response and the mid response......but you can find them on the net if you search, but for the sake of just fine tuning the pedal in...the 2 tweaks I put here will make a big difference when seeking the "TONE".
Going to the wah pot...….the sweep is important and I use a common replacement that's 200K rather than the typical 100K pot or the hotpotz that Dunlop used. The 200K does give a great sweep. Dunlop makes a 470K sealed pot for its jimi Hendrix pedals and I recently put one in......I have like 7 or 8 wahs of various vintages and inductors. So I was side by siding the 470K pot with the 200K pot and it seems to have a bit more sweep but I haven't concluded yet.
I have several stack of dimes pedals and one TDK......I feel the TDK has a great wah to it when its tuned in. The stack of dimes has its thing too but perhaps slightly more sharper. It would be like comparing the cream Clapton era to the same era Hendrix.....tonally they are different but within the same production time but Hendrix would most likely have a Thomas organ type and Clapton a European Italian jen. References have sited Hendrix with a TDK.
A client of mine uses both a vintage TDK and a stack of dimes model side by side....both tuned in with the tweaks and with the slight variance in response.
One final fine tuning you can easily do is with the wah pot. The two end lugs sort of determine the treble and low response in the rocker with the signal pathway. If you add a resistor in series with the wire to the lug.....you can enhance the response in the particular range. You can do one side or the other...or both lugs and you can scale up with a resistor to maybe 30K max......to find that extra you may want to get the fine tune in to the pedal.
You shouldn't pound on the rocker pin because you might break the casting ear it goes thru....it may need to be pressed out on a press. The best I have tried to help a worn pedal is to use plastic fishing line threaded in and looped around...then knotted.....might take several times to help with the slack to get some interference drag
Interesting. The only thing out of your tweaks that I have messed with is the input resistor. On my Area 51 Clyde Clone, Dan put a variable resistor in it so we could go as low as 470 ohms to (not sure of the max but above 68K). Right now it is set on 470 ohms and sounds fine. I was able to adjust it while playing (trim pot) and I was trying to find a sweet spot. There may have been one around 50K as you mention. His original drop-in kit came with a 47K resistor. The Clyde has the standard vintage 68K and I felt like I was losing some gain when I would kick the wah in. I did not have as much volume loss with the 47K drop-in kit. He had me send it back and he installed the trim pot. We all thought the 470 ohm setting was the best but maybe not. I should go back and set it to the 50K mark. Both settings are marked on the trim pot plus I measure it with a DMM. As far as the shell goes, I'm lucky I didn't break it. It dawned on me later that I should have removed the nuts on the bolts that hold the tension spring in. At first I thought the treadle would come completely off but then I realized that the pin was still going to keep it from coming off unless it was completely removed. It's pretty messed up now but at least it stays in one place. It works fine. I thought the tension spring may have worn a groove in the pin and it was keeping the pin from moving. I think next I will try to push the spring up somehow to clear the pin completely and try again. I'm not doing that anytime soon though. I don't want to remove the wah kit. I've had 4 wahs, now down to 3 since I broke the Area 51 drop-in. I will eventually get a new inductor for it. My vintage Sound City wah is still the most fun and the pot on it is way off in the 300K range I think. It might be 260K. I forgot. I'll have to give some of your tweaks a try. Thanks.
@@millstap pull up the original schematic for a crybaby.....from the input jack to the beginning of the circuit will be a 68K resistor...that the one to adjust. It will get louder by a hair as you move towards 47K but I find it to be too much.....so moving back up slightly will be where the sweet spot rides.
I'm not sure if it would matter if you're using a single coil guitar or humbuckers...but the humbuckers would be pumping more initial signal.
There is a mod for the one transistor bias which influences the low end and that has a value like 470 ohms to like 330 ohms. So I've never seen the 68K with a pot inserted where it would drop that low to 470 ohms for that portion of the circuit. I usually put in a 20K pot with a resistor in series...like a 40K fixed resistor.....so I get that swing range with the pot to dial in
since your inductor came off the board....you might want to try the Dunlop fasel replacements they sell...the yellow & red ones. I had gotten both of them a long while ago and they were sitting in my box collecting dust because I never got that roundtuit thing....but I had a client that uses WAH and needed to rehab his......so I assembled my collection and tuned them up for the demo for him...so he could go thru his routine with each wah to determine which one he liked......so that's when I messed with the fasels…...I ended up using both the red and yellow in series and inserted into the board...…..it has its thing. Each inductor type has its thing when its all tuned in...…..but I favor the TDK's.
I don't have a halo yet in the collection, but I found a substitute halo that might be the original supplier that everybody resales.....I just have to find it in my suppliers catalogues. I don't want to have to invest and buy 1000 of them hahahaha, I'd be sitting on them forever.
I only occasionally do pedals and I hate solid state....so I have to be really motivated. But the wah in its vintage form is easy to deal with......the recent ones have gone to surface mount which I totally hate. Always shy away from the newer boards with the input/output jacks mounted on the board...the plastic jacks....they are the potential failure point to crack the board traces when you tighten the jack to the shell......or if you miss step with a straight 1/4 inch jack....that jack can leverage the jack right off the board after time...being plastic.....they are junk. They should be isolated the original way and wired to the board......but be advised that one of the jacks has the ground reference for the entire circuit.....and the shell is a dissimilar metal so it will corrode and cause a grounding issue with age...so you have to keep it clean.
If your wah pot is an open type....somebody makes a rubber shell to slip on it to block the opening and keep dirt out.....you periodically have to spray them out as part of regular maintenance.
I'm on my client about playing professionally and not checking batteries.....the wah performance tapers down as the battery gets worn out.....so I was telling him to keep measuring the battery to find the point where it craps out in performance.....and maintain the batteries. The dollar stores around here...2 9volts for a buck.
I noticed you have a collection of amps, if you use an array...you should use a buffer amp distribution box. I had to build on for my client...he's running 4 to 5 amps on stage but was daisy chaining them.....so he lost signal as he connected them down the line. I built him a 7 output box for the 4 amps...so he has room to expand
how much do these kits cost?
Sorry I took so long to respond. They are $100 plus $35 for shipping from Argentina. He has not officially started selling them on Reverb.com but will soon I think.
Their Website doesn't include this kit.
He is building them but hasn't officially put them on Reverb.com. $100 + $35 shipping from Argentina.
Thank You! This is going to be great.
you have to push the spline side out. if you go the other way you just ruined your shell it will be stuck for ever
Yes, I had read it needs to go out the instrument jack side. But, you gave me a great Idea and I think I know what was going on. I think the spring may have cut a groove into the pin and the spring was hanging up in the groove. The hard part is figuring out a way to push the spring up while you knock the pin out. That does not look like an easy task. Very little room to get anything in there.
Well, now that I watch the video again, I just realized all I needed to do was remove the nuts on the bolts that are holding the tension spring in place. Everything would have come right off. Then getting the pin out would have been much simpler. Oh well, that mistake cost me $40 for a new inductor. If it goes loose again, I know exactly what to do.
@@millstap right sometimes it can be a real pain in the rear, I took the straight spring off underneath one time and pushed the spine the wrong way and ruin that shell for good, Was never able the get the splined rod out