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Topic: Volume/Tone Pedals: "Boo-Wah" |
Steve Blacow
From:
England
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Posted 4 Jul 2007 1:39 pm |
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I know of the fabled Fender & De-Armond volume/tone pedals of the 50's & 60's but I also know of their steep prices and typical mechanical faults of a two-way pedal.
I love the sound of Eddie Rivers' playing on the Wayne Hancock albums (particularly the live "Swing Time"). In fact, that sound is my favourite sound of all.
So what modern alternatives are available! The only one I can find is the Burns Shad-O-Tone and very little information about that. Has anyone tried this?
Does anyone know of any more?
Also, is boo-wah a real expression or have I dreamed this one up?
Cheers,
Stevie B |
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Keith Cordell
From:
San Diego
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Posted 5 Jul 2007 6:29 am
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The Burns Shad-O-Tone is a wah pedal. There are LOTS of good wahs out there, but in terms of bang-for-the-buck it would be the Dunlop Crybaby Classic with the Fasel inductor. They run about $99 here, probably a bit steeper in the UK.
If you are actually trying to find a real Volume/Tone unit, the Burns is not one of those; noone, to my knowledge, is making one. Which is too bad, as it would be a great tool. The old ones were made by Bigsby, Fender, DeArmond... the tone sound is not inductor based like a wah so it will not sound the same, but has it's own sweet subtlety that I like. Wah pedals are more vocal. Hope that helps! |
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Ron Simpson
From:
Illinois, USA
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Posted 5 Jul 2007 7:10 am
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| Check out the Ernie Ball products. I'm not certain if they make a volume/tone pedal. The construction is a heavy aluminum unit that is quite impressive. |
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Brad Bechtel
From:
San Francisco, CA
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Posted 5 Jul 2007 7:47 am
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I don't know of any company currently making a combination volume/tone pedal that does what the old Fender or Bigsby pedals do, which is to provide volume control by moving the pedal up and down and tone control by moving the pedal left and right.
It seems from the videos I've seen lately that the boo-wah effect was mostly done using the tone control on the steel guitar itself rather than through a pedal.
_________________
Brad’s Page of Steel
A web site devoted to acoustic & electric lap steel guitars |
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Bob Bowman
From:
Staffordshire, England
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Posted 11 Jul 2007 3:10 am Boo wah
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I've programmed a Boss (Roland) GT5 multi fx to do this. You can use the pedal to control most parameters so I made it duck a high and high mid frequencies and it did the trick. Sounds like using the tone pot on a steel.
Cheers Bob |
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Randy Reeves
From:
LaCrosse, Wisconsin, USA
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Posted 11 Jul 2007 3:32 am
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| Ron Simpson wrote: |
| Check out the Ernie Ball products. I'm not certain if they make a volume/tone pedal. The construction is a heavy aluminum unit that is quite impressive. |
Ernie Ball indeed does make a fine volume pedal.
solid. a real work horse. essential in my rig. |
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Keith Cordell
From:
San Diego
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Posted 12 Jul 2007 12:46 pm
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| Ernie Ball does indeed make a fine volume pedal, but not a volume/ tone. I have been looking for a while; about a year ago I saw a teaser from somewhere that an enterprising fellow was about to come out with one, but I have never seen anything else about it. The website is gone. |
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Brad Bechtel
From:
San Francisco, CA
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Posted 12 Jul 2007 1:23 pm
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Let's move this over to Electronics (where it should have been posted in the first place) and see if anyone else has any suggestions.
_________________
Brad’s Page of Steel
A web site devoted to acoustic & electric lap steel guitars |
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Joe Butcher
From:
Dallas,Texas, USA
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Posted 12 Jul 2007 3:46 pm
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| a "boo-wah" pedal refers to the pedal on the c6th neck which lowers your low C string to A. |
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Jim Pitman
From:
Waterbury Ctr. VT 05677 USA
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Posted 13 Jul 2007 7:33 am
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I think the effect you are reffering too was achieved originally by guys in the 50's by accident. I read this somewhere.
If you wire a volume pedal backwards, that is the wiper is connected to the pickup rather than the input to the amp, and the top of the pot is connected to the amp instead of the pickup, then you get a wah affect. This is because as the wiper of the pot reaches the end of the travel near the grounded side of the pot, it shorts out the pickup (no danger it's passive). An increasingly heavier load, lower resistance, on the pickup rolls off the highs.
This type of pedal wiring creates a simultaneous vol swell and wah tone change. I experienced this by accident once myself when I changed out a pot and wired the pedal backwards.
It would be ineteresting to make a foot switch that changed the function of a volume pedal in this manner.
Jim Pitman |
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Mike Maddux
From:
Cerritos, CA
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Posted 3 Aug 2007 1:02 am
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The Zoom G9.2tt has the side to side and up and down motion and the parameters are programmable to assign volume to up+down and wah for side to side.
The pedal can also be locked in place to keep from using the wah when you dont have to.
I personally have an Edwards Light Beam Volume/tone. Works great.
_________________
President - Southern Californa Steel Guitar Association
Regular Rig: Twin Reverb, Sho-Bud LDG |
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