Wah wah wah wah (pedal)

#1

No this is not about rihanna but I needed more characters :wink:

I recently started to use the filter I got in my guitar fx/looper setup anyways in a more wah wah style manner. While I like it I'm also missing the sound and response I get from traditional guitar wah wahs.

So maybe it's nice to share some ideas and experiences. Have any of you dug into that? As I understand there are more axoloti guitar freaks here @Gavin @kat @lokki ?

My main 2 issues are responsiveness and sound:

So I use a volume pedal that I hook up to gpio and kind of turn linear with a math/exp object . Not Ideal I know, so I definately wanna change the pot in this one to a linear one. But still I remember when using (linear) expression pedals the range never felt right, you really need a big range on that sweet spots in the mids for that proper wah feeling.

So what is the best way to change the curve? I was thinking maybe reading a nice responsive curve from a table, but how to create that curve in the first place?

Then there is of course filter choice. Usually wahs are bandpass but sometimes lowpass can also do the job. So far I've been using svf with the option of selecting or combining different filter types which is cool. I'm open though for other axoloti filter suggestions.

Sound wise it's also important to have the q move a bit in a nonlinear way. So I order to achieve that I need a nice curve again that changes the cue together with the cutoff.
In this thread from the bela community is a nice analysis of a vox wah
https://forum.bela.io/d/264-classic-vox-crybaby-inductor-wah-dsp-model

Then there is of course the analog wah dirtiness I miss, so I guess a bit of saturation might be the key?

Here is me riffing out in the morning after a long night of patching :slight_smile:
I mean there is defintely some vibe here, it's just the playing feeling could be a bit better.

#2

Ah, you are more ambitious with this line of thinking than I have been. I tried playing around with a few filters to see what kind of wah sounds I could get, using a MIDI foot pedal to control frequency. I just wasn't happy enough with any of the filter sounds to bother trying to tweak the control. I was kind of putting 'wah' in the same category as 'fuzz'- just not where I think a system like Axoloti is going to shine... also developing new filters for Axoloti seems on the harder side (or it did initially), so I wasn't sure I wanted to dive in without a clear idea of what I actually wanted.

But, even though it's not a great recording, I like how the wah sounds in your little video. You keep me guessing about exactly what you are doing (a good thing!). Although mostly I get interested in the delays and looping going on and lose track of the wah sound... but maybe that's just fine?

As for controlling it, I would personally try going the route of a look-up table and just generate the numbers in python or wherever... pick some functions and tweak and try it and then adjust as needed (well, that's what I would do). But then, I'd be interested in figuring out something that sounded weird and was fun to play around with, not necessarily trying to mimic the response of an analog inductor circuit.

So, hmm, not adding much here... just stating the obvious. I'd like to hear more if you're still working on it, though... keep sharing!

#3

Only a fan of the wah when its done right. Certainly no good for bass.
Have you tried a notch filter ?

#4

Thanks. I recorded it more for not forgetting the melodies that I spontaneously improvised, so it's just my phone next to the amp :wink:
I mean what I do here is really using the pedal in the really narrow range that sounds good. Wich brought me to the Idea that If I could some how remap the curve of my pedal I could a nicely playable wah.

Ok so the look up table seems like the way to go. Unfortunately I'm not a coder so I would not know how to create the functions. Is there anywhere I could do this without coding?
I was thinking of making the curves in ableton using pitchbend and recording this to a table. Pitchbend is 14bit and should match with the 14bit from the gpio right?

As I said for me it's just a little extra, I have the filter for more dj/synth style manipulations of loops anyway, using it like a wah is just a small step that doesn't cost me any precious resources and gives me more options in my setup :slight_smile:

#5

Mr Smith!. I found what you look for: tiar/kfunc/b8u. check the help file . with this you can remap the curve of a pot / pedal, etc. Check also sptnk/math/knee. cu in summer :wink: