Finding the Perfect Wah - Ask Zac 151

ah well hello friends and welcome to Ask Zac today we are going to talk about my
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wa Journey or how I learned to love wah petals uh this is kind of a funny one
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it's kind of a follow-up to a couple years ago I did one on How I Learned to love fuzz and it's it's an effect that I
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love to hear other people use it and I love it on recordings but until just recently I wasn't able to find one that
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really worked with me and I had to get specific and I had to learn about them
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and learn what it was that I was looking for and that I wanted and I was able to find the right model and I found you
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know a really key feature that the wall needed to have for me to really enjoy
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using it for it to get the kind of that vocal sound that I wanted and not the screechiness
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so we're going to cover that we are going to go down to True tone and
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Bill Keck is going to True bypass the wah for us and so you're going to get to
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see him do that and then we're going to come back for the Book Nook segment of our show
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all right so I need to thank TruFire first off for
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sponsoring today's episode true fire is by far the finest online lesson system
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there is the the way you're able to interact with it and just the the number
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of artists that they have the quality and variety of lessons and the styles
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that are available are just beyond par I'm also excited that uh Guthrie trap is
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now working with trufire I'm going to be doing videos with them so that's just kind of an added bonus and please use
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the link in the description and the discount code ask Zac 30 to get 30 off
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all right let's Dive In my exposure to wa goes back to the 1980s
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I was in the high school jazz band and a friend of mine named Arnie Silva who I
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knew from church he had let me borrow a wah pedal and of course I started using it in the
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jazz band and it was great for kind of the funk jazz fusion type tunes that we would do at times besides doing of
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course the standards like sophisticated lady or you know very mundane things like in the mood and things like that
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and really enjoyed it but the the wall got stolen from the high school
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equipment Hall so uh yeah that's it's always unfortunate I've had gear stolen
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for me a couple times and I'm probably you have to but uh I really didn't I
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didn't have any money at the time and uh you know I had an American Standard Strat and a 79 twin and I think I had a
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brown Deluxe that was all my gear at that point and I think I went on and got maybe an
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overdrive pedal and a delay pedal but I didn't really think about replacing the wall
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wasn't until later and I had moved from Kingsville Texas up up here to Nashville
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and I started there started being wah used on Country records and so Brent
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Rowan had a couple of examples on some Mark Chestnut records and also Dan Huff did some really nice wall on Reba's uh
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that's a night that the Lights Went Out in Georgia and there's really nice Parts on there
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and I started thinking about getting a wall and finally I bought one and this might
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have been a little later this might have even been in the early 2000s maybe late 90s I got a Buddha or budwah whatever
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they call it the one who was it was purple with a chrome uh top to it
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and I got it and I hated it I just hated it it went from this low Gravelly thing
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to this horrible piercing high that was really loud it was like non-existent to
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super loud and bright and I hated it I tried a couple other wahs didn't like
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it I interviewed uh Tom bukovac for vintage guitar magazine back in 2005 and
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I asked him about wall pedals and at that point he was using this boss wall I
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think it was called pw10 it was a it did like a modeling thing it also did like overdrive effects
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and tremolo did a bunch of stuff and I tried it still didn't like it
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so after that I gave up and I kept listening to uh you know to
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Old recordings and I'd hear why used in really cool ways like one of my favorite uses of wah is on this album JJ kales
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naturally sonnet on the tune crazy mama Mac Gayden
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who's a session player and songwriter and artist here in Nashville he uh he played on it
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he played a Japanese Les Paul copy apparently on his lap and played slide
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on it and used wa and I really loved the sound of that and I think hearing that
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more recently in some other recordings I started thinking about wa again
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so I asked you know one of my friends that I who I turned to a lot when it
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comes to uh you know fuzz or walk because he's very much into them and I
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said I hate wa I hate wah pedals but I like the effect I like when other people
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do it I said it just seems so screechy sounding I can't find one that I like
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and he said what you need is an old one and I said whoa whoa whoa are you talking about like some 60s wall pedal
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that's going to cost a thousand dollars or something like that like an old fuzz he said no you can get a good wall from
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the 70s for you know 100 to 150 dollars he said what you're looking for is less
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travel on the wall pedal and that's the way the old ones were I said what he said yeah old wall pedals
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from the 60s and 70s they don't have as much travel to them so they just kind of go from here to here and that's it
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he said newer wall pedals they go from here to here so that's why you're getting this huge
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range in tone it's because the TR the travel is greater so if you want one that has less travel to it he said you
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can get one from the 70s he said now the other thing you can do is you can get a new wah and you can just put some stuff
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in the topaz in the in the heel position you can put some stuff underneath it he said at times I've put cardboard and
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Gaffers tape just to make it where it can only go back so far to limit the travel he said or you can just buy a 70s
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one so that's what I did so I got on reverb I found this one it's a crybaby from the
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from the 70s and it was a 120 bucks and it arrived and I immediately loved it it
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was what I was looking for it didn't have the the crazy amount of travel to it and it has more of that vocal thing
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going on I loved it so much that I I took it with
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me to Las Vegas so I was it literally came in a day or two before I was leaving and it really changed the
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equipment that I took because I ended up taking my R9 Les Paul which is right now I would have had it today but it's on on
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loan with my buddy Austin who had an emergency last minute gig last night I
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had to meet him at the club because he was coming from the airport kind of crazy but uh
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you know yet I took the the R9 Les Paul and I took this wall and I took in my
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old uh Coricidin slide that one of you was kind enough to send me and uh
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yeah just had a a whole lot of fun now the one kicker with this wall was that
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it's not true bypass and the bypass on it is not great it's kinda dark and so
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if you've got like a really bright guitar really bright amp which some would say a Telecaster fits in that category but uh I I really didn't like
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the bypass on it so what I did was I took this little bypass strip so I could put this in its own Loop and so that way
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I could just hit this to take it out and I could actually leave the wall on and I can just pull it in and out of the chain
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right in front of the board now there are like I said some people don't care about the uh the bypass being
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dark I think including like Eric Johnson I believe he uh he likes the the darkness just on that Marshall Channel
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um you know he wouldn't want that on his clean sound but uh and but a lot of guys will put a uh true
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bypass switch in there and in fact that's what we're gonna do in a in a moment or two we're gonna go down to
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True tone and Bill keck's gonna put a he's going to rewire it and put a new switch in there
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but uh there are some that also will uh we'll just put one of these on their Board and they'll make sure there's a
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buffer in front of it and uh our it makes me think of uh of a story from Bob
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Weil the uh the owner of true tone he told me that uh back in the in the 90s
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he made his first outboard buffer in the mid 90s for Neil Zaza he was uh
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complaining about the the the tone loss or tone suckage with the wall he was using
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and so they uh they put a buffer in front of it and that fixed it and that
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is a good way of addressing it you know you don't have to go true bypass but the reason I wanted to is because I'm not
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going to put this on my pedal board uh this is something I want to be able to add when I need it and I want to be able
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to put it first and I don't want to have to try to put another pedal in front of it because I already have my board
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behind it so we're gonna tree bypass this thing so
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all right so let's uh let's head on down to uh
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true tone and then we'll come back with the book Nook segment all right Zach wants to get his Wawa on
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so uh we're gonna do the true bypass mod we'll cry baby
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and let's get started get the back off
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see what we've got here I don't recall doing this particular mod
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if I have it's been a long time so I'm literally gonna follow step by step it's a very simple
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process and
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we'll go one by one there's the guts of that baby
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all right so
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let me give me a second here
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build as all the repairs here at uh at true tone and so if you ever send in a a
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one spot Pro or a pedal most likely uh bill has repaired it and uh
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It's a Wonderful having him here and then of course getting to rope him into
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do some some work for me every once in a while is is very nice also so
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sure since our color code is different than the instructions I've got this is more similar to
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the other Wild guy but I just want to make sure because first thing we'll say is remove a green wire obviously there's
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no green wire here but the process will be the same but I just want to make sure we
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we know which one we're going for find out which one is the tip
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and the input because if you see the project goes straight through the
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board at all times then the switch just cuts the circuit in and out what we want to do
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is with the true bypass switch have it pass through Straight when it's not engaged
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input output
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should be that guy
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okay so in this case it's going to be the maybe what was once a white wire it's
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kind of pinkish brownish now so bill was testing continuity to make sure that he's uh I'm
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gonna be pulling the correct wire which the instructions go to there's a
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green wire that goes to the board and it's got this little quick connector
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um so I don't know what year yours is this is 80s-ish
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so all right we determine this is the wire we're going to remove
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all right first step look at the battery up so it's not
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clanking around in there to desolder the wiring from the existing switch
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foreign
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[Applause]
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[Music]
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content
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clean these guys up
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all right don't worry I'll take this old switch out
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this is a number 14. in the wrench
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put on that in that pretty well
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see what I'm doing I'm just removing that by hand here
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all right so we're going to want to make sure that the the nut on the bottom gives you about
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the same thread sticking up because you don't want it to engage differently
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let's bring it down just there
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actually you know what we're going to take that finish on our knees
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get out on the top it's all working this guy up
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okay foreign
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[Music]
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you could use it but it's easier to to get
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to use the original one for this wrench
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that's really want to be the way I would want to do it you could get pliers around that
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it might look a little fancier if you were putting it in something else but I don't want to look
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fancy I want to I want to be here true about that wawan
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without the notorious tone suck
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that guy's in there and then all the way
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all right now I'm going to remove this wire that goes from the input jack
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to the board and it gets removed so so
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I literally could remove it from down there because it will no longer
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Timberjack will no longer go to the board it will go directly to the switch I'm gonna
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I may remove it but I may just cut it off shrink wrap it tape it off
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you know tuck it in [Music]
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I can literally solder it back to the board but yeah
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it's gonna be totally unnecessary to have that wire connecting to the board now so you can totally remove it when
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it's on the quick connector that's not so easy but
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because this is an old school one this is a little older yeah all right we'll deal with that
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at the end all right so now we need a new wire
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so I went out to the new wire place where this one
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will go to the upper middle lug
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which is in here I'm gonna clean this guy up
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foreign connection and not just rely on the
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solder did work without being so
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[Music] okay
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and now I'm going to clean these guys are they all right
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so solder the white wire
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to the lower middle lock on the switch
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come on get out of the way there thank you
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foreign
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to the lower right lug of the switch I'm going to clean that guy up
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it's a gray wire in here but the blue wire on my help
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foreign
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go there
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hopefully my magnifier and then your way there we can see
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okay this is where we get need to have some new wires
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so
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it's gonna be a short wire
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the wire between the upper left lug of the switch and the grounded lug of the pot so we need a new wire
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from there to there which I didn't cut yet
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foreign
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that's a handy tool to have there have the third hand yes
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just not propping things up I like the fact that we've got a little
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bit of a siren and a dog background just kind of makes it makes it more real the
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dog starts before the siren usually the dog hears it before I do anyway yeah
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hopefully they're not coming from me
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probably the the vintage wall guy have have you know because I'm uh
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messing with a vintage raw what are you doing what are you doing
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I just want to be able to use it on a gig I just don't want it to
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kill my trouble I like those big old caps on it
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thank you let's see if I can get
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that's gonna go to the ground of the lug of the pot should be the clock wire
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because it goes there
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just to make sure Bill's gonna check continuity again to
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make sure that we're going to uh to ground which is what it's
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going for that's it and he was right
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I don't trust myself looking at things I like to get a little beep
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all right we'll check my instructions new wire between upper left low upper left lug
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and a switch see I did the right leg
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see we're already correcting foreign
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remember what I just said about my trusting myself
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and again pills making sure it has a good physical connection and then also
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soldering
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foreign I hear it in his voice
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of Tim and Timmy Fame how long did you work with Paul ah two years or so at
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Heritage amps yeah yeah how long before uh the the Tim
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pedal and such was that he was doing it at that time
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um okay which version of it was I think he was finishing out the big box one the
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two double switcher and kind of transitioning to the the Timmy
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was he using were they project boxes were they painted and they painted okay yeah they had the
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you know they were the purple and they're actually a little like a pythony kind of look yeah
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but she told me is because he loves Monty Python and that's oh the Tim Tim and the Timmy
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petal are both really great petals and the fact that the the same guys is making them and uh
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been doing it for so long and it's nice that he's uh licensed it out to mxr so that they can
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make more for them but then he can continue to make the
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the from from Nashville version right he's just a great guy yeah very nice guy
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and I guess they have the the V3 version of the of the Tim which looks which is
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amazing looking all right this will be a little trickier
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on there
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foreign lugs like on the pot
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foreign
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at this point we have one more wire to go I believe that would do it
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and I'll put a link to uh yeah to this in the description of the video so
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you've got both a instructions and then they uh schematic
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here all right
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I have to figure out secure the Old Wire there so we've got a
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new wire cut one
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yeah if it's simpler just to remove it that's fine
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you tell me what's what's easier because I don't know when I'm putting them up no
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it's easier to clean it or if it's easier to um this one is actually easier probably
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just to solder it back to where it went so I don't know that's just extra wire
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in there yeah let me see if I can I don't want to cut the old
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cable ties there all right let me just remove it right there
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boom boom it's going gone there's now
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hold plastic new wire to the input exactly
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very funky uh plastic insulated wire
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foreign [Music]
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to the upper right there
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both of those wires go to there okay
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so we need a short wire it's going to go from
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is this the point there to there right
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and then the new wire from the input jack also goes there
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so I'm wondering yeah I think you could use the same wire
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that's what the plan will be here
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okay we're about to find out anyway
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of course a very handy tool the uh wire stripper stripper
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of course this braid stuff is invaluable for any type of um
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10 like those guys
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since I've got solder on that lug because I inadvertently put that wire
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there just getting demonstrate about cleaning up now
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is that braid heat up the braid and just Wicks it right off it will see
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it running up there
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give me the braid you can see it pulling off
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foreign
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foreign
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I think I was better off of the other angle track around again
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foreign
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[Music]
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all right there's another connection
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I think I'm already existed let's do it
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foreign
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[Music] do you travel back
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[Music]
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[Music] perfection
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[Music] true bypass
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thank you so much thank you so much you're welcome all right we'll uh we'll
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head back for for the Book Nook segment now I hope you enjoyed the trip down to True
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tone and now for Zach's Book Nook uh in a couple of our live streams I've
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had a lot of questions about 50s and 60s Gibson amplifiers and this is a subject
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that it's hard to find information on so because of that today I am happy to
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recommend Gibson amplifiers 1933 through 2008 by my buddy Wally marks or as he's
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referred to on the book Wallace marks Jr so uh this is a very well written
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well-researched well-documented uh you know book covering all the classic years
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and Beyond so it goes all of the the amplifiers like from the from the 40s
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the br1 like old Ray Flack used or you know all these other models uh all of
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the the amps that are similar to Fender Tweeds up through you know of course the
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you know all the different models that came out through the 60s and 70s and 80s
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you even get the lab series amps you get the uh the gold tone amps that were made
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by Trace Elliott this this is it so uh this this is by Blue book publishing and
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uh it's a it's a great book so I'll put a I'll put a link in there like with
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Amazon so you can find this book if you're wanting to get uh wanting to be
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in the know on Gibson amplifiers all right guys well thank you so much for watching today and thank you to
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TruFire for sponsoring it and again please use the uh this the the link in
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the description and the discount code ask Zach 30. all right bye-bye