Wah... before or after OD????

[Robusto]

So, picked up a Dunlop KH Wah. Cool wah, like the tone. and it is hardwire bypass.

Am using a Maxon OD808 for boost....

So do most of you use the Wah in front of or after the boost pedal in your chain???


Feeding a Roadster btw.

 

[Turumbar82]

I prefer the sound of a wah first before any overdrive/distortion.

 

[Chris McKinley]

Agreed. Wah, like compressors, goes before OD's and boosts. Another practical reason is that wahs and compressors are notoriously noisy, so you want to minimize the noise in the signal going into the wah's or compressor's input.

 

[Robusto]

Agreed. Wah, like compressors, goes before OD's and boosts. Another practical reason is that wahs and compressors are notoriously noisy, so you want to minimize the noise in the signal going into the wah's or compressor's input.

coming from a point of pure ignorance...if a wah makes a bunch of noise, wouldn't that noise be 'amplified' by a boost/od pedal after the wah?


and thanks everyone so far, for your input.

 

[domct203]

I like my wah before any distortion. If you are using the OD808 just for boost, keep the 808 last in the signal chain before the amp or the buffers in the pedals after will just either clip from the hot signal or squash the boost altogether (or both).

Let your own ears deciede. I like my boost last.

Dom

 

[mr_fender]

coming from a point of pure ignorance...if a wah makes a bunch of noise, wouldn't that noise be 'amplified' by a boost/od pedal after the wah?

Unfortunately, yes it would. For noise reasons, it would be better after an OD or compressor, but it changes the character of the wah. To my ears, crybaby and vox style wahs tend to sound more vocal and expressive when they are out front. A wah that is post distortion or OD sounds more like a synth style phasing sweep. Both have unique sounds and feels, but I prefer the wah first in the chain. Try them both and see which way you like it.

 

[thunda1216]

I have found that it depends on the particular wah and overdrive combinations. Some overdrive pedals "drown" (for lack of a better descriptive term) out the wah effect if placed after the wah. The effect seems more subtle after some OD pedals, while almost nonexistant before. My Budda sounds much better before most. My old crybaby would effectively disappear after some.

 

[Chris McKinley]

Robusto,

Not completely. Wahs vary a lot more in that regard, but compressors consistently add and multiply noise to whatever comes through their input. However, the inherent output noise of the unit on its own tends to be fairly stable. OD's, by comparison, do not generally tend to multiply noise to quite the same degree. The result is that OD's don't tend to multiply the inherent noise of the compressor/wah as much as the compressor/wah tends to multiply the inherent noise of the OD. Both add some noise, but generally speaking, you don't want your noise multipliers at the end of the chain....if you have to have them in there, you want them toward the front where they don't have as much noise to multiply.

That's a bit oversimple, but it's a good rule of thumb.

 

[Turumbar82]

mr_fender said it very well. When a wah is after an overdrive or distortion the sound is very different. The wah sound is very strong and sounds more like a big filter sweeping from low to high.

To me it's much much more musical before

 

[droptrd]

I think most effects going into a wah can sound very nasty harsh when the wah is rocked forward. I'd go wah into OD

 

[yem]

ALWAYS wah before overdrive for me. if it's after the OD the wah sound is way too pronounced. and i play a lot of very low gain borderline clean type tones with my wah and they are annihilated if the OD comes first.