# Station Wah as Seagull...



## Big Monk (Sep 7, 2021)

I have too many in the queue right now but once I’m caught up, I figure I’ll use my leftover Yellow Fasel and make a Station Wah with a switch for reversing I/O for those Echoes style bird sounds. It will double as a fixed Wah which I’ve always wanted.


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## Chuck D. Bones (Sep 10, 2021)

It will work, but it will be pretty boring if you can't modulate it by rocking the treadle.  There are better places to pick off the "Echoes" tone than the input.


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## Big Monk (Sep 10, 2021)

Chuck D. Bones said:


> It will work, but it will be pretty boring if you can't modulate it by rocking the treadle.  There are better places to pick off the "Echoes" tone than the input.



I’m not familiar enough with the effect. I imagine a better idea would be a switch on my Wah then.


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## Robert (Sep 10, 2021)

It'll be similar to the Analogman Albatross, you can modulate the effect with the tone knob on your guitar.    

I've actually thought about putting a reverse switch on the PCB for that very purpose.


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## Chuck D. Bones (Sep 10, 2021)

You need the tone knob, pickup selector and the wah treadle to get to all of the tones.


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## Big Monk (Sep 10, 2021)

Chuck D. Bones said:


> You need the tone knob, pickup selector and the wah treadle to get to all of the tones.



I imagine a big knob like you see on vibe pedals would be suitable for the Wah control. Or I’ll simply add a switch to my wah.


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## Coda (Sep 10, 2021)

I set my wah up in reverse one time to try the Echoes effect. It worked well. As Chuck mentioned, it’s all in the tone control. Also, it’s super loud…


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## fig (Sep 10, 2021)

Here's mine;


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## Coda (Sep 10, 2021)

fig said:


> Here's mine;


I think you may have voided your warranty…


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## Chuck D. Bones (Sep 11, 2021)

Coda said:


> I set my wah up in reverse one time to try the Echoes effect. It worked well. As Chuck mentioned, it’s all in the tone control. Also, it’s super loud…


It's not all in the tone control.  The pickup select and wah treadle are also key ingredients in obtaining all of the possible tones.

As for being way loud, there is a better place to pick up the output signal when in Gilmour Mode.


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## Chuck D. Bones (Sep 11, 2021)

Coda said:


> I think you may have voiced your warranty…


Or voided it.


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## Barry (Sep 11, 2021)

Robert said:


> It'll be similar to the Analogman Albatross, you can modulate the effect with the tone knob on your guitar.
> 
> I've actually thought about putting a reverse switch on the PCB for that very purpose.


Hell I got two parrots that give me plenty of bird tones, wanted or not!


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## fig (Sep 11, 2021)

Chuck D. Bones said:


> There are better places to pick off the "Echoes" tone than the input.





Chuck D. Bones said:


> As for being way loud, there is a better place to pick up the output signal when in Gilmour Mode.


I'd really like to know your thoughts.


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## Chuck D. Bones (Sep 11, 2021)

A little background first.  When David Gilmour recorded that famous "seagulls in outer space" tone, the CryBaby had the classic two transistor design.  Same as the Tear Jerker, but without the DIP switch and trimpots.  The output is taken off of the collector of the 1st transistor. This point is inside the feedback loop that controls the filter freq and it has a high impedance.  The high impedance makes it sensitive to loading and the location inside the feedback loop means it could, under the right conditions, lead to oscillation.  Guitar pickups are highly resonant and the tone control affects the resonant frequency in a big way.  By happy accident, Gilmour discovered what happens when you connect a guitar to the CryBaby's output jack.  The entire circuit breaks into oscillation and that signal is present pretty much everywhere.  The input jack is one place to pick up the signal, but you could just as well get it from the output jack or other places in the circuit.  When I tried hooking my GCB-95 backwards, I got the seagull tone, which surprised me because that design has a 3rd transistor installed as an input buffer.  It's the same circuit as the Station Wah.  The Seagull tone passes backwards thru Q1.  If you want to be able to control the volume of the Seagull tone, then a good place to pick-off the tone is at or near the collector of Q2.  I recommend connecting an A500K pot with pin 3 at the board output, pin 2 goes to the Gilmour switch and pin 1 to ground. 

Here are the details of how to do it with the Station Wah.  Other CryBaby derivatives such as the Tear Jerker and ShamWah can be implemented in a similar fashion.  Only 2 new parts: VR2 and S2.


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## fig (Sep 11, 2021)

Thank you sir. A one-trick pony for certain, but a darn fun one!


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## Chuck D. Bones (Sep 11, 2021)

Definitely benefits from a delay.


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## fig (Sep 11, 2021)

The Spirit box, or a tape echo work well too.


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## Big Monk (Sep 11, 2021)

Chuck D. Bones said:


> Definitely benefits from a delay.



Whats the purpose of VR2? Simply to knock down the output volume of the oscillation sound?


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## Chuck D. Bones (Sep 11, 2021)

Yes.  If you follow the wah with a volume pedal or distortion box, you can limit the signal and/or adjust the volume that way.  The oscillations are 5x to 10x bigger than a typical guitar signal.


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## Big Monk (Sep 11, 2021)

Chuck D. Bones said:


> Yes.  If you follow the wah with a volume pedal or distortion box, you can limit the signal and/or adjust the volume that way.  The oscillations are 5x to 10x bigger than a typical guitar signal.



In your opinion, would it work better in a normal wah or in a fixed wah?


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## Chuck D. Bones (Sep 11, 2021)

As long as you can turn the guitar tone and the fixed wah freq both at once, you're good.  I prefer the normal wah, but they both do the same thing.  In any case, the circuit has to be the CryBaby GCB-95, CGB-100 or earlier.  The 535Q will not work because it has buffered output.  And you can forget about trying this with the ParaPedal, it's a completely different circuit.


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## Bricksnbeatles (Sep 11, 2021)

@Chuck D. Bones the inductorless opamp-based design of the Park And Ride wouldn’t have any points in the signal path where oscillations could be picked up, right?


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## Big Monk (Sep 11, 2021)

Chuck D. Bones said:


> As long as you can turn the guitar tone and the fixed wah freq both at once, you're good.  I prefer the normal wah, but they both do the same thing.  In any case, the circuit has to be the CryBaby GCB-95, CGB-100 or earlier.  The 535Q will not work because it has buffered output.  And you can forget about trying this with the ParaPedal, it's a completely different circuit.



I have a Tearjerker, a 500kA pot and an extra short toggle DPDT.

I know what I’m doing this week!


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## Chuck D. Bones (Sep 11, 2021)

Bricksnbeatles said:


> @Chuck D. Bones the inductorless opamp-based design of the Park And Ride wouldn’t have any points in the signal path where oscillations could be picked up, right?


That tone, and the ability to make it they way Mr. Gilmour did, is unique to the CryBaby circuit.

Is there a way to make the Park & Ride oscillate by connecting a guitar's pickups to the right place in the circuit?  Maybe. Doubtful.  Even if we could make it oscillate, it would have a very different tone & feel from a CryBaby hooked up backwards.


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## Big Monk (Sep 12, 2021)

Ok Gents.

I have some yard work to do today and while I’m outside I’ll bring a print copy of the @Chuck D. Bones Gilmour diagram and plan my drilling.

Since I have a Tearjerker, I need to plan my holes to minimize and additional wiring. I’d like it to be as simple a retrofit as possible.


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## Big Monk (Sep 12, 2021)




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## Big Monk (Sep 12, 2021)

The seagull has landed! Bird sounds abound!:






My 8 year old son had the idea to turn on the Mooer E-Lady (his favorite pedal on my board) and there are some trippy sounds going on in there with it on.

One thing I noticed, and it makes total sense, is that everything in the chain before the wah doesn’t interact in “bird” mode. That means my fuzzes.


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## Chuck D. Bones (Sep 12, 2021)

Big Monk said:


> One thing I noticed, and it makes total sense, is that everything in the chain before the wah doesn’t interact in “bird” mode. That means my fuzzes.



You have to connect the wah directly to the guitar for the Seagull tone to work.  No buffered bypass pedals, nothing.  Nada.  Zip. Zilch. Bupkess.

My modded Crybaby has a RANGE switch and Q-control à la the Dunlop 535-Q and they do some interesting stuff too.


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## Big Monk (Sep 12, 2021)

Chuck D. Bones said:


> You have to connect the wah directly to the guitar for the Seagull tone to work.  No buffered bypass pedals, nothing.  Nada.  Zip. Zilch. Bupkess.
> 
> My modded Crybaby has a RANGE switch and Q-control à la the Dunlop 535-Q and they do some interesting stuff too.



I guess what I meant was that I have my fuzzes first in line because I like fuzz into wah better than the opposite. So I can’t kick the fuzzes on with the bird sounds.

Not a huge deal. Just an observation.


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## Chuck D. Bones (Sep 12, 2021)

It was mainly a warning to others.  Did you find the warble tone?


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## Big Monk (Sep 12, 2021)

Chuck D. Bones said:


> It was mainly a warning to others.  Did you find the warble tone?



With the pedal rocked back to the bass end?

I think I found it. With the pedal rocked to around the Q spot, I get a warbly tone with the tone control rolled up to about 3-4.


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## Chuck D. Bones (Sep 12, 2021)

Cool shit, huh?


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## Big Monk (Sep 12, 2021)

Chuck D. Bones said:


> Cool shit, huh?



Really cool. I’m glad I had some time today to do it.

I clean up the wiring a little and move the ground off the Freq pot:


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