Expression pedal for wah

    Hello all, do any of you have an expression pedal you use for wah that works well and feels like say a Cry Baby? I use Moog EP-3 pedals with my remote for volume and morph, and they work very well, but are too stiff for wah IMHO, and I haven't been able to loosen one up enough. Maybe the Mission is better? Thanks for all responses.

    As @Burkhard has noted, the Mission pedal will feel like a cry baby. In fact, from a physical and internal point of view, it is pretty much exactly a cry baby enclosure and mechanism, so it would be as close as you can get to a real cry baby for a commercially bought exp pedal.


    and as @V8guitar noted, you can quite easily build your own using an old cry baby. If you are even just slightly handy with a soldering iron, buy a cheap old crybaby on the bay and convert it into an expression pedal with instructions here. I've done one myself and feel it sounds, works and feels to all intents and purposes exactly like my real cry baby wah.


    The key mod though is to replace the cry baby's pot with a 10K linear pot so that you can get a fully usable range and sweep on the pedal.

    Thanks for all the replies! Being I'm such a cheapskate, I'd much rather mod a used Cry Baby than buy a Mission. Much cheaper, and I have used a soldering iron a time or two. :)

    Quote from MKB

    Thanks for all the replies! Being I'm such a cheapskate, I'd much rather mod a used Cry Baby than buy a Mission. Much cheaper, and I have used a soldering iron a time or two. :)

    Excellent choice me thinks!


    By the way, the standard pot that comes in any cry baby type wah has a plastic gear piece that slides over the long shaft of the pot. This gear piece (with "teeth") can be removed once you take off the little metal clip that holds it in place, then you can reuse that gear piece with the off-the-shelf linear 10K pot that you buy.


    One caveat, the inside hole of the gear piece is semi-circular (sort of moon shaped, not 100% circle, see picture below).


    [Blocked Image: https://www.thomann.de/pics/bdb/169155/11821540_800.jpg]


    So the linear 10K pot that you buy needs to have a similar flat side on the shaft and also a longish shaft as well to match. But it should not be hard to find such pots at electronics supplies stores. That pot shown above is a picture from Thomann's website and they charge over 14 euros for that pot, but it is made for wahs. A generic linear 10K should only cost a couple bucks at most.

    BTW I never changed my pot, so its a bit on/off but works well enough, so its not essential but preferable I'd say.


    I removed my switch and use bypass@stop - so much easier. I had converted my previous crybaby;'s anyway to touch sensitive..

    Thanks for the info, I'm sure I have a 10k pot in the junk box somewhere, as well as the original pot from my 60s Cry Baby, and it's gear does not have a flat on it (uses an expansion pin driven into a hole drilled into the shaft). And I am NOT modifying the 60's Cry Baby for an expression pedal, bought a defective reissue pedal for that.


    On a related topic, does anyone have any info on how the defeat switch is wired in the Kemper wah expression pedal? I can't seem to find a schematic anywhere for the defeat switch. Thanks again to all!

    Quote from V8guitar

    BTW I never changed my pot, so its a bit on/off but works well enough, so its not essential but preferable I'd say.


    I removed my switch and use bypass@stop - so much easier. I had converted my previous crybaby;'s anyway to touch sensitive..

    to be honest my mission pedal is pretty much on/off anyway so your mod probably works as well as the real thing.