freestompboxes.org

I recently bought a Snarling Dogs Whine-O Wah and it's absolutely amazing. It's the best sounding Wah I ever tried.
But it's really really noisy!
So I replaced all the resistors (with metal film) and the caps with better ones, but no appreciable result.
Next step is to eliminate the extremly loud (probably LED caused) pop-noise.

I love this wah, but I also hate it. It's soooo noisy!!
Does somebody has ideas for troubleshooting or a solution ??

Do you have a schematic of it? Can you post some photos?
Thanks.

Here are some photos of the original one and after replacing the parts.
I'll try to trace the schematic and upload a rough layout. Unfortunately there is no schematic out there.

I tried to replace Q1&2 (C9014) with 2N2222. But there wasn't any noticeable difference.

So here it is! I'm really sorry for this mess but I just tried to follow the circuit from the board, so it got a little bit...confusing
By the way, I fixed the popping noise when switched on or off.

Hey there, thank you very much for the photos. Glad you've fixed it.
One more thing, did you measured the inductor?
Thanks.

The inductor is in the metal can in the top right. You can take it out, but it is in another enclosure and I don't want to destroy that. Besides there are surely two switchable inductors in there.

Here are the internal shots of the silver canister from a Wonder Wah version in a 2008 post in this forum:

Ok thanks.
Thanks for the reply, i've seen those photos, my question is about the value of the inductor, and if there's more than one.
I've tried to put two inductors in siries like the schaller bow wow, but the values i've used didn't perform as i expected.
Thanks for the replys guys.

yes, these sound very nice. at least the mold spore wah does, and as far as i can see, this wah is the same as the wah portion of the spore.

i want you guys to look at something -

see the 33k and the 470k in parallel at Q1 C to inductor?
why are there two there when you could just put a 30k there?

i think it is an old timey ' music store mod', you simply lift one end of the 33k that normally parallels the inductor and put the one end over on the 470k/Q1c node. viola! instant mod wah. note also that the normal 33k parallel the inductor is not there! it is because in the music store , you mod with what's on the board! just move a resistor - haha.

so again, why not just eliminate the 470k altogether? whoever made the original schematic just copied the modded wah exactly with no thought, i assume.

lowering that 470k to 30k widens the Q, and would normally make a really spikey sounding wah, but kenny ameliorated it by a couple things:

-the 100k pot is linear. this means the wah moves more slowly over the spike. kenny told me he chose lin for parts availablity.
-there are several .001uf to ground to kill the spikey treble. (C3, C11)
-the 47 uf to ground off inductor is 10 times larger than normal. this gives a fat slushy response, again, helping quell an otherwise spikey wah. a smaller cap here would not only raise the freq center, but would give a faster response with quicker charge/discharge time.

Hey,
Nice to find a schematic of this baby. I've had one laying around for a couple of years now. I never play it because when I turn it on I get an instant volume boost, even with the volume-pot on zero.
I tried to increase the value of the pot, didn't help. I think I can see why now: R13. Would replacing the R13 with a higher value resistor help me tame this wah?
Cheers.

Hey Guys,
I checked the schematic again, now I'm thinking I might need to lower the value of R13 in order to get rid of the volume boost.. Correct?

Grtz

Moustache00 wrote:Hey Guys,
I checked the schematic again, now I'm thinking I might need to lower the value of R13 in order to get rid of the volume boost.. Correct?

Grtz

yes, that should work. let us know what you find out !

prehistoric wrote: ......
I want you guys to look at something -

see the 33k and the 470k in parallel at Q1 C to inductor?
why are there two there when you could just put a 30k there?
.....

Because it is a "Snarling Dog" Wah. It is not the only Snarling-Dog-product which contains such silly mistakes. Have a look at the Black-Dog and Tweed E Dog - which are derivates of the EH Hot Tubes - and compare it with the schematic of the original unit.

There was a cheap chinese slave cloning some products on demand and he made those mistakes and nooone recognized them because the produced units at least did "something" - that is the only reason for such obscurities in Snarling Dog pedals.

Moustache00 wrote:Hey,
I tried to increase the value of the pot, didn't help. I think I can see why now: R13. Would replacing the R13 with a higher value resistor help me tame this wah?
Cheers.

Wouldn't increasing the value of the pot also increase your volume? I mean, the higher the value, the further the signal is from ground, right? Shouldn't you try decreasing the pot value instead?

Well,

Maybe decreasing the pot is a good idea. I tried increasing the value up to 1meg and it didn't make a difference at all.
In the mean while I tried installing a 'standard volume pot right before the switch. It works but I do have the impression the sound gets more distorted when I tilt the pedal back. I really need to do some more exprimenting..

I'm trying to patch together a whine-o-wah for my guitar player.
The wah-pot is toast in the unit I have to work with.
Prehistoric notes in his post the the wah-pot is 100k linear but the picture shows an unusual pot.

Does anyone know where I can find a 100k linear OEM type replacement pot. D'Andrea no longer has anything to do with Snarling Dogs and has no info about any of the pedals.

Many thanks in advance for any info anyone can provide.

Dave in SoCal

I think what may come close to the OEM look might be the Bourns wah pot, also known as the Life Pot.

tube-exorcist wrote:

prehistoric wrote: ......
I want you guys to look at something -

see the 33k and the 470k in parallel at Q1 C to inductor?
why are there two there when you could just put a 30k there?
.....

Because it is a "Snarling Dog" Wah. It is not the only Snarling-Dog-product which contains such silly mistakes. Have a look at the Black-Dog and Tweed E Dog - which are derivates of the EH Hot Tubes - and compare it with the schematic of the original unit.

There was a cheap chinese slave cloning some products on demand and he made those mistakes and nooone recognized them because the produced units at least did "something" - that is the only reason for such obscurities in Snarling Dog pedals.

OR it's because 470k and 33k in parallel = 30 k, a NON standard value, and easier to add two resistors than order a special value make sense? a LOT of people do that kind of stuff, and it's been standard practice in electronics for, oh, forever... only we DIY'ers will go out of our way for having specific non-standard parts kicking around. i mean... let's get REAL for a second.

dave_socal wrote:I'm trying to patch together a whine-o-wah for my guitar player.
The wah-pot is toast in the unit I have to work with.
Prehistoric notes in his post the the wah-pot is 100k linear but the picture shows an unusual pot.

Does anyone know where I can find a 100k linear OEM type replacement pot. D'Andrea no longer has anything to do with Snarling Dogs and has no info about any of the pedals.

Many thanks in advance for any info anyone can provide.

Dave in SoCal

talk to joe gagan, he can hook you up a pot that will work. he set me up nicely when i needed to find a decent replacement for my shin ei fuzzwah. he can set you up with gears too so you can adjust the sweep of the pot better. about 20 bux shipped. tell him i sent ya dave. he's in new mexico, so he could hook ya up pretty quick if ya need it.

pinkjimiphoton wrote:

tube-exorcist wrote:

prehistoric wrote: ......
I want you guys to look at something -

see the 33k and the 470k in parallel at Q1 C to inductor?
why are there two there when you could just put a 30k there?
.....

Because it is a "Snarling Dog" Wah. It is not the only Snarling-Dog-product which contains such silly mistakes. Have a look at the Black-Dog and Tweed E Dog - which are derivates of the EH Hot Tubes - and compare it with the schematic of the original unit.

There was a cheap chinese slave cloning some products on demand and he made those mistakes and nooone recognized them because the produced units at least did "something" - that is the only reason for such obscurities in Snarling Dog pedals.

\





OR it's because 470k and 33k in parallel = 30 k, a NON standard value, and easier to add two resistors than order a special value make sense? a LOT of people do that kind of stuff, and it's been standard practice in electronics for, oh, forever... only we DIY'ers will go out of our way for having specific non-standard parts kicking around. i mean... let's get REAL for a second.

i am real. a 30k resistor is not hard to find anywhere in the world. it is just a silly oversight with no thought behind it.