Wah wah pedals.
As early as 1945 the wahwah effect made up from a midshift equalization was known,Leo Fender put one in his lap steel guitar. Besides that ,some studio players found that by rotating the tone knob it gave a wahwah like sound. In 1965 Brad Plunkett of Thomas Organ Co in the USA was working on a tonecontrole and found the effect by accidence,word is when people heard this sound they all came in the lab and where astounded by it.The effect was commercialized in 1966 by Vox who called it the Vox wahwah and Thomas Organ who gave it the name Crybaby,since it sounded like a baby making noise .Since Thomas Organ/Vox forgot to get a patent on the design the secret got out and everybody started to make wahwah's,after the original design and largely made in Italy by JEN elettronica Pescara who labeled the wahwah's under various names… (Vox-Jen-Gem-Elka-Crybaby-Gretch-whatnot),after that the wahwah was also made by Thomas Organ themselves in sepulveda and Chicago USA.Vox made wahwah's in England,but by far the most where made by other manufacturers like Jen in Italy and Colorsound in England and also by Thomas Organ in the Usa in Chicago and sepulveda ca.In February 1967 Vox/thomas organ made a promotional paper-record which sounds like this: 1966/1967 vox wah recorded in Hollywood USA (mp3) and looks like this : vox paper record .
The brochure that got out at the same time looked like this : Crybaby folder Vox folder.There are some article on the wahwah you can follow these links :and the article by eric sloaf and info on wahwah pedals on the analogman site.
Here are some wahwah pedal examples from ca 1966 onwards.Update from may2000 >2/2004.
See if you can spot which type of wahwah Jimi plugs in here in 1968.
To get a idea of the different components used thru the years in wahwah pedals use the following table on Inductors and Potmeters and Transistors to get a idea what these look like.
| Type of Inductor: | Used in: | |
| Halo style inductor | Vox Clyde Mccoys /stickermodel italy/early crybaby wah |  |
| 48 style inductor | Vox wah USA,Teesewah,Crybaby USA sepulveda/chicago |  |
| TDK style inductor | Vox V846 USA and crybaby USA wah,Foxx, |  |
| TDK faselcopy style inductor | Ibanez Blubber wahwah |  |
| Cube inductor | Ibanez wah early,various brands shinei ,japanese wahs |  |
|
Inclosed Halostyle (Filmcan) |
Vox V846 italy,Jen double sound,Vox wah england
|
 |
| German Halo style | Hofner wah german wahwah's.Halifax wah. |  |
| Italian halo style | Elka and other organ wahwah's | |
| Type "03" style | Colorsound,Vox colorsound made wah |  |
| Red Fasel | Jen,Vox,Gretsch,Crybaby |  |
| Green Fasel | Jen,Vox,Gretsch,Crybaby |  |
| White Fasel | Jen,Vox,Gretsch,Crybaby |  |
|
CBS halo
|
Fender wah's |  |
| El Rad |
Foxx,ElectroHarmonix, Maestro(gibson) |
 |
| Potmeter/various parts: | Used in: | |
| ICAR potemeter 100 kohm | Vox clyde/early crybaby wah | |
| ERT potmeter 100 kohm | Jen /Vox wah early 70's | |
| Clarostat potmeter | Maestro,Foxx | |
| Centralab potmeter | Maestro boomerang | |
| Allan and Bradley | Vox,crybaby | |
| Dunlop Hot Potz | Crybaby,Vox Ri,535 | |
| Teese CTS pot | RMC wahwah's | |
| Fulltone wahpot | Fulltone wah | |