Dunlop 105Q Cry Baby Bass Wah. 🙌🏻 Mikko “Linde” Lindström, guitarist of the band HIM, said something in a jimdunlopusa video feature circa 2010 that has stuck with me for many years now as a tone-chaser. Linde stated that he opted to use a Dunlop 105Q Cry Baby Bass Wah instead of a regular guitar wah because he found the sound of the bass wah to be “more aggressive”. A couple years later, his tech confirmed this with customboardsfinland while giving a rundown of Linde’s custom pedalboard and amp setup that he ran live with HIM at the time. (You can find the video of the rundown on the Custom Boards Finland YouTube channel.)
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So, I figured that I would finally get down to the root of this and see for myself what the results would be of running a guitar through a bass wah.
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The 105Q Cry Baby Bass Wah applies the wah effect only to the mids and highs of the signal, thus preserving the lows of the signal and leaving a strong fundamental to hold down the bottom end of the tone. On the flipside, a regular guitar wah progressively filters out the lows as the bandpass filter sweeps up the frequency spectrum.
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This preservation of the lows makes the resulting guitar tone more “full” and contributes to that “aggressive” sound that Linde described.
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The peak frequency of the bandpass filter is also shifted lower in the bass wah. So, the timbre of the wah effect isn’t as bright (or “ice-pick-y”) as a regular guitar wah, even at the highest point at the end of the upwards sweep. With the peak frequency of the filter sitting a bit lower, and the sweep ending slightly closer to the mids on the spectrum, the wah effect has a more throaty enunciation to the sound.
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I encourage all of my fellow guitarists who love wanking on their wah pedals to try simply swapping out their regular guitar wah for a bass wah and see if they like the tonal results. Shout-out to Linde for the cool idea! 🤘🏻
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