Wah-wah effect. Help is needed.

F

FastSamurai

New member
Wusup FP,
i wanna ask u what do i need to do to achieve the effect that it seems called wah wah. U can listen to it in alotta songs, for example "Bright As The Sun" by Coolio, "I Should Have Cheated" by Keyshia Cole...
I used to make it with some VST plug-in b4 but know i wanna do it myself. I know it's kinda frequency modulation or something like that with maybe volume modulation as well. I tryed to automate almost everything in Reason, tryed to use reason's phaser but i'm pretty far from what i want. Maybe my phaser's settings was wrong but i can't make it sound like it sounds in major producers beats. So i just want u to gimme a clue what controls to automate and how to do this. Any tips how to achieve that effect in Reason or in common will be damn much appreciated.
And if u know nice plugins that can make what i want, feel free to name them =)
 
"In electronic music, wah-wah effects are easy to produce by applying a modulation envelope to the voltage-controlled filter in an analog synthesizer. Digital synthesizers can also simulate this effect."
-Wikipedia

In my experience, it's all about about the ADSR (Attack, decay, sustain release) speeds on the synthesizer filter.

For example, use a synthesizer (I think it's called subtractor in reason) and set up a simple sine wave. Set the filter so it sounds markedly different than the unfiltered sound, and then play with the filter ADSR envelope until you get the wah sound. Playing with my Alesis Ion right now, and I get these settings Attack 4494ms, Decay 284ms(which doesn't sound great but might give you an idea). It's hard to do well.

Or you could just get a wah pedal and do some routing. Just a hint: Crybabys don't work well at line level because they go straight to bypass (I think). My $30 behringer works 20x better.

Anyways, good luck with your tinkering.

Edit: I think logic has a wah effect built in, as does sampletank. I am not familiar with any VSTs that do it.
 
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For an "auto-wah" effect you'll be better off with the LFO - Reason's envelopes don't loop (which doesn't mean you couldn't do some nice filter sweeps with them).
 
FastSamurai said:
Wusup FP,
i wanna ask u what do i need to do to achieve the effect that it seems called wah wah. U can listen to it in alotta songs, for example "Bright As The Sun" by Coolio, "I Should Have Cheated" by Keyshia Cole...
I used to make it with some VST plug-in b4 but know i wanna do it myself. I know it's kinda frequency modulation or something like that with maybe volume modulation as well. I tryed to automate almost everything in Reason, tryed to use reason's phaser but i'm pretty far from what i want. Maybe my phaser's settings was wrong but i can't make it sound like it sounds in major producers beats. So i just want u to gimme a clue what controls to automate and how to do this. Any tips how to achieve that effect in Reason or in common will be damn much appreciated.
And if u know nice plugins that can make what i want, feel free to name them =)
Click to expand...


To acheive this effect, you set up your filter CUTOFF value to be modulated by an LFO. You will want to use a SIN wave (or TRI wave if the synth does not have SIN) as your LFO shape.

This means that you DO NOT want your filter modulated by the ADSR envelope. You want it modulated by the LFO.

You will want the LFO wave to be triggered by the note(s) you are playing. If it is not triggered by the note(s) being played, the LFO will be in a constant cycle and whenever you hit your note(s) you will be coming in on the LFO wherever it happens to be. You want the LFO to modulate the filter from the beginning of it's cycle, not part way through.

Set your RESONANCE value on the filter to a medium low setting (adjust to taste).
 
Aight folx, i got this sound with LFO as u said. Although i've been messing with LFO before, but i didnt even touch resonanse slider... how could i forget about resonanse!? It's just the thing that gives this special wah sound. Thank ya very much for your response. I appreciate this. Now i'm gonna go make a hit,
peace
 
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