[LAU] Auto-Wah and Clav... not quite

[Ken Restivo]

On Thu, Jul 09, 2009 at 10:25:49AM -0600, Ernie Dulanowsky wrote:
> What about using separate envelope follower and filter plugins to make your
> own auto-wah ?
> 
> cheers,
> ernie
> 
> On Wed, Jul 8, 2009 at 8:24 PM, Ken Restivo <ken at restivo.org> wrote:
> 
> > For several years I've lusted away over the Clavinet-through-Auto-Wah
> > sound: the Stevie Wonder sound (also used notably by Herbie Hancock,
> > Medeski, Martin and Wood, and others).
> >
> > The problem is that either the LADSPA auto-wah plugin doesn't quite cut it,
> > or the Clav soundfont I found on Hammersound several years ago doesn't have
> > enough dynamic range to really make the thing "wah" in any noticeable way.
> >
> > Am I doing something wrong here, or is the plugin not quite the best
> > implementation, and if so, are there any better ones? Likewise with Clavinet
> > soundfonts too.
> >


Hmm, thanks. Well after digging into it a bit, it seems as though a proper "wah" effect is an LPF with a resonant peak at the rolloff point:

http://www.geofex.com/Article_Folders/wahpedl/wahped.htm

Apparently very easy to do in hardware (2 transistors, couple caps, and an inductor), but I'm not sure where I'd find a LADSPA plugin with this particular frequency response characteristic.

Looks like Rakarrack has a wah, and "alien wah" (from Zyn?) and an auto-wah of its own. I'll try those instead.

-ken