Spaghetti Wah: an upgrade of your old wah pedal

For customers located in European Union only.

Description & History

IMPORTANT NOTE: Since i have no access to wah enclosures, our Spaghetti Wah will be built into your own enclosure that you have to send to me first.

Spaghetti wah is a clone of the classic early 60's Real McCoy wah pedals by VOX. These beauties were manufactured in Italy and they were equipped with an axial Hallo inductor (two different types by time) and a wah pot with a special taper marked ICAR. Due to their sweet tone of vocal-like quality, Italian VOX Real McCoy wahs are the most sought after among these pedals nowadays, and also very, very expensive ones.

Spaghetti wah incorporates the following features that help copy the original Real McCoy sound (as recently proved by comparing our model to an old original unit):

1. The Whipple inductor incorporated, is a hand-made, exact Hallo copy. In late 60's, VOX changed Hallos for a "trash can" axial inductors (they were shielded by a metal top, that's why the nickname) and later on in 70's they changed the inductor again - this time to the radial red/yellow Fasel inductors. However the Hallo remains the legend.

2. Spaghetti Wah also comes with the ICAR taper wah-pot to get the right circuit response. Recent market standards like Hot Potz II or recent VOX pots have a different taper, that is steeper and sounds a bit too straightforward.

3. True bypass switching helps to keep the trebles in the bypassed signal, which is the well known problem of the standard switching. Wah pedals have very low input impedance, that drags a great deal of the bypassed signal to the ground, making the guitar sound dull. Our true bypass is also tuned to keep the unity volume level with the dry signal. The volume drop is very often mistake when incorporating true bypass to wah pedals.

4. The capacitors used strictly follow the original capacitor types, which helps to keep the vintage sound.

5. We use metallic resistors because we can't see any advantage in using carbon resistors, and we do not believe in magical impact of resistor type on the sound. So they won't be used but on your demand.

6. On your demand, we can also incorporate an output impedance boost that will assure the wah will work when placed before old-fashioned, low impedance fuzz boxes like Fuzz Face or Tonebender. This has no impact on the sound, but be aware that you will no longer be able to do the "Pink Floyd seagull" sounds any more by reversing the input/output jacks.

7. On your demand we can also install a LED indicator and a Jimi Hendrix tone switch, that adds a thicker and quackier wah sound.

Note: Jimi Hendrix had his wah modded by a Thomas Organ Co. technician Dave Wayer. Jimy needed his wah to work with his Fuzz Face, and he didn't like how the wah sound kicks off all squeaky when turned on. You can have these mods in your Spaghetti Wah.

Original units used by: many of the 60's heroes
Contemporary trend: optional LED, optional DC socket, True Bypass ON/OFF foot switch, optional output buffer, optional tone switch

Powering

• 9V battery or power adapter (50-100mA at minimum)


• DC socket for a standard 5.5/2.1 mm barrel jack, positive on the barrel, negative inside


• The battery life will be extended by unplugging the input jack when the pedal is not in use. Plugging in a DC jack also disconnects the battery and saves its life.

The price includes

• The Whipple inductor - an exact Hallo replica


• Aluminium-polystyrene capacitors as in the original units


• top quality Panasonic Low Voltage capacitors replacing the Tropical Fish


• transistors BC108B


• ICAR taper pot


• the circuit board follows the original VOX design


• 9V battery included inside


• Cliff foot switch


• true Bypass switching


• low capacity jack sockets by Cliff


• hight quality battery clips by Cliff


• thick wires for the maximum sound fidelity and overall durability


• firm and durable internal design


• the sound of these unit was tuned to be identical to the early 60's original we have in possession

Sound samples