Using a wah in fixed position to boost a solo

 

Hello everyone and welcome to this week's article!

Today we're going to talk about a particular way to make a solo cut through, which is used by many musicians: to emphasize only a certain mid range area which is obtained by using a wah in fixed position.

Let's start by reminding what is a wah (click here for a dedicated article with free vst plugins): it's an envelope filter, which means basically an equalization filter that can be fixed or controllable in real time via a pedal control and that according to its settings will emphasize a certain area of the midrange of the guitar tone adding gain and harmonics.

A wah boosts and cuts a certain area of the midrange of a guitar to make it cut more through the mix, and when it's used with the foot control in a tasteful way it can really make the guitar almost talk, or cry like a baby (the famous Dunlop CryBaby is called like that for this reason).
This mid range boost, which is usually a rather narrow range between the 300 and the 3000hz makes the sound from dark to very bright and harmonic rich, but the most usual application when doing distorted solos is usually when it's kept around the central position, which means a boost around 1000-1500hz, which makes the tone very honky and recognizable.

This nasal tone is the core of the solos of many famous guitarists, which sometimes just set the wah in a certain way without even moving it, just to have that distincitve mid range, boxy boost when doing solos, and the tone obtained can be heard for example in many Queen, In Flames or Blind Guardian songs, bands very different among themselves which make extensive use of the wah both moving the filter in real time or leaving it in a fixed position according to the song, and this use of the wah also just in a fixed position as mid boost has led to the creation of several stompboxes which replicate just that: a wah with a fixed setting (for example the Dunlop CryBaby Q-Zone or the Magnetic Effects Midphoria).

When trying to recreate this type of effect in the studio when we don't have a wah at hand we can start with a not too steep high pass and low pass filter, between 300 and 3000hz, then we can draw a bell quite wide, around 1200hz and add some db in this area according to taste.
Obviously these settings are just a starting point, feel free to play with the filters amplitude and the position of the bell according to the tone you are looking for, and if you feel like you lose a bit too much sparkle try to be less aggressive with the high end roll-off or maybe to add a harmonic exciter.

I hope this was helpful!

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