This Donner Dynamic Wah Pedal Review was a real eye opener for many readers at Learn Guitar Cafe.
Now the third Donna guitar pedal I have reviewed, and I seem to continue being surprised. Spending $50-$60 on a pedal tends to raise the question about the quality of sound and components. Comparing to brands like Boss and TC Electronics how can Donner deliver a useable pedal that last’s. Let’s find out
There seem to be In this article I am going to take you through all the features of the pedal and give you my opinion on where its best used and how it performed.
What Is Dynamic Wah ?
A dynamic wah acts as a filter and like the name suggests behaves like a wah wah pedal.
Like a wah way pedal, it works by adjusting the central frequency of a peaking filter, which amplifies a specific frequency and cuts off other selected frequencies. It can be a low-pass, band-pass, or high-pass and acts according to the amplitude of the input signal.
- FEATURES
The Donner Dynamic Auto Wah Mini is a fully analog, true bypass unit, and features four control knobs.
Let’s take a look at what the controls do:
1. SENS:
The sensitivity control controls how hard you have to pick to have the sound come through. So depending on which way you set it, left or right will determine how hard you have to pick before each note is actually affected by the pedal.
Turn up the knob and the filter becomes more sensitive and will open with less attack. Setting this knob anywhere past the 3:00 position will help give you a pretty regular auto-wah type of sound as the filter opens as a result of most, if not all, of each of your pick attacks.
2. RES:
Res: controls the resolution, or overall quality of the sound, or sharpness of the filter. The higher you turn the knob, the sharper the filter becomes.
3. DECAY
Decay: allows you to adjust the amount of time it takes for the filter to close once it has been opened. If you want a typical voice-like effect you get from a traditional wah pedal turn the decay knob down.
As you turn the knob up the decay time becomes longer, meaning that more of the higher frequencies can pass through. Note that the decay and sens knobs work together, given that the sens knob controls the attack, and the decay knob deals with the decay.
Thus, the ratio between these two knobs will determine the overall shape of the envelope. More of a synth-style application of this effect is to set the decay high and the sens high as well so that the filter only closes when you stop attacking the strings. This creates an interesting “growl” effect as the filter slowly closes while you sustain a note or chord.
4. RANGE
This determines the width of the pedal’s frequency span. In relation to a traditional wah pedal, think of this as the sweep from heel to toe. Another way to think of the range control is how wide the filter opens.
Turn this knob down or anti clockwise for less range.
Turn the knob clockwise or up for more.
Who Used The Dynamic Wah?
Traditionally player like Jimi Hendrix and Eric Clapton used the wah wah pedal which is a different pedal to the the touch wah.
The Donner Dynamic Wah is a funky sounding pedal used in funk, jazz rock and neo soul.
Funk Players Like Corey Wong can be heard using this type of pedal.
YOUTUBE REVIEW AND DEMONSTRATION
FInal Thoughts On The Donner Dynamic Wah Pedal Review
Yet again Donner have delivered another great pedal at a competitive price. This is a real tactile pedal and you have to really play with dynamics to get the most out of it. I found playing with fingers or a plectrum to be both fun and interesting. You can certainly pull quite a few sounds out of this pedal.
Check out The Track below where I used the Donner Dynamic Wah Touch
The guys at Donner are giving my readers a 15% discount on this pedal. Use this Coupon Code in the checkout: NELSONBAYGUITAR