The word wah is used a great deal when discussing electric guitars and the various effects that can be applied to the sound generated through the playing of an electric guitar. The wah sound is actually very similar to the sound made by a person pronouncing the word 'wah', and creates a nasal, wide note or tone to the guitar's sound. If you are looking for equipment to go with an electric guitar, then you may come across several tools and utilities relating to wah.



One of these is the wah pedal, which is a rocking pedal operated by the foot, and distorts the sound of the guitar in an analogue fashion. As the guitarist pushes his or her foot further down on the pedal, pushing it forwards, the pitch of the guitar is distorted, creating the wah effect. However, by drawing the foot the other way and pulling the rocking pedal backwards, the reverse happens, and the frequency of the guitar is lowered, creating a different quality of sound.

An alternative to this rocking pedal is the auto wah, which is still a pedal operated by the foot, but rather than working in a rocking fashion, providing a controlled range of distortion frequencies, the pedal is either switched on, or switched off by the foot. Once the auto wah pedal has been activated, then the electronics automatically generate a wah form of distortion, based largely on a range of dynamics or variables within the signal generated by the guitar. This range of dynamics is normally referred to as an envelope or envelope filter.

The sensitivity of the auto-wah pedal can be adjusted, but only at the point of initially setting it up, and doesn't provide the flexibility of altering its sensitivity throughout a song. On the other hand, the standard rocking wah pedal does provide this flexibility. It really depends upon a player's experience as to which is best. More experienced guitarists may prefer the flexibility of control that a wah rocking pedal provides, whereas a less experienced player may prefer to focus on the guitar rather than the various external devices used to control or affect its voice.

Another very unusual, and quite unique extra gadget which can be used with the electric guitar is something called a talk box. Relatively unknown, these talk boxes have actually been around since the 1940s, and were made particularly popular by various swing bands of the forties, fifties and sixties. Effectively, a talk box is a device which connects to the amplifier, with a tube running from a speaker horn to the player's own mouth. By changing the shape of the mouth, widening, closing and changing the air pressure inside, the sound and tone of the guitar can be affected quite considerably. This takes a good deal of practice, but the effect is quite remarkable.

Often referred to as 'talking steel guitars', the effect can be created without much trouble by an experienced player, and is dynamic in as much as it can be applied whenever, and however the guitarist likes, without having to worry about fiddling with levers, pedals or buttons. This physical, and very analogue way of affecting the voice of an electric guitar is unusual, and creates effects that are difficult, if not impossible, to accurately recreate digitally, and certainly not with as much ease and dynamic precision or flair.