Auto wah / filter recommendations?

BBBlues

I’ve owned a boss auto wah and EHX q-tron but both were pretty difficult to use in terms of controlling the volume spike when the filter effect kicks in.

I appreciate it needs to be set in terms of guitar output and any boosts in volume before hand, but are there any which are easier to dial in than others.

I don’t use a compressor, and don’t want to get one for the sake of an auto wah.

Any thoughts?

EricTheWeary

A combined auto wah and compressor as an all in one funk machine is on my design list for my (complete figment of my imagination) pedal company. In the meantime I sympathise, I also  have some experience that suggests that the auto wah settings in cheap multi fx actually over come this problem. Almost by virtue of being slightly crap. 

markv

I've only used one, but it was a honey: the 3Leaf Proton. I had a v2. It was very niche (hence I don't have it any more) but I found it straightforward to dial in, once I understood how it worked.

Hattigol

I tried several. And sold them all. 
I'm not sure a great auto-wah i.e. one which replicates an actual wah, exists - I'd love to be proved wrong though...

bbill335

I have an old guyatone (would sell it cheap, it's mint) and it sounds great on guitar, doesn't need compression or anything. not so good on bass.

i was amazed by the demos for the dba deep animation but much too expensive 

MrMusic

I have experienced the same volume/eq spike with autowahs/envelope filters and sadly think its kinda what happens with this effect when you dig in to get the best pronounced sounds. Always found singlecoils work best for me and i have now settled on an old guyatone wah rocker and an Analogman man envelope filter, both are slightly mellower than all the others i’ve tried and i would highly recommend. One thing you could try is putting a volume pedal after the auto filter to get the volume to a nice level without peaking, but thats a bit annoying and expensive. Tough one, i love auto filters but they can be a bit too spikey and loud at times in that eq range

jdgm

Lovetone Meatball, or clone. Extraordinary pedal, almost like a synth module.

hotpickups

Keeley neutrino 

JerkMoans

3leaf Wonderlove is a fine bit of auto wah/envelope loveliness. All those funky noises in a tin.