The history of the Wah-Wah pedal

[Joe Gwinn]

There is an article on the Wah-Wah pedal in the Sunday (7 August 2011) edition of the New York Times, covering the top 2/3 of page 3 of the Business section: "With a Flip Of a Knob, He Heard The Future", by Amy Wallace in her "Protoype" column (Bright Ideas page).

Using data in the article, I dug a little. The founding patent is US 3,530,224. Searching for patents that reference this patent will likely uncover the whole of Wah-Wah alternatives.

[Mark Hammer]

Thanks for the heads up. You sure that's the patent number? I searched for it here: Retrieving Patent from PAT2PDF.org - Free PDF copies of patents: Download and print! and came up with a 1964 patent for a motional feedback speaker system. Interesting, but not what I expected.

[David Schwab]

Thanks for the heads up. You sure that's the patent number? I searched for it here: Retrieving Patent from PAT2PDF.org - Free PDF copies of patents: Download and print! and came up with a 1964 patent for a motional feedback speaker system. Interesting, but not what I expected.

When I enter 3,530,224 into pat2pdf I get "B. J. Plunkett, Sept 22, 1970; Foot Controlled Variable Preference Circuit for Musical Instruments."

pat3530224.pdf

Wikipedia has a good article on the Wah:

Wah-wah pedal - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

[Mark Hammer]

Weird. Same numbers entered on two different days yields two different results. Ijust cut and pasted, so it wasn't a typing error. But, yes, got the '67 Plunkett and Kushner patent this time.

[g1]

Weird. Same numbers entered on two different days yields two different results. Ijust cut and pasted, so it wasn't a typing error. But, yes, got the '67 Plunkett and Kushner patent this time.

Look a little closer, first number ends 244, second (correct) one ends 224

[David Schwab]

Look a little closer, first number ends 244, second (correct) one ends 224

Bingo! The original post had the wrong number.