I have been meaning to craft up a good Enigma review, so here it is!

Everybody has plenty of great reviews that talk about it as an autowah, envelope filter and funk box, so I thought I’d review how great it is as a wah-wah modeller (only a real live analog sounding and soulful model, not some digital clone!) I use a BOSS FV-300L as my expression pedal, but plenty of other options will work.

First, keep in mind that most wah-wah pedals have a very narrow range compared to the Enigma’s, which is actually extremely wide. Before trying to get a wah sound out of it, set the START and STOP frequencies only a little bit apart: perhaps with START on noon and STOP on 11 o’clock. Next, give the wah some time to respond by setting the ATTACK and DECAY knobs to about 9 o’clock. You will have to adjust the SENSITIVITY knob depending on how hard you will be playing and the output of your bass. Alright let’s dig in!

Geezer Butler’s Tycobrahe Wah on “Bassically.”

You can sound identical to Geezer’s sound but it takes some tweaking on your part. Geezer recorded this with an old P-bass, so if you have a two-pickup bass, roll back your bridge pickup and let the neck pickup dominate. For the first part of the song, he has the tone rolled back on his instrument, so roll your tone stack to about 3/4 on. Now set the Enigma to LOWPASS filter and turn the BLEND knob to about 3 o’clock. Turn the Q knob to about 11 o’clock. Now set the START and STOP frequencies by turning them SLOWLY as a pair until you have struck a similar tone as Geezer’s. On my Gibson Thunderbird I find this is with the START frequency at about 11 o’clock and the STOP frequency at about 10 o’clock (If you are more comfortable with the Wah sweeping up instead of down, simply flip the START and STOP frequencies of any setting!) This is the first half of the song where Geezer plays a little blues run.

When Geezer holds on that last “E” note before playing the opening riff to NIB, he rolls his tone all the wah back on and probably turns up the volume on his bass to let his tube amp overdrive. The built-in distortion on the Enigma actually works very well for this. Turn on the distortion. You may need to increase the range of the sweep a little brighter to make the distortion section of the song sound right, so increase the START frequency knob a little bit further clockwise.

It takes some tweaking to match how you will play but I’m telling you, hand on my stack of Black Sabbath LPs, that playing this with my Sunn amp and Gibson Thunderbird sounded EXACTLY like Geezer’s recorded tone on Sabbath’s first record.

Cliff Burton’s Morley Power Wah Fuzz on “Anaesthesia (Pulling Teeth)”

The feel and reaction of a real Morley PWF is completely different from the Tycobrahe, but excellent proof of the Enigma’s versatility as a Wah-Wah Modeller. Starting with our normal settings, set the STOP frequency around noon and the START frequency all the way clockwise. The PWF is more resonant than the old Tycobrahe wah, so move the Q to around noon or 1 o’clock depending on your bass. You will want your bass to sound as bright as Cliff’s Rickenbacker, so keep your tone all the way up and lean towards the bridge pickup if you have two. The Enigma’s distortion should be on to keep the sweep as snarling as the PWF, but you will need another distortion to get Cliff’s sound. I have used a Russian Big Muff and gotten pretty damn close. Just keep the tone on whatever fuzz you use high and treble-y.

The trick (once you learn the notes!) to getting this solo to sound right is to use the wah like Cliff does, by keeping it heel back and rocking forward slowly until the parts where he quickly puts the toe down for the snarling response. Of course, how you play will determine where you set the SENSITIVITY which will control how the Enigma behaves!

I would like to upload some sound clips of these in the future, but the Enigma spikes out my 2880 really hard at the settings that sound perfect with my amp. So you may have to just have fun with this yourself and let me know I’m not crazy!

The wide sweep range and the strange sounds lurking in the Enigma make it a very powerful wah-wah pedal for traditional sounding wahs and crazy new ones. Plug in that expression pedal and go wild!