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Fireguy8402 « That Classic Wah Sound »
Published on 11/19/11 at 13:03The GCB-95 Crybaby by Dunlop is your basic straightforward wah pedal. It has a metal housing with a heavy duty bypass switch mounted under the metal foot rocker board, four rubber feet screwed to the bottom, an input for your instrument and an output to go to your amplifier. There are no high tech optical switches, Q knobs, or modes to fool with or go bad on you. It’s a black brick that is made for years and years of use with nothing extra going on.
UTILIZATION
This wah pedal can sound good just about anywhere in the signal chain, but most people like to put it first in line after their guitar. This is the classic design of putting the footswitch under the foot pedal in the toe down position to turn it on and then you go to town on your filtering. I like this method much better than the alternatives other companies have come up with like having a separate on and off switch located on a floor panel or switchless designs like Morley has been putting out. Dunlop just put out a good version of this pedal to start with and that’s why it’s still around and so popular today. Some versions of this pedal have different tweaks for different modes and sweeps, but I find the original version to be more than enough to achieve those classic wah tones.
SOUND QUALITY
The original Crybaby has a distinct sound. The range of this model is quite wide and you are able to get abrupt quacks or slow filter sweeps depending on how you use the foot pedal. The pot on the inside of the pedal can be manually adjusted to change the sweep range of the foot pedal, so if you want a little more bass or treble you can get that. This is a simple pedal, so you only get one sound and sweep, but it’s well voiced and cuts through the mix well in a live band setting. This pedal does roll off some of the high end of your guitar tone regardless of how you power it or where you put it in your signal chain. It’s the nature of the bypass. It can be modded to be true-bypass easily, you can adjust a little more treble on your amp, or you might like the inherited rounding off of the high end.
OVERALL OPINION
The GCB-95 would be a good choice for someone looking for a classic wah tone. It does lose a little bit of high end when put into your signal path, but nothing that can’t be corrected by your amplifier. If I were to be looking for another wah pedal I would probably go another route and get something with a few more bells and whistles that could get a few more tones, but overall I’ve been satisfied with my Crybaby. It’s a staple in rock and roll guitar. Every teenage guitar player has to go out and get a wah pedal after hearing it for the first time, and on a teenager’s budget the GCB-95 fits the bill. This also leads to a lot of them being on the used gear market, and that’s where I would pick one up if I were getting one. They usually go fairly cheap and since they are built very well, getting a used one sight unseen off the internet wouldn’t worry me a bit. Altogether, there are better wahs out there, but this is a decent pedal for the money and has the potential to be a lifelong piece of gear with a few mods.
UTILIZATION
This wah pedal can sound good just about anywhere in the signal chain, but most people like to put it first in line after their guitar. This is the classic design of putting the footswitch under the foot pedal in the toe down position to turn it on and then you go to town on your filtering. I like this method much better than the alternatives other companies have come up with like having a separate on and off switch located on a floor panel or switchless designs like Morley has been putting out. Dunlop just put out a good version of this pedal to start with and that’s why it’s still around and so popular today. Some versions of this pedal have different tweaks for different modes and sweeps, but I find the original version to be more than enough to achieve those classic wah tones.
SOUND QUALITY
The original Crybaby has a distinct sound. The range of this model is quite wide and you are able to get abrupt quacks or slow filter sweeps depending on how you use the foot pedal. The pot on the inside of the pedal can be manually adjusted to change the sweep range of the foot pedal, so if you want a little more bass or treble you can get that. This is a simple pedal, so you only get one sound and sweep, but it’s well voiced and cuts through the mix well in a live band setting. This pedal does roll off some of the high end of your guitar tone regardless of how you power it or where you put it in your signal chain. It’s the nature of the bypass. It can be modded to be true-bypass easily, you can adjust a little more treble on your amp, or you might like the inherited rounding off of the high end.
OVERALL OPINION
The GCB-95 would be a good choice for someone looking for a classic wah tone. It does lose a little bit of high end when put into your signal path, but nothing that can’t be corrected by your amplifier. If I were to be looking for another wah pedal I would probably go another route and get something with a few more bells and whistles that could get a few more tones, but overall I’ve been satisfied with my Crybaby. It’s a staple in rock and roll guitar. Every teenage guitar player has to go out and get a wah pedal after hearing it for the first time, and on a teenager’s budget the GCB-95 fits the bill. This also leads to a lot of them being on the used gear market, and that’s where I would pick one up if I were getting one. They usually go fairly cheap and since they are built very well, getting a used one sight unseen off the internet wouldn’t worry me a bit. Altogether, there are better wahs out there, but this is a decent pedal for the money and has the potential to be a lifelong piece of gear with a few mods.