Dunlop KH95 Kirk Hammett Cry Baby Wah

Kirk Hammett KH95 Wah pedal, designed after his rack wah settings. Huge throaty tone like from MetallicA's Black Album. I'm a good sized fan of MetallicA but I bought this for the tone, not for who's it is. I could care less who's name is on the pedal as long as it sounds good. I did research and comparisons for a few years trying to find the right pedal. Went through like 8 different wahs and ultimately settled on this one, and this won't be leaving. The paint job is pretty cool, metallic green to black fade. The skeleton foot on the treadle isn't the most attractive, but who cares? It's a damn pedal.

I looked at a few more boutique wahs like the Fulltone Clyde and the RMC picture wah and while they were great the price wasn't. I planned to get the Fulltone but for $245 I chose the KH95 and so happy I did. I've played a Fulltone since then and while it was great it was a bit overkill and the tone still wasn't quite where I wanted. So the Hammett was pretty much like a pedal designed for me, and a bonus at a killer price too.

UTILIZATION

Very simple pedal, no knobs or switches to mess with. Plug it in and go. Not a lot of tweakability if you like it, so that's a plus if you like it simple and the way it is, but a con if you want the options.

SOUND QUALITY

I bought this looking for that very thick, throaty sounding wah that most pedals I've tried couldn't get. I loved Hendrix's wah, and my favorite wah was Kirk Hammett's from MetallicA's Black Album. Very thick, throaty, and cuts through amazingly. Well supposedly he owns one of Hendrix's hundreds of wah pedals and used it on that album. Live he used a EBM rack wah to mimic his vintage studio wah. Later on he switched to the Dunlop rack wah again trying to mimic his studio wah. This pedal was designed by taking his rack wah settings and putting them into a pedal. So basically this pedal is a pedal form version of his rack wah which was tweaked to mimic a vintage VOX V846. I haven't played a vintage VOX but I have owned a Dunlop Crybaby from Hell, Original crybaby, Hendrix crybaby, VOX V847, Morley Power Wah Distortion, x2 vintage Morley Power Wah Fuzz's, and an Ibanez Weeping Demon. All were pretty different but my favorites were the KH and the CFH.

Now of course this pedal won't nail the Hendrix or Hammett tone, there's so much more that goes into their tone than just the right wah pedal. But this does give you a close sound of that piece alone. My favorite example is the solo to "My Friend of Misery". Huge wah sound, everything I'd ever want from a wah.

OVERALL OPINION

So I'm very happy with this purchase. The absolute best wah pedal I've ever played, now for you this might not be the holy grail but for me it was perfect. I'd suggest to just try as many as possible THROUGH YOUR RIG (can't stress that enough) till you find the one that just makes you smile all day, this is that pedal for me.

The most notorious wah user finally gets his own signature wah pedal. In the past few years, I don't think anybody has used a wah pedal as much as Kirk has. In fact, it's become a bit of a joke because he uses it so much, so I'm surprised it took this long for him to get a signature wah pedal. This one is pretty much just a straight forward wah pedal tailored to Kirk's specs.

UTILIZATION

These pedals are built like tanks. They can withstand nearly anything you throw at them, short of spilling your beer all over them. The casing is extremely durable, and you can chuck it across the room without much of an issue. About the only thing that occurs is dust and grime getting inside the pot, but you can just spray some contact cleaner in there to fix them, most of the time. The wah is extremely easy to setup, and everything is laid out in an easy to understand matter. The manual also does a great job at explaining everything for you.

SOUND QUALITY

Kirk has been known for his rack wah usage. Considering this lacks the versatility of the rack wah, some might be taken aback by that aspect. However, Dunlop says that they took his main wah settings and built it into this pedal. As for it sounding like Kirk, I guess it does. I mean, slap a wah on any pentatonic lead tone, add some awful vibrato and you instantly have the standard Kirk sound. The wah sounds pretty good by itself, and I could easily see myself gigging with it.

OVERALL OPINION

If you can get over the ugly skull footprint or whatever that thing is, the wah is a pretty good wah. It sounds solid, has some good range and I even like the green burst paintjob. That said, it's pretty expensive for what it is. I'd much rather just get the standard 535Q or even a GCB95 instead of buying this. If they didn't have to pay royalty fees for this thing, it might actually be worth buying.

Cry Baby Kirk Hammett Signature by Dunlop
Are injected presets rack Cry Baby Kirk Hammett in a pedal that gives us this wah signing

UTILIZATION

Gibson Flying V + Mesa

SOUND QUALITY

in many phases solo speed metal with a big sound that is a killer in this mode is that it excels the most, treble stand great and the frequency of Q is very melodic fans will recognize this key Kirk Hammett Expression and dug a little crushed, I love to clean at least I think its strength is in its weakest point acute in clean, it becomes less aggressive melodic limit for the metal is in the top after signing wah style metal I have not tested Wylde and Dimebag ... to see

OVERALL OPINION

I confess to being quite a fan of Kirk Hammett's solo wah rocked a part of my youth, I have a preference for EVH more versatile but less expressive than the Kirk metal mode, there is the sound signature of the Kirk wah so I'm not displeased on the other hand for blues, funk, this is not the right wah