Dunlop Crybaby

Doesn't get much easier. Unless you're really famous and have somebody working your pedals for you.

I think the sound is great. All this true bypass business hasn't been a factor for me, although my pickups are on the bright side anyway (Burstbucker Pros). The range for the wah went a little too much into the high frequencies for me, but I just popped the bottom off and adjusted the arm/pot mechanism (remove the plastic thingy that keeps the arm against the pot, pull the arm back, turn the pot till it's where you want it, and put the arm and plastic thingy back). It's perfect now, it sounds right in the human vocal range.

Build quality is great, but always have fresh batteries on hand if you don't use a power supply. When this thing goes out, it's with little warning, and EVERYTHING goes dead when it does. True bypass would be nice in that circumstance, but I just change my battery after every couple shows.

Customer what?

I play classic rock/alternative I guess. Jimi and Skynyrd with a dash of recent Pearljam. I've been playing for about 15 years, and I have a studio (not just a small usb interface, but a full studio). My main guitar is an Ibanez SZ520qm w/burstbucker pros>TS-9>Bad Monkey>Rotovibe>Crybaby>Boss DD-3>Boss EQ>Peavey Classic 30 or Epi Valve Junior (my baby. I love that thing!). I would have to say that for my setup and experience level, this thing is perfect. It's pure vintage delight and you don't have to fiddle with 15 knobs to get a halfway usable sound out of it. My motto is, "Buy the thing that sounds best and has the fewest knobs." If it needs a bunch of adjusting to sound decent, it'll never sound great.
I reall like this particular pedal because of it's simplicity and tone. I don't have to worry about patches, q-adjustment, settings, etc. I just step on it and go.

I had my old Crybaby modded by Keeley Electronics to add true bypass to it as well as swap out the old inductor and add a new red Fasel inductor.

Operation couldn't be easier. Step on wah, rock back and forth, and make sweet music.

signal Chain -
Custom telecaster with Duncan pickups (59 neck, JB Rear) into crybaby wah, true bypass box, Boss tuner, Direct Drive, TS9 with Keeley Mod, Guyatone TZ2, Boss DD6 Delay, Ibanez SC10 Stereo Chorus, George L's cable all around into modified Princeton reverb amp with Deluxe Reverb Output Transformer and Jensen reissue 10"

Totally can get the nasal sound of later Clapton or Eric Schenker from the Spin Doctors - for me, also helps to nail Page's wah from Dazed and Confused - loving the sound.

With the new inductor and true bypass, the wah doesn't take anything away from my tone when it's off - and now when it's on it sounds much better than stock - vast improvement!

Totally can depend on it. I also have a Keeley-modded TS9 and wouldn't think twice about going to a gig without backup.

good informative manual shipped with the product back, and well packed.

Me - I play garage rock, experiemental (Belew-ish), blues rock, so this covers a lot of ground. Before, I had huge tone-suck issues without the true bypass. Now that it's fixed, I'm happy to have this wah back in my pedalboard.

If it were stolen, I would get it modded again by Keeley - the only thing I would do different is splurge and get the dual Fasel inductors (vintage yellow and modern red) with the toggle switch.

The Wah peddle is very easy to use, the manual is straight forward.

I found the sound to be hollow and the usable Wah was probably 10% of the pedal range. I searched the net and found this mod http://www.diyguitarist.com/DIYStompboxes/WahMod.htm. $10 later I had a rich Wah sound and the sweep was much more usable.

Very solid.

Have not had to call.

The pedal can be easily mofified to suit your taste. The difference between the pedals is the resiters and voicing capacitor. If you like, you could add potentiometers in place of the resisters that control voicing so that you can adjust the wah to suite your style of music.

Click on, click off. Rock to wah.

My setup:
Peavey Horizon II > Boss TU-2 > Dunlop Crybaby > Boss SD-1 > Digitech RP80 > Boss GE-7 > Peavey Vintage

Sounds okay. Definately not a Teese (or a morley for you gain freaks out there.) But does the job. I don't use it super often, but I use it enough not to be able to take out of my setup. Its a tone sucker, so I got it modded to true bypass. Not the best wah pedal out there, but the cheapest and like I said - I don't use it that much.

Built like a brick. (As heavy as one too.)

Never dealt with.

Its not fantastic, but it does what its supposed to do. If it were lost or stolen I'd buy another one simply because I do use it, just not often enough to justify spending alot of money on a wah pedal. If you are looking for a great wah sound, move on. If you're like me and just need something cheap to get you by, this will do the trick. Just make sure you mod it to true-bypass or kiss your tone goodbye.

Not hard- in fact a monkey could use it. Stomp, and rock. Simple. Although to MASTER the art of wah, it takes some practice. Heh.

This is a good wah for any players who are not very fussy about their sound and prefer a nasally, vintage wah. It can get a good funk sound, and also get the rapid-fire Clapton wah-wah-wah- sound if desired. It adds a little dirt when activated which i love. But as mention a bazzilion times is does "suck" treble when off. But it doesnt bother me much, and it is better or worse with certain amps.

Its built tough, I kick the "shirt" outta this thing and it comes back for more.

A good wah for the non-true-bypass snob who likes to get dirty and old skool. I like it a lot, but I do want to upgrade to the classic wah sometime soon. Its a lot better than mucho other trash on the market.

Plug in, hit the treadle and away you Wah!!! Simple...
Remeber to change the battery often though- I am tired of doing that, so I use my pedal board's power supply now...

When it was battery days of long ago, changing it, while easy to do by removing the feet, was still a pain if you are in a dark club and you drop the feet on the floor (thats autobiogrphical!)...

Well, here's where my pooge attitude comes to the fore.

When I got mine (used from a guitatist friend), it had already been guilty of the tone sucking syndrome that so many JD owners have cried about. So it was given the true bypass treatment. Problem solved? Partially...

Next, under my soldering iron, a few caps and resistors were changed out, increasing the gain of the effect (when on, remember- truebypass now), the voicing of the wah (more for Bass Guitar now- more low to high travel) as well as the peakiness of the wah effect itself (once again, more for Bass Guitar).

Now it sounds killer. Before, it sounded like a trade in special (that;s how I got it- wink wink)...

I still may change out to the fabled FASSEL inductor though...

The case of this thing is next only to Boss pedals for reliability. I have seen the original owner of this thing trip over it and break cable ends rather than the unit itself. The jacks are that durable...

With true bypass, the tone sucking issue is history, so I can say that if it were to die, at least when its off, it REALLY IS out of the circuit!

Not needed... There are about ten million websites out there with schematics, that if you can read then and don't burn your lips with a soldering iron on a regular basis, you should be able to keep it running until your grandkids steal it from you...

A great pedal once the mods are done to it.

Honestly, how can JD get away with selling this thing in stock form? Simple, offer a gazillion other models with "upgrades" that cost them ten cents and the end user about $50 additional...

YIKES in stock form. KILLER when modded for the end user...

'Nuff said.

Plug in and go! (difficult depending on present mindframe)

Setup: Epiphone Les Paul --> Crybaby --> Marshall 8040

Would have a nice sound if it wasnt for the scratching noises!!! Frequency sweep is too small

Pot already scratching. I can depend on this wah for sitting under the bed doing nothing

Jimi, Pantera, anything!
Wouldnt buy this again, maybe just for practicing on. Looks like its common for these to crap out after a short time :(

bought this beauty for #50 in a secondhand shop. stuffed a new battery in, and lo, there was enlightenment! however when i looked inside i noticed sum dickhead thought greasing the pot with butter wud be a gd idea. i mean, come one! surely theres a better lube (no innuendo intended...)

its a Jim Dunlop man, of course it sounds amazing! practically flawless, only fault being the (widely aforementioned) bypass, taking away your beautiful tone and exchanging it for sonething Dimebag Darrell would have bin happy with. however i dont notice it much ;).

well, i had a moment of panic when i thought it was broken, so (without testing the battery) decided to resolder all the connections. it probably improved the sound though. reliable? it dropped about 7 ft off our PA after sum twat left it there. played with it two minutes later, such was my trust in this beast. it was fine!

its not been needed, and i havent checked anyways. but if there is support needed i know for definite theres a billion and one sites that have circuit diagrams and things for mods.

i have played anything and everythin on this, though ive found this is best suited for classic rock i.e. jimi, clapton. but dont put it near crap music like Creed or Damageplan, or dirty, dirty Mettalica (everyone knows St. Anger was balls! Black Album tho, that was good...)Slash used it on Sweet Child O'Mine just in case you needed some more persuasion! only thing this baby could need would be noiseless switching, true bypass and maybe a larger sweep. other than that this is a tried and tested design used by the greats!

what can I say...its a freeeekin wah pedal,,,,#1 sold pedal invented by the Thomas Organ Factory in the late 60's. Its the original man, yeah baby,,,yeah!!!!

Well this is interesting. Its a fkn wah pedal thats what the quality is. HOWEVER,,,that being said,,,you DONT need to replace the SPDT switch with a DPDT one for TRUE BYPASS!!!!

You need to look up on the web for how you can solder (if you have enough technical savy to do this) whats called a JFET transistor, along with 2 1% metal oxide resistors (one is a 10k, the other,,,i dunno,,,lookitup). these parts cost me all of under $3.00. If you can read schematics the JFET will esentially pass your original guitar signal through the system, AND SOUND BETTER THAN MOST BYPASS JOBS!!!. When the unit is on, your wah sounds just like a wah, but when off, the input impedance for your pedal is in the mega ohms, and wont suck any tone out of yer original signal. The result...welll,, i did mine, and it worked. It sounds great.
Anyway, all im saying , dont buy into the hype of real(TRUE) bypass....get an active JFET transistor (for audio) with a couple of resistors, and a capacitor hooked up to your 9 volt battery source, and weeehhee....sounds fine. You need your schematic handy, and a good soldering iron, and the work is done just after the input resistor (for those who know about electronics)

Hey for less than $3.00 you tell me if you can hear the difference, even in your bedroom. If you cant,,then live playing is not even an issue. YOur original guitar signal will SOUND BETTER THAN TRUE BYPASS!!! TRUST ME.. IF YOU DONT BELEIVE ME.....LOOK IT UP!!

i dunno,,,its built like a shit brick house though..

support group yeah, for my green bud smokin

it will sound good, like the crybaby should, but without signal loss. Its a good pedal,,,its the original one. And if you are handy with a soldering iron, send away for a faisal inductor, and replace the one in there as well while your at it for the faisel model.

Plug it in, turn it on, done!

This sounds like a classic wah. It's a bit on the treble side but most wah's are. Definately a vintage wah sound. This wah sounds better with overdrive/distortion in my opinion. It just sounds like it likes it a bit more somehow. Clean it also sounds good though. When turned on, it adds also a little bit of distortion to your sound, which can be good if you engage it for solo's.

This is NOT true bypass. Too bad, my only not true bypass pedal in my chain. I'm gonna get it modded because it sucks your tone pretty bad. It's pretty noisy too, especially when your not sweeping it back and forth. But that doesn't really bothers me, it gives a more vintage feel to it which is good.

I can get that real Hendrix signature sound out of it when played with a strat into a tube amp.

I am very happy with this wahwah.


I give it an 8 for the tone suxt0r when it's off. Once i get a true bypass mod it will be a 9.

It's built like a US Army tank. I think it would survive a grenade.

Never dealt with them.

I like this wah. I always wanted one and after a lot of testing i fell for this one. It gives me exactly the sound i want because of it's vintage character. I play Blues (Hendrix stuff too), classic rock and hard rock (the real hard rock like GNR and Led Zeppelin, not that Slipknot bullshit you little twats!).

Final verdict: 8. It isn't perfect, but hey, rock isn't about perfection.