Finally happy with my modded CryBaby ....

[george]

About a month ago I picked up a GCB-95 for US$50 on ebay.  I figured I could pick a secondhand one up cheap and mod it.

After trying out the mods out on my forum, in particular Paul Marossy's and Doug Hammond's, I'm finally happy with this:

- true bypass (go here it's step-by-step and foolproff: http://members01.chello.se/pastorn/fx/mods/dunlop.htm and also tells you how to get rid of the crappy stock input buffer)
- no input buffer
- replace Q1 emitter 470 transistor with 100ohm
- replace 33k transistor in parallel with inductor with 47K ("vocal" mod)

It's basically Doug Hammond's setup without the FET buffer.  I also kept the 68k input resistor.

Now I don't get "icepick in the ears" tone on the bridge pickup and the neck pickup sounds fatter but still not muddy!  More "wocka-wocka" than "wacka-wacka", maybe not quite Hendrix or SRV tone but it sounds good to me, and it's cheaper than paying $30 for a fulltone or replica halo or stack-of-dimes inductor.

I tried out a yellow Fasel inductor before doing the above mods but I didn't like it - I might put it back in and see how it sounds now ...

just thought I'd share this with y'all ...

[siaoguitar]

Hi, George, just wondering if you got this slight hiss & radio frequency when your wah is fully toe front? coz mine did, it is modded by me, i did most of the mod from that site..vocal, gain, true bypass.....)

[george]

Hi siao
I might get slight hiss but it's drowned out by the buzz from strat's pickups ... ;-) .  Haven't heaard any radio frequencies ...

I know there are ways of getting rid of radio frequencies - maybe in the FAQ or Aron's hints and tips?

[vdm]

when you increase the gain, all the frequencies are increased, and this will cause any noise that was previously heard to be even louder. so that would explain the noise you get, it was probably too small to notice before.

i get a little bit of noise from my wah and it's almost stock. i did the vocal mod on mine with just the 47k and i really didn't like it, everything seemed to be too abrupt and i lost all the smooth transition. so i've settled on the increased midrange mod and i moved the sweep range down with a 15nF cap replacing the 10nF.

these 2 mods made the wah much more thick and rich, and despite still having the buffer and non-true-bypass, i really don't mind with my les paul, into marshall amp. lots of treble has never really been my thing.

trent

[siaoguitar]

Hi vdm, sorry, may i know what to do for the midrange mod?
i wana do it for mine

[Lonestarjohnny]

Here's a good link for checking out some Old Wah's that you might not have seen before.
http://members.chello.nl/~t.heertjes/Wah%20wah.html
Johnny

[Lonestarjohnny]

http://homepage.ntlworld.com/s.castledine/greenfuz/wah.html
And here's a link to the Mod's that I like for the Wah Wah, You just have to play around with the value's of each mod to fine tune it for the type of inductor it has and for your taste.
Johnny