Microphonic Cry Baby

[jrem]

hey to all . . .     so I put my old Cry Baby in front of a BSIAB2 and eek!  massive scratchyness when operating the pot.

Any hints what to look for?  I sprayed the pot with tuner cleaner, it helped a bit (I think, maybe not) but it's still too scratchy.  Any ideas? 

Thanks . . .    John.

[drewl]

Most wah pots are "sealed" and the only way to really clean them out is to disassemble it, clean and reassemble.
You may have an intermittant or corroded ground connection, happens alot on the older ones the metal starts to oxidize etc.
Try cleaning all your chassis ground connections, lightly sand or file the metal clean to ensure proper connections.

[Zben3129]

Does it scratch with this setup?:

guitar--->crybaby---->amp?

I think the pot may always scratch, just when you put a gain pedal after it, you highly amplifying that scratch.

Try this on the volume you normally play at, and then at high volumes. I think you may find that it always scratches, just when not boosted (mid-high gain pedal afterwards) and your not playing at highly amplified volumes, you can't hear it, or just a very little amount.

If this is the case, then you just have the scratchy pot to worry about and atleast can forget about the bsiab as the culprit.

PS as well as the setup above, try something like guitar--->crybaby--->ts, dist+, rat...etc--->amp, and I expect you will get the same results as with the bsiab2.

[jrem]

yes, I believe you are correct.   I used to play with a rangemaster clone and a distortion + after it.  But I built the BSIAB2 and want to use it.

Then . . .  more info . . .    all my pedals (every @#$%ing one of them) were on the floor in my basement, I was building up a pedal board, and one morning last week, yes you can see this coming, 8" of water.  AHHHHH!!!!   The pedals weren't the only things trashed.  My basement was like the titanic.   Piss me off.  Actually, I cleaned the pedals with RO water, and cooked them in the oven at 170deg.  The only pedal I think I lost was a Boss chromatic tuner.  New one on the way.

So after that, I'm wondering if wet caps can get screwey.  I think it's the pot, though, it's always been somewhat noisy, and now with the water issue I'm just overly aware.  That and the BSIAB2 is a gainly mo-fo!

Thanks, John.

[Zben3129]

This happened to me once

Original NES (was working,  now works 1/100) and all the games

Stupid basements

It wasnt even from rain, it was from a hot day with lots of snow on the ground. Everything melted.....directly into my basement.


Anyways, you may have some rust inside your pot, which I can definitely see making noise, seeing as if a little spot of rust on the resistive strip was nonconductive, you would get the same scratch as dust/normal pot scratch.

I don't know how to fix this, you certainly have a ...well...unique problem

I fear the only way to fix it is to open it up, but hopefully there are other options.

And yes, I did see it coming, once you said all on the floor.

Zach

[jrem]

I can get that pot open, no prob, I cracked it a bit to spray the tuner cleaner in there.  The damn wah is about 32 years old, probably due for a new pot.  It's been worked hard.

[drewl]

I can get that pot open, no prob, I cracked it a bit to spray the tuner cleaner in there.  The damn wah is about 32 years old, probably due for a new pot.  It's been worked hard.

Ding Ding: we have a winner!
I got my wah for my 16th birthday....so it's pretty old now