Request for help with modified Cry Baby

[Henry89789]

More than a year ago I modified a Cry Baby GCB-95 with a red fasel and other changes. It worked but souned really bad so I put it away. I'd like to get it sounding good the way a red fasel is supposed to sound (from what I read). It has the light beige colored "Rev. G  12-8-94" circuit board. I was hoping someone might have some suggestions on how to get this sounding right.  The changes I made are as follws:

Removed: C10, R16, R13, R14, Q3, and C9; because I read that if these components are removed it will make the pedal true bypass.

R9= 300 ohms;  The resistor just to the right of and  next to R13= 57K;  R1=2.2k; R5 (next to the fasel) has been changed to  a 33k resistor  which is connected to a B100K pot. And of course I changed the inductor to a red fasel. Are any of the things I did wrong?   Are any of the resistors or the B100K pot the wrong value?  Any suggestions on how to make this sound better?   Thanks in advance for any suggestions?

[joegagan]

did you wire the wah truebypass , meaning, did you change the switch? can you post photos and descriptions of the rest of the wiring?

i assume your green wire at the old emitter hole of Q3 is your input to circuit.

the way you changed so many things at once it will be hard to tell where it went wrong.

basically, most of what you mention are all reasonable mods, assuming the 100k is wired correctly series with the 33k.

looks like you replaced the input 68kR with 57k? this will make it louder and possibly be too much gain into the circ considering that your change of r9 is also a gain adder.

expecting the red fasel to be magic might be an unreasonable expectation, i don't like the sound of em myself.

the wah is a delicate balancing act, the parts must all work together to make the sweep sound like a good wah. you might have just moved everything a little too far out of the sweet range.

assuming everything is wired correctly, the first thing i would try is changing the 300 ohm back to the stock value to see if it improves.  also, temporarily disconnect the 100kpot  at the 33k  , wire the 33k as stock to see how you like the sound of that.

[drolo]

What exactly do you call "sounded really bad" ? could you describe?

[Henry89789]

JoeGagan:

Thanks for the reply. I changed the 300 ohm resistor back to 390 ohm and I liked the sound of it better than with the 300. Attached is a pic of the top part of pedal with the wiring up to the switch.

[joegagan]

ok, just getting to all the basics here.
can't tell from the pic, is the input wire from the jack properly re-routed?
proceed to trying the 33k without the pot and see if you like that as well.

note, that red pointer knob is probably not doing a good job in the position in the photo

[Henry89789]

Joe:

Re: Red pointer knob. LOL. No wonder it doesn't sound right!

No, seriously, I think everything else is wired right. I played it on my cranked up tube amp today, (had to adjust the pot a little) and am completely happy with the sound. I am not going to do anything else to it. It is amazing how just a change from a 300 to a 390 ohm resistor significantly improved the sound.      Thanks again.

[Henry89789]

One more note on this which may be interesting .... When I modded the CB with the red fasel (plus the "vocal" mod and something else) I also did a second CB with a yellow fasel. I did both (almost) the same way except for the fasels. (I was thinking of doing a comparison between the red and yellow with all else equal for you tube). The only difference was that on the CB/red fasel   I changed the 390 ohm resistor to 300 ohm and on the CB/yellow fasel I substituted the 390 for a 330. The CB/red-300 did not sound good at all. The CB/yellow sounded good with a 330 and I am not sure which tone I liked better: the one from the CB/yellow-330 or the one from the CB/yellow-390 (I liked them both). I think I am going to see if there is a 360 ohm resistor and try that in the CB/yellow.  It seems that if you do these mods to a Cry Baby you can really tweak the tone by changing that 390 ohm resistor.  Can anyone who understands the theory on which these things work explain why a relatively small 90 ohm change in a resistor would create such a substantial change in tone ?

[joegagan]

the whole circuit is a balance between the two transistors. the emitter to ground R on Q1  sets the gain of Q1, so the whole balance gets affected by small gain changes. a lot of people install a 500 ohm resistor at this location to see what they like the best. there are some commercial wahs that have a 1k pot controlled externally for this same reason.