how to widen the sweep on an older crybaby?

runmikeyrun · February 06, 2012, 02:09:19 AM

My crybaby is really peaky, only a short part of the travel actually does anything... how can I widen this to make the pedal actually usable? It's a late 80s model with 2 5117 trannies, not the 1 MPSA13 and 2 MPSA18 version that the FatWah mod works on. Any ideas? JoeGagan said my inductor probably sucks, should I just look at replacing that?

paulyy · February 06, 2012, 07:09:33 AM

I'm guessing you might have tryed this but You could try resetting the pot by loosing the tension clutch and moving the pinion gear to see if that helps. It could just be bad placment. As far as your trannies go, They should be fine. What kind of pot are you using? It could be that. If this was the board you got off ebay ( the one I was thinking about getting) The inductor would be the first thing on the board to go.

Fender3D · February 06, 2012, 10:55:52 AM

You might as well try another pot (different value or coarse A,B,C )
... Or a bigger shoe

joegagan · February 06, 2012, 01:42:00 PM

mike,sending you a couple inductors today.

you can widen the sweep by increasin the sweep cap (.01 off q2 emitter/inductor). a little goes a long way, try adding .002 at a time in parallel while listening. you can lower the sweep some without altering the highs. generally, the higher the pot value, the more highs.

Paul Marossy · February 06, 2012, 02:36:18 PM

Quote from: runmikeyrun on February 06, 2012, 02:09:19 AM
My crybaby is really peaky, only a short part of the travel actually does anything... how can I widen this to make the pedal actually usable? It's a late 80s model with 2 5117 trannies, not the 1 MPSA13 and 2 MPSA18 version that the FatWah mod works on. Any ideas? JoeGagan said my inductor probably sucks, should I just look at replacing that?

I have a wah with the "dreaded" TDK 5103 inductor in it - which I assume yours also has? It's my best sounding Crybaby type wah pedal (not counting my beloved Maestro Boomerangs).

What kind of pot is in yours? Mine has the original pot in it. It's not a "Hot Potz" type pot. Maybe it's a pot taper thing. The inductor is not the first thing that comes to my mind when talking about the amount of sweep on tap.

joegagan · February 06, 2012, 03:44:24 PM

paul, those tdk inductors can sound excellent. there were two basics specs that show up. one = approx 18 ohm resistance, the other is around 144. i would be curious as to which you have.

i suspect that the reason the stack of dimes inductors ( used at the same time as the tdks from early 70s to 80s ) are so coveted is that their specs were more tightly controlled. they almost always measure very close to 500 mh and right at 38 - 43 ohm. i think these numbers just happen to work well with the stock values of a production crybaby. we have seen many people get beautiful wah sounds by tweaking the sweep cap and other parts to make other inductorrs work well in the vox CB circuit.

the morley wahs have used a 500 mh/ 12 ohm inductor for ages, their schems even list these exact specs! with tweaking ,this 12 ohm inductor can be made to sound great in a CB circ. dunlop even used them for a short while in the late 80s or early 90s. seen here,note similarty to run mikey's board/connector, etc):

joegagan · February 06, 2012, 03:59:52 PM

don't forget, when jim dunlop bought the crybaby brand from whirlpool, he took possession of all the parts, which apparently included a lot of SOD inductors. i have seen many many examples of dunlop built CBs with SOd inductors

runmikeyrun · February 06, 2012, 04:06:35 PM

I'll address these one at a time if I can:

I did try resetting the pinion gear to no avail. Yes Paulyy, it is the board I got on ebay.

I have already done the cap mod off Q2 emitter, and it moved the range, but the useable range is still very small.

I have a Hot Potz II, put that in, didn't help at all.

Don't have a pic, but my inductor is a small black canister shaped thing, looks like an oversize cap. About the diameter of a cigarette and about 1/2" tall.

Joe, thank you SO much! I will let you know when I get them.

joegagan · February 06, 2012, 04:11:52 PM

the inductor is your prob. those things will not do a proper Q. dunlop made a bad error when they decided to go with those. it was a very short lived run, the dealers probably tore em a second and third poop exit hole. when you are a mfgr, dealers are your sun, moon and stars!

Paul Marossy · February 07, 2012, 10:04:54 AM

Quote from: joegagan on February 06, 2012, 03:44:24 PM
paul, those tdk inductors can sound excellent. there were two basics specs that show up. one = approx 18 ohm resistance, the other is around 144. i would be curious as to which you have.

Huh, that's interesting info. I should try measuring that sometime.

EDIT: I guess I should qualify what I mean by "best sounding wah". When I say that, it's smooth yet still quite expressive. Not harsh or "peaky", I hate that. I won't play a wah that sounds harsh, can't stand that.

runmikeyrun · February 08, 2012, 08:23:42 PM

Joe you made me LOL thinking about 2nd and 3rd poop exits... hahaha!

joegagan · February 08, 2012, 11:25:32 PM

tore em a new a$$hole!

you know, music store guys can be harsh critics, if a product is crap they don't hold back.

runmikeyrun · February 09, 2012, 11:39:01 AM

right, because why should they sell a product that sucks, only garnering customer complaints, returns, and lost sales?

DavenPaget · February 09, 2012, 11:43:27 AM

Quote from: joegagan on February 08, 2012, 11:25:32 PM
tore em a new a$$hole!

you know, music store guys can be harsh critics, if a product is crap they don't hold back.

You think something is good , they recommend something is crap .
I was looking to buy a really solid $55SGD chinese boss pedal clones , and the store guys from another shop kept ranting how bullsh!t it is , not really . Haven't seen it break down or sound horrible like they claim it to .

runmikeyrun · February 10, 2012, 10:44:38 AM

Ok, so Joe Gagan was so kind as to send me a couple inductors and an arteffect pot. Between those two it really helped a lot! I ended up using that pot and a smaller mid-90s CB inductor. Since i'm using this for bass I need a bit more top end in the sweep, so I'm going to adjust the cap values on my 6P2T rotary switch setup to give me more high end. I thought I'd need to shift it to the bassier side, but the bass gets lost the lower it goes.

Thanks again Joe! I love this board

clamhandsmcgee · February 10, 2012, 11:39:34 PM

A couple of things that I did to mine was change out the stock inductor, and I also cut the rubber stops with an X-acto knife to increase the range.

Somicide · February 11, 2012, 01:13:24 AM

Quote from: clamhandsmcgee on February 10, 2012, 11:39:34 PM
A couple of things that I did to mine was change out the stock inductor, and I also cut the rubber stops with an X-acto knife to increase the range.

I tore those bastards off after reading that some famous metal guitarist did for extended sweep and liking to "feel it crunch" when he activated his wah. This was either Zakk Wylde or Dimebag Darrell, not sure which haha.

You DO need to lower the switch if you do this; and yes, that crunch is EXTREMELY satisfying.

joegagan · February 11, 2012, 08:30:54 AM

might have been dime. i recall a video of his buddy TEARING up his expensive lawn somewhere in texas- ford truck or bronco., dime was just laughing his ass off.

runmikeyrun · February 13, 2012, 10:12:17 AM

Here's a quick clip I made of the wah in action on my bass... My phone picked up my pick scraping strings so just ignore that lol...

http://soundcloud.com/michael-torchia/modified-crybaby-demo

runmikeyrun · February 13, 2012, 10:13:24 AM

Oh and yeah cutting off those rubber stops... Got that covered a long time ago! Thanks for the suggestion though

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how to widen the sweep on an older crybaby?