Dunlop Cry Baby GCB-95
About a week ago, I wrote an article about getting a wah pedal. I had tried out and listened to several, and actually dug on a lot of them, but I just kept on coming back to the original Cry Baby. There has just been something about the classic sound of the Cry Baby that just makes me close my eyes with a smile of complete satisfaction while I’m playing.
For other players, this classic wah sound may not be their cup of tea, but this is the sound I grew up with. Every cop show on TV in the 70’s had a guitar played through a wah, and of course, let’s not forget Jimi who took it to another dimension. And it’s not like I’m going to try to play like Jimi – frankly, no one can – it’s just a sound that I’m used to, and it puts me in a time warp, back to when I was a kid.
Did nostalgia make me pick the GCB-95? It probably had a lot to do with it, but that’s the thing about tone: It’s what you like that matters. I didn’t get that nostalgic feeling of my youth with a lot of the other pedals. Yeah, I do admit there were some really awesome ones out there that I was ready to buy, but I figured that those could actually wait. I just couldn’t justify making a substantial investment into something that was so new to me. But I could get a Cry Baby at a fraction of the price, and I figured that since I was so new to playing with a wah, it would be best to instead make a minor investment to try out the technology before I spent a couple of hundred on a more expensive model. So, I forked out a reasonable $49 bucks at my local used gear shop for Cry Baby in excellent condition and saved even more money to hedge my bet.
So after a day, what’s my take? Well… I should’ve gotten a wah a long time ago! Don’t know what it is about it, but I’ve taken to it like a fish to water! Not to say that I’ve completely mastered it in a day, but it sure does feel natural. And you know what? The Original Cry Baby may be bordering on the vintage with respect to tone, it may only cost $69 used, and may be considered way too low tech for more modern players’ likings, but it totally does the job for me. I’m very satisfied.
Guitar Gear 