Crybaby 95Q Wah

What makes it interesting?

95Q is switchless, meaning that you don’t need to press it all way down to turn it on and off. In the heel of the pedal, there’s a small hidden tactile switch which controls bypass circuit. The second you set your foot on the pedal, the switch opens and turns the wah on. When there’s no pressure on the pedal, spring makes it return back to the upper position and makes it go into bypass mode. There’s internal trimmer which controls delay between the moment foot is set off the pedal and the moment it goes into bypass mode. By default, it’s set to approx. half a second which works fine for me.

This is my first wah so it wasn’t a problem for me to adjust to springy action and switchless operation, but it could be for folks who are used to traditional wahs. Also, it’s not possible to leave it switched on and set it midway a’la Santana because of the spring.

It also has built in booster that goes up to 15dB, also controllable with a pot. There’s a switch on the right side that turns the booster on and off. It can be pressed with foot but it’s plastic so I’d be careful. Booster is useful when a more gain is needed for solo and makes wah scream.

Another useful feature is variable Q factor. There’s small pot on the side to control it and it can make it more or less subtle. It can dial Hendrix-y tones or more subtle tones suitable for

Crybaby 95Q

What about the competition?
When I was on the market for wah there were a couple of interesting pedals I was considering:

  • Morley Bad Horsie 1 and 2: priced 110$ and 130$ respectively. Also switchless and version 2 has variable Q. I didn’t get them because a) I’m not sure that they can come close to real pot taper by using an opto-resistor and LED and b) they are larger than the crybaby and form factor is important to me.
  • Cybaby 535Q: costs a bit more, offers even more controls, but is not switchless.
  • Behringer Hellbabe: costs peanuts, but made of plastic. It’s also switchess using opto-coupler like Morley wahs.
What I like about it?
  • Switchless operation, makes it really effortless to use it.
  • Variable Q adds versatility.
  • Solid metal enclosure, built to last.
  • Uses genuine red Fasel inductor.
  • Hot Pots pot works well.
  • Booster is nice feature, although I don’t use it that often.
What I don’t like about it?
  • Board is made with SMD components which makes it impossible to mod or mess around. I don’t want to mod it, but it would be better if I could 🙂
  • Bypass switch is made of plastic, could be better.
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    The idea behind this site is to share my experience with Do It Yourself approach to guitars, amplifiers and pedals. Whether you want to save a couple of bucks by performing a mod or upgrade yourself instead of paying a tech, or want to build your own piece of gear from scratch, I'm sure you will find something interesting here. Also, this is the home of DIY Layout Creator, a free piece of software for drawing circuit layouts and schematics, written with DIY enthusiasts in mind.