yet another crybaby mod

Started by pinkjimiphoton, April 27, 2017, 08:02:53 PM

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pinkjimiphoton

so i was dicking around a couple weeks ago trying to switch the pot in a crybaby from a volume pot to a wah pot.
big pain in the ass. it worked, but the volume was backwards.

i think it was dino said the obvious. "use a dual gang pot".

so i surfed around and found one in big blighty, a dual 100k c taper pot that had a decent looking quality. the shaft is a d shaped plastic,
but i think it will hold up alright.

so i was wiring up my personal wah that i had modded back 20 some years ago with the help and expertise of mr. keen.
i noticed i had never true bypassed it, nor had i removed the input buffer. more on that in a minute.

basically , i just put in a 3pdt (so i can add an led if i wanna get vain) and wired it up so that the bypass part of the switch instead of being a wire was the extra pot. i jumpered the ground from the wah pot to the opposite side of the volume pot, as otherwise it would be backwards in volume mode.

fired it up, and with a little adjustment, it worked trick. i can go from all the way off to full volume just like that, and kick the wah in and the volume was good.

BUT the volume pedal part was a little dull sounding. i tried a bypass cap, wasn't too psyched by it.

it was really good with a fuzz!! real nice, but guitar by itself was kinda limp and pale.

then i realized i'm an idiot for like, the 30000000th time today and noticed... well, i got this here buffer here...already on the board...

so i decided to exploit it.
if its a gcb95 rev e,f, or g, first thing is disconnect the green wire and tape it off. you don't need it anymore.

in the pic below, the 68k input cap? lift the top side of the resistor. take a wire from that hole to the input of your bypass switch. take the output to the board from the switch back to the free side of the 68k resistor.

wire in the second pot to the switch as you would normally instead of a jumper.
remember to ground the opposite side from the side the wah has grounded.

suddenly you have a buffered volume pedal that is smooth and clear sounding with no discernable loss of tone or volume, or the standard crybaby circuit with the buffer in place.

i know everybody says take the @#$%in buffer out, its a tone suck, but i like the thing, and like the fact i don't get a volume drop when i kick the wah on.

just where the volume JU UU UU UUUUUSt dissappears seems to be a good point for both the volume function and the wah as well.

really easy mod.

the purple wire goes to the output jack, so put that to the center lug of the output side of the switch, and the blue wire(s) to the top one.  i wired the input and output on the outside lugs of a 3pdt so the middle is open. i like it that way. if i wire an led up... likely... i will ground the center pin in the center row, use the top pin for the led cathode and run a jumper from the bottom center to input side top. that way (for the newbs) the input of the wah circuit is grounded when it's in wah mode, so no leakage.

but anyways, if ya ever wanted to make a wah pedal do volume too, this is the easiest way i've found to do it so far.

just thought i''d share. if anybody doesn't grok the mod, say the word and i'll mock up a diagram. but its pretty easy.

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