Dunlop Cry Baby GCB95 Settings Guide
The definitive wah pedal and the most-sold guitar effect ever made. A rocking treadle sweeps a bandpass filter between bass frequencies (heel down) and treble frequencies (toe down), producing the vocal "wah" character used by Hendrix, Clapton, Morello, and virtually every rock guitar solo of the past 60 years.
Used by: Jimi Hendrix, Tom Morello, Eric Clapton
The best Dunlop Cry Baby GCB95 settings start with: Treadle at 5/10. Adjust from there based on your amp, guitar, and room volume. For Classic Rock Lead: Treadle 8/10.
⚡ Start Here — Recommended Settings
| Control | Starting Position | Range |
|---|---|---|
| Treadle | 5/10 | Heel Down (Bass) → Toe Down (Treble) |
These are universal starting points. Adjust based on your amp, guitar, and room. Scroll down for genre-specific settings and artist-documented positions.
What Each Control Does
Recommended Starting Settings
Safe starting positions for any style. Adjust from here based on your amp and room.
All values on a 0–10 scale. These are starting points — fine-tune by ear.
Settings by Genre
Wah at the open, toe-down (treble) position for a sustained "crying" quality — holding the wah near the toe position and making small micro-movements is the classic rock wah solo technique. Hendrix's Voodoo Child, Clapton's White Room intro, and Morello's Killing in the Name all use this approach: wah held partially open with the foot, not rocked rhythmically.
Heel-down position as the default, rocked rhythmically with the music — the funk guitar wah technique is about matching the filter sweep to the chord stabs and rhythm pattern. Down beat: heel; upbeat accent: toe. The rocking speed and rhythm create the percussive vocal character of funk wah guitar. Isaac Hayes, Curtis Mayfield, and early Jimi Hendrix "Machine Gun" approach.
Mid-position for a static filtered tone — the wah pedal held at approximately 50% sweep creates a fixed bandpass boost that adds a honky, vocal-like frequency emphasis without the movement. Useful as a solo tone colour rather than a rhythmically active effect. Park the wah mid-sweep and use the guitar's volume and picking dynamics for expression.
Heel-near position for a bass-heavy wah tone — the filter near the heel position produces a dark, low-mid emphasis that thickens power chords and heavy riffs without the treble brightness of the open position. Tom Morello uses wah in unconventional fixed positions and with rapid heel-toe switching to create mechanical, robotic sounds that are more DJ-scratching than traditional guitar wah.
Artist Settings
Documented settings used by professional guitarists on this unit.
Hendrix used the Vox Wah (and later the Cry Baby) with a partial-open technique — the wah held near the toe position for the sustained cry rather than constantly rocked. Voodoo Child's opening riff rocks the wah slowly; later sections hold it in the open treble position for the distinctive cry sustained under his pentatonic phrases. He was the first guitarist to establish wah as a lead-tone tool rather than just a rhythm novelty.
Morello uses the wah in DJ-inspired ways — rapid heel-toe switching to create rhythmic gating effects, held positions for filtered tone colours, and extreme sweep speeds that create mechanical sounds beyond traditional guitar expression. His wah technique on Killing in the Name and Bulls on Parade defines the alternative metal wah vocabulary: fast, mechanical, and often combined with his killswitch technique.
Clapton used the Vox Wah on White Room and Politician with a slow, deliberate sweep — not the fast funk rhythm rock but a measured, vocal quality sweep that matched his blues-derived phrasing. The wah held near-open during sustained notes and rocked slowly between phrases creates the crying, human quality of his Cream-era wah approach.
Tips & Common Mistakes
- Standard Cry Baby GCB95 is not true bypass — in bypass mode the signal passes through the wah circuit and can slightly colour tone, especially with brighter single-coil guitars. A Dunlop 535Q adds a switchable buffer; a true bypass loop switch is the third option.
- Wah placement in the signal chain matters dramatically: before dirt pedals produces a warmer, embedded wah sound (the filter colours the input to the distortion); after dirt pedals produces a brighter, more obvious wah sound over already-distorted signal.
- The standard Cry Baby has a fixed internal pot and sweep range — the 535Q Multi-Wah adds six-position range adjustment and Q control to customise where the sweep sits in the frequency range. Players who find the GCB95 too bright or nasal in their rig often find the 535Q solves it.
- Wah into fuzz: Hendrix used wah before his Fuzz Face — the fuzz reacts differently to the filtered input signal and produces a more vocal, synthetic quality than wah placed after fuzz. Try both positions to find the more useful character in your signal chain.
- The rocking weight of the Cry Baby is lighter than it looks — some players find the tension too light and adjust the setscrew on the treadle mechanism to increase resistance for more precise control over slow, deliberate sweeps.
FAQ
Dunlop Cry Baby GCB95 — Common Questions
Best starting settings for Dunlop Cry Baby GCB95: Treadle at 5/10. Adjust from there based on your guitar, room, and playing style.
For Classic Rock Lead: Treadle 8/10. Wah at the open, toe-down (treble) position for a sustained "crying" quality — holding the wah near the toe position and making small micro-movements is the classic rock wah solo technique. Hendrix's Voodoo Child, Clapton's White Room intro, and Morello's Killing in the Name all use this approach: wah held partially open with the foot, not rocked rhythmically.
For Funk Rhythm: Treadle 3/10. Heel-down position as the default, rocked rhythmically with the music — the funk guitar wah technique is about matching the filter sweep to the chord stabs and rhythm pattern. Down beat: heel; upbeat accent: toe. The rocking speed and rhythm create the percussive vocal character of funk wah guitar. Isaac Hayes, Curtis Mayfield, and early Jimi Hendrix "Machine Gun" approach.
Treadle: The foot-rocked control — sweeps the bandpass filter from its lowest (heel) position centred around 450Hz to its highest (toe) position centred around 1.6kHz. The speed and rhythm of the sweep is the musical expression. (Heel Down (Bass) to Toe Down (Treble))
Standard Cry Baby GCB95 is not true bypass — in bypass mode the signal passes through the wah circuit and can slightly colour tone, especially with brighter single-coil guitars. A Dunlop 535Q adds a switchable buffer; a true bypass loop switch is the third option. Wah placement in the signal chain matters dramatically: before dirt pedals produces a warmer, embedded wah sound (the filter colours the input to the distortion); after dirt pedals produces a brighter, more obvious wah sound over already-distorted signal. The standard Cry Baby has a fixed internal pot and sweep range — the 535Q Multi-Wah adds six-position range adjustment and Q control to customise where the sweep sits in the frequency range. Players who find the GCB95 too bright or nasal in their rig often find the 535Q solves it. Wah into fuzz: Hendrix used wah before his Fuzz Face — the fuzz reacts differently to the filtered input signal and produces a more vocal, synthetic quality than wah placed after fuzz. Try both positions to find the more useful character in your signal chain. The rocking weight of the Cry Baby is lighter than it looks — some players find the tension too light and adjust the setscrew on the treadle mechanism to increase resistance for more precise control over slow, deliberate sweeps.
Jimi Hendrix settings: Treadle 7/10. Hendrix used the Vox Wah (and later the Cry Baby) with a partial-open technique — the wah held near the toe position for the sustained cry rather than constantly rocked. Voodoo Child's opening riff rocks the wah slowly; later sections hold it in the open treble position for the distinctive cry sustained under his pentatonic phrases. He was the first guitarist to establish wah as a lead-tone tool rather than just a rhythm novelty.
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