GCB-95 Crybaby Wah MODS

Another big one! Here is the famous crybaby GCB-95 wah pedal. A lot of people have this one, therefore, even more people are looking to mod it. A simple google search delivers a wide array of mods that is enough to boggle the mind of anybody trying to choose which ones to do. 

I'm not doing anything revolutionary here but I did some common mods that, in my opinion, sound great! Some resistor values are lowered to increase the gain going into the transistor, effectively increasing the gain of the circuit. This however gives a great sounding wah sound!

Here are some pics of the changes I did to the board:

There's a nice little picture of the PCB. There are some variations between the different years. I believe this is one of the most recent GCB-95's. 

R5: Changing this will change the Q of the effect. The Q is the width of the bandpass filter. Lower resistance, more subtle wah sound. Higher resistance will give you a sharper more vocal wah.  

Stock: 33k

Mods: -47k

           -68k  -  (This is the one I choose) 

           -100k

R1: Increasing this will smooth out the transition between heel to toe. Sometimes the stock wah can transition quite rapidly and doesn't sound too good. This should smooth out that transition and increase the mids.  

Stock: 1.5k
Mods: -1.8k
           -2.2k  -  (This is the one I choose)
           -2.7k

R9: This resistor change will increase the gain of that transistor and add more bass response.
Stock: 390ohm
Mods: -270ohm
           -300ohm
           -330ohm - (The one I choose)

            

R15: This is the input resistor. Therefore, if you decrease it, more signal will pass through the circuit and as a result, it will give it a little volume boost
Stock: 68k - (I stuck with this value because I found it had no huge difference with the 47k)
Mods: 47k
       

List of mods done on my wah:

• Resistor       Stock        Mod
• R5               33k           68k
• R1               1.5k          2.2k
• R9               390ohm    330ohm
• R15             68k           68k

Everybody has their own preference of wah pedal. I like the way mine turned out, but I encourage you try different values and find out what works well with your rig. In general, all of these mods increased the gain going into the transistors. You can definitely hear the difference, my wah sounds more vocal, louder, and more gainier.

Happy modding!