NOTHING JUNIOR ABOUT THE SOUND
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Dunlop makes a Cry Baby Wah-Wah pedal for every player and style of music. The Cry Baby Junior is a slightly smaller version of the classic Cry Baby wah pedal. Designed in collaboration with Pedal Train, is this the best wah pedal Dunlop has ever built?
The Cry Baby Junior (CBJ) is packed full of useful features that will leave a vintage style wah feeling lonely. Lets start with the size; the CBJ is slightly smaller than the classic Cry Baby model. The reduced physical size means the CBJ takes up considerably less space on your pedalboard (so you can pack in more pedals :).
ON-OFF LED INDICATOR - Come out of the darkness
The Cry Baby Junior includes an LED which lights when the pedal is active. Never again will you accidentally play a song with a cocked wah, the LED is positioned so the performer can see it easily.
THREE POSITION VOICE SWITCH
There is a tiny three position switch on the side of the CBJ. This switch controls the "voicing" of the pedal, the voices are:
- Agressuve
- Vintage
- Dark
This switch is truly recessed, you'll need something small to reach in and change the position. It's not a super heavy duty switch either so don't plan on changing the setting often; for occasional adjustments it should be fine.
TOP MOUNTED JACKS
For years Cry Baby Wah pedals have had the input on the right side and the output on the left side. This Junior model moves the jacks up to the front (Fulltone called this top mounted) where the Cry Baby logo usually shows off to the audience.
DUAL POWER
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For many years Wah pedals were all powered by a standard 9-volt transistor radio battery and that was your only option. You had to remove the screws which hold on the feet just to change the battery. Not any more. The CBJ features a nice plastic battery door in the bottom which makes changing the inbuilt battery a breeze. You turn on the circuitry when you plug a cable into the input jack of the CBJ. Fortunately Wah pedals don't draw much current (mA) so a battery can last for months if you unplug the input jack when not in use.
Dunlop added external pedalboard power input jacks which use the standard polarity so they're compatible with all the popular power supply makers (like Voodoo Lab).
QUALITY BUILD
These pedals have a nice solid build quality. All the parts and pieces fit together and operate well to deliver a great feel to the player. A wah pedal is an interactive dynamic device, it reacts to your input and this slightly compact model from Dunlop never disappoints.
EPILOGUE
I got my first Wah pedal 55 years ago. Since then I've had many different brands but none of them has advanced the whole pedal design quite like the Cry Baby Junior. I love the sound of a good, well played wah, possibly even more important is the feel of the pedal under your foot. That interactive feel coupled with a good bite in the tone has helped Dunlop sell more Cry Baby Wah pedals than all other wah pedal brands combined.
I like the Cry Baby Junior a lot, if I was using a Cry Baby live this would be the one.
Thanks for reading High on Technology. Good Music To You!
©January 2024 by Mark King. It's not ok to copy or quote without written permission from the author.
