Dunlop GCB65 Cry Baby

The Dunlop GCB65 Cry Baby Custom Badass Dual-Inductor Edition Wah is a limited edition wah pedal from Dunlop that puts two different wah voices in one housing. Instead of committing to a single inductor, the component that shapes a wah's character, it carries both the Halo Inductor and the red Fasel Inductor, and a kickswitch on the right side of the pedal lets you move between them at any time¹.

Dunlop positions the two voices as two eras of the Cry Baby's history. The Halo Inductor produces what the company describes as a wide, highly expressive sweep and a throaty midrange hinting at feedback, richness and punch for lead tones. The red Fasel Inductor, the sound of the Cry Baby's modern era, serves up bright clarity and lush harmonics, and is combined with the circuitry of the GCB95¹.

Two wah voices in one pedal

A wah pedal is a bandpass filter: it boosts a resonant frequency and attenuates the harmonics above and below it, and rocking the pedal moves that boosted peak across the frequency spectrum. In the classic GCB-95 circuit, the resonant peak sits around 750 Hz with the internal variable resistor at its mid position, sweeping from 450 Hz to 1.6 kHz, with selected frequencies amplified up to 18 dB⁴.

What makes the GCB65 different is that its two inductors place that sweep in two different zones, and each inductor has its own toe-down frequency control, so you can balance them out or emphasize their natural qualities¹. The rocker itself features a custom double tread design that Dunlop says enhances foot grip¹.

Dunlop also notes that the red Fasel Inductor, combined with the GCB95 circuitry, allows you to kick the effect on at super high volumes without unwanted artifacts¹. The Fasel inductor is the same component family Dunlop uses in the Cry Baby Standard Wah, where the company pairs it with a focused high end and an aggressive wah sound⁵.

The controls: kickswitch, Fasel Fine-Tune and LEDs

The GCB65 keeps the familiar Cry Baby rocker arrangement and adds the switching needed for two voices. The controls, as listed in Dunlop's manual²:

The kickswitch sits on the right side of the pedal, where it can be reached mid-performance, and the fine-tune knobs adjust the toe-down frequency from bright to dark⁶. Setting up is the standard Cry Baby procedure: run an instrument cable from your guitar to the GCB65's INSTRUMENT jack, then another from the AMPLIFIER jack into your amplifier's input².

Center frequencies and gain

The manual's specifications show how the two voices differ in numbers as well as in character²:

Maximum gain is +18 dB, with a noise floor below -99 dBV heel down and below -90 dBV toe down². For comparison, that gain figure matches the Clyde McCoy Cry Baby Wah's +18 dB, while some signature models in the line run higher, such as the Jerry Cantrell I Want Blood at +20 dBV toe down⁷⁸.

Power

The GCB65 runs on 9 volts DC. It can be powered by one 9-volt battery, accessed via the underside of the pedal, by a Dunlop ECB003 9-volt adapter, or by the DC Brick, Iso-Brick, and Mini Iso-Brick power supplies². The battery option is common across the Cry Baby line, from the Cry Baby Classic to the 535Q Multi-Wah⁹¹⁰.

Where it sits in the Cry Baby line

Most Cry Baby models fix you to one voice: the GCB95 Standard with its Fasel inductor and aggressive sound, the Clyde McCoy for the throaty original, or the many artist signature models. The GCB65's approach is closer to the multi-voice wahs, such as the Cry Baby Mini with its three internally adjustable voicings of Low, Vintage and GCB95, or the Junior's three-position voice switch¹¹¹²¹³. The difference is that the GCB65 gives you two full inductors rather than voicing tweaks of a single circuit, each with its own sweep range and its own toe-down control.

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