Dunlop Jerry Cantrell Rainier Fog Cry Baby Wah

The Dunlop Jerry Cantrell Rainier Fog Cry Baby Wah is a limited edition of the JC95, the Jerry Cantrell signature wah from Dunlop. It was limited to 500 pieces, and Dunlop pitches it at Alice in Chains devotees and players who want what the maker calls "that distinctly vocal wah sound"¹. Like the rest of the Cantrell Cry Baby line, it is a treadle-operated wah: rock your foot back and forth and the pedal sweeps a filter across the guitar's frequency range, from a tight, dark heel-down position to a sharper toe-down peak.

The base design it comes from is Cantrell's signature model, which Dunlop built by replicating the wider, darker response of the vintage wahs Cantrell favored. The standard Jerry Cantrell Cry Baby has a dark, punchy voice, a wide sweep, and a control on the side for fine-tuning the toe-down position, and it is custom-voiced for a tight, punchy heel-down tone². Dunlop's own buying guide sums up the circuit's character as one that "retains low-end punch"³, which is what separates it from a brighter, thinner stock wah.

A limited-run Cry Baby with a vocal sound

Dunlop describes the Rainier Fog as a limited edition of the JC95, and the run was capped at 500 pieces¹. That makes it one of the scarcer entries in the Cantrell wah line, and the same 500-unit scale was used for the earlier restyled Jerry Cantrell Cry Baby that Guitar.com's reviewer noted "has the same innards, but with a new 'industrial chic' paint job"⁴. In other words, these editions are cosmetic variations on the signature circuit rather than new designs.

The sound is the Cantrell voicing: dark, wide, and vocal. Dunlop's manual for the JC95B, the standard version of the pedal, puts it plainly²¹⁴:

Dunlop, JC95B owner's manual⁶

The manual also gives the circuit's measured performance: a current draw of 1 mA, with a noise floor better than 97 dB heel-down and better than 89 dB toe-down⁶. A 1 mA draw is very low by pedal standards, so the pedal is easy to accommodate on a shared power supply.

Power: 9V battery or adapter

The Rainier Fog can be powered two ways¹:

• A 9-volt battery. On the Cantrell Cry Baby line the battery is reached from the underside of the pedal, so you remove the bottom plate to install or replace it⁶.
• A Dunlop ECB003 9-volt adapter, running at DC 9 volts¹⁶.

Dunlop also lists the pedal as compatible with the DC Brick, Iso-Brick, and Mini Iso-Brick power supplies, which are sold separately and not included in the box⁶². The later I Want Blood edition's manual adds the MXR Brick Series supplies as an option for that version⁷, so any of these isolated or brick-style units will run the pedal.

Finish and treadle design

Visually, the Rainier Fog edition carries a distressed black finish, and its treadle has a custom design based on Jerry Cantrell's tribal orca tattoo¹. That artwork is the edition's signature detail, and it is what distinguishes it at a glance from the standard JC95B and from the other special editions in the line.

It is not the only Cantrell wah to lean on a distinctive finish. The Firefly edition, tied to Cantrell's solo record Brighten, has a subdued raw iron finish with glow-in-the-dark features on the tread, front badge, and bottom plate⁸, and Guitar.com reported that unit as having a "gritty subdued raw iron finish" when it launched⁹. The Rainier Fog goes the other way: dark and distressed rather than raw and glowing.

Place in the Jerry Cantrell wah line

The Rainier Fog sits in a family of JC95-based wahs that Dunlop has issued around Cantrell's records and playing¹:

The pattern is consistent: each edition keeps the Cantrell circuit and changes the cosmetics. When the Firefly launched at $199.99 from retailers worldwide¹², it was understood as a makeover of the signature model rather than a new pedal, and the standard JC95B carried a list price of $209.99². For a player comparing these today, the choice between editions is mostly about the finish and the treadle artwork, since the wah voicing underneath is the same dark, wide sweep Cantrell uses.

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