Dunlop Kirk Hammett Signature Wah (KH-95)

The Dunlop Kirk Hammett Signature Wah (KH-95) is a Cry Baby wah pedal from Dunlop, built to put the tone Kirk Hammett dials in on tour into a standard pedalboard-sized unit. Dunlop's buying guide describes the circuit as "Based on Kirk's Cry Baby Rack Wah settings"¹², and Premier Guitar's demo put it more fully: the pedal "features the renowned tone that Kirk dials in on tour using his DCR1SR Crybaby Rack Wah system"². In other words, instead of carrying the rack unit, a player gets a floor wah voiced to match it.

Like every Cry Baby, it works by rocking your foot back and forth on the treadle, which changes the effect the wah has on the instrument's tone instantaneously³. Premier Guitar's demo noted the appointments include "Kirks EQ, volume and tone settings, a thick top end and full dynamic range"². At launch in 2009 the starting street price was $159²; Dunlop's current list price for the KH95 is $209.99⁴.

Kirk Hammett's rack wah tone in a pedal

The KH95 exists because Hammett's wah sound on tour came from a rack system, the DCR1SR Cry Baby Rack Wah, rather than a floor pedal²⁴. Dunlop took the settings from that rack unit and built them into a Cry Baby chassis, so the voicing, EQ and level behavior reflect Hammett's own setup rather than a generic wah curve.

The manual's published figures show what that voicing looks like in numbers. The wah's filter sweeps a high pass range of 1.4 kHz to 1.8 kHz³, and its maximum gain is listed as +17 dB at 300 Hz to 380 Hz, heel down³. Output level is listed at +6.5 dBV³, and the noise floor at toe down is listed as greater than 89 dBV, A-weighted³.

For a player, the practical point is simple: this is a wah with a preset voicing. There are no knobs to adjust the sweep or level, as there are on something like the Dunlop 95Q Cry Baby or the Dunlop Cry Baby Multi-Wah. What you get is Hammett's setting, fixed²¹.

Power and connections

The KH95 runs on 9 volts DC and draws only 4 mA³, which is light enough that a single battery lasts a long time and the pedal is easy to accommodate on a shared power supply. Dunlop specifies an AC adapter such as the ECB003 or ECB003E, or a DC Brick power supply, as the adapter option³.

Hookup is conventional: a shielded instrument cable from the guitar into the KH95's INSTRUMENT jack, then another shielded cable from the AMPLIFIER jack into the amplifier input³.

KH95X, KH95Y and other versions

The KH95 has appeared in several finishes, all built around the same circuit⁶.

Gearnews reported in May 2022 that the KH95X, apart from its new aesthetics, "is the same as the previously released Dunlop Kirk Hammett Signature Wah"⁶. Before that it had been available only as a handful of limited edition hand signed units, and the 2022 release put it on general release at last⁶. Gearnews listed it at €249 at Thomann at the time⁶.

The KH95Y Yellow Sparkle Edition is a wah pedal in the same family, and its manual carries the same power figures as the KH95: DC 9 volts and a 4 mA current draw, with one 9-volt battery accessible via the bottom plate⁵. Dunlop also lists KH95 parts on its product pages⁴.

Dunlop's broader Cry Baby signature line covers many players, from the Dunlop Slash Signature Cry Baby and the Dunlop JP95 John Petrucci Signature Cry Baby Wah to the Dunlop Jerry Cantrell Signature Cry Baby and the Dunlop Eddie Van Halen Signature Wah. The KH95 sits in that lineup as the Metallica guitarist's entry².

What reviewers said

Premier Guitar demoed the KH95 at its 2009 launch alongside the MXR Fullbore Metal, describing it as Kirk Hammett's signature wah with the DCR1SR rack wah tone and Hammett's EQ, volume and tone settings, a thick top end and full dynamic range, at a starting street price of $159²⁴.

Gearnews, covering the KH95X release in 2022, called it a signature wah pedal likely to be "an unusual yet stylish sight on guitarist's pedalboards"⁶.

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