Jim Dunlop Jerry Cantrell I Want Blood Cry Baby Wah

The Jim Dunlop Jerry Cantrell I Want Blood Cry Baby Wah is a wah pedal from Dunlop, model number JC95IWB. It is a special edition of the Jerry Cantrell Cry Baby Wah, built around the same circuit and controls as the standard signature model but dressed to match Cantrell's solo record I Want Blood: a bold black-and-red finish with custom-molded tread inspired by the album's cover art, and the title track's full lyrics printed on the bottom plate¹.

Dunlop describes the pedal as capturing Cantrell's "fierce sound with a tight, punchy heel-down tone," the same custom voicing as the standard Jerry Cantrell Cry Baby¹. Premier Guitar reported it as available now at $249.99 street, $357.13 MSRP².

A tight, punchy heel-down wah

The voicing is the heart of the Cantrell signature line. Dunlop says the standard Jerry Cantrell Cry Baby is "custom-voiced for a tight, punchy heel-down tone," with a dark, punchy voice and a wide sweep, and the I Want Blood edition carries that same character⁴. The pedal came out of Cantrell's own preferences: Dunlop says he favored wah-wahs with a wider, darker response, and the company replicated that sound for the signature model⁴.

The manual's measurements show how the filter behaves at each end of the rocker's travel³:

Maximum input level is -11.5 dBV and maximum output level is +6 dBV³. For a player, the numbers describe a pedal whose sweep sits lower and darker than a stock Cry Baby, with the filter's center frequency starting in the 320 to 390 Hz range at heel-down and the gain rising as you push the toe down.

Controls: the FINE TUNE knob

The pedal has one control besides the rocker itself: a rugged side-control knob for fine-tuning the toe-down frequency¹. The manual calls it the FINE TUNE knob and says it "adjusts tone of toe-down rocker position": rotate it clockwise for a brighter toe-down response, counterclockwise for a darker one³.

Reviewers of the Cantrell wah have found plenty of range in that knob. MusicRadar's reviewer described it as a way "to extend or decrease the maximum toe-down sweep of the pedal," with the pot at max giving more high end, the middle giving a more standard Cry Baby sound, and rolling it back giving a darker sound⁵. Guitar.com's reviewer, writing about the JC95B edition with the same circuit, went further:

Richard Purvis, Guitar.com, on the JC95B with the side-mounted knob at minimum⁶

How it differs from the standard Jerry Cantrell Cry Baby

The I Want Blood edition is a cosmetic special edition of the same pedal. Dunlop's product page for the standard Jerry Cantrell Cry Baby lists the identical description of the sound and the side-control knob⁴, and the manual for the JC95IWB gives the same control set and hardwire bypass³. What changes is the look: the black-and-red finish, the custom-molded tread from the album's cover art, and the lyrics on the bottom plate¹.

The Cantrell line has a history of these editions, each tied to a record:

• Jerry Cantrell Firefly Cry Baby Wah: a special edition inspired by the solo record Brighten, with the album's title-track lyrics on the bottom plate⁷
• Jerry Cantrell Rainier Fog Cry Baby Wah: limited to 500 pieces⁸
• JC95B Jerry Cantrell Cry Baby Wah: a 500-unit edition with the same innards and an industrial-chic paint job⁶

Dunlop calls the I Want Blood a special edition rather than a numbered limited edition; no piece count has been published for it, unlike the Rainier Fog's 500⁸. The bottom-plate lyrics are a running tradition in the line: the Firefly carried Brighten's title track, and the earlier Crybaby Jerry Cantrell wah carried the lyrics to Alice in Chains' Black Gives Way To Blue⁵.

Signal levels and current draw

The pedal runs on DC 9 volts, drawing 1 mA, and can be powered by one 9-volt battery accessed through the underside of the pedal³. The manual also references the Dunlop ECB003 9-volt adapter³. At 1 mA it is a light load on a pedalboard power supply. Signal connections are simple: a cable from the guitar into the INSTRUMENT jack, and a cable from the AMPLIFIER jack to the amplifier³. Bypass is hardwire rather than true bypass³.

Questions