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John Petrucci Signature Cry Baby Wah JP95

Jim Dunlop and virtuoso John Petrucci team up to create the new JP95 Signature Cry Baby Wah, fine tuned to meet the needs of prog metal shredders.

John Petrucci Signature Cry Baby Wah JP95

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After years of using a Cry Baby Wah, Petrucc have been fine-tuning and tweaking various parameters of his wah pedal to find the tone that he wants. Now his years of tweaking has given birth to a wah sound that’s distinct to his playing style, and this personalized wah served as the basis for the new JP95 signature.

The Cry Baby is easily the most popular wah today, thanks to its simple operation and reliability. As a testament to this, various professionals and artists continue to use this particular wah pedal, and with some of the more popular ones getting their very own signature version. The latest artist to join this list of elite players is Dream Theater’s guitar wizard John Petrucci.

The story goes that John Petrucci and Dream Theater Engineer Richard Chycki worked with the Cry Baby design design team to not only replicate his wah pedal, but also to further improve on the sound. John Petrucci is quoted saying that the JP95 “sounds huge and badass like an angry, screaming monster with the ultimate expressive range—it‘s perfect for shaping single notes or manipulating growling, heavy chords.”

Far from being just another a straightforward wah, this new pedal houses more control options that allow for control over the envelope filter and for the overall shape of the sound. This means that although it is personalized to John’s preference, it can be personalized to your individual preferences by tweaking the various controls.

The main control options include a volume knob that lets you adjust gain and a Q control for adjusting the envelop filter of the wah effect. The JP95 Cry Baby also includes a 6-band EQ that lets you shape frequencies from 100Hz to 3.2kHz, allowing for even more tone shaping options. What’s surprising is how these extra features were implemented discretely, without having affecting the straightforward appearance and basic shape of the Cry Baby. To gain access to the extended controls, all you have to do is take off the bottom plate and tweak away.

Finally, the new John Petrucci Signature Cry Baby Wah comes in a sturdy smoked chrome finish that gives it an appealing look. The Cry Baby pedal is often associated with more old school style of music like rock, blues and funk – but it looks like Dunlop is hoping to go beyond conventional with this new release, which is meant to cater to modern metal and shred style players.

Check out the official video demo where John Petrucci himself shares the story behind this new Wah pedal.

I for one am impressed with the smooth and clean sounding wah sounds that John was able to produce on the video, and this may be of interest for players who are looking for a more polished wah wah tone. The ability to further tweak the tone also makes this ideal for those who love to thinker with their tone and pedals.

The new John Petrucci Signature Cry Baby Wah JP95 is currently retailing online for just under $200. For more information, you can head over to Jim Dunlop.

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