Strange One - Dunlop cry baby

J

jimmi

New member
Hi,

My cry baby pedal was starting to get noisey - mechanically, squeek when rocking back and forth, and also hum wise. It's probably about 10 years old now. I haven't been using it lately because of this but I put it in my effects loop on my amp last night to record a part. It was ok at first, noisey but ok.

After playing for a while my hands started feeling tingly which I thought was strange. There was feint current coming through my guitar strings and bridge! :eek:
I wasn't imagining it - I asked my wife to touch the bridge of the guitar and she nearly jumped out of her skin.

How, in the name a jaysus, could that happen can anyone tell me? I dont know my arse from my elbow where electrics are concerned but this was a surprise to say the least. The guitar wasn't even plugged directly into the crybaby.

I'm blaming the crybaby because I'd been tracking with it out of the loop for an hour or so and everything was fine but it's probably worth mentioning I was using my new planet waves "circuit breaker" guitar cable - the one with the kill swith on the jack, for the first time. Ebay buy. I'm slowly getting to be instinctively suspicious of anything i buy off fleabay. Well thats my story for today. Whats up with you?
 
When you say "effects loop" Do you mean one that is built into the amp, or just that you had the Crybaby in with other effects plugged into the input jack? I don't think a crybaby is meant to be plugged into an effects loop. That is for "line level" devices such as rack mount delays, reverbs and preamps. The crybaby is meant to be plugged into the front input jack because it is instrument level like other "stomp boxes". This could be the reason ,I don't know for sure. I'm definitely no expert. I'm pretty sure that a standard Crybaby is not buffered, and will "suck tone" out of your signal when it's not on. This is why everyone mods them with a true bypass switch. And in the effects loop maybe if the pot is dirty in the crybaby it is somehow causing a ground problem???
 
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I was under the impression that the line out/line in on my amp was for my effects?!!! I dont use too many, granted. But I always considered it to be like an insert on an old desk. send.... return... voila. my blues driver doesn't hum or annoy me half as much when i loop it out the line out/ line in. the amp makes it line level no ?!! ah sure I'm demented, who knows. the crybaby is a paper weight now anyway.

Does anyone remember the trick cigarette lighters that gave off an electric shock? you'd buy them in joke shops etc. touching the bridge of my strat would be similar while this was going on.

Didn't suck any tone either. I got what I was tryin to track, and it sounds good - it's the current that surprised me. nitey nite nite pillow mite.
 
jimmi said:
I was under the impression that the line out/line in on my amp was for my effects?!!! I dont use too many, granted. But I always considered it to be like an insert on an old desk. send.... return... voila. my blues driver doesn't hum or annoy me half as much when i loop it out the line out/ line in. the amp makes it line level no ?!! ah sure I'm demented, who knows. the crybaby is a paper weight now anyway.

Does anyone remember the trick cigarette lighters that gave off an electric shock? you'd buy them in joke shops etc. touching the bridge of my strat would be similar while this was going on.

Didn't suck any tone either. I got what I was tryin to track, and it sounds good - it's the current that surprised me. nitey nite nite pillow mite.
Click to expand...

I've had this happen. Although it was a bass guitar, and the problem definitely was the amp. Seeing as it was the same bass and cable that we used with other amps with no problem. So you should maybe consider it being the amp itself and not the cry baby. Have you tried plugging directly into your amp without the cry baby and see if it's still there?
Trial and error. Narrow down the cause as much as you can. Seems like there are still a lot of variables that could contribute to such a current.

My 2cents. Nothing much.


Elliot
 
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