You asked and we answered! We answered over 50 of the questions that you posted on our Facebook wall yesterday about our MXR, Cry Baby, Way Huge, and Dunlop Electronics pedals. Most of the questions you asked were left untouched—spelling errors and all—but some of the questions we couldn’t answer due to various reasons. For those of you who didn’t ask a question, it might be worth it to comb through the list and see if your question was listed. Don’t forget that we do have a customer service (customerservice@jimdunlop.com) and technical support (technicalsupport@jimdunlop.com) department that will always help you with your questions and concerns. Many thanks to JT (not to be confused with Jeorge Tripps) for answering all of your questions for today’s “Ask an engineer”. What do you think about this piece? Would you like to see more of these type of posts? We’d love to get some feedback—leave your comments below. Without much further ado, let’s get to the questions.

Thomas Spence asks: What distortion pedal is best for djent?
JT: Check Alex’s response below. Also consider getting a noise gate for tightening up the sound.
* Alex Plant suggests: Get the 10-band EQ, bump the 1.6Khz a lot and the 800 a bit, then cut the low end to taste and dispose of a bit of the low mids. Put this after a distortion pedal and you have TEH DJENT. Alternatively get a 5150/6505, Engl Invader, or a Recto and boost that with a TS808 with tone and level cranked with drive at 0.

Nate Andrews says: love your picks. That Jazz III is a shredder.
JT: Thanks! Don’t forget to try the other Jazz III’s as well: Ultex, Max Grip, Carbon Fiber, XL, New Jazz III 2.0, Tortex and Eric Johnson Jazz III.

Rex Alan Gordon asks: Will you ever re-issue the MXR Flanger Doubler Rackmount? at an affordable price or via pedal?
JT: Currently no plans to reissue this product. But that doesn’t mean it will never happen.

Eetu Tuominen asks: What’s the best metal distortion pedal?? :O
JT: Fullbore Metal! Also the new ’78 Badass Distortion is coming out soon; the Way Huge Swollen Pickle will get some killer metal tones when dialed in right.

Steve McCarthy asks: My old Crybaby ac power input was broken and resoldered, I get a signal through it when it’s off, but when i click it to “wah” I get nothing?
JT: Call customer service, they will take care of you. Our tech support is top notch. We don’t route you to another country or leave you with guys who don’t really use our products. Our tech room is located in Benicia, CA and staffed with real musicians. Just be kind and patient (it’s really only 3 dudes in a small room), and they’ll return the favor.

Jordan Smith asks: So I have a general question. I have a 100W PA with 10” speakers enclosures and lately ive noticed a noise coming out of them that resembles a blown speaker when i play any of my instruments through them. When I sing it doesnt happen and when i play my music from my PC through it it doesnt happen. I believe my XLR inputs are messing up…. any ideas?
JT: Depends on what instruments you’re putting in. You might just be overdriving the inputs to your mixer preamp, especially if you’re using keyboards or other line level gear. If the mixer has line inputs, use them. If you have a gain adjust, turn it down then use the level faders to bring them up to volume in the mix.

Lawrence Garza asks: Is there any way to get a broader sweep range on a Cry Baby without modifying it?
JT: Not really… you’ll need to be handy with a soldering iron for any kind of modification.

Carlos A. Trasviña asks: I have an MXR El Grande Bass Fuzz and I love it!! buuuut… its suuuper loud, its so loud that I can’t even dream of putting the volume at 3 o’clock… is there any way I can change that high gain or volume?? is there a trimpot or something I can move to lower the volume knob??? Thanks!!
JT: Sorry, there’s no internal adjust for the volume. The one internal trimmer inside the El Grande is to change the level of the DEEP function.

John J Roderick asks: What about a true, period correct, reissue of the 70′s MXR Distortion plus? Same circuit, no switch mounted to PCB, no LED? I have three and they sound FAR and AWAY different (better) than anything made from early 80′s on. Really, a completely different sound
JT: Hang on a little longer… late 2011.

Inzo Der Barrakuda asks: How come on your MXR pedals like the Dyna Comp and Phase 90- most of your pedals I’m sure, have the power plug connector down on the right side below the input jack? I think it’s awkward and clashes with the input jack. I once got rid of a Phase 90 and got a BOSS Phaser instead because the power plug wouldn’t stay in place. All other pedals for the most part have the power input on the top.
JT: It was a standard established before my time here. I figure it’s because we use jack normalling to disconnect the power when there’s no plug in the input jack. It makes sense to keep the power close to the input jack in this case.

Steve Andrews: How many man hours are dedicated to R&D at Dunlop, and on average how many projects never make it to market? Thanks!
JT: It’s hard to quantify how many hours we spend in R&D. A lot of time and effort goes into making a product. Many of us employees are also musicians, so we tend to obsess over the details. We can spend months tweaking a pedal until we’re satisfied.

Frank Berdini asks: Can the MXR GT-OD run on 18 volts?
JT: Replace power filter capacitor C9 with 100MF, 25V rated part or higher. C9 comes from the factory spec’d at 16V only, this is the only part that will be stressed by using 18V.

Justin Maples asks: Explain the harmonic saturator and if its a true distortion or if it will draw out my harmonics even more than my duncan blackouts do
JT: The fat sandwich? Yes, it’s a true distortion. Not sure how it will react with your pickups.

Marvin Byrne asks: Have you considered making a rack FX unit, featuring all the best Dunlop effects? Chorus, Delay, Flanger, Phaser, Rotovibe, maybe reverb? And an analog pitch shifter, rival the buggy Digitech Whammy. You guys cover pedals well, but I’d like to see you branch further into rackmount units, I’m more people agree. Whilst I’m on it, bring out that octave-fuzz wah you prototyped for Dimebag whilst he was with Damageplan.
JT: No plans for a rack unit at the moment. Might be some kind of octave fuzz in the works.

Chris Overend asks: Can you recommend settings for the Swollen Pickle when used with a bass guitar? I’m trying to get a warm smooth fuzz, keeping the low end, but not sounding crackly
JT: We asked our bass products manager, he recommended: Loudness: 9; Filter: 1; Sustain: 3:30; Scoop: 3; Crunch: 7; internal clip: 3; internal voice: 9. If you have a mixer, trying blend both the dry and fuzz signals together and you might get what you’re looking for.

Paul Connolly asks: When is the Ringworm Ring Modulator released in the UK?
JT: It will be released in the US possibly in August 2011. We ship to our picinternational customers after.

Don Bowen Jr. asks: tell us some of the most popular Mods for these pedals
JT: I’m just gonna point you to a nice article on a Distortion+ mod:
http://www.premierguitar.com/magazine/issue/2008/Dec/MXR_Distortion_Plus_Mods.aspx

Boone McBride asks: Why can’t the crybaby classic function without sounding broken and useless, even immediately upon purchase? I.e. scratchy sounds of pot/mechanical movements, tone sucking, and weak wah effect with which to begin? Thank god for my parents, christmas, and in turn my fulltone clyde standard! Creamy.
JT: Sorry to hear you got a bad unit. We make sure every unit is fully tested before we ship them out, but occasionally we get field failures. Please contact customer service, they’ll help you out, even if you’re out of warranty.

David Figueroa asks: I have the dyna comp where is the best place to put on my board and what setting should I use to get a gilmour type sound
JT: Generally compressors would come first in line, unless there’s a wah, then it will be second. Check out this comprehensive site dedicated to Gilmour’s setup: http://www.gilmourish.com/?page_id=205

Christopher Wright asks: Does the new Micro Flanger still use the SAD512 chip, or has the circuit been redesigned to use a substitute? I didn’t think that part was available anymore.
JT: The SAD512 chip as made by Reticon is no longer available. We do use a 512-stage delay line similar to the MN3204.

Dustin Shifflett asks: Why did you start putting Hot Potz in all of your Crybabies? They don’t sound nearly as authentic as a real, CTS 100K pot.
JT: I disagree. Our hot potz is a custom designed potentiometer with an optimized taper and has been tested for over 1 million cycles. It is a superior potentiometer and we are proud to be using it in our products.

Adrian Reyes asks:  Will you guys ever release any other special edition pedals? Like with different colors and looks?
JT: We once did a silver M80 bass DI for Japan exclusively. Just keep on the lookout, I’m sure more will be coming.

Don Bowen asks:  Jr. c’mon Dunlop,, we kinow your capable.Blow are fkn minds w/an awesome new product(pedal). not jst some average bs pedal…something new, innovative, step away from the norm for a change, pull something out of R&D…why let all those hours of research go to waste,,, c’mon, we have faith in you!
JT: Check out the new bass compressor coming out later in 2011. It works great with guitar too. As for research hours… most of our time is spent just keeping things running smoothly. We’ve continually expanded the product line over the years while keeping the same size R&D staff. It’s a small operation we have here, so we are often called upon to do non-engineering tasks.

Jonathon Lanier asks:  Is there a mod out there to extend the time on the Aqua Puss? Great pedal, just really short.
JT: I don’t recommend extending the delay time, you’d really be running into the limits of the bucket brigade chip. You’ll probably hear weird artifacts. If you want to have at it, tweak TR1 inside the pedal. That changes the clock frequency. Don’t mess with the other trim pots, you’ll regret it—nothing to be gained, and you can’t reset them without an oscilloscope.

Neil Oler asks:  On wah pedals, have you guys ever thought about doing custom-built inductors that have a dummy coil of sorts that you could run DC through and adjust the current going through it? You could have a variable saturation on the coil to simulate coils that have been partially magnetized.
JT: Might be a good experiment, but I doubt it will ever get beyond the workbench. We already use a custom, high-quality inductor that sounds great and is non-microphonic.

Dennis Odocharty asks: I bought an unusual pedal in a pawn shop last week …I believe it’s a GCB-950 Octave Wah……I’ve been trying to get the Octave -fuzz sound heard on Band of Gypsy’s (Who Knows) and it comes pretty close to some of the more high dollar devices out there like the Fulltone Ultimate Octave. Can you tell me when these were made and how to get the most out of the seemingly multiple features ?
JT: The GCB-95O came out around 1992. Very limited production. According to our Director it was an attempt at getting the Octavio sound. We make a real Octavio now. You can try using the pedal as a variable tone distortion pedal instead of a wah—you don’t need to always rock the pedal back and forth.

Tj Hyler asks:  My Dimebag Crybaby from Hell is great, but i’ve loosened the pedal set screw as much as possible and the movement is still really herky jerky. Any tips? PS- love the treble boost.
JT: Check to make sure the pot is moving smoothly, and that the rack and pinion gear are aligned and meshing correctly. If they check out, call customer support and send the pedal in. The torsion block assembly isn’t the easiest thing to service yourself.

Cody H asks: Why should I choose a CryBaby instead of another [other company’s] Wah?
JT: Choose a Cry Baby because it is a superior product. Some wahs use a light dependent resistor to sweep the frequency of the wah filter. Our wahs use a potentiometer (a variable resistor) to move the filter. Light dependent resistors have memory to them, and can’t respond in real time. Any optical wah isn’t going to track as you sweep the pedal quickly. Pot controlled wahs react in real time. Cry Babies have a smaller footprint, and a rotational range that is optimal for wah work.

John A. asks:  Everling What’s you opinion of the mini pig mod to the blue mxr 10 band eq? I love love love it.
JT: Sorry, we’re not familiar with that mod. Link?

Inzo Der Barrakuda asks:  You can see right on your homepage- 4 MXR pedals in a row, and with the patch cables shaped like a U, you can’t plug a power cable in it, so I have to reverse my patch cables so they’re shaped like an arch.
JT: Sorry, can’t do anything about the power jack locations for now.

Chris Cannon asks:  What is the difference between the Mxr kfk 10 band eq vs the Mxr 10 band eq? Also what’s the difference between the Mxr analog chours and the BLS chours? Am I paying more for just a name on a pedal when they are the same pedals?
JT: KFK10 has stereo outputs and KFK graphics. Analog chorus is the same as BLS chorus. In this case, it was the BLS chorus that came out first, then we decided to release the analog chorus as an option for those who weren’t interested in owning a Zakk pedal. Hope that doesn’t sound too unreasonable.

Hayden Smith asks:  What do you think of a delay pedal in an expression pedal format? That way you could change your delay time in real time, or get those crazy delay sounds without having to turn knobs on the floor.
JT: We’ve built a couple of those before. Don’t think it will turn into a product though…

Jon Erickson asks:  When a guitarist turns the gain knob up on his mxr pedal or turns up the volume knob on his guitar, what is the difference, is all “gain” actually gain or is something else happening?
JT: The volume knob on your guitar is passive and only attenuates, or reduces, the level. It has no gain. Pedals that have gain are actually amplifying the signal. Usually gain knobs on pedals are for distortions, so that means we’re just amplifying until the signal starts clipping. We then tame the volume to an acceptable level with an output knob.

Mitchell Stringer  asks: what is the difference between a true bypass pedal and a non true bypass pedal?
JT: Gonna point you to an article I wrote a while ago:

http://www.jimdunlop.com/blog/?p=384

Liam Ghramm  asks: Who invented the first distortion pedal?
JT: Some sources cite Roger Mayer as having invented the first distortion pedal.

Dave Brown  asks: What is the difference between gain/over drive and distortion.
JT: Generally it has to do with how much gain is applied. Gain is just boosting the signal with no coloration or distortion. Overdrive is mild distortion, sometimes referred to as soft clipping. Distortion squares off your signal causing more harmonics and a richer, dirtier sound.

Don Bowen Jr.  asks: are they actually gonna answer any of these questions?….lol… C’mon Dunlop…”YOU” started this!!….:) \,,/ BUDGIE Rocks!!!!
JT: Yes, I am answering all of them!!!

Ryan Fleming  asks: I’m totally in love with my M134 Stereo Chorus pedal – what makes it sound so different from the Analog Chorus and Black Label pedals? Can you talk about the chips used in your different choruses? Are they bucket brigade, and what does bucket brigade mean? Can you talk about delay time, its impact on chorus sound and what delay times your different chorus pedals are set to?
JT: The differences have to do with the type of noise reduction used, and the shape of the filters in the pedal. We use a 1024-stage bucket brigade chip in our chorus pedals. Bucket brigade is just a [cutesy] term for a long line of capacitors that store your signal. Each time we clock the chip, it passes the signal from one capacitor to the next, and the time it takes for the signal to get through all 1024 stages is the total delay time. The micro chorus goes from 3.9ms to 5.4ms, the stereo chorus maxes out at 16ms. The signal delay time has a direct effect on which frequencies are cancelled out.

Robert Morrison  asks: What’s the deal with that octave/fuzz/wah pedal prototype that you guys were working on with Dime before he died? I’d love to get my hands on one! \m/
JT: We always get artist approval for each of our signature products, so that means no more Dime pedals.

Rodrigo Florentino  asks: Sáez Mata Justo got my Zack Wylde signature Cry Baby¡¡¡ Whats the difference y sweep and wah range compared to Kirk Hammetts’ or the original one?¡¡ Thanls¡¡ Awesome gear¡
JT: The Kirk Hammett pedal is voiced a little darker, the frequency sweep is lower than the standard CryBaby.

Skunk Knuks  asks: my bypass or on off switch on my crybaby doesnt work wat shud i do
JT: Send it in for repair! Contact techincalsupport@jimdunlop.com and they’ll take it from there.

Phil Rogers  asks: I got one, i have a sw95 wah but the wires on the battery conectors snapped, where can i get a uk replacement? can you put thicker cables on the ac adaptors too,? they’re so flimsy and easy to break, putting a thicker  sheath round the outs…
JT: Call customer service, we can send you a new one. We’ll keep the concerns about the power cables in mind when we need to do a redesign.

Christian Molenaar  asks: can you send me free stuff?
JT: That’s what Facebook Fridays are for! Good luck!

Bill Bruns  asks: Why does the Crybaby have the power jack under the signal path making it hard to run your daisy chain to it. Why is the pin so far back that several daisy chains do not work with crybaby’s?
JT: Just a standard that was established a long, long time ago. Sorry!

Ian Darrah  asks: Why are Way Huge pedals so expensive when I can get another pedal that sounds better for less?
JT: Way Huge pedals are built to Jeorge Tripps’ specs. Sometimes I agree with them, sometimes I don’t because he often wants to use the most expensive parts possible. You are paying for a premium in over-specified components, the fancy anodized finish, and doing things the hard way. The relay bypass scheme isn’t cheap! As for sounds better, it’s all subjective and depends on each person’s rig, guitar, playing style, etc. We should feel fortunate to have so many choices today.

Sandy Aphid  asks: I have all MXR (microAmp, microChorus, CarbonCopy) in the fx loop of an LR Baggs ParaDI. It’s all good. But put a GT-OD in the loop and it the ParaDI hates it. Any thoughts why?
JT: What do you mean by hates it? Tone loss? No signal? The GT-OD isn’t much different in the way its constructed than say, a microamp. Check for the obvious stuff, like bad cables and power connection, and try to isolate the problem. If all else fails, call tech support.

Mirko Zara  asks: I bought the distrotion lll and is my favourite pedal… the question I have is why when I put gain and distortion at 3 o´clock in my distortion chanel makes a huuuuuuuge anstopable noise??? even in bypass, WASN´T TRU BYPASS… THAT SAYS THE MANUAL THANKS…
Mirko.
JT: The Distortion III is true bypass. True bypass is not always good.  True bypass often means you are increasing the amount of capacitive loading on your guitar signal. This can translate into tone suck, or noise pickup, or oscillations depending on what else you’ve got in your signal chain. Buffers and buffered bypass help preserve your signal. So by having true bypass in the distortion III, it sounds like something else in your rig is now no longer playing nicely. Put a buffer at the start of the signal chain and see if it helps.

Corey Jp Philpott  asks: I have a brand new Dunlop Cry Baby and it just doesn’t seem to have much WAH to it at all, not sure what I’m doing wrong, it’s a pretty simple set up, i’m using the ac adapter made for it not the 9V battery
JT: Hm, I guess you should exchange it for another one. If it sounds the same, then perhaps try one of our many different wah models.

Amin Saffar  asks: I’ve got a M-115, ZW-44, 535Q, you know i used all of them in our new song,but in studio I had some problem with M-115 and ZW-44 actually both of them is great but when i combine M-115 or ZW-44, with Overdrive 2, channel of my AVT Marshall, will i expect when i use them just in clean channel i could get this kind of sound, why these need combine to dirt amp in order to have Fat, Crunchy,Huge Distortion?, another problem is higher string when i play sound become some thing like mute sound or i cant here a right sound, i had this problem when i combine with OD2 channel in my amp,not to say OD gain of my amp when using with MXRS is in 9 O’Clock
JT: For some people, using the distortion pedals into a clean channel is enough. It sounds like you’re going after a very extreme sound, and in that case you will need the extra gain from your amp. Also, overdriving your tube amp will add a distinct character to the sound that has always been difficult to capture in pedals. As for the weird high string sounds, I’m not sure what that could be. Try isolating the pedals or using EQ to try to tame it.

Einar Daði  asks: I bought a MXR DD-11 distortion pedal and it’s too noisie, i can’t really use it…. and the rest of my band hates it and the sound guys too. I don’t have the gain knob turned up to 100%, but from 30 – 60% and i tried to loop it but it still hums a lot. What’s the deal with that? I’m always buying new pedals and i have a good collection, but this is the first distortion pedal i bought from Dunlop… and probably the last one. Hope you can help.
JT: The DD-11 shouldn’t be that noisy. Noise can come from a lot of sources other than the pedal. If you feed the pedal a noisy signal from your guitar, it’s going to amplify it. If you have more gain on your amp, then it will make it even worse. Noise can build up quickly. First ensure that your rig without the pedal isn’t generating a lot of noise, and if you are positive it is the pedal consider picking up a noise gate.

Scott Longman  asks: I just wanted to say how much I LOVE my Dunlop JC95 (Jerry Cantrell model) Wah pedal. I can’t say enough good things about this wah. It is simply the most beautiful sounding wah I have ever played – and it looks killer too!! Corey Jp Philpott commented above that he is not getting enough wah out of his cry-baby. I would recommend that Corey try out the JC95.
JT: Thanks for the recommendation!

Brandon Magliano  asks: No question here. You guys should come out with a bass synth pedal to recreate those wobbly bass synth lines in dubstep.
JT: Using the bass octave deluxe with the dry signal turned down can produce some synth-like sounds. Also try out the blue box.