Geni Swing Guitars

Crybaby Wah

Did you ever wonder what that strange whale-song-like sound in the middle section of Pink Floyd's song "Echoes" was, and how it was done? I can show you how to produce that exact sound yourself!

All you need is a guitar, two jack socket cables, an amplifier and a CryBaby pedal. Note that your CryBaby doesn't even have to have electrical power supply for what I'm going to share with you in this article.

So, first of all you'll have to connect your guitar with the amplifier-output of the CryBaby pedal. Next, connect your amplifier with the guitar-input of the pedal. You'll notice that everything sounds fine as long as the wah-mode is switched off. But as soon as you turn on the wah-mode your guitar doesn't sound the same way no more. The only thing you'll hear now is a squeaking sound, similar to the sound in the middle section of Echoes.

You can try out different things now. Note that neither your strings, nor anything you do with them will have any effect on the sound modulation. In other words, the pick-ups are being bypassed with this sort of plugging.

I assume that you use single coils, and if you do so, you'll notice that if you switch to either the first, second or third pick-up solely, the tone sounds quite low, and doesn't sound as powerful. Now, if you kick down the pedal, the tone is getting higher, but its range is not too great, and you won't be able to create that real whale song effect. So, what I recommend is that you either switch to a combination of the first and the second or the third and the second pick-up -- I personally like the first combination better, for in my experience the tone sounds more powerful, and it has a higher range, but this might also depend on the type of guitar you're playing.

In order to hear any sound, you'll have to fully turn up the volume control. With my guitar for instance -- a Fender Stratocaster -- the sound interestingly doesn't start until a volume of eight.

And here comes the special clue: put your pedal to the lowest possible tone. Now, if you slowly turn down the first tone control of your guitar, the tone pitch will constantly decrease till reaching the tone value of five. If you then keep turning down the control, you'll notice that the tone pitch not only continues to decrease, but also the tone begins to sort of 'stutter'. And as you lower the tone value, the frequency of the 'stuttering' increases. Play around with the volume and the tone control a bit in order to get a feeling for it.

For instance, if you turn down the tone control fast from ten to a value of four or five, and remain at this position, the tone will bend down shortly, then suddenly drop and stay at that frequency. It will again increase its 'stuttering-velocity', if you continue to turn down the tone control.

One more interesting thing is that if you fully turn up the tone control and then quickly turn up the volume control, the tone, as it is becoming audible, bends shortly up to its highest frequency.

Personally, I think that this is quite an interesting coincidence that possibly happens easily. What I mean by that is that when I first wanted to plug the CryBaby I did it the wrong way, too, because normally my amp or interface is on my right hand and my guitar on the left side of the CryBaby. So, normally I would always want to plug my guitar in the CryBaby's left input which is but the output for the amp. Well, and I guess about the same thing happened to David Gilmour when he accidentally plugged his CryBaby back to front back in 1971...

And that is basically the secret behind the 'whale song' in the middle section of Pink Floyd's great song "Echoes".

(c) Linus Schachten 2010. All Rights Reserved Worldwide.

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