Should I Pick Up This Thomas Organ Crybaby?

Agileguy_101

Agileguy_101

Master of his Domain
I got offered a mid 70's Thomas Organ Crybaby in a trade today. He's going to give me that and cash for a pedal of mine, but he's basically valuing the wah at $70 - pretty good even for a new wah. I'm waiting on a reply about whether the pot or switch are unnecessarily noisy, but he said there's nothing wrong with it. It appears to have the stack of dimes conductor:

70a197016f4fd6b173e6c279c60d13c9.jpg


However, the bottom plate said it was made in Sepulveda, not Chicago, and I've heard that they switched completely to the TKL inductor after they moved production to CA. Any truth to that? I'm not so much worried about the collectiablity (more on that in a second) I'm just more interested in whether or not the wah has already been modified.

I plan to do at least a few mods to this. I want to give it true bypass and an LED, and I'm probably going to do that with a clickless relay bypass, just because I freaking love clickless switches, and it will probably make the wah even easier to turn on and off. And an LED because, well why the hell not? I'd also get a new pot if necessary, but hopefully it wouldn't be.

I've heard that switching out the transistors for higher gain variants would make the tone more pleasing to me. I also plan to modify the circuit if necessary. I'd be particularly interested in adding some external knobs, particularly a q knob and adjustments to the bass and treble content. However, if it sounds great when it comes to me I wouldn't need to do any of that.

So I guess what I'm wondering is this - is it worth it? For more or less $70, I don't see how I can go wrong, but I've also never owned or even played an old wah pedal. Any opinions?
 
Re: Should I Pick Up This Thomas Organ Crybaby?

The Sepulveda Ca. Cry Baby still had the 'stack of dimes' inductor in the early 70's, but it's a bit rarer than the TLK they used more often.

I actually drive past the old Sepulveda Thomas Organ location every day. The city name changed to North Hills, Ca. and the property is now the big Fedex hub in the San Fernando Valley.
 
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Re: Should I Pick Up This Thomas Organ Crybaby?

From a monetary stand point if your gonna mod anyway why not pick up a standard crybaby for like $40-$50 and keep the old one stock? Might be worth more years later OR if you find the right buyer could fetch you some more cash.
 
Re: Should I Pick Up This Thomas Organ Crybaby?

Well the mods I'm definitely going to make are reversible (except the LED one) and if I ever thought I could get like $200 out of it, I could always put it back to stock. But's it's in player's condition, so I don't see that happening. And for an extra 20 or 30 bucks, I think the vintage inductor and mojo are worth it.
 
Re: Should I Pick Up This Thomas Organ Crybaby?

How do you plan on adding external knobs without irreversibly modifying the shell casing?

From the looks of it, vintage TO Crybaby's are listed for stupid amounts, but only actually sell at the same used prices of regular Crybaby wahs (when I check the "sold" eBay listings). I wouldn't expect to make any money on this wah, so I'd just treat it like any other wah and not assume it has any extra value in the trade. Crybaby wahs are kind of like JB's, even the vintage ones were mass produced, and there are tons of old ones available for the same price as new ones. I'd only proceed with this pedal if the parts are fully working.
 
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Re: Should I Pick Up This Thomas Organ Crybaby?

I meant that the minimum mods I'd do are reversible. I plan to play it for a while before I do any permanent mods.
 
Re: Should I Pick Up This Thomas Organ Crybaby?

I would just buy a new pedal for that kind of money and mod without guilt.

Old guitars are valuable because of the old growth wood. Some old amps are valuable because they aren't made to the same quality anymore. Most old pedals are identical to pedals you can buy new except they are way closer to crapping out on you.
 
Re: Should I Pick Up This Thomas Organ Crybaby?

A used 535Q seems like a better value for a modding platform. Depending on the age, you might get a Fasel inductor and true bypass; in that case you're already well on your way to making it through the typical laundry list of wah pedal mods. And you've already got Q and sweep controls -- or at least holes in the chassis for something else.
 
Re: Should I Pick Up This Thomas Organ Crybaby?

Hell, I might not mod it if it sounds good as is. And if it doesn't, I'll start off with reversible mods to see if that does the trick. Honestly, I'm getting a great deal (I was asking $260 for the pedal I'm selling, and he wants to give me this pedal and $200) so I think I'm just going to take it. I'm even going to play with it a while before I mod it for true bypass - hell, maybe it'll be fine without it.
 
Re: Should I Pick Up This Thomas Organ Crybaby?

My 2 cents....

It's a good deal on a vintage pedal, and frankly, I would not make any mods to it at all. If it needs maintenance--a new pot or jacks--fine, but otherwise leave it alone. It certainly does not need external pots or an LED.

I have three wahs at the moment. My T.O. wah has stayed on my pedal board despite competition form a recent Vox Clyde McCoy and a Crybaby Classic. The Vox is goodperfect for "Shaft" funk, very bright and crisp. The Classic is fuller, but it's very "clean" sounding. It doesn't have the raw grit and throatiness of the T.O. Crybaby. Maybe that's just the dirt, beer and tobacco smoke from a thousand gigs, but it still sounds fabulous.

Good luck.

Bill
 
Re: Should I Pick Up This Thomas Organ Crybaby?

Bill, thanks for your 2 cents. I'm just curious, do you notice any "tone suck" from your T.O. wah? If so, how noticeable is it? Have you ever thought about modding it for true bypass?

I still want the wah, but I'm rethinking what I want to do with it. I'll probably end up adding a foxrox output buffer to it, as I can't have a wah that I can't use with my fuzz. Fortunately, that an easily reversible mod. Beyond that, I'll probably true bypass it, and replace any worn out components. I'll definitely play it for a while before I decide to swap out any components.
 
Re: Should I Pick Up This Thomas Organ Crybaby?

Have you seen the newest RealMcCoy Perfect 10 Wah? It comes with the Foxrot installed already I believe. Not sure if it might be up your alley.
 
Re: Should I Pick Up This Thomas Organ Crybaby?

I don't want to spend that much on a wah. I realize that with a buffer and true bypassing it, it'd be quite a bit more than $70, but ​I've never modded a pedal before and it sounds like a lot of fun.
 
Re: Should I Pick Up This Thomas Organ Crybaby?

If it tingles your danglies, then get it, especially if its to facilitate a trade/sale.
I'm with some others here; don't modify it...well, beyond the pot that controls the wah..even then it'll still be noisy.
I know you better than you know yourself..all your pedals and gear are/is modern..why get a noisy vintage wah from the stone age ?Me, all my crap is vintage, and so yeah, I have a vintage wah like that you are considering.
If you wanna mod stuff, build a BYOC pedal.
I just don't see it..I mean much respect and ****, but you'd be better off with a spanking new Teese wah, Weeping Demon wah or something like that.
 
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Re: Should I Pick Up This Thomas Organ Crybaby?

Get the T.O. and put the guts in a modern Crybaby pedal if you can find one cheap enough. Mod the modern housing but keep the vintage one original.
 
Re: Should I Pick Up This Thomas Organ Crybaby?

^ That's not half a bad idea.

Well I ended up getting the pedal. It'll be shipping out monday. I'm quite interested to see how it will sound.
 
Re: Should I Pick Up This Thomas Organ Crybaby?

I bought a Thomas Organ wah in 1979 from a friend for $65, then. Plain CryBaby's now are about the same. The sweep on my old TO is not as deep/wide as wah pedals now. I actually gave up on CryBaby's and use a Fulltone now which has more rock in the pedal and better sounding guts (inductor was 1960's NOS from UK military/VOX wahs)

$60 is perfectly fine for a TO and it deserves to be modded. They work but aren't all that great to start with. They need some mods to become players.
 
Re: Should I Pick Up This Thomas Organ Crybaby?

It arrived today, and I'm extremely impressed. This thing sounds really, really good. I'm going to tweak the pot to try and optimize the wah range, I'm going to apply some WD-40 to the exterior, and I bought a clickless true bypass kit so I can get rid of the tone suck (it's quite noticeable) and have LEDs. Other than that, I might not even mod it, it sounds that good. However, I'm going to visit my friend Paul Trombetta next week and I'll take it with me just in case he might have any cool mods in mind. But I'd be very happy with the pedal as is. It rounds out my mini board very nicely.

 
Re: Should I Pick Up This Thomas Organ Crybaby?

There are quite a few mods you could do with side toggle switches to switch between modified sounds and the stock sounds. You can also use trimpots for resistor values changed via switches; that way you can fine tune the value to your liking, rather than trial and error with multiple values. You could also have a switch that turns it more into a bass wah. There's a lot of fun to be had.
 
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