Danelectro Cool Cat Series CM-1 Metal Distortion Pedal

Considering it has stacked knobs for volume, bass, treble, mids and gain this pedal is easy to get a good sound out of. It is extremely loud so don't try the suggested settings without turning the volume knob to zero first, as it will blow your head off - as it it did to me - if your amp is turned up. The manual has all the info you need and also tells you about all the other Cool Cat pedals, as it is a generic leaflet that comes in all Cool Cats. I love the included stickers.

With a neutral type of clean amp sound and the bass and mids cranked this pedal really nails classic Marshall sounds. Changing the gain level can take you from Plexi to JCM800. It's certainly a better sounding and more complete dirt box overall than the Cool Cat Distortion or Drive which are both far less versatile pedals in terms of tone. Both of which have some inherent unnatural sounding fizz that is difficult to dial out.

I think the strength of the Metal pedal lies in it's ability to dial in great tones at the lower reaches of the gain knob. Lots of high gain dirt boxes don't sound good turned down low. I've been fiddling a lot with really low gain settings and I can get a hi-fi type of boost. I've been digging into some gritty old jazz and blues tones too. I've also found with the Metal pedal I can back off the gain a little and tweak the mids and treble and get some sweet Vox-like tones. It's almost like having a collection of retro amps. Oh yeah, the amount of volume boost available is huge. So as a lead booster this thing excels.

At the other end of the spectrum the metal can also do 80s-style metal and hard rock extremely well. All the EVH and Billy Gibbons tones you can want are here on tap there is plenty of pinch harmonics and sustain. Brown sound in a box. The metal tones in this pedal are all classic 70s and 80s metal - think Rainbow, Judas Priest, maybe early Metallica, vintage Motorhead, Iron Maiden, Diamond Head etc.

Man, this pedal is really great and I think it's the probably the best of the Cool Cat dirt boxs I've tried thus far. Though I have yet to try the Metal 2 and the Transparent OD.

Like the rest of the range - looks great. Time will tell. I have 5 of these now and have been using a couple of them for about a year with no problems at all. They are well built IMO.

I play nearly every style of electric guitar so versatility is my thing when I look for gear. This pedal covers a lot of ground and is a really worthwhile pedal to get regardless of what style you're into. The price is amazing. I got mine for $35 AU free delivery.

Easy to get a good sound from it, editing from patches may not as easy as other pedal effects. May take sometime,but once you get use to it doesn't matter any more. And one thing those other axeman will have some difficulties in snooping around your own personal settings due to the location of the knobs... Yeahh..

Very compatible with humbuckers (di marzio, seymour, emg pick up) and marshall amp, mesa or probably any kind of amp. Just take sometime to explore it's potential it will blow your head off. Also cool when goes along with chorus, delay for a deep metal sound.

With all it's features and sound, no doubt this baby will be the pedal to depend on during those heavy growling nights...

A real pedal to the metal... Less talk just let the sound bites you...

This is the most difficult of the Cool Cats to adjust, in my opinion, because it uses not one but two dual inner/outer "stacked" potentiometers. The first is "Treble/Middle" with Treble on the center (inner) ring and Middle on the outer ring. The second is "Volume/Bass" with Volume on the center ring and Bass on the outer ring.

Danelectro acknowledges the trickiness of adjusting the outer ring, and offers a solution: move them together until you get the outer ring where you want it, then move the inner ring on its own to where you need it to be. This does work, and is the method you more or less have to adopt to adjust with any degree of effectiveness. However, it offers some difficulties, especially with the "Volume/Bass" knob - this pedal has SO much volume gain available, even the tiniest adjustment of the Volume knob causes a huge jump in your amp's output. I find it's best to figure out where the volume knob is best at first, then put your amp on standby (or roll your guitar's volume down to nothing, or mute your tuner, or whatever you want to do to make the rig quiet). Adjust the bass to where you think it ought to be, then put the volume back where you had it before you turn anything back up. It is a bit tricky to work with, but you'll get the hang of it in no time if you're the kind of person that doesn't need supervision around sharp objects.

The "Treble/Middle" knobs have the same issue, but it's not nearly as problematic since a tiny bump doesn't result in ear-destroying volume.

The other difficulty with the placement of the knobs is kind of a compromise difficulty - because they're on the "back" of the pedal, they compete for space with the input and output jacks, and if you're not careful you'll bump the knobs while you're plugging and unplugging the pedal. So be careful.

Those are all mechanical questions - the question of "how easy is it to get a good sound?" is thankfully much more happily answered with a resounding "Very!" In fact, it's pretty hard to get a bad sound out of the pedal. The presets are all good starting points, but twiddle with the knobs on your own and see what suits you. Remember (as is explained in the manual) that the Bass is a boost/cut (active) control, while the Treble and Middle are both passive (cut-only) adjustments. That means that you ought to start with the Treble and Middle all the way up and adjust back from there, while you should start with the Bass at noon and either add or subtract bass from there.

Plenty of great sounds in this pedal, more on that in a sec. Still, the difficulties of adjusting it (though easily overcome after a bit of trial and error) force me to give it a somewhat less than glowing rating for Ease of Use.

I use this pedal with my THD Univalve primarily. It is an excellent pedal, easily the best and most authentic (which is intended here to mean "amp-like") high-gain pedal that Danelectro has offered so far. The Wasabi Distortion is a high gain, dry, and treble-heavy distortion (one could make the argument that it sounds kind of like the Marshall Triple Super Lead, an amp that doesn't get a lot of love because of how dry, over-saturated, and fizzy it is). The Fab Tone Distortion is a modded Metalzone schematic with an over-the-top, beyond high-gain sound that makes the Metalzone look pretty friggin' tame, but it doesn't sound like any amp on the face of the earth.

The CM-1, on the other hand, calls to mind a EL34-based amp with a moderately saturated preamp and a really cranked power amp. Even at full gain it still has great definition.

I run mine after a Cool Cat Transparent Overdrive, which makes an absolutely awesome base to build from with more dirt. The TransOD is rapidly becoming one of my very favorite overdrives, and this pedal is working its way into my favorite high gain pedals, too. It has the capability of a great deal of gain, but it doesn't get "lost," and the EQ controls give you quite a bit of flexibility (not as much as a parametric midrange, but then this is a pedal with an intended voicing, not meant to blend chameleon-like with whatever whim the user has - whether that's a good or bad thing, of course, is in the eye of the beholder).

I will detract one rating point because higher gain settings develop some lower treble fizz. I solve this by running a 7-band (Fish n' Chips) EQ after it and cutting the highest band, while boosting the second-highest band to ensure that it still has good definition and cut. I feel kind of silly taking the point away all the same, but it's a negative that has no built-in solution.

I've remarked elsewhere about the added reliability of the Cool Cat series over the former FAB and "Food" pedals, so I won't do it here. You can read my remarks on the differences on the Transparent Overdrive review page.

No experiences with 'em.

A great pedal, from what I'm quickly discovering is a great series. Dan-o is hitting 'em out of the park with the Cool Cats, and this contributes to that overarching success.

And for the price, it's almost a no-brainer, isn't it?

Still, given the difficulties with the controls, I can't give it a 10/10 here. However, I think the great sound quality and versatility (especially for a high gain pedal with no deep midrange control options) make up for the difficulty in adjusting the settings.