Danelectro D-1 Fab Distortion

Volume, Tone, Distortion controls- not hard to grasp. If you're used to looking at knobs from the top, it might take a second to get used to the back-facing orientation. It's not that easy to get a good sound out of it, period, but the simplicity of the controls make it as easy as possible.

Currently using a Strat with Texas Specials & various little modifications, going into a Blackheart Little Giant combo (with various little modifications). Pedal is a little noisy, but no more or less than most gain pedals- i.e., mainly when you crank it (not recommended) and not too bad when you use it as a dirty boost (which is about the best thing I could get it to do). It's pretty close to bypass-clean when the distortion knob is all the way down, but kicks in quick when turned slightly- I had the best results in this slightly-crunchy range. Though the gain goes up pretty smoothly as you crank it, the overall tone doesn't thrill me...there's a fizzy undertone that tends to ruin the otherwise nicely-chunky attack. It reminds me more of a distorted solid-state amp than anything else, but I guess that makes sense...

It seems pretty solid, though I wouldn't bet a gig on the footswitch if you're heavy-footed. If you love the sound, you should probably get a backup (after all, a pair of these will still be cheaper than most single pedals). I don't expect any problems, but then again I didn't expect my Danelectro EQ pedal to die when it did :P

With a little work, you can get a good approximation of many 60's/ 70's distorted sounds, especially garage-band stuff...many of the sounds that MXR Dist+ and RATs usually provide. If you want to dirty your tone just a little and send a hotter signal to your amp, this is a decent & cheap solution. There's a nice little crunch there that ODs won't usually give you, but I was disappointed in how little the pedal added to the sustain and power of my tone. It's not a muddy tone-sucker, exactly, but I did notice a loss of clarity, especially between individual notes of a chord.

I wouldn't recommend it for medium to high-gain sounds; the noise and sound character of the pedal gets pretty nasty from about halfway up on the distortion knob. If you're an industrial/ alternative player who's into the fizzy buzzy solid-state distortions, you might get some use out of the higher distortion settings (the kind of dying-battery Big Muff tone that might even work for an underground early Black Metal sound).

I'd say "you get what you pay for", but that's just not true...you can pay twice to ten times as much and still end up without much more than this pedal offers (many 'classic' or boutique distortion/ OD pedals included). If you look at it that way, it's a bargain...but all that might really mean is most of those other pedals deserve to cost 15 bucks. However, I wouldn't necessarily recommend it, or buy another one if it went bye-bye.

Put a little time in, and you can get a few decent rock/ punk/ garage sounds from it...it easily earns its keep, but I doubt you'll ever be able to get one truly great sound, or even a variety of good sounds.

Ok, so I thought I would add my thoughts to the barrage of existing reviews here, as I slightly disagree with some of the scores in one or two catagories....

Ease of use, eh? As easy as any other pedal with 3 knobs!

The pots are nice and stiff, and therefore exact.
I see other reviewers have complained about the knobs sticking out of the back of the unit, but I think this is a great idea. There is nothing more annoying than kicking the knobs when switching a pedal on or off, and messing your carefully adjusted settings up! (especially on a dark stage)

The switch is study and easily activated, and the sloped front means it's easy to find with your feet.

I don't monkey around with batteries, but AC adaptor users will glad to hear that any plug unit works without hum and noise (Take note Roland/boss!) I use a Maplins Power Bank.

The bottom plate can be unscrewed with a small coin to access the battery compartment. (Better than a Boss which takes ages to access and the rubber grommits rot after a few years of heavy use)

The bottom plate is nice and heavy, with a thick rubber base, so the pedal won't move around on the ground.

Good stuff.

Ok, so my thoughts here are very much in sync with other reviews below.

The Fab DS1 is veratile enough to get 60's garage rawness up to fuzzy/creamy sustaining sounds with the ability to (as mentioned by others) act as a decent clean boost (and pretty cool treble boost, if you crank the tone up to the max)

There is, as with all pedals some noise when the dist. is turned up full (I love noise and hum personally!). But it is by no means as noisy as other(more expensive) pedals I have owned. For a plastic unit it seems very well sheilded. Good overall silent operation.

The pots operate smoothly and silently and there is no switch noise.

Just sounds natural, warm, lots of harmonics and sustain, and works very well in conjuction with an overdrive for infinate sustain and controllable feedback fun.

And yes! The blue light is pretty cool!

Here is my gripe with other reviews on this site.

I think people see a plastic unit and assume it's about to crack in half. This thing is small and the plastic is thick (refer to my comments about sheilding). It's not hard brittle plastic either, its the chewy hard to snap type (for want of a better description!)

The DS1 is a very light unit and theresore if dropped won't hit the ground very hard! I know that if I dropped my heavy DOD 250, it would fall hard and the oversized knobs would break etc.

Also, I had not had my DOD 250 very long before the pots were starting to get noisy and needed a bit of WD40 to fix them. No such poorness from the DS1 costing less than 1 third the price.

Nice solid (flush) jack sockets.

It's a very solid sturdy design and I have faith in it.

N/A

;p

I use a 72 custom Tele, and a 50's Strat into a Blues Junior alongside a DOD 250 overdrive, a Marshall Echohead, and Tuna Melt tremelo.

I like the Ravonettes, Arcade Fire, Sigur Ros, Richard Hawley, Jesus and Mary Chain, Velvet Underground, Libertines, Kings of Leon....you get the Idea.

I've been playing for about 15 years and have owned/borrowed/lost/thrown away/tried various distortion pedals including...
Marshall Shredmaster (a horrible, useles pedal)
Grey DA Fuzz Face (a bit rustic!)
Boss DS1 (very unnatural sounding)
DOD Classic Tube (Cool but got old, wires came loose etc...)
EH Mini Muff (Horrible metal scoop sound one trick pony)
Dano Grilled Cheese distortion (buzzed with AC adaptor)
Plastic Ibanez heavy metal thingy?? (My memory fails me...)
DOD 250 Overdrive (Nice - still in use)
Dano Fab overdrive (retired due to muffled tone)

I Like this pedal a lot. I recently stripped down my pedal board to just the DOD overdrive, but I miss it and will put it back tonight!

I was using it with the FAB Overdrive (Just not as good as the DS1 as is does seem to muffle your tone, although it's pushed mids and enhanced harmonics are very cool and usable, you just wouldn't want it on your pedal board full time!!)

I think this pedal is definatley worth 20 quid! It's good dirty fun, and it's a keeper!

This pedal has a few competitors, such as the Boss DS1, EH Mini Muff, These pedals cost more and I've expressed my opinion about them above.
I can't really comment on the Behrenger pedals as I've not tried them, but I'm not a huge fan of Boss, let alone cheap boss copies.

I hope this review is helpful, although for ??20 you can take the risk, eh? I just wanted clear up what I think are a few harsh opinions about the casing, knobs and switch.

Cheers.

plug and play - great distortion with a wide range for cheap! Boss should steal this circuit for the DS-1

For what I paid, wasn't expecting much. Boy, was I surprised! I use it with a Pignose G60VR (with an emminence speaker upgrade) and darn it, it sounds great! Fab harmonics, can go from subtle to almost metal, no noise is introduced, and no apparent tone sucking, either. The tone knob really has a good effect on the tone, and you can adjust your sound depending on the guitar you're using.

It's made of plastic, but I have other plastic pedals that have not let me down. I have used it on more than one gig, and on a couple of last minute gigs, this was the only distortion pedal I grabbed, 'cause it's small, light and does the job. The only weak point I see may be the way the plastic stomp switch is designed - over time, it could fatigue and break, but come on - I paid $10.00 for it used on craig's list, and as I understand, they sold new for like $15.00

haven't had a need to contact them - hell, for what it would cost to ship it back to them, I could buy another

I play all kinds of music in a cover band. Been playing pro over 30 years. Too much gear to list. If lost or stolen, would miss it, might buy another. It's definitely not a waste of money (like the Boss DS-1 is!). I love the wide range of distortion, the bright blue LED, the quiet operation (relative), and the weird sci-fi design. It definitely helps me make music, and like my $12.00 Arion Tubulator, is one of the better GAS acquisitions I have made

Very easy too use. Nothing else to say, Three knobs!

Well i am in a grunge band and i have been looking for a pedal with this sound for a very long time, i have been through numerous distortion pedals for example. Boss DS-1, Boss DS-2, Digitech grunge. The boss pedals are sooo overated, And very expensive STAY AWAY!!!. Well at the moment i use Roland Cube 60,Fender Strat with hot rails, Fender Jag-stang with Jb Humbucker, EH Big Muff pi, Dunlop Crybaby, Boss Super chorus and my newest and favourite pedal FAB DISTORTION i cant put across how good this pedal is, all i can say is BUY ONEE!!!

I havent giged with this pedal yet, But i think if you are carefull it should be ok.

N/A

BUY ONEE!!!!!!!!

simple, Dist, Tone and level (which seems to turn the opposite way to the others?) Manual tells you all u need to know. although where mine mentioned the battery it had the word (included) but had white tape over it because it wasn't which i found hilarious. Im giving it a nine cause the volume can get to setting which is crazily high and u've got to have it on a volume of about 3 to make switching from clean to dirty some what smooth.

Im actually a bassist trying to mold myself into an all round musician. But i've been fooling around on guitar for at least a few years and thats coming from a musical background so im not bad. Anyway i've just got an expanding set up but at the moment im running a home made maple-bodied guitar sporting an Epiphone Les Paul pick up in bridge and thats all im using at the moment running through either this or the FAB overdrive into a little fender 10 watt prac amp.
Lets be frank, isnt gonna be the greatest pedal in the world, but for the price and what it is, it isnt all that bad. Dont except to plug it in and be blown away by a wall of intense tight power, its not a metal pedal and i dont believe anyone should ever, ever attempt to use it as one no matter how full the gain is, even if u remove the gain adjuster because the solder linking to and from it had too much resistance to match the gain you are after NOT A METAL PEDAL!
That said, i dont believe it was ever intended on being a metal pedal and for the $5 off ebay i paid its not bad. it will get that nirvana-ish/rage against the machine rock, just dont get any heavier.
Although im not entirely sure it deserves it i'll chuck it a 8.

seems alright, wouldnt incorporate it into a bridge, levy or any other load bearing structure but strong enough to handle cautious use.

after owning it for a few weeks i hope no-one would of had to deal with them after this short amount of time.

I play a nearly exclusively what i write which is kinda a tasty nu-metal sandwich containing full strength fillers of funk, blues, rock and atmospheric-classically inspired... music, if thats the correct word for it. And although i think i could get away with this pedal for the proper distorted parts without people throwing their freshly disembodied ears at me from the stereophonic spew leaving the speakers, im not game. You listen to it and if someone was raving about it you could nod ur head and humor him/her, but i would never be the one raving, lets put it that way, doesnt get a great organic fuzz sound but doesnt give enough crunch... its somewhere in between and that doesnt make it bad just neither of the things i want.
I got it for a steal so it would only go full circle to be stolen. oh well, i'll just strip it out and chuck a home-made circuit board in there and see if i can conjure up a sound that im looking for.

Easy to use just three knobs; volume, tone, distortion not hard to get many great sounds out of this little gem. The downside is the location of the knobs, they are sticking out of the end of the unit away from you which makes adjustments on the fly a little awkward, plus they decided in their wisdom to colour the pointer arrows on the tiny knobs red which is pretty much impossible to see.

Well this is where you really get more than you paid for, this distortion is thick baby. You can use it for a subtle clean boost but much more fun can be had by tweaking up the the distortion and vol controls to about half way and beyond...well fruity..this pedal just about sits on the cusp of old skool metal to something a bit more primitive and garagey. Think EVH meets Jon Spencer. I like very much, pretty hard to get a bad sound out of it really, plus it doesn't seem to suck any tone from your precious (well semi) guitar. Best of all the BLUE LIGHT, you can actually kind of light up a dark stage/room with the funky blue ON LED which is just another bonus.

Danelectro hi impact plastic seems to be able to take it, just don't try driving over it, setting fire to the poor wee thing etc. I also think the input/output jacks on these cheap Dano pedals are not what you'd call hi end but for the money whaddya expect. I'd use it at a gig w/out back up, just don't abuse it. Bearing in mind the jack quality it may be happier on a pedalboard where it won't get plugged/unplugged so often.

never called em.

I've had a few distortions over the years, but this is a real keeper with a very high grin factor. I like cheap stuff that really does the biz, you wanna pay 200 quid for some boutique thing made with some germanium geranium transistors that were only made by magic elves wrapped in special bison wax then anodised using indian, not african elephant piss then shipped in a walnut box that was engraved by a bloke called Ken and he only did three because it really brought him down...well do it. I'll stick with the Danelectro.

It's easy to dial in the good sound out of this pedal. I started with all knobs pointing at 12'oclock and I am pleased with the sound. any setting in between still is usable.

This pedal is the one I've been looking for. I am an overdrive lover and this pedal has the mid-hump taste of an overdrive, quite unique though you won't usually hear in a distortion stomp box. At zero gain it is so transparent good for booster use, at 9-10'oclock its has a flavor of a tubescreamer. at 12'oclock it's hardrock overdrive. Way past 12'oclock is meant for distortion. The sustain is long and could be mellow enough good for the blues sound, actually I could turn off my compressor/sustainer. I would say the Box's slogan "Delicious Tone" is TRUE!.The effect is very quite when bypassed.

I think this pedal is dependable enough, though built on plastic casing, i believe you are smart enough to control your emotions while playing right?

great tone for such an affodable price

A very usable little pedal for an old blues guy to have. I dont want the loud raspy distortion that this thing is capable of but I do want some of the other things than this thing has got like - the transparent volume boost and also some very small amount of distortion if I want it.

My setup: Hondo big body jazz guitar (gibson L5 copy) into a 15watt British valve amp (WEM dominator) with some outboard reverb.
My music: Old blues stuff, upbeat and a little funky at times.
I was using an overdrive pedal till recently. It was similar to the BOSS pedals but what I did not like about it was the loss of bass that you get. This is a very iritating feature for a guitarist. Some guitarist may want to loose some bass when they play but I dont. Another problem with the overdrive pedal was that it sucked some sound from the signal
Well, the Danelectro pedal does none of these things. It does not suck any signal as far as I can tell and it is possible to set the pedal up so that it is very transparent ie: you get the same sound wether you press the footswitch or not. It may fatten the sound a little but you would be hard pushed to tell.
The one problem I have is that only want the distortion control on the tiniest amount -its hard to set it correct. This pedal can put out buckets of distortion but I'm not interested in this.
I also have a 'tune melt' pedal which is equaly a great pedal - I am sold on Dano pedals, even though I am not really a pedal person.
I get a great crystal clear sound from my guitar - amp combination and these pedals just add that bit more. The WEM does not have any gain so I use this pedal to add a little crunch when required -its quite a fun sort of crunch, not like overdrive at all. That just a bout sums up Dano pedals - Good Fun pedals.

only 2 days old - still going strongPlastic top on a metal bottom plate - I look after my pedals so dont expect any problems

not tried them

I'm a cheapskate - I have a Hondo guitar for Christs sake! but I like to buy quality stuff at the lowest price possible - Thats what I've got in this pedal.

This is a really good sounding pedal. Far better than a Boss DS-1. Doesn't "colour" your tone, just adds great sounding distortion. Three knobs that turn counter-intuitively, but you soon catch on.

Early Greenday, Nirvana, Led Zep, Hendrix ...

Where you need mid-range distortion and you play fast, this pedal shines.

It's made of plastic, but seems reasonably sturdy. Cheap enough to buy several backups ...

Haven't dealt with support yet.

Good, straight up distortion. I would replace it if it was lost or broken (especially considering how cheap it is).

This is what I expected a DS-1 to do. A nice meaty distortion without turning your tone to scratchy or mud.

Considering the price of this, this pedal is incredible.

Honestly, it's difficult to get a bad sound out of this thing. From clean boost to light OD to almost fuzz-like distortion, it all sounds good.

The way the knobs are positioned is annoying, but you get used to it.

It's a little noisy at full gain, but still within reason. This is certainly the best distortion pedal available under $25, and I think with a few tweaks it could certainly hang with boutiques. As is, it is a little flat sounding, but solid. Boosting it with another drive can yield good results.

It's not exactly roadworthy. But, at $15 you could easily buy a few backups. I've had mine for a year, no problems.

You won't find a better value - it's worth a try!