Danelectro D-1 Fab Distortion

This pedal has three knobs...level, tone & distortion. You can't get too much easier. As some of the other reviewers have noted, it is not obvious which way the knobs rotate. Other than that, not any hassle at all.

My setup is a Carvin SE90 -> D-1 -> Behringer V-Amp 2 -> Crate Club 20 tube amp. My playing has a tendency to blues & rock, but I try to mix other styles in as much as I know.

What I really like about this pedal is that it has a nice versatility. I have mostly used it (I just received it a few weeks ago) as a crunch boost to some clean settings in the V-AMP 2, and as an "overdrive" for the Crate amp. The range of distorted tomes that you can get is very good. I keep the tone not quite in the middle (looking at it from above, around 5:00). The distortion knob has a fantastic range, from a boost to a crunch to a good sustained lead sound. For the price, this to me is quite remarkable.

I am not entirely sold on the sound quality, yet. I still have to play around with it in my setup a bit more, but there is a presence of a bit of hiss at some of the mid to higher distorted ranges. But again, for the price, I can't complain.

Please also note that I had tried out the new overdrive pedal. It did not have the same range of sound that this one did. The overdrive seemed to do only one thing, and I just did not like how it sounded. This pedal is the much more useful tool.

I take care of my equipment quite well. So, I have no concerns about this from me. However, if I were regularly gigging, I would want a backup. It is mostly plastic (okay, a very dense plastic), so I do not see how this would last on an extended tour. But again, it's about $15.00...just buy four or five of them, and have them available to go.

I have never dealt with Danelectro, so no idea.

This is a really nice, inexpensive tool for guitarists who need a versatile distortion box to add some range to their sound. For the price, I do not see how you can do much better. I would definitely replace it should something happen.

Simple three knob setup. Because the knobs face away, it is not immediately obvious which way to rotate the knobs to increase or decrease values. But, just turn the knobs and find out!

I'm probably using this effect differently than most people. I had one spot left on my pedalboard and was looking for something that could give me good low gain sounds through a clean tube amp (I already had my medium and high gain sounds taken care of with other pedals). This pedal nails the sound I was looking for! Just crank up the volume and set the distortion just above zero (where it just starts to distort). Beautiful sounds to be had with no extra noise added to the signal chain! Just adds that little bit of hair to the clean sound, like a pushed tube amp. I am highly impressed.

Overall, it gives a very warm and convincing sound. BTW, I am using a Fender American Strat through a Fender Blues Jr. amp with eight pedals in series. Pups are Bill Lawrence L-280's.

It seems like it will hold up, but I may buy another one as a backup. It's made of fairly rugged plastic. I just leave it velcro'd to my pedalboard.

No opinion. I've never had to deal with Danelectro.

It's not a 10, since it is not true bypass and boutique. But the bypass seems very good and I don't sense any real signal loss. I don't care for this pedal's high gain sound - a little too grainy with single coil pickups (IMHO). But, dial back to low gain and boost the volume and this thing has lots of vibe. Like everyone below say, it is a no-brainer for $15.

Too easy..
You shouldn't be trying to play guitar if you can't work this one out.

Truly exceptional.
How do Dano do it?

This pedal sounds better than my Big Muff!

Seriously folks...for $30 you cannot go wrong, it is by and far THE best distortion pedal Ive come across...so much character.
Only gripe would be it tends to be slightly noisy with high gain...but then again what distortion pedal isnt..

The design is a huge improvement from the mini-danos...the pots are located at the back so theres no chance of kicking them.
Dano have obviously put alot of thought into the design...this pedal is small, sleek and sexy..with a hint of retro.
As with most Danos the switch itself is always a worry...but so long as you're not throwing it against a wall it should be fine.
Again, the construction and design are a huge improvment from the earlier mini danos..

for $30...no point in chasing them up..

Versatile, aggresive, & tight
This pedal will cut through a mix but wont leave you with aural fatigue..

Well done Dano....now if you can just install better switches you would OWN the stomp box market.

Easy - 3 knobs volume, tone and distortion. The tone is where the trick lies in that it acts somewhat like a filter knob, a bit like the ProCo Rat I guess.

This pedal, for me, isn't noisy at all. I use a Parker Fly Hardtail into a Marshall MG15DFX amp. I normally use the amps overdrive channel and set the overdrive very low - about 8 o'clock and let the pedal give me more gain when I need it. When using it like this, I usually have the distortion on the pedal at around 2 or 3 o'clock - pretty low. But this combined with the amps distortion gives me a perfect amount that I control with the volume on my guitar.

The tone knob lets you create a whole pallet of sounds from very trebly, to mid range honk. Not too much bass though but that doesn't bother me.

I can depend on this. I don't abuse my gear and I only play in the house. The reason I gave this a 9 was because it's made from plastic and if you were gigging with it and stepping on it with shoes, chances are you may break it. Pretty solid unit though.

Never needed to use them.

I normally play heavy rock, blues rock and general rock. Like I said my main amp is a Marshall MG15DFX and a Parker Fly Hardtail - I sometimes also use a Fender Fatstrat. I have been playing for about 7 years now. I have a number of pedals but I think that this could become my main one as it's very versatile. You could run your amp on it's clean channel and use this pedal to give you all your gain. On a solid state this isn't so good so I use the OD channel option as discussed above. It takes away a little bit of tone but it's not that much and doesn't bother me.

It's a very simple pedal to use and if you're thinking of getting a distortion pedal then you should definately check this out. Just don't expect metal tones as this isn't what this pedal is designed for.

Compared to my Boss Turbo Distortion I'd probably choose this one as it's got a wider range of tones available. Although the Boss Turbo Distortion, with it's midrange boost, is excellent for Schenker like leads.

Very easy to use with 3 knobs: level, tone, and distortion. The jacks and knobs are in the back, so you have to lean over the pedal to see what you are doing.

I could not get any variation of sound from this pedal, but it may be user-error (me). This was my first pedal and tried it for the sweet price of $15.

I turned it on and it was fuzzy and distorted, but at max gain it sounded pretty much the same. I think the effect is a bare-bones device, but I have a Vox Valvetronix amp and I tried it on manual and modeling, with no gain and full gain, and the pedal seemed on or off.

I returned it.

Made from plastic, but bottom was metal and seemed sturdy. I had the pedal on a table, so I was not stepping on it, but I think it would stand up to normal use.

N/A

Not good enough to keep, but at $15 it is worth a shot with no strings attached.

amazing range of versatlity. Took less than a second to dial in distortion, a tad bit longer for the eq, and no time to match unity gain. Unit sounds great on all settings - nice full and rich. Impossible to get a "bad" sound out of it really - unless your guitar to amp sound sucks.

Gibson les paul studio, boss acoustic sim., boss bf2 flanger, dano surf&turf comp., voodoo lab micro-vibe, maxon pt-999 phasor, budda wah, dano d-1 dist., austin gold overdrive, dano pb&j delay, ernie ball volume, aphex exciter, boss reverb, signal splitter to studio 15 all tube marshall - the second wet line to a dano cool cat chorus, dano pb&j delay and finally to a little fender frontman.
The D-1 does excately what I wanted; a harder, thicker crunch than the austin gold. The austin gold is excellent also with it's very natural overdrive that doesn't change your basic tone. The D-1 can nail the bright thick crunch of a marshall perfectly - ala Joe Perry or even Gary Moore with a little more gain rolled up. Awesome.

I own 10 danelectro units - some of them I've had for almost 15 years and they've never given me any problems whatsoever. Even though they're made of plastic and the ones I use stay mounted in my pedalboard, I would have to say they're as reliable as one could hope for. Much better than anything put out by Fucking Dunlop. They're stuff looks good, sounds good for about 6 months to a year, and then gives up the ghost entirely or just semi-fucks up enough to where you don't even want to use it anymore.

Never had to use them. If there service is as good as the units, I'm sure it's great.

Played for 37 years semi-pro. Our band stays busy almost every weekend gigs ranging anywhere from none to 5 times a week depending. We do it all; country, rockabilly, blues, all kinds of rock to old school metal, some jazz, contemporary, even crooner. Basically Merle Haggard to Eric Johnson - and we try to catch hits inbetween the two. I have to access a huge array of sound at the drop of a hat (that's why so many pedals) and adding the D-1 to my arsenal give me what I was missing. It can basicall do it all from clean boosted to rip your head off and shit down your kneck harmonic gain saturated metal. I use it for the just enough gain needed - les paul to marshall with a nice zingy tight explosive crunch sound. Excellent unit. I honestly can't think off anything Dano could do to make it any better. Jaw dropping cheap for what you get. If it's a durable as all the rest of my Danos - it'll last for years. If not, at that price, I would buy one as needed. Sounds much better to my ears than a lot of high end expensive units out there for sure.

Easy enough to use although it is a bit odd when the pedal is on the floor the knobs face away from you. Not difficult, just takes a little getting adjusted to.

I'm running this through the clean channel of a Genz Benz El'Diablo 60C (combo amp.) The gain on my clean channel is all the way up so this pedal gets a little head start in the grind arena. I personally think the pedal sounds great if not excellent! For the price it is beyond beliefe. I keep the gain all the way up on this pedal and the tone down low, I tend towards darker sounds. It is no more noisy than any of my other dirt boxes.

Even though the main pedal body is plastic it still seems plenty tough. The foot switch feels solid and is of the quiet type which I like (for recording.) The bottom plate is steel. I see no reason why this pedal would not hold up in my home studio.

No idea

Dan Electro has done a great thing with these Fab effects (I own all three.) Decent construction, fantastic price, great tones. Individually each of these pedals can stand next to boxes that cost 7 or 8 times as much, ( I have some of those too!) I just hope Dan Electro continues to expand the fab effects line to include chorus, delay, phaser and other such toys, if the price and the quality stay the same I'll buy them all!

Three Knobs...level, tone and distortion...very simple

I'm using this in front of a mid 80's Peavey Bandit (in the clean channel) and it's drivin by a 60's/early 70s silvertone Mosrite copy with a Seymour Duncan JB installed in the bridge position. The bandit has a celestion vintage 30 installed in place of the Scorpion normally found in peaveys of this vintage. The quality of the distortion is really amazing. Deep and Dark, not strident or harsh in any way. Ive got the mids (on the amp) turned most of the way up...presenece too..with bass and treble in the middle position (i.e. neither boosed or cut)I'm running the pedal with all three knobs at 12:00o'clock, or so, and I couldnt be happier with the quality of the distorted sound.

I play in a band, mostly Alt Rock...all originals...and all the band mates where equally impressed with the sound of this pedal...even the drummer noticed the difference ....

I leave it on most of the time..and I didnt notice any excess noise or tone suck from this pedal. BAss response while using this pedal was excellent with no noticable drop in that area.

Ive only had it a week...so far so good....but it is mostly plastic so I dont know how much stomping this thing could take. I leave it on while playing/jamming and I have it on top of the amp and turn it on/off with my hand.

This pedal sounds amazing, not withstanding that is retails for 30 bucks...and when you consider what 30 bucks gets you these days..this pedal is an amazing value.

Very easy to use, three knobs on the back of the unit. No manual but not necessary.

Using with Strat into a Hughes-Kettner ATS60 - which can at times lack a little bottom on certain settings - the Fab distortion allows me to put that back.
Not noisy at all, though the level control goes up realy loud, and then it's all nise, but that is sometimes what you want. Do not use in an amp's 'dirty' channel unless you are really confident.
Wide range of tones and levels of distortion, or you can use it primarily as an overdrive with minimal unit-generated fuzz. Has a great vintage tone, like a 'designer' fuzz pedal.

The box is plastic and I have certain reservations about the switch, if you're wearing Doc Martins and like stomping on your pedals from a great height this might not last as long as you would wish. If I was worried I'd eviscerate it and put it in a stronger box, but I'm not a great stomper. Battery life very good. Nice blue LED helps locate it onstage.

Never used them

Usable for a wide range of styles, I've been playing guitar and bass for 20+ years and it does it for me. If lost - I'd buy another one, they're so cheap...
I like the vintage tone and the way the level button clearly goes past 11. The styling is individual and might not please everyone.
At the price it's a clear winner. If you don't like it then just throw it away...

The guy below was absolutely correct. I have a Boss DS-1 and there is no comparison, the Fab is what the DS-1 would like to sound like!

The pedal is transparent and doesnt colour your amp as much as Boss pedals.

The bass end is totally missing from the DS-1 and the treble is harsh and tinny. The Fab pedal has as much bass as you dial in from the amp (eg. transparent, no artifical bass cut).

The DS-1 with volume maxed is unity gain with your amps clean sound. The Fab can go well over twice as loud as your amp - massive clean gain available. The distortion control goes from the slightest breakup for blues (much lower gain than the DS-1 can go down to) up to about twice as high on the Fab compared to DS-1, and its smoother quality gain. But unfortunately for me this pedal just falls short of heavy metal saturation.

The tone control is limited. From 0-2 nothing much happens and its very dull, then from 2-3 you get all your brightness back. From 3-9 the pedals sound doesnt change but the volume goes up (?!), then from 9-10 it goes incredibly trebly.

One thing I really like is the natural compression. Boss pedals are a bit sterile and this pedal has a valve like compression built in even when gain is very low. A nice touch response effect.

Now comparing to my other pedals (valve gear) I have to say the Fab has a bit of fizziness in the high frequencies and its not as 'focused' and powerful. But it is certainly above Boss's efforts.

This was my favourite pedal out of the new Fab series. The OD was very dull (like a tubescreamer) and absolutely not transparent. The Metal pedal was a bit better than a Metalzone (breakup was more natural) but still had that horrible nasal artifact all over it that no amp in the world has.

A big surprise was I loved this Fab Distortion pedal for blues with gain set real low, it sounded very much like my valve amp just breaking up does.

For ?16 this is a no brainer. I am learning that the famous Boss pedals are very overrated, 30 year old designs...