Danelectro DD-1 Fab Tone

This pedal is very easy to use.

I have a lot (12 at last count) of very cool tube amps from Fender, Marshall, Hiwatt, Sound City, Orange and more. I use mostly American Fenders, Hamer USA, and Gretsch's for my guitars. I play a wide variety of styles from heavy stuff like Black Sabbath, Sleep, King Crimson and Quicksand to noise pop stuff like My Bloody Valentine, Built To Spill, Sonic Youth, Radiohead, etc. While you can get a good metal sound from this pedal, I especially like it for noise pop stuff. I like this pedal more than the Boss Metal Zone because it's warmer and you can make it go out of control easier. The Metal Zone is a very focused sound. Not bad, but not what I like since I'm more of an overdrive and fuzz kind of guy (by the way, my very favorite distortion pedal is the Marshall Guv'nor Plus the Fab Tone is my second favorite). I like to use this pedals for out of control leads and big fat low note lead lines (think opening song on Radiohead's OK Computer or Red by King Crimson). My favorite setting is GAIN 100%, BASS 100%, TREBLE 25% and VOLUME/LEVEL to taste, but I suggest 100%. Now before you start to think I'm either deaf or on crack, give this setting a try. Here's what happens. When you play a note or a cluster of notes you get a loud sound on the attack then the volume dips for a second or two and then rages back up into glorious feedback! WOW what a cool sound. For real fun try bending the note(s) up as the volume comes back up. Try that with a Metal Zone. Ha! For even more coolness try that same sound with a Line 6 Delay modeler on the Low Res. Delay or a long Reverse Delay setting. Makes my big toe stand up in my boot!

I'm sure you could beat the crap out of it and it would take whatever you could dish out.

Never had the chance to find out.

Like a complete tool, I sold this with a bunch of other pedals so I could buy some Fulltone pedals(Yes, I do love my Fulltone pedals). I will be buying another one right away. If you can't get some type of cool sound from this pedal, then you should take up underwater kazoo playing and sell your guitar.

how hard can it be? it's a pedal.

I get great sound from this pedal.I use a lot of different guitars.I mainly use an old 1960 something Supro tube amp.I get great sound from it.I also play through a laney 100 watt tube driven head into a crate bass cabinet with an 18" and 2- 10" speakers.it really sounds great through that.

I never had any problems with it.

if you email dan electro they usually answer very quickly.

I play everything from 60's rock to 80's metal. and even some death metal on occasion. i've been playing for about 13 years.Right now i am playing some celtic roots/folk rock style of music doing a lot of traditional songs. its a total blast.

I'll give this good marks for ease of use. The knobs are smallish and close together which the only drawback. The stomp switch is easy to hit and sturdy enough to take a whack from a misbegotten mule. The little manual that comes with this is stunningly simplistic. That is a good thing I guess. It is literally drawing of the various settings you want to put your gain, volume and bass and treble at for "different" sounds (more on that later).

I'll be honest, this is a big dissapointment with me. I play two guitars: a 1955 Silvertone hollow-jazz body from Kay (with two Lindy Fralin wound p-90's from a 50's Gibson) and a 2000 American Telecaster with stock pick ups. I have (had) two amps: A '66 Gibson Saturn who just died in an ugly inferno that damn near destroyed my humble abode (RIP Gibson) and a mid 90's Fende Blues Deluxe. This Fab Tone does not sound great with either guitar or either amp. I was looking for a box that would give me a greater range than this can give...looking for the subtle boost a la Eric Clapton on the Yardbirds version of "Aint Got You" to the raunchy a la Link Wray to the full out fuzz madness a la Davey Allen and the Arrows (never heard of them? download "Blues Theme" today). What I got was the latter....ALL THE TIME!!!!

Built like a brick house (the kind with doors and windows as opposed to the kind of brick house the Commodores sang about).

Bought mine used...no manual, no nuttin'. Emailed the folk at Dano and had a box and a manual in the mail five days later.

This is a lovely looking piece that can real scream with the best of them. However, she has no ability to provide a subtle boost or a "hint" of distrotion. All or nothing. Sure you can vary the sound but it is all a variety of balls out. I play blues, surf and good ole rock-n-roll (God bless Ameriker). In the 18 years I have been playing I have played only two other boxes that I liked. The Vox unit from the mid sixties ( the one that Beck, Clapton, Townshend, Page etc used) and the Mosrite "Fuzzrite" (as used by the Ventures on the Fuzzy Things album). This Danelectro sounds a lot like the Fuzzrite but less versatile. Not even a patch on that old Vox (RIP).

How easy is it??? Well, my clone that i made for the eight grade (that's 8th grade for you drummers out there) science fair had himself sounding like Dimebag Darrell in just 15 min. and i only gave him half a brain and three fingers. (it's simple, four knobs and a foot-button)

I give it a 9 only becuase the first day i had it, i bumped the volume knob a 16th of an inch and my house fell apart. it goes from nice-quiet-grandms jazz to end-of-all--things-natural metal real quick. you have been warned.

i've had to use it to beat drunked drummers into a coma and it still plays great. but a lead singer jumped off a bunk-bed once at pratice and bend the knobs. it still sound great, but i have two mis-shapen knobs. no biggie. YOU MUST BUY A POWER SUPPLY!!! the batteries last about half a set before you sound like suck. So invest in a $15 adapter, or use a 9V you have lying around from something else.

Never needed them.

This pedal is great. I had a thrash metal and a slam punk, and thought they were decent, but this blew them ouf of the water like moshing at a hanson concert. Death to tennie boppers.

It doesn't seem like there is any way you can get a bad sound out of this pedal. Comes with a manual for some typical settings, but even just playing around with it for 2 minutes, you can get an awesome sound.

Right now I am using a crate stack(not really sure on the model), I think that this stack was made for metallica type stuff, but I play punk/pop go gos sort of music and this is the only pedal that I have used that gives me what I want through this amp. I am also using a danelectro 56-u3 which is a great compliment to the pedal's otherwise awesome sound...these two items together produce awesome tone.

the only problem that I have had with this pedal is with the battery hook...it had actually come off right before a gig...other than that, no big deal...that is going to happen with any pedal..I have had my pedal since within the first year it was on the market...other than the battery thing, extremely reliable

I have never had any contact with the company over this item...have had no reason to call them...I have had my pedal since within the first year it was on the market...

Overall...a must for any musician seeking great distortion...even though I play punk/pop, if I were in anything from a metal to blues to country band, this would be a great pedal to use. If anything ever happened to this pedal, I would definately get another one, and very quickly at that. When I picked up this great pedal I tried out alot of different products. I tested the Big Muff, some of the ibanez soundtanks and a couple of the boss distortion pedals...none of them could compete with the effect of the fab tone, and it looks great too.

don't even ask

this is why i'm here. all you assholes who think you can get a wicked metal sound, not just sound, with only a stompbox must be fucking losers. this is a great peice of gear, but like most distortion pedas, you really need to stick an EQ pedal into the chain. just thought i'd let all you dicks who can't tell an e5 chord from that dick's doge neon engine. and all you other losers who whine that you can't get a good distortion out of any of the stompboxes you try, grow some balls. you want a good sound, you gotta spend the big bucks, not 60$ for a stompbox,on a TUBE DRIVEN amp with some balls and a 412 cabinet (or 2). learn some shit about shit before you post reviews about shit.

a brick

fucking awesome with the right rig, but you can't put a tube amp in a box.

Okay, really, is any pedal difficult to use? There's four knobs, and in order to get this pedal working, all you have to do is start turning them all clockwise. If you don't like the sound, try turning some counterclockwise. Mix and match to what you want. If you can't figure it out after all of this, try plugging it in. Then start rocking out to your Seven Mary Three power chords or whatever the fuck you're listening to, because you obviously haven't attained the brain power to properly operate a light switch, must less attempt anything more complex than a rousing rendition of "Cumbersome."

You want to know my setup? Damn you're a nosy bitch. 1974 Fender Telecaster through a Danelectro Fab Tone DD-1 into my Fender M-80 combo. That's it. Personally, I don't like having to fuck around with 19 pedals when I only have two feet which are usually reserved for helping me run around the stage and leap off my amp during the downbeat of "Whole Lotta Rosie" when my band "Rabid Wolf" rocks out twice a week at the Greenbriar Bowl-A-Rama.

You want to know how dependable this pedal is? After I found my little brother Randy messing with the new chrome rims on my Camaro, I rolled my Fab Tone up in a towel and beat him like a stepchild on Sunday, and it was still able to carry me through the solo for Trixter's "Give It To Me Good" without even a hint of static. This pedal is designed for ASS KICKIN' hard rock, so don't even bother looking at it in the store unless you're ready to smash some punk in the teeth when he asks you if you were at the last Sneak Attack show, because that pussy wouldn't understand Sneak Attack if they were rocking out in his bedroom at 3am. So do both of you a favor and crush his skull with a Danelectro DD-1 Fab Tone.

If you don't get it by now, you probably never will. This pedal is ROCK rolled up into a neat little ball, and the people at Danelectro have been kind enough to let us have a little lick of the rock. This pedal is PUNK ROCK and HARD ROCK and METAL EDGED and everything else that music should be about -- getting loud, getting WILD, and getting chicks. Sometimes I'll take my Fab Tone and just wear it down the front of my pants, because it feels just as good to wear it as it does to play through it. And if anyone tries to give me crap about it, I'll grab 'em by the front of their shirt and tell 'em how they just walked into the jungle...and I'M THE TIGER!

-Extremely easy to obtain great tone.
Simple- Volume--Bass--Treble--Fab(distortion)
-Manual gives presets for different tones(British stack,Lead,Face Melt,blues solo,...)

I use a Peavey international Raptor 1 through the Fab Tone then a Dunlop Crybaby wah into a Peavey Rage 158. Even with this setup it kicks ass. Little bit of noise on high fab/high treble settings.With all the amps I've tried(Garnet Pro Series, Fender Twin Reverb,
Vox AC-30, and Peavey trash) this pedal sounded excellent. I like everything from Metallica to Clapton. I don't try vey hard to get the Metallica tones and the blues solo emulates the Clapton quite well. Only negative comment is that even with the Fab all the way down there's still some distortion. Good for many tones.

Built like a rock. When not in use can be used as a paper weight for tabs.

N/A

Good for every style/tone. Wouldn't trade it for a Les Paul Standard.

Fairly easy to understand.
level = volume
bass = amount of bass
treble = amount of treble
fab = intensity of distortion

althought the controls are easy I found that finding the particular sound that you need is sometimes hard to find. Have patience. It's there.

This is my setup:
JB Player Sledgehammer (nice guitar)> dunlop crybaby> danelectro daddy-o> danelectro fab tone> boss super phaser> danelectro tremolo> boss digital delay 5> grate GFX 120 amp. I fucking love my setup. This pedal gives me all the hard metal sounds I would ever need! The only problem I have is people saying this pedal is too "intense". It's supposed to be! If you want something lighter and bluesy go for the Daddy-O. If you want metal and hardcore punk shit, go Fabtone. The only thing with this pedal is it sounds really good ahead of everything in the effects line. Putting it after decreases the quality.

The fabtone is a brick. A big fucking tank-like brick. But I did borrow a friends for a while and it started having some problems. Danelectro pedals are not always quality. But if you get one that doesn't have any problems out of the box it'll work forever.

I've never dealt with danelectro, but I do have one serious problem!!!! The warrenty is only good in the United States. me being in Canada, that poses a serious problem. Lucky I work in a music shop and know how to fix any problems that should occur, but that's not the point. This needs to be taken care of.

I play mostly metal and punk. This pedal is great for both. It works great with the rest of my setup and I would reccomend this pedal to anyone looking for hardcore distortion. If you want soemthing a little cheaper go for the Danelectro Black Coffee, it's good too. But I'll never need another distortion pedal! Thank you danelectro.

This box is Great for metal and alternative sounds. All knobs (Hi-Lo, fab, level) are pretty self explanatory.

I am using a Sheratin2 and a laney320. There is no noise when bypassed and it is so easy to get good distortions from it.

Absolutely no back up nessasary. this is as reliable as any thing DOD or Boss has.

never used it yet

I play it all. This pedal I have one problem with. From looks alone you would assume it was an overdrive pedal. Oh no! This is all about aggresion. If your looking for "vintage" This aint it