Danelectro DD-1 Fab Tone

What a turd of a pedal! Actually, I should not say that. Mated with the correct player and used with the type of music it was intended, it would probably be a fine addition to a young headbangers arsenal. For me, an old fart blues player, it proved to be a disaster. I bought it on a whim ( as I do most things ) for $20.00 in a pawn shop. This was several years ago and I thought if it did not work as an overdrive, I could certainly use it as a boat anchor! Upon plugging it in, I soon discovered there is no clean tone at all with this pedal. Even at it's minimum settings, it has more gain than most pedals on 10. Again, for some players, this is a good thing. For me...no. I used it at a gig...of, I should say...I TRIEDto use it at a gig. I was sitting in with a blues band that had two other guitar players. When it came to sosl time, I stepped on the Fab-Tone and my solo was quickly lost in the mix. I mean..it disappeared! I fiddled with the settings to no avail and finally clicked it off and clicked on my Direct Drive to bring me back to reality! I wound up giving the Fab Tone to a friends son. He's into Megadeath, Sabbath and others of that ilk. He loves the pedal and it seems to work well for him. Me...I'll stick to the lower gain pedals that better suit my style.

I bought this pedal to make my long-ago-sold Boss DS-1 redundant, but no its a pain to use. Space between knobs = almost non-existant, could never dial in a worth while tone when i finally squeezed my fat fingers between the dials.

Look, I'll say this in the face of 400 glowing reviews. This is only even slightly useful to 14yr olds with little practice amps. Sounds like radio static in varying volumes with a guitar apparently hiding in the mix. Makes for a rather smashing doorstop however.

I couldn't depend on it as far as I could throw it to give me a good tone - which isn't far considering how damned heavy it is. I would use at gig to lob at drunken louts.

N/

I wish it would get stolen and/or lost which I think it has been - I lent to some budding guitarist but he hasn't given it back...HOORAY!

I will give it a couple of points however for being damned robust - although it is indeed THE worst pedal I've EVER owned, it sure is built to last.

Very easy to use, 4 knobs : Volume, Bass, Treble, Fab
Interesting patches can be found in the manual.

I use the Fab Tone mostly on my old Vox AC-30, with Fender Tele or
Strat or Gibson SG, Les Paul etc....There it sounds best.
You can dial in a lot of different sound, this thing can give u
a very heavy distortion, very fat sounding, excellent for classic rock, metal, but also crunch (if you turn down the volume on your guitar).It may depend on your amp, but with an old Vox it sounds great.
My favourite setting : Vol around 10-11, Bass 3 o'clock, Treble 11-12 o'clock and Fab 9-10 o'clock.
The Fab pot does not really change the amount of distortion, it seems
to give more sustain.
What I like is that this pedal goes in direction fuzz, not to much...just enough to get these Monster Magnet sounds (among others)
Anyway it belongs to my favourite distortions, the others are :
Original Ibanez Ts-808 and DOD 250.
Definitely the Fab Tone is one of the heaviest sounding pedals on the market.
I give a 10 because it is unique...there is no such thing !!!

The knobs are plastic and look a little fragile...but the pedal is built like a tank.
I have the Dan-echo and Cool Cat since 5 years on my pedal-board, and I never had a problem. Once I played outside in the pouring rain, they
became wet ...no more tone...after they dried...no more problem, Never.
Need no back-up.

Never dealt with the company

I play since 20 years and have owned a lot of equipment, the Fab Tone
is one of the pedals that will never leave the house.
I like it on my Vox, it works with my Marshall JCM 800...but when I use this top I prefer the pure Marshall overdrive, the same with my
Rectifier Top.
If it were stolen...I think i would go for another one.
I think the Fab Tone has its very own sound more character like the most, not all, Boss pedals.
The only thing I wish it had, it's that the Fab pot would have more
affect on the amount of distortion.

relatively simple, has vol, low, high, and fab (dist) knobs. takes a little time to set the eq though.

it sounds really good. its a very ballsy distortion and even at low levels its pretty hot. it isnt good for nu-metal type stuff but for hard rock and high-octane blues, pretty much anything that requires you to be able to scream, it works great. it can be a little noisy and i recommend using some type of noise suppression along with it. also it doesnt really lighten up. you cant get any smooth overdrive sounds out of it like you would with an old tube amp. (the daddy-o is great for that)

its has been very reliable so far.

like i said, its good for high gain music, it can get pretty heavy at times but its hard to get it to clear up, and it doesnt have the qualitites to allow every note of the chord to ring out.

Hard to dial in sound at first- it's super bright, and the bass needs to be really high, but not dimed. The knobs are really touchy, which is great, because it means it's got a lot of different sounds - If i move the treble knob just a bit, it goes from souped-up Big Muff imitations to grinding metal worthy of At the Gates.

First and foremost- there is NO gain dial. which means this pedal is as heavy as Barry White (rest his soul) from the get-go. The Fab control revisits Barry every six months or so on a diet solely consisting of breast milk, Krispy Kremes, and pig's feet. Does that make you want to retch? So will this pedal, in the best of all possible ways.

I use a 1979 Gibson LP Custom with Dimarzios into a Fender Dual Showman 85W head. With that setup, this pedal is extremely bright, as I leave on the bright switch on my amp. I turn the treble all the way off, and the bass up to about 90%, and then it's my sound! Very Mogwai/Smashing Pumpkins/Explosions in the Sky/ACS-era Marilyn Manson sounds. "Christmas Steps"/"Beautiful People" in a box. A little more treble and a twist of the Fab (saturation) control puts you in the realms of extreme metal; the extra treble response adds grind to the massive, creamy gain and makes you really feel the palm muses.

Effects placed after this go ga-ga. Phasers sound like alien landings, reverbs are cavernous, and flangers sound like a miniature Lear jet is taking off from the innards of your amplifier. Most modulation effects are really extremified, and delays' repeats are more pronounced.

As for the gain - which is why you're here, isn't it? It's absolutely the MOST distortion I've ever heard. Put the Fab at half and tone to taste, and you're in another world. However, this pedal is devoid of many of maximum meltdown's little hang-ups. There is little noise, although I've not really turned up very loud yet with this pedal. "Very Loud" means earsplitting. Unlike its fuzzier cousin, the Big Muff, there is no breakup, just really, really smooth gain. Multiple notes don't get muddy or garbled, as some fuzzes are wont to get. Single notes are really smooth and clear, chords just sound MASSIVE. If you turn the pedal's low end to full, you can just about fire your bass player.

This pedal is unreliable. From the second day I got it, the jacks just sucked. If i wiggle the patch cable, the sound deteriorates and then I must wiggle it some more to get good sounds again. That woudl be frightful if I were to mash it at a gig and then not get the unearthly response I'd expected. That being said, put new jacks on, like I will, or better yet, leave it on all the time, in a loop (as I also do).

Never went to them. DIY or die.

This pedal is great for all my heavy distortion needs. It doesn't get much mids, or low gain- I don't think it's terribly good for Van Halen or Guns 'n Roses, although I don't really need that sound either (though I do love GNR dearly). Best at low settings for shoegazer and maybe some thrashy punk, twist the "Fab" control for saturated metal sounds. I really suggest cranking up the mids and turning down the treble just a bit after this pedal. My amp gives a prescence boost with its bright switch. So should your EQ. If it got stolen, I'd go out and get another right away. This pedal replaced my Boss DF-2 (an EXCELLENT pedal for high gain, but too bright for me) and is integral to my new tone. If I ever found the thief, I'd make him watch American Idol on a loop until his brain melted.

The Fab-Tone is really a sound from the future. No, fuck that. Forget it. This pedal sucks, don't buy it. I mean it. There's enough of you shabby bastards stealing all the good tones and driving up prices. Keep off.

Pretty easy volume knob, low and hi eq and that tone "fab" knob that. The manual has some good presets too, besides one or two they where all handy.

Well you can understand quite easily by it's looks that it's not something to be taken too seriously so don't expect a "marshal or mesa in-a-box" type of distortion. The sound is quite fuzzy and remind many early nineties distortion, more chaotic than tight. Before i got the Ibanez LF7 filter i was using this a lot to create a broken speaker sound and it worked just fine. The only thing that puzzles me in it is that Fab knob...Personaly i think it's quite useless since unless it's totally low it gets noisy and makes the sound unusable. For the rest is a good pedal

Despite it looks like a toy like anything danelectro it's made of metal and that makes it resistant, only the knobs seem a bit too frail but they are quite far from the pedal so ok.

Never used

Well as long as you don't expect a miracle stompbox it's worth a try, i had quite some fun with it and i still bring it out when i get to play something that requires more anarchy than order. I would suggest it to anyone looking for a distortion with a twist, a stompbox for a grunge sound or (like in my case) a ministry style little monster of a distortion. But if you need to buy your main distortion pedal it's not a good choice. Oh and for anyone afraid to look stupid among his bandmates with that thingy don't worry, if you set it up well you will wipe out that smile of they're face. The fab tone can be like a little dog, it might look stupid but when it comes down to the game it aims straight for the balls.

well this is the only hard thing about it. i use a old marshall 5212 and a ibanez gsr60. i had to tinker with it for about a week but when i found that sweet spot it was worth every penny i paid for it.

this is where this pedal shines. its not for the guitarist that wants a wide range of distortion but for someone who wants a realy chunky heavey fuzzy overdrive. it sounds nothing like the ds1 and thats a good thing. its realy thick and if you like silverchair youll like this pedal. i would say its good for metal, grung, nu-metal if you dare, but its definitely not for bluse or soft rock.

this thing is built like a tank. i would gig with it with out a back up.

never had to deal with them

like i said befor this is a good pedal but i would try it out befor i bought it to see if its your tast. iv had alot of dostortion pedals befor and this is my favorit. its like having a overdrive sustainer and fuzz all in one. i can get a good nirvana/metallica type sound.
like i said i love it. if someone were to steal it i would find the person and kill them with a cheesegrater.

Usual Dano drawbacks: knobs are too close to each other.
Other than that, it's a dist pedal with a 2 band EQ.

This has been my 4th od/dist pedal I've placed in my rig (Vox Valvetone, TS9 reissue, RAT2, FabTone), I needed some sustained sounds for a reasonable price.
Does that. I keep the dist all the way down (to left), treble almost to zero otherwise it farts, bass to 1/4.
Ok, one can say it's not versatile at all and is virtually unusable for most seetings.
It's true: but it does perfectly what I bought it for, so I give it an 8.
If you had to use just versatility as a criterium, it would deserve a 4. It won't cover the whole range of dist sounds an average guitarist might need: it's a great pedal for sustained solos and powerful one-string riffs (think of Nirvana's School), period.

Metal case, plastic jack inputs. Should last though.

It's all in the above parts. Anyway, I had bought it to play distorted in my crappy amp I have in my room, and it has finished to settle down in my official rig. Ambitious pedal. If stolen, I would probably happen to buy three of them.

4 knobs understandable labels manual does a good job of telling you what stuff does

Ibanez DTX120->pedals->Fender Sidekick 10
This pedal does a good job as a distortion... can be a bit harsh and trebly at times and also very low noise for the ammount of gain it has... great sound when i'm playing and also some nice sounding feedback can happen...

plastic jacks and pot shafts... other than that it's very well built

never dealt with the company

This pedal does alot... hard rock, metal, metal, hard rock... ok so it does those really well and the rest kinda requires a little extra tweaking from other gear definately worth the money

I always wanted to check out this pedal because I like the guitars so much. It has a nob of two more than I like, but it does not take a Rocket Scientist to figure it out. The manual was pretty dead on I their descriptions. Couple of twists up an d down on the dial and you can get a great sound

I recently purchase a new Fender Deluxe reverb in which I am having a tech rebias at the time of this review. I was hoping to purchase a tonebone "Hot British" pedal, but they are a little pricy. The reviews on the have been good, so I am hoping to get to try one soon. This padal was being blown out for really cheap at a local music store, so I made a decision to buy one and give it a go! I tried it out on my Hughes and Kettner solid state. Man! It sounded awsome. I had to bring up the treble a bit, but I got that nice "Marshally" British grind.As far as I am concerned, If you have an amp that will do the "Fender Clean" thing and the "Marshall" thing equally, you got the best of both worlds. So far, I am doing pretty good. This pedal is not that noisy either. So many pedals out there being sold today, should be thrown in the trash. They are extreme noisy and the distortion/overdrives are unpleasing to the ear. This pedal sounds 'great". Definitely a great product for the money.Other than chorus, and delay, I don't have a lot of use for too many other effect. So I will be using this for a while

The case on this think is solid as a rock. Some are complaining about the plastic knobs, but if you are not throwing it across the room, you should be OK. I have not had it long enough to have internal problems yet soo I cannot render an opinion on that aspect. However, I am not anticipating any problems either.

Don't know!I haven't had to deal with them.

I'm an old guy so I play a lot of blues and 70's style rock. I never got into the metal thing so my tastes are a slightly mellower. I love the British Blues and Rock styles. I am also a fan of pre-1980' country music. My Guitar favorites would be Clapton, Beck, Page, Peter Green, Kim Simmonds, Mick Taylor, Rory Gallagher,Michael Schenker,etc,etc. You get the picture!

I have been playing for over 30 years. I was trained initially on classical guitar, but I moved over to steel string accoustic and then electric guitar. I own a slew of different Fender strats and teles. However, I also like the Gibson Flying V's(Gibson's most underated guitar),Danelectro U-56 reissue and I also own a Rickenbacker 360/12(I am also a Byrds and Beatles fan). I own a Fender Silver Face Champ, A Fender Deluxe Reverb re-issue, and A Hughes and Kettner Tri-plex solid state(great little amp for the money). I have a few other distortion pedals, but I really don't like any of them. I am kind of hard to please in this area. If this thing was lost or stolen, I would still like to check out the Tonebone, but for now, this should do fine.