Soundclips - Danelectro CO-1 Drive

[Ryan Mohr]

I picked this up for less than $30 off Musicians Friend. It is a vintage sounding overdrive, definitely colored sounding. If you want to know more just ask. The clips are miced, but still sound crappy. I just thought I would see how they turned out and see how TB likes them, considering its a $25 pedal.

I recorded one clip, first clean, then with gain at 7 o'clock, then with the gain at 9 o'clock, and lastly with the gain at 12 o'clock. I messed up a bunch but it's late and I only had one shot, I just made up a random riff, and yes I didn't play it the same every time. Make sure to turn up the zshare file, it's only at half.

http://www.zshare.net/audio/535391447695c862/

Also, what do you guys think of my clean tone? It's a modded SX Jazz.

[Ryan Mohr]

I just listened again, there are a bunch of awful sounding artifacts, try to ignore them.

[Mark Olson]

How'd you mod that Jazz? I think it sounds really good, got a nice thump to it, sounds like a top of the line Jazz really, and even my Fender American Deluxe Jazz is a little on the anemic side where you're getting that nice thump through my sub (which of course I use a 57 too which doesn't help). What mic did you use? The mic'd tone sounds really authentic, almost as clear as the tone I get with my direct signal through my amp, but with that "air" you get with a mic. The overdrive sounds good too, really tight and with good note definition, as is the clean tone, though it's distorting my speakers or something a little so I'm judging what I hear to be the underlying tone. I think those old metal Dano pedals are actually pretty good, I've always wanted to check out the other ones (I've just got the Fab Tone distortion).

[Ryan Mohr]

Originally Posted by Mark Olson

How'd you mod that Jazz? I think it sounds really good, got a nice thump to it, sounds like a top of the line Jazz really, and even my Fender American Deluxe Jazz is a little on the anemic side where you're getting that nice thump through my sub (which of course I use a 57 too which doesn't help). What mic did you use? The mic'd tone sounds really authentic, almost as clear as the tone I get with my direct signal through my amp, but with that "air" you get with a mic. The overdrive sounds good too, really tight and with good note definition, as is the clean tone, though it's distorting my speakers or something a little so I'm judging what I hear to be the underlying tone. I think those old metal Dano pedals are actually pretty good, I've always wanted to check out the other ones (I've just got the Fab Tone distortion).

Thanks for the compliments on my tone. The mods are a Gotoh 201 bridge, a new Warmoth nut, a new string retainer, and some other aesthetic mods. So, the mods aren't changing the root tone much. I have heard that the SX pups are pretty good, but I don't have anything to compare them with. Believe it or not, I'm using a Nady SP1, the one that came in this kit - http://pro-audio.musiciansfriend.com...age?sku=277031 - yeah it's only $20 for the mic and stand. That goes into a Behringer mixer, which goes into a Behringer interface, them into my Dell. I like the overdrive, but the overall character of it isn't chunky and amp-like enough. But hey, what can you expect for a $25 pedal.

[Mark Olson]

Yeah, I hear you. I had an SX shortscale P and it actually sounded pretty good, real nice and round sounding, and I used it on some gigs. I haven't tried a whole lot of Jazz pickups, but I've used some cheap ceramic magnet pickups that actually didn't sound that bad. At one point I upgraded to Fender Classic 60's Jazz Bass pickups or whatever, and they sounded absolutely amazing with distortion, but didn't have the best string balance, the G string was pretty anemic. Now I use Seymour Duncan Quarter Pounders which are perfectly good pickups, good string balance, way better than the Fenders, but they don't sound nearly as good with distortion and otherwise just sound kinda blah to be honest. I've been meaning to look into some Bartolini pickups, which all the guitars I've had with Bartolini's in them sounded pretty amazing. I also have a Fender Mexican Jazz Bass body with a Warmoth neck and the Gotoh 201 bridge, and it sounds cool and I've used it for some sessions and stuff too, but I've come to prefer the string through bridge on my Jazzes; I play really light strings (have to or I'll break them all the time from playing so hard, higher gauge strings have more tension and are more likely to break at the string core) and my sound gets really muddy on the low notes without the string thru bridge.

Your sound sounds nice and tight and defined though, that's really good, I hear a lot of soundclips of someone playing low on the neck and the bass can sound as bad as to sound out of tune with itself, the thing is the frequency response gets too thick and ugly that ears can't detect the proper pitch being played causing everything to sound out of tune with itself. Are you using higher gauge strings? I'd have to guess that's part of what keeps everything tight and heavy.

[Ryan Mohr]

Originally Posted by Mark Olson

Yeah, I hear you. I had an SX shortscale P and it actually sounded pretty good, real nice and round sounding, and I used it on some gigs. I haven't tried a whole lot of Jazz pickups, but I've used some cheap ceramic magnet pickups that actually didn't sound that bad. At one point I upgraded to Fender Classic 60's Jazz Bass pickups or whatever, and they sounded absolutely amazing with distortion, but didn't have the best string balance, the G string was pretty anemic. Now I use Seymour Duncan Quarter Pounders which are perfectly good pickups, good string balance, way better than the Fenders, but they don't sound nearly as good with distortion and otherwise just sound kinda blah to be honest. I've been meaning to look into some Bartolini pickups, which all the guitars I've had with Bartolini's in them sounded pretty amazing. I also have a Fender Mexican Jazz Bass body with a Warmoth neck and the Gotoh 201 bridge, and it sounds cool and I've used it for some sessions and stuff too, but I've come to prefer the string through bridge on my Jazzes; I play really light strings (have to or I'll break them all the time from playing so hard, higher gauge strings have more tension and are more likely to break at the string core) and my sound gets really muddy on the low notes without the string thru bridge.

Your sound sounds nice and tight and defined though, that's really good, I hear a lot of soundclips of someone playing low on the neck and the bass can sound as bad as to sound out of tune with itself, the thing is the frequency response gets too thick and ugly that ears can't detect the proper pitch being played causing everything to sound out of tune with itself. Are you using higher gauge strings? I'd have to guess that's part of what keeps everything tight and heavy.

I'm looking into the SD SJB-1 pickups, probably a little more vintage sounding than the Quarter Pounders.

Right now I have Fender Pure Nickels on that bass, the gauge is 40-100. But, for being light strings, they are fairly high tension. Normally, I use 45-105 sets.

[Mark Olson]

I play D'addario 45-100's, which so far as I know are fairly low tension, at least they definitely seem that way as I don't break them (Strings like Elixir 105's I break pretty much instantly, at least within one set with any band). I think D'addario's are a great well rounded string at relatively low cost when you get them in twin packs as found on musiciansfriend.com. That's the best deal on reasonably priced strings that are still decent that I've found anyway. I also really like GHS strings as used by Larry Graham, they have less top end then the D'addario's though, which is good depending on what you're going for.

But that's really great you can get such a tight sound out of 40-100's. That's what's really important.

[Ryan Mohr]

Originally Posted by Mark Olson

I play D'addario 45-100's, which so far as I know are fairly low tension, at least they definitely seem that way as I don't break them (Strings like Elixir 105's I break pretty much instantly, at least within one set with any band). I think D'addario's are a great well rounded string at relatively low cost when you get them in twin packs as found on musiciansfriend.com. That's the best deal on reasonably priced strings that are still decent that I've found anyway. I also really like GHS strings as used by Larry Graham, they have less top end then the D'addario's though, which is good depending on what you're going for.

But that's really great you can get such a tight sound out of 40-100's. That's what's really important.

Also, I play with fairly high action, which definitely makes my sound tighter and thumpier.

[Ryan Mohr]

any other opinions on the overdrive or clean?

[Ryan Mohr]

bump, for anyone looking for an overdrive that doesn't suck the lows for a low price, this is it. Under $30...

[Ryan Mohr]

Supposedly this is a clone of the Fulltone OCD, from what I have read on Harmony Central and TGP.

[bassman1185]

Sounds pretty decent to my ears, especially for $25. I wonder how the rest of the Cool Cat line is, especially that tremolo...

[cameltoe]

I have this pedal, and it doesn't suck any low. It is awesome, but quite full-on. Hard to get a subtle tone out of it, but for decent hard drive/ even fuzz, it's really good

[metalupyourjazz]

I got one. It's really nice.

[IronChains]

The earlier Danelectro lines had a "you get what you paid for" feel to me, but this line seems like it might be worth some investing.