After my previous review of the 3 new Danelectro pedals, I was contacted by the company and they offered me some more pedals to try out. Bring it on, I say!!

So last week I received some more, got the Fuzz and Vibe and saddly, the Metal again. I was very curious to hear the more vintage inspired pedals so I started checking them out right away.

The Vibe has this beautiful green-blueish color, looks like the original CoolCat chorus. It has Speed, Intensity and Mix (!) controls, a nice blue led and true bypass like the rest of the range. Speed and Intensity are typical for a vibe, the Mix control threw me off though. I have never seen one on another vibe and I’m still not sure that a simple volume control wouldn’t have been more usefull. Anyway, the mix control does work and allows you to get a real low profile vibe tone going. I found that maxing it out does not gave me the best tones but the range between 50% and 75% was most usefull. The Mix control can help keeping clarity when the Sensitivity is set high. I explored several settings and found myself going for a bunch of Hendrix and Robin Trower licks. Inspirational stuff to say the least. I compared it to a high priced boutique vibe and the CoolCat Vibe sounds a bit brighter, the throb seems to go further in to the high frequencies, it also retained more clarity when I piled on the gain. So, it is a great pedal for sure. No need for any substance abuse to get you into that 60s/70s vine (no pun intended).

Next up was the beautifully orange colored Fuzz pedal. You get the typical Volume and Tone controls as well as a Fuzz control. The latter determines the amount of gain/fuzz you are getting. Like with the other OD/Dist boxes from this range, the Fuzz has a serious kick because of the high output it can deliver. The 1st quarter of the range on the Fuzz control, gives you a sort of lofi od tone, works well to boost another pedal or overdriven amp. Not really why you’d use this pedal as there are others in the range that do this even better. Turn up the Fuzz to about 50% and you get thick gobs of smooth and syrupy fuzz tones. The Tone control works excellent to shape the fuzz tone to suit your amp and guitar. Dial it a touch back and it works stellar with single coils and bridge pickups. Turn the tone up and the neck pickup will love it. With Fuzz and Volume at 50% and the tone dialed back just a bit, the range in tones is amazing, it cleans up really well with the volume control of the guitar. Again, job VERY well done!!

Running both the fuzz and vibe into a slightly overdriven amp was a great trip through memory lane. Very inspiring to say the least and they kept me busy for well over an hour without changing 1 control on either of the pedals.

Hey Danelectro, we need to talk as I could use the Distortion or Overdrive as well :-)) I’m building a small pedalboard (probably big one when I’m done) and it will have the Transparent Overdrive, Vibe and Fuzz for sure. Now they need to add a cool delay with tap feature and a wah and I could have a board full of tres Cool Cats!!