Danelectro's Greatest Budget Line

on today's episode we're going to look at a line of petals from 2005 that's so full of controversy confusion and low prices that your head is going to spin right off your neck [Music] most of you know dan electro from the late 90s reissue of the brand and this amazing pedal line that came out in these large heavy metal enclosures fantastic sounds great effects one of my favorite lines of all time and you've seen me show these on the show and most of you also know there are a lot of other series of effects from den electro like the food series and some others but today i'm going to focus on one in particular that's very very fascinating it is the fab series these are in plastic enclosures and they're very affordable they say fab up top and the type of effect underneath now these were released in 2005 and they were made for one purpose and one purpose only they were made to be the ultimate budget brand for big box stores now there's actually a problem with how well this works they sold so well through guitar center upwards of a thousand a week that guitar center had to cancel these and remove them from the stores the margin was so low that for every one of these fab pedals sold another pedal brand wasn't selling and all the other pedal brands had more margin because they cost more they were very damaging to the sales people that worked on commission and guitar center as a whole so yes the fab series of pedals to start off actually broke guitar center in a way and on top of that there's some juicy conspiracy theories concerning what these are based on so let's jump right into each one and see what i figured out first up on this journey of fabulicious petals is the fab metal now i'm not a fan of metal petals i like them because i like every petal but when i see the term metal describing the sonic characteristic of a pedal it's not something i'm going to grab my wallet and you know run out the door with but this is a little tricky because it's based on a petal i love and one that i don't really associate with metal it is a three knob modified version of the classic dod grunge you heard it here people you learned it here too don't forget that this is a metal labeled pedal that's actually a grunge pedal says metal sounds like grunge it offers the question to you is grunge metal is metal grunge i don't know we're going to put them up here i'm going to show you how they sound really great in a lot of ways this is easier to use sounds fantastic the three knobs are much easier than using the butt and face knob which are low-end high-end pretty fantastic analogy they used it's simple sounds good super super cheap what's the price 19.99 [Music] so [Music] number two on this fab rundown is the 600 millisecond delay this comes in at a steep 25.99 i have seen them used for about 13 12 14 something like that so super affordable um it's really great the 600 millisecond term in its name is how long of a delay time it offers so if one second is a thousand milliseconds this falls in between the much shorter slap delay times and longer ambient times so one magical trick for this that i love is to just turn every knob all the way up it creates a really nice beautiful texture kind of pad delay really nice ambient delay honestly it's great simple easy to use and the heart of this circuit is important because it's in several of these pedals in the line it is the chipset known as the pt2399 now this chipset was invented for karaoke machines so you know you go to costco you buy a karaoke machine your 13 year old dollar sings carly rae gypsum songs or whatever her name is and there's a little echo that's what the chip was made for but people in the pedal industry including myself have used that chip to great success for echo and delay that's what's in here some of the others as well and it's gold that's notable it's a great pedal check it out [Music] next up is the pedal from the series that instantly caught my attention years ago probably around 2005 or six when they were released and it drove me mad because the copy made a claim that i was so curious about that i think i didn't sleep for six months let me read the copy to this pedal it is the fab overdrive the silver one it says the copy of the product history was made in 1975 when a mom and pop store in california commissioned the production of just 200 of what is perhaps the best overdrive effect ever big claim unlike any other effects unit the pedal authentically simulated the breakup that occurs when a tube amp is run at full volume i mean there's a lot of pedals that claim to do that you will occasionally see an original in the stage of a major artist if you could find an original offered for sell you should probably set down before inquiring about the price they're basically saying it's expensive dan electro puts the fab overdrive d2 guitar effects photo in your hands without wiping out your financial portfolio so what is this 1975 mom and pop shop what is it well i dug around on and off for about a year and i figured it out text messages i found private forums of people who worked in this store and started facebook groups it's insane the store is called nadines in hollywood slash work there learn that and nadines like a lot of other companies wanted to sell products in their stores but stores don't really make products they just want to re-label it and here's a picture of the mysterious nadines overdrive now here's the problem this is literally the only picture i can find it's the size of my fingernail i'm sorry for that but look at it stare at it because it brought me into another mystery that i solved it is this exactly the vestifier signal device overdrive basically there's a company that would put whatever brand you wanted on this exact pedal the insides are all the same but the graphics are different and nadines probably at winter nand had a series of petals developed there's a picture of a distortion as well this is it this is the mom and pop store pedal made in japan oem for nadines and they replicated it perfectly apparently brian setzer told the owner of den electro to check this out and that's why it's part of the line they are incredibly rare because i cannot find one that says nadines if you have that and you're willing to part with it just contact me and i'll have a discussion with you because i feel like there's a hole in my heart and that's where we're at by the way this is really cheap 16.99 i saw one of these used for seven [Music] dollars [Music] number four in the fab series is one and the only one that was discontinued all of these are still being made you can buy them except for this one um it is the fab flange it originally cost 29 they're super cheap right now there's not a lot of control range here pretty sure it's a digital flanger i open the back it's a bunch of very strange chipsets but i didn't see any hints of analog circuitry bucket brigade type stuff so pretty sure it's a digital flange which is fine but the potentiometer sweeping controls i don't know it kind of goes from nothing to like zombie space noises and that's cool so i found the setting that kind of vibes with how i feel today i'll play it for you you be the judge because honestly you're always the judge and i'm just sitting here i'm on trial and here's some riffs go easy hmm [Music] the fifth of the fabs is a little bit of a mystery but i'm gonna be honest i had a little bit of a meltdown i had a medium meltdown like a seven of 10 meltdown i've had some 10s and 12s lately trying to figure out what this is it is the fab fuzz it's an op amp fuzz now i initially went oh well i'm sure it's an op-amp big muff absolutely no it's not sounds nothing like it circuit's not there and then i thought hmm dan electro they kind of they kind of lean into weird stuff and kind of replicate and tweak weird designs so maybe it's the old univox square wave no it's not sounds nothing like it way too many parts for that and then i said oh it's the earth sound research graphic fuzz no you know here's where i'm at i don't know what it is i don't know what it is it's three knobs volume fuzz tone i'm gonna go out on a limb and i'm gonna say that much like these digital pedals i think they're just original i think they actually engineered them in their original and uh it's purple it's kind of like joker purple like we'll call this the joker fuzz [Music] oh and it's 29.99 [Music] next up is the fab echo not to be confused with the other golden delay echo this one is fixed at a slap back delay time half of you will find it incredibly annoying and the other half of you will find it invigorating and freeing that there is not a time knob to distract you from playing guitar plug it up it's fantastic slap echo we used to modify these in fact nick uh didn't you used to modify these heck yeah yeah there's some out there with a jhs sticker and a time knob so essentially we took what i think is great about this and took that away and charged people that's disturbing let's check it out oh it's like 29 it's more expensive than the one with more controls whatever [Music] next is the fab chorus it is a chorus pedal it's a really good really simple course pedal that it utilizes that pt2399 karaoke chipset it's great i like it this actually has some plastic peeling should i leave it new but the plastic anyway let's listen to it it's good it's 20 bucks it's actually 19.99 [Music] [Music] the last petal i want to cover today is an enigma a mystery it is a troubling troubling issue for me personally i'm gonna try my best not to have a meltdown it is the fab distortion it's like 18.95 and the original copy is so gripping compelling and leaves so much mystery right at my fingertips that it's maddening let me read the copy let me walk you through the turmoil that i'm experiencing as a historian pedal nerd here's the copy for this pedal here it goes in the late 70s a tiny that's key effects maker in japan produced a small quantity of what many believe is the definitive distortion box who are the many it had delicious tonality and was highly responsive and versatile recently a boutique pedal maker reissued that box at 300 plus who is that maker what's the pedal dan electro offers you the d1 fab distortion at an unbelievable price i get i give them that it's like 18 as a sonic equivalent to the prized original okay off the bat i gotta know what's this a copy of a tiny effects maker in japan in the 70s there weren't really tiny ones there there were companies like max on so i go oh it's a dns they're not tiny but maxon was still small-ish as a company because most people didn't know they were making all the ibanez pedals they're a huge company but maxon itself wasn't that no so for sure it's the dns k-sub no it's not the dns because the dns is a big muff and it sounds nothing like that the circuit's not the same it's not this classic ibanez overdrive because these are the same pedal made by the same company and then i fall apart because there's no one left it's not shin-eye they only made fuzzes and weird stuff it could it be the sd9 i don't know i mean that's from the nine series and we're into the 80s could it be the zoom box from the late 70s gaia tone no because it's a distortion plus variant could it be something like the quran distortion 15 no because it's in that same family as well could it just be stuff from the 80s and they're confused like the pearl distortion could it be the adt distortion one could it be an arion distortion they don't even know what this pedal is they have no clue what they're talking about they write it in the copy and people like me have a hard time with that it's 18.95 it sounds really good but we will never know trust me you're never gonna know where this came from what it is i don't know and because i don't know you're not allowed to know [Music] do [Music] today's record time is brought to you by the june 1966 release of the fab for the beatles yesterday and today really great i want to go ahead and tell you there's two covers to this one is super controversial i can't find it it's called the butcher cover nick if you'll pop a photo up there you notice the photo they're holding weird pieces of meat and baby heads i don't know what that's about it's kind of strange but this album is great this is the clean more family-friendly version paul's inside of a box that's fun but this is loaded with tracks it's awesome this is like the 12th american release by the beatles it kind of has this vibe of like a weird late 60s greatest hits kind of thing anyway yeah yesterday's on it nowhere man driving my car day tripper it's a cool introduction to the beatles if you haven't quite gone there yet and it's just a weird alternate cover and the name fab four fab pedals i don't know you know i'm just reaching for stuff it's a good it's a good album let me know what you think in the comments what's your favorite beetle album what's your favorite fab four album thanks so much for watching this episode if you enjoyed this there is another fantastic dan electro episode that we worked really hard on it is called who is dead electro it's a behind the scenes look at the history and the creator who brought back this brand in the late 90s it's awesome there's a link in the description below so go check that out if you like this episode please hit like subscribe to the channel and click the bell icon to get notifications of future episodes check out the ghs show.com for merch shirts all kinds of other fun things and there is a patreon there's a link down below you can go to that and you can give a little bit and support the show and all of this history we're archiving whether it's something as simple as today all the research that goes into this and work that is behind the scenes or longer documentary style things you can go there be a member of that you get exclusive giveaways i do an exclusive longborne talk and we're doing some other cool stuff revamping it all i don't know what we're doing i kind of know what we're doing but i can't say anyway check it all out have a wonderful day dare i say a fabulous day bye

Channel: JHS Pedals

Views: 148,812

Keywords: JHS, JHS Pedals, The JHS Show, Guitar Pedals, Guitar Effects, Guitar Gear, Guitar Pedal Demo, Music History, overdrive pedal, chorus pedal, distortion pedal, boss pedals, compressor pedal, univibe, delay pedal, octave fuzz, reverb pedal, reverb, eq pedal, boost pedal, behringer, danelectro, slap back pedal, flanger pedal

Id: h3uslC5zwn0

Length: 20min 19sec (1219 seconds)

Published: Fri Aug 28 2020