Danelectro Electric Guitars

Purchased from Dawsons in Liverpool (UK) in October 2002 for £129 in sale. A bit of an impulse buy. Great variety of tone from the three single coil pickups. This coupled with the on-board special effects providing distortion, chorus, tremelo and echo make the instrument very versatile. Also it is easy to play and was well set up requiring minimal tweaking from the outset. Slightly odd looking guitar and very much in line with the Danelectro style of producing distinctive and unique guitars. I also have a Danelectro U2 which is superb for blues. The Innuendo is quite a heavy guitar but well built and by no means too heavy to be comfortable. Suitable for home, studio or stage. Strat type tones are all there but it distorts pretty well also. Main like though is the inspirational range of sounds that can be conjoured up once you are familiar with the settings. It would be nice to save 5% on the weight and the colours are rather restricted - mine is a gold/black sunburst type effect with silver sparkles - not exactly my favourite colours but certainly distinctive and I will live with it because the guitar sounds great. Solid body, maple neck and rosewood fingerbaord. Three single coils, five way selector, volume and tone control, four on board effects and two effects controls. Two outputs one with effects and one without. This means you can play through two amps and get different effects through each. Generally appears well built. Effects driven by a single 9v battery. Very pleased with the guitar - especially at the sale price. I like guitars that are a bit different and this certainly is different. Plays well, sounds great and should provide years of good service. Plays far better than some Fenders I have had over the years. This review was originally published on http://www.musicgearreview.com

This guitar was cranked out in the early sixties by legendary guitar designer Nat Daniels of Danelectro fame. This particular guitar went with the noted "Amp in Case" set sold by Sears throughout the sixties. The guitar was available in a few different colours and configurations over the yeras and I've actually seen a few of them, one like the picture above and one that looked closer in style to a Coral Hornet. It doesn't have a strong feature set going for it. The construction is the typical masonite rig used on many Danelectro guitars. The fretboard is rosewood and the guitar has a shorter scale than many Fender or Gibson models. It features a cheap set of six in line tuners, that pesky Danelectro bridge with wooden saddle, and a single lipstick pickup in the neck position (some models were known to exist with a dual pickup arrangement). UTILIZATION The guitar is not really ergonomic in the traditional sense. It's very light due to the masonite construction, but the design though futuristic is pretty clumsy to get around, especially when it comes to things like upper fret access, which is pretty poor on this guitar. It doesn't intonate or stay in tune for very long either, so you have to either play out of tune or have the patience of a saint trying to deal with its woes... Getting a good sound out of this guitar is pretty simple. It only has one fairly low output pickup, but it has an eminently gutsy sound that is very suited to everything from psychedelic blues to surf or trash rock styles. SOUNDS This guitar doesn't have a lot of flexibility in its tones, but it does one thing really well, and that is the trashy and old school sounding tones heard on old blues records or by more modern bands like The Flat Duo Jets or The White Stripes. Though the pickup in the guitar is lower in output, it takes gain like a champ and the resulting tone is fuzzy but clear... perfect for things like bluesy chord work or some very basic lead stuff. It's not a pristine clean guitar unless you put it through something like a vintage Fender amp, and if you try to run it into your Mesa Boogie Dual Rectifier you probably won't love the tones... but for that trashy and fuzzed out vibe this guitar has it in spades. It sounds especially cool when dimed through the matching 10w amp in case that came with it when new. OVERALL OPINION All in all I think the Silvertone/Danelectro 1448 is a cool piece of history that happens to have a great and classic sound going for it too. They're not the most playable guitars in their stock form so many people mod the bridge and/or tuners to make it easier to use. They're rising in price and currently they seem to hit about the $700 range for the set of the guitar with the amp/case. It's a high price to pay but collectors love these guitars and given their raw and just downright cool nature, it's not hard to see why.

Made in: China Body style: Double-cutaway Body material: Masonite/poplar Neck: Bolt-on poplar Fingerboard: Rosewood Nut: Plastic Truss rod: Non-adjustable, aluminum Tuners: Open back, 3 in-line, white plastic keys Pickups: Alnico lipstick Controls: Dual/concentric tone and volume Bridge/tailpiece: Notched metal base with a rosewood saddle Pickguard: White "Seal" Headstock: Bottle-shaped Other: Original-style textured side edge tape UTILIZATION This guitar is very comfortable to play. It feels great standing or sitting. One issue I have run into is that it's very hard to change the volume or tone separately as they are attached to each other. This isn't a huge deal while trying to find the perfect tone but if you need to change just one of them live it can get sticky. Also, when both pickups are selected, the volume is noticeably louder than the bridge or neck pickup alone. Using a volume pedal could fix these problems but I generally don't mess with the guitar's settings during a song, so these weren't huge issues to me. SOUNDS I bought this guitar because its known for its jangly tone but was surprised to find that it can create a wide variety of tones. It can go from a smooth strat rhythm to a twangy tele lead (which can sound really cool with a slide). I still like it the best with both pickups on for that rich jangly sound. I generally play it clean or slightly broken up through a tube amp but I've tried it with some pretty heavy distortion and it sounded alright. I'm a huge fan of 60's rock/psychedelic/pop and this guitar can nail those tones. If you play it through an amp with slightly broken up distortion, you can get some mean blues tones out of this guitar as well. OVERALL OPINION I really like this guitar. When I record, I often end up using this instead of my other much more expensive guitars (Rickenbacker 360,'76 Strat, Les Paul, etc). It's a steal at $350 (you can still find them new online). I would definitely buy this guitar again and I might so I can have an electric 12 string in my collection.

The Danelectro DC-59 Baritone guitar is an electric guitar that I have experience using the recording studio. I believe that the DC-59 also comes as a standard strung electric guitar, but I've only used the baritone version. I don't know too much background information about the guitar, and I've only used it on a few sessions, but in my short time using it I've really enjoyed the way it plays and sounds. In terms of pick ups, it's got two two single coils with a pick up selector and volume and tone knobs that control the sound on both pick ups no matter which you're using. UTILIZATION Playing the Danelectro DC-59 Baritone is a real pleasure, as I find it easy to navigate around the neck. I've found it to be an easy guitar in general to play, regardless of the fact that it is a baritone guitar. The guitar is definitely on the lighter side, as seems to be the case with many of the Danelectro guitars that I've used. Getting a nice sound isn't too difficult if you know how to play, although there isn't much room for getting all that many different sounds. SOUNDS I really wasn't expecting the Danelectro DC-59 Baritone guitar to sound as good as it does, but it really sounds good. It has a very full bodied sound, which is really a necessity when you're talking about baritone guitar. In general I really can't get enough of the way baritone guitars sound, and this one just further emphasizes my love for these type of guitars. I've used the DC-59 Baritone with a '65 Fender Deluxe Reverb with no effects beyond what is on the amp, and I miced the amp up with a Shure SM57 and a Royer 121. The end result was really fantastic, and since the first time I've used this set up, I've done the same thing a few other times with the same stellar results. OVERALL OPINION I haven't seen another Danelectro DC-59 Baritone out there other than the one that I've used, and a quick google search will lead me to believe that there aren't too many of them available. I'm glad that I've been able to use one at the studio that I did, as I'm very happy I've experienced this guitar. I don't currently own a baritone guitar, but hopefully whenever I'm able to pick one up I'll be able to get my hands on a DC-59.

(Originally written by Sgt.Pepper's/translated from Audiofanzine FR) 20 frets which is enough for a 12-string guitar! The low-octave strings are body-through. Passive electronics with volume and tone controls plus 3-way toggle switch. Rosewood neck. UTILIZATION Very pleasant neck (not too wide, 45 mm according to my measurements). A pure delight. Very easy access to the upper frets. Perfect playability. You'll easily get an excellent sound. Very high playing comfort: low action, good feel. SOUNDS Wow! What a sound! A killer sound! With the adequate settings you get a Beatles/Byrds sound! (it's not a Rickenbacker but it sounds like it and it costs only a fifth!) I play it with a Fender Frontman 25R amp and also with a 2-watt mini Marshall (It sounds great even with this amp). The guitar provides huge possibilities from a Byrds crystal-clear sound to an Eagles acoustic sound. I love its sound! OVERALL OPINION I've been owning for two weeks. I found it at a music store, which got a dozen of Danelectro guitars one year before. Among them was this 12-string model! The only affordable 12-string electric guitar. The DC-12 is great. I dreamed about it for months. I tried it out and I thought "WOW"! And I went back home with it! Crazy! I only tested it for 10 minutes. It's a very special model. Even the shop assistant wanted it! He actually told me he wanted to buy it back. No way! It will live with me! If you ever see one, buy it!