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King Loudness « Cool kitsch »
Published on 09/06/11 at 19:56This 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.
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.