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Fireguy8402 « Basic Trem, Great Value »
Published on 11/19/11 at 13:14The Danelectro Cool Cat Tremelo is a trem pedal with a great sound and easy to use features. Danelectro made this pedal with a metal housing, metal input and output jacks and true bypass. These are built a lot stronger than the old line of Dano pedals, not that I’ve ever had any reliability issues with those pedals either. The Cool Cat Trem runs off of 9 volt battery power or a power adapter. Dano gave these pedals a facelift and it really makes them blend in with an upscale pedalboard as opposed to the old line that looked like toys (but sounded great) Mono input and mono output on this pedal and a Depth knob, Rate knob, and a knob to go from “Hard” to “Soft” tremolo. It would have been nice to have a tap tempo feature or a LED that blinks to the rate of the tremolo, and maybe some other waveform settings, but for the price of the pedal those are ridiculous requests. I’ll stick with the pedal being basic and inexpensive, while sounding great.
UTILIZATION
The knobs are located on the end of the pedal, which make it kind of hard to change on the fly during a gig setting, but not impossible. All the other pedals in this Cool Cat line have the knobs in the same place which doesn’t bother me. I kind of wish the knobs were located on the top of this pedal so I could tweak them easier during shows, but it’s not a deal breaker by any means. Squeezing the input and output jack, power jack, and three knobs in one space makes it kind of awkwardly packaged, but I’m sure this was to save on production and I’d rather see this than a spike in the price or the quality of components used. The pedal functions well in front of an amp, but I use mine in the effects loop for a more pronounced sound.
SOUND QUALITY
The sounds coming out of this little pedal are great. You can get all the classic trem sounds between the hard and soft settings. Put it on “Soft” and you have that tube amp with built in tremolo type of wave going on, very smooth sounding. It’s great for clean sounds to add a little energy. With the pedal on “Hard” you get a very choppy, helicopter- type stuttering sound. It can be very dramatic if set for a heavy depth and medium rate with distortion. The pedal does not change your bypassed tone when disengaged because it is true bypassed and there is neither a large boost nor a loss of volume when turned on. Nothing is lost by having this in your signal chain and only a great sounding trem is gained.
OVERALL OPINION
Overall this is a super tremolo pedal at any cost, but at this price it is just unbelievable. If basic tremolo sounds are all you need this is the pedal to get. It is sturdy and reliable and sounds great with every amp and guitar I’ve used with it. The only reason I’d spring for a more expensive trem pedal would be if I found the need to use tap tempo or if I needed more waveform options. This is an inexpensive, great sounding, basic trem.
UTILIZATION
The knobs are located on the end of the pedal, which make it kind of hard to change on the fly during a gig setting, but not impossible. All the other pedals in this Cool Cat line have the knobs in the same place which doesn’t bother me. I kind of wish the knobs were located on the top of this pedal so I could tweak them easier during shows, but it’s not a deal breaker by any means. Squeezing the input and output jack, power jack, and three knobs in one space makes it kind of awkwardly packaged, but I’m sure this was to save on production and I’d rather see this than a spike in the price or the quality of components used. The pedal functions well in front of an amp, but I use mine in the effects loop for a more pronounced sound.
SOUND QUALITY
The sounds coming out of this little pedal are great. You can get all the classic trem sounds between the hard and soft settings. Put it on “Soft” and you have that tube amp with built in tremolo type of wave going on, very smooth sounding. It’s great for clean sounds to add a little energy. With the pedal on “Hard” you get a very choppy, helicopter- type stuttering sound. It can be very dramatic if set for a heavy depth and medium rate with distortion. The pedal does not change your bypassed tone when disengaged because it is true bypassed and there is neither a large boost nor a loss of volume when turned on. Nothing is lost by having this in your signal chain and only a great sounding trem is gained.
OVERALL OPINION
Overall this is a super tremolo pedal at any cost, but at this price it is just unbelievable. If basic tremolo sounds are all you need this is the pedal to get. It is sturdy and reliable and sounds great with every amp and guitar I’ve used with it. The only reason I’d spring for a more expensive trem pedal would be if I found the need to use tap tempo or if I needed more waveform options. This is an inexpensive, great sounding, basic trem.