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Danelectro Fab Distortion vs Fab Overdrive


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Well, I've had the Fab OD for a couple of weeks now, and I finally got the Fab Distortion, and I must say, I like the Fab Distortion much better. Everything the OD does, the Distortion does better. Basically the OD, even at it's highest tone setting, chops the head off your highs. It will go from totally clean to fairly dirty, and it has a lot of clean volume as well, but it chops off most everything above 1K or so.

 

Whereas the Fab Distortion is also totally clean at it's lowest gain setting, and also has quite a bit of clean volume, but it has a more normal tonal range -- if you set the tone at about 50%, it doesn't seem to mess with your tone. Crank the tone and it gets crispy, cut the tone and it gets bassy, just like it should. And, the Fab Distortion has much more gain available -- it will go from totally clean to a medium-high saturated distortion. If I were to do it all over again and I wanted one mild OD/boost and one heavier distortion, I would have just bought two Fab Distortions, because it does overdrive better than the Fab OD, and it also works great as just a nice, saturated distortion pedal. Quite a nice pedal, I think this one probably deserves the hype that it gets, especially for a paltry $15.

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+1

 

FAB Distortion is awesome.

 

If you can construct some sort of variable voltage apparatus, you can get some pretty awesome fuzz sounds out of it too. The battery in mine is dying, but it's past the "cool new tones" stage and entered the "barely even working" stage. You'd need to be running it on less than 3v though- that's the lowest that my POS adapter will do, and it doesn't get the fuzz yet.

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Originally posted by english_bob

+1


FAB Distortion is awesome.


If you can construct some sort of variable voltage apparatus, you can get some pretty awesome fuzz sounds out of it too. The battery in mine is dying, but it's past the "cool new tones" stage and entered the "barely even working" stage. You'd need to be running it on less than 3v though- that's the lowest that my POS adapter will do, and it doesn't get the fuzz yet.

 

Interesting -- I have an adapter that will go down to 1.5V, so I'll have to try that out. :thu:

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Originally posted by english_bob

+1


FAB Distortion is awesome.


If you can construct some sort of variable voltage apparatus, you can get some pretty awesome fuzz sounds out of it too. The battery in mine is dying, but it's past the "cool new tones" stage and entered the "barely even working" stage. You'd need to be running it on less than 3v though- that's the lowest that my POS adapter will do, and it doesn't get the fuzz yet.

 

Voltage sagging is too much fun not to have a dedicated box to do it with. And it only takes a couple of parts :)

 

 

http://beavisaudio.com/Projects/DBS/

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Originally posted by cmfguitar

I kind of have a love/hate relationship with mine right now. To get the tone I really like I have to have the level up fairly high and that represents too much of a volume jump going from clean to distortion.

 

 

I found that to be the case with the Fab Overdrive, but I'm satisfied with the tone of the Fab Distortion at regular volumes -- I'll have to try it up loud though.... I tend to like it with the gain on the low side, but I haven't had a lot of time to play around with it.

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Originally posted by Ronzo II

Will the FAB series pedals fit into Danelectro's little plastic pedalboard case for the mini series effects?

 

 

http://www.instrumentalley.com/photos/DJMP-2T.jpg

 

This pedal board? No, it wouldn't, the Fab series are a fair bit bigger than the mini pedals (but not as big as the regular dano pedals such as Cool Cat or Daddy-O)

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Originally posted by Uma Floresta





This pedal board? No, it wouldn't, the Fab series are a fair bit bigger than the mini pedals (but not as big as the regular dano pedals such as Cool Cat or Daddy-O)

 

 

It's a shame. It would be so convenient, as inexpensive as these li'l guys are. Thanks for the answer, though.

 

I have the Fab Flanger, the Fab Distortion, the Fab Metal, and the Fab Echo. The flanger's OK, but I'm not a big flanger fan, so what do I know? Every once in a while, I need that sound, and the Fab Flanger covers it for those occasional needs. Same thing with the Fab Metal; I don't use that high-gain sound often, but it gets me there when I need it -- and, to me, it sounds a lot better than the Boss Metal Zone. That thing defines the "bees in a tin can" sound for me. IMO, the Fab Distortion is a killer pedal that's better sounding than most all I've heard for a full-out distortion sound. I haven't yet tried it as a clean boost, so I have to test that out. I heard the Fab OD, and I thought my TS-9 covered that a lot better. I thought that the Fab Echo's lack of a delay time control would irritate me more than it does. I use it mainly as a different reverb flavor for my small tube amps. I may decide to try the mod to add delay time control to it -- but if that's successful, I may buy another and keep that one stock for that reverb tail. Either that or just go with something else for the variable delay.

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Originally posted by Ronzo II



It's a shame. It would be so convenient, as inexpensive as these li'l guys are. Thanks for the answer, though.


I have the Fab Flanger, the Fab Distortion, the Fab Metal, and the Fab Echo. The flanger's OK, but I'm not a big flanger fan, so what do I know? Every once in a while, I need that sound, and the Fab Flanger covers it for those occasional needs. Same thing with the Fab Metal; I don't use that high-gain sound often, but it gets me there when I need it -- and, to me, it sounds a lot better than the Boss Metal Zone. That thing defines the "bees in a tin can" sound for me. IMO, the Fab Distortion is a killer pedal that's better sounding than most all I've heard for a full-out distortion sound. I haven't yet tried it as a clean boost, so I have to test that out. I heard the Fab OD, and I thought my TS-9 covered that a lot better. I thought that the Fab Echo's lack of a delay time control would irritate me more than it does. I use it mainly as a different reverb flavor for my small tube amps. I may decide to try the mod to add delay time control to it -- but if that's successful, I may buy another and keep that one stock for that reverb tail. Either that or just go with something else for the variable delay.

 

 

I'm using single coils, and I found that the Fab Distortion is quite clean with the distortion all the way down, and seems to stay clean even as you crank the volume (though I haven't cranked it to 100% yet). It might be different with high-output humbuckers, who knows. I think the Fab Distortion is better than the Fab Overdrive as a clean boost, just because it doesn't cut the highs off your tone. The Fab distortion certainly seems to be the most well-liked of the series, anyway. I haven't tried the metal or any of the others.

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Originally posted by english_bob



Do it. Gated, scratty fuzztones are yours for the taking!
:thu:

 

I did it -- and it was exactly as you described -- kind of reminded me of that Danelectro French Toast pedal, but without the octave. It works well with the Fab Overdrive, too -- you get that ratty, speaker in shreds, gated fuzz tone. The 1.5V setting was great; 3 volts didn't make much difference though. Anyway, very cool! :thu:

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Originally posted by Ronzo II


I thought that the Fab Echo's lack of a delay time control would irritate me more than it does. I use it mainly as a different reverb flavor for my small tube amps. I may decide to try the mod to add delay time control to it -- but if that's successful, I may buy another and keep that one stock for that reverb tail. Either that or just go with something else for the variable delay.

 

 

I did the delay time mod on my Fab Echo last night. I thought it was going to be a major hassle with those pesky SMD components. Turned out to be pretty damn easy.

 

The key is to add some strain relief to the wires going from then new pot to the board--some hot glue gun action took care of mine.

 

Now I can get up to around 700 msec, but it does get grainy the higher you go.

 

Definately worth a try!

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Originally posted by dan-o-guitar



I did the delay time mod on my Fab Echo last night. I thought it was going to be a major hassle with those pesky SMD components. Turned out to be pretty damn easy.


The key is to add some strain relief to the wires going from then new pot to the board--some hot glue gun action took care of mine.


Now I can get up to around 700 msec, but it does get grainy the higher you go.


Definately worth a try!

 

 

What brand of pot did you use, and where did you get it?

 

Did you mount it by drilling a small hole in the middle nacelle?

 

Any pics?

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Originally posted by Ronzo II



What brand of pot did you use, and where did you get it?


Did you mount it by drilling a small hole in the middle nacelle?


Any pics?

 

 

Any brand of pot will do. Use a 100Kohm linear pot. You can get these at Mouser or Small Bear Electronics.

 

Do use the middle nacelle would require re-locating two caps, so the pot is just hanging out of pedal right now. I'm going to re-house the whole thing with true bypass this weekend.

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