Danelectro Cool Cat Transparent, Drive, & Rocktron Austin Overdrive Got Em!!!

[reverbie]

I bit the bullet and had them delivered (along with the ARTEC Duo Drive i posted about in the OT members only area).

Danelectro Transparent Drive CTO-1:

- People are correct, this is not a Klon clone. It is an amazing pedal however! Very ambient mild drive, fattens up the tone just a bit but leaves the high end and string rattle intact. Solid build and most likely a new popular unit to mod. Sounds killer with my telecaster and fender amp. My first impression is that it gives the amp a sort of tweed bassman fullness while still having all those layers of dynamics and clarity. A+ purchase and a no brainer at this price.  This pedal is without a doubt more natural sounding than the Klon I played 6 months ago (silver one). I have a feeling this is a rip of a gurus design, because it sounds like a $400 dollar pedal.  I play jazz and rock, and the string clarity and harmonic fidelity when playing 5 or 6 string chords is superb.

Danelectro Drive (silver cool cat series):

- this one was only like $24 bucks, and I was able to get it to sound EXACTLY like the transparent overdrive by setting the gain lower. Literally identical when tweeked.  It might actually sound even better than the CTO-1 while being 15 bucks cheaper and having a wider range of full on gain. Overall, the tone is a little looser than the CT0-1 and maybe slightly less thick in the mids at higher gains, even though the amount of mid boost in either unit is very minute. Not a metal or modern drive at all.

Rocktron Austin Overdrive (gold casing):

- This pedal rocks. Why does it get such a bad rap? It is definitely EQ-ed with a high amount of presence and treble, but in all honestly, it sounds just like the boost channel on my older Fender Twin. The tone is tight, punchy, and very clear. It reminds me of when you engage a BBE sonic maximizer on a dimed clean channel. The pre-bass is more subtle than I expected, but I paid something like $50 for this new online. The enclosure is sexy too///sort of like an amp for a car stereo..... and has plenty of space for toggles, extra knobs, and the likes. Not TB, but sounds awesome.

ARTEC Duo Drive:

Amazing tone. Stunning really. I haven't tried it at a gig volume, but my first impression is being blown away. It could be buyer's delight, but I'll know more tomorrow when I really crank it. I left a detailed breakdown in the members only OT section. Kind of like a BD-2 and MXR Dist+/Vintage RAT in one. The build is sort of cheap, but for $40 it is a STEAL.

I paid basically $140 for all four pedals and couldn't be happier...and I am very very picky! I have almost every variation of distortion I've ever heard except FUZZ for the price of one boutique box.

[reverbie]

Quick update....

Danelectro CTO-1 vs. CO-1

After a few days of tweeking, i can say that believe it or not, the cool cat drive (CO-1, $30) actually is capable of more than the CTO-1 Transparent Overdrive....i've been able to achieve all of the CTO-1 tones plus all the extra gain available on the CO-1. It almost seems like the main difference between the two circuits is the extra dual treble/bass stacked pot on the CTO-1 as opposed to only a "tone" knob on the CO-1. And the CO-1 with more available distortion. Perhaps they are nearly identical circuits? Either way, both sound great and are worth the $$$.

I'm in the process of formulating a mod for the CTO-1 and will post it shortly. The pedal will be well served with a feedback loop mod, diode reconfiguration, and an adjustment to shift more of the bass to post-clipping.

Also I cracked open the Rocktron Austin Gold Overdrive and noticed that it has both surface mount and standard through hole components (mainly caps and diodes). This pedal sounds very similar to a clean boosted blackface channel. I've been very impressed with its singular but effective function.

Lastly was the Artec Duo Drive....surface mount for the most part but actually used metalized film capacitors for all through hole needs. I'm really starting to think that this pedal was based off the Boss BD-2 and/or OD-3.

[suprleed]

Thanks for the reviews.  I always like to hear about "cheap" effects that sound good and are ripe for modding.  Its all about value.  Appreciate your input.

[sevenisthenumber]

I own both those dano's as well as the distortion and fuzz and would love to see your mods!

[DougH]

I have the FAB OD. I wonder how similar it is to the CO-1? Last time I tried it (when I compared it to my TS9) I wasn't that impressed with it. But as always, YMMV...

[Uma Floresta]

The Fab OD was way too muddy - but I believe the gain control was actually achieved with the resistor in the RC filter in the feedback loop, which made it muddy except at maximum gain - IIRC

[DougH]

Yeah, that's what I remember too- very inconsistent EQ over the gain range. Either too much gain or the bass was kind of farty too, IIRC.

[sevenisthenumber]

the fab's and coolcat's are alot different all around.

[DougH]

How so, soundwise?

[sevenisthenumber]

To me the sound is alot different and even the range of the knobs are different. The fabs feel real loosy-goosy with me but they sound pretty good. The cool cats also have solid metal casing, metal jacks, 3pdt switching and they just feel more real.
They must be different circuits all together....

I always said the fab distortion sounded good though!

[DougH]

Thanks. I have a love/hate relationship with the FAB OD. At one time it sounded pretty good but now, not so much. The FAB Distortion sounds good to me, until I plug one of my pedals in.

The Cool Cat Vibe is a nice sounding vibe, and I'd love to check out the transparent drive sometime, but it's not in the music store yet.

Thanks for the feedback.

[Ben N]

I picked up the Drive on Friday, and I must say, I quite like it. Of course, now that it has been exposed as an OCD clone (which makes it, what?--a grandclone of the VLOD?) it isn't hard to recognize the sound, so I came into this with an unavoidable preconception. But it is a thick, sweet, chewy, harmonic-rich kind of overdrive--not at all "transparent", but I am quite happy with a BD-2 for that, and have an LTD semi-populated. Also, The Dano is nothing at all like a TS, thank God. To my ears, it is a kind of overdriven-AC-30/DC-30 kind of sound. This is what I imagined the "class A" side of my TC Double Drive should have sounded like, but never quite got there. The tone control works pretty well, too. Contrary tto the prior poster, there doesn't seem to me to be a lot of meaningful range to the Drive control, but WTH, it sounds good without it. Haven't tried it with a lot of guitars, tho, just a mahogany Goldtop clone with P90s.

[MartyMart]

I have read a few times that the "Cool Cat Transparent" pedal is a direct steal of the Paul C "Timmy" pedal !

Not a nice way to do business Mr "electro"

[DougH]

Yeah Marty, that's old news. It was covered here and elsewhere a few years ago. IIRC Dano changed the design of the "transparent drive" to something else as a result of all the controversy. So now of course all the "old ones" are probably worth more $$ yadda, yadda...

[BoxOfSnoo]

Anyone tried the v2?  I hear it has a DIP switch inside to change the clipping options.  It comes pre-modded!

[MartyMart]

Yeah Marty, that's old news. It was covered here and elsewhere a few years ago. IIRC Dano changed the design of the "transparent drive" to something else as a result of all the controversy. So now of course all the "old ones" are probably worth more $$ yadda, yadda...

Ah - sorry, must have missed that one Doug - doesn't seem like they changed anything though !!

MM.

[DougH]

Check this out- "The CTO-1 has been updated to CTO-2 version". I have no idea what that means- I lost interest in the soap opera long ago.

[BoxOfSnoo]

Check this out- "The CTO-1 has been updated to CTO-2 version". I have no idea what that means- I lost interest in the soap opera long ago.

This would have been a much more useful link, of course.

Yeah I don't care about the soap opera either, I'm curious about the tech - which is why I asked this on the "building your own stompbox" forum.

[DougH]

This would have been a much more useful link, of course.

Harumph...

I just googled it and copied/pasted the first thing that came up.

BTW: V2 has annoying fizz on the note decay in that vid. I hate that...

[MartyMart]

Sorry - didn't mean to open up a "can of worms" as it was "new" news to me :-)

Seems like V2 has internal dip switches for various diode combo's - which is quite cool.

The same guy "germandude" does a Transparent OD/Timmy comparison which is interesting !

MM.