maxwell_peterson's Reviews
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Surf and Rockabilly Monster
My wife picked one of these up for me a couple years ago, and I fell immediately in love with it. A few things surprised me, right off: 1) How freaking loud it is, on its own. Even unplugged, this guitar is just a touch quieter than an acoustic; just sitting around in the living room with a couple of friends, this guitar is resonant enough on its own to strum and sing to. It's my favorite guitar to write songs on: loud enough to get a feel for the sound of the song, but still plays like an electric. 2) How light it is. The guitar is constructed of Poplar, Pine, and Masonite. Yeah. A plastic guitar. This thing weighs next to nothing, and plays like air. Speaking of, I was shocked by... 3) How FAST it plays. I've only ever played my Dano, so I don't know if others are set up as well as mine is, but the action is crazy low from nut to bridge, and the neck runs smooth as butter anywhere your fingers fall. I string it light and bend like crazy. I won't say the sound is perfect for all styles, but if you want to rip into Rockabilly or Surf licks all day long, this is one of the best. 4) Yes, Lipstick Pickups DO sound that incredible. Individually, clean, the Lipstick Pickups that come stock in this guitar are okay. The neck position lacks a little clarity, the bridge is crisp but lacks balls. Middle position, both pickups selected? They're out of this world. Danelectro's pickup wiring is atypical: rather than running the pickups parallel (as almost all other multi-pickup guitars do), they're run in series. The result is the punchiest, pluckiest--Coolest? Grooviest?--tone I've ever heard. Fat, round, with plenty of low-end but plenty of clarity in the highs, and sustain for days. Sustain forever. Plywood and plastic, and notes that will not die. As a last note, and interesting quirk, played through a good tube head, I catch all sorts of ghost notes with this guitar, resonances and reverberations and little phantasms of feedback behind the notes I'm playing: it's weird and funky and one of my favorite things about this guitar.
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I've not played a lot of the Korean and Chinese reissues, but the old Danos and Silvertone branded ones with the dolphin headstock I know quite well and its rare to find one that plays well these days. THe truss rods aren't adjustable on the more desireable models like the U2 and DC so if the neck moves the truss you're done for. If yours is an old one and it can be set up with low action you are quite lucky.
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also, the other interesting thing about lipsticks is they are bobbinless, the coil is wound right on a bar magnets that's jammed into a lipstick cover. Very few other pickups are like that. The firebird's coils are.... and the tape wound bobbins of the old Burns pickups are pretty similar in spirit, but not much else....
Jimmarchi1: Yeah: no adjustable truss on it. I assume the previous owner set it up, and oh yeah! Every time I pick this thing up and give it a run around, I feel enormously lucky! It was one of those Holy Grail finds...it's stuff like this that keeps me hunting the consignment section and the local pawnshops. [laugh]
Versatile, Indestructible Workhorse
I've had this guitar since I was sixteen (ten years), and it has never let me down. It survived years of basement punk shows and bar gigs, none the worse for wear. The G-400 plays fine out of the box, but where this guitar really shines is its adaptability to playing styles, versatility, and its comfort in different configurations: it's easy to do the setup yourself, and to adjust the guitar to your personal preferences. I found the stock Alnico V humbuckers a little thin, and replaced them with Seymour Duncans about a year in (an SH-6 Distortion Humbucker in the bridge position, and an SH-2n Jazz Humbucker in the neck). This is definitely a guitar that benefits from quality pickups; whatever sound or style you're looking for, this thing can be tweaked and shaped to fit it. Personally, I find this guitar shines in the sludge and fuzz of stoner and psychedelic rock: the rock-solid construction and hard Mahogany body generate the clarity and sustain needed to cut through the mud in those styles; the tones you can dial into with this guitar are pure, heady gold. There's a reason Tony Iommi loves SGs. That said, I've tracked everything from Swampy Blues to Rockabilly to Punk to Classic Rock on my G-400, and it changes hats with ease and grace. It's crazy how easy it is to dial in different tones and sounds with just a few tweaks of the volume and tone knobs, blending the pickups together to find the perfect sound. It's an indestructible workhorse, and with a little tweaking and customization, a tonal chameleon as well.