Bad Vibes
It’s disappointing when something you like gets broken. It’s a bit more disappointing when something you want to like arrives not quite broken but not quite working. This is the ever-present gamble when someone lists an eBay item as ‘untested.’ I picked up a Danelectro Cool Cat Vibe pedal a few months back and never quite got around to playing it very much. The crazy casing is the same as the Fuzz I reviewed a few months back and it’s built like a gosh-darned tank.
There are the fairly usual ‘Mix,’ ‘Speed’ and ‘Intensity’ controls on the top end of the unit. Plugged in and activated it takes a second or two to kick in, like any fan of valve amps I don’t mind this so much, you do have to double-guess yourself though for when you want the effect to begin when playing a lead riff. Sonically, it conjures up everything from reserved under-the-sea sounds to blatant 1950’s B-Movie raygun sounds. When this one works, it stumbles slap bang into warbling Fender amp ‘Vibrato’ (or tremolo, as Leo erroneously forgot.) This conjures up all those sweet Santo & Johnny 45 record sounds and makes your guitar sound like something from Capitol Records’ long forgotten pop catalogue. I could see Richard Hawley, the great tone connoisseur, using one of these to great effect.
Sadly, this isn’t going to be happening anytime soon as my own and many other folks (apparently) are having the same issue with this unit. Long story short, it plays fine for around 20 minutes and then decides to pause for reflection and produces no sound whatsoever. If anyone has had this issue fixed, drop me a line in the ‘ask’ section at the top of this page. It makes for a nifty paperweight in the meantime…
