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Danelectro Blue Paisley Overdrive

 

Review of the Danelectro Blue Paisley by The Man in the Jar  

This overdrive pedal has quite complex tone and eq functions.    

Features of the Danelectro Blue Paisley

Construction - Although this pedal looks like its "lunchbox" siblings it is in fact considerably larger and the robust casing is made of metal. The underside plate is also metal and is secured to the casing by four screws. Access to the battery compartment is via a flip-catch trapdoor. The topside has a wild paisley livery with a vintage-style Danelectro "D" badge with stylised wings.  

Ins and Outs - Standard jack in and jack out.

Power - One 9 volt battery or optional dc power transformer.

Controls - Level determines the output to the amp. One Tone control behaves in the normal way but there's also a three-way switch for fixed midrange changes; left to boost, right to cut and centre for off (bypass). A knob labelled "Pickup" is claimed by Danelectro to "set the sweet spot for the guitar you are using". Rotation left is marked "Single-coil", rotation right is marked "humbucker". Finally the Drive knob sets the Overdrive level.   

 

Sound of the Danelectro Blue Paisley

The Drive control takes you from a modest crunch up to a solid Heavy Rock overdrive. This pedal is excellent for vintage or classic overdrive but I couldn't find any Nu-Metal saturation anywhere in the box. The Tone control adds a vital edge of presence when banged full on, indeed for the duration of my fiddlings never went below two-thirds. 
The Pickup knob is quite intriguing. I was using a coil-tapped guitar and it treated both configurations almost exactly the same. In essence you should consider this as a secondary Drive or Power control. Full over to Humbucker gives the unit more harmonic beef, moving back across Single-coil reduces the feeling of "power". Again I found two-thirds-on to be the happiest medium.
The final element to play with is the midrange switching. The midrange boost produces a very distinctive guitar voicing which I thought would be useful as a rhythm guitar sound in selected songs. The midrange cut is a far more impressive beast that delivers a superb scooped sound that has a distinct modern ambience.     

Overall Impressions of the Danelectro Blue Paisley

On balance this is a Heavy Rock player's pedal. If classic rock covers are your bread and butter, then the Blue Paisley is the jam to spread on them. 

This is a very high gain device so go easy with the level control, start low and adjust upwards to the required volume.

Buy the Danelectro Blue Paisley

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