Cool Cat Transparent Overdrive demo

[Robert]

Here's demo with my Mack Heatseeker 18 watt tube amp and my Suhr Classic. This is also my first time making a video with my new Canon HG20 High Definition video camera.

 

[Spudman]

Cool new digs. Banished to the basement. Play on bro. Thanks for the demo.

 

[Gutmann]

Very nice Guitar and Amp - and the Dano fits really good.
This is the best CCTO-demo i've heard - great playing.

cheers
uli

 

[Ch0jin]

Thanks for the demo!

You can really notice the difference in quality from your old cam to this one. I was actually a little surprised how much improvement there was considering it's all youtube-erised.

 

[Robert]

I re-uploaded the demo, and it in very high quality. On youtube, you can click the HD button to see it in real High Definition.

So the sound is better huh?

 

[Blaze]

Ya ! Great HD stuff Rob ..
I clic on HD and then on Fullscreen , impresive to see these veins in HD..

Nice C.C T_O demo , i like mine a lot ..

Great playin as usual..:bravo:



Blazes :AOK:

 

[SuperSwede]

I love the sound of your Mack amp, very compressed marshallesque tone.

 

[Robert]

Thanks, the Heatseeker does a fabulous job of the half-clean/half-dirty old Marshall tones. With a pedal added, a super blues and country tone!

 

[SuperSwede]

I would really like to hear that tone with a little reverb (from you know what unit)!

 

[Robert]

From the Lexicon LXP-1?
I have a Boss SE-70 too.

 

[SuperSwede]

The lexicon of course!

 

[sensei]

I love that tone!

 

[tot_Ou_tard]

Fantastic playing & sounds great as usual Robert!

It sounds a bit middy & not particularly transparent however for a pedal purported to be a Timmy clone. I think it is because you have the EQ fixed while you are sweeping through the gain.

The major advantage of the Timmy is that you can just cut enough of the highs & lows to stop it sounding harse & flubby. At low gain settings you can cut just a hair while you cut more treble & bass at higher gain settings.

 

[marnold]

It sounds a bit middy & not particularly transparent however for a pedal purported to be a Timmy clone. I think it is because you have the EQ fixed while you are sweeping through the gain.

I was going to say the same thing. I thought it sounded pretty sweet, but not terribly transparent. Perhaps more transparent than a typical Tube Screamer, but TSs are anything but.

 

[Robert]

Thanks guys. I had the eq completely neutral, and I never touched those knobs on the demo. It's not completely transparent, but who cares. If it sounds good, it is good, that's my motto!

I should do a big showdown of all my gain pedals one day on a video... I have quite a few by now.

Btw, isn't this pedal supposed to be a Tim clone, not a Timmy clone? I also have no idea how the Tim/Timmy are different from each other.

 

[tot_Ou_tard]

Thanks guys. I had the eq completely neutral, and I never touched those knobs on the demo. It's not completely transparent, but who cares. If it sounds good, it is good, that's my motto!

I should do a big showdown of all my gain pedals one day on a video... I have quite a few by now.

Btw, isn't this pedal supposed to be a Tim clone, not a Timmy clone? I also have no idea how the Tim/Timmy are different from each other.

If the TO has neutral at 12:00 then it is not like the Timmy which only has passive treble & bass cuts. There is no active treble or bass boost. On the Tim & Timmy you start with the cut all the way off.

The Tim has an effects loop. The Timmy has internal dip switches for regular symmetric/asymmetric/more compressed symmetric clipping.

The TO is supposed to be a clone of the standard symmetric Timmy.

You are right Robert it did sound good. It just didn't sound like the way most people use a Timmy.

 

[markb]

The TO has a mid hump. It's not honky and compressed like a screamer but there is a slight mid boost. Cutting the treble and bass will accentuate it a little and smooth out the drive, while boosting the eqs will minimise it. As Robert noted, it also has a ton of boost. I'd say a bit too much.
As I said before it's a good low to medium gain od and I'd say a serious competitor to the Timmy or a Barber LTD or a Boss BD-2 (before the BD goes all fizzy and harsh as you wind up the gain) but it's not identical in sound to any of those pedals wherever they got the idea from.

 

[goonrick]

Very nice demo, Robert. I have played my TO through a Lab Series L5, a Laney LC-15 and a Fender Hot Rod Deluxe and I'd say that the massive output gain of the pedal can make it seem much heavier than what the pedal's gain alone would let on. I didn't at first realize just how stout the output was and was heavily overdriving the input stage of my amps and initially thought this pedal was misnamed as an 'overdrive'. It took me a while to figure out that I was getting that much output out of the thing--many times more than I'm used to with my modded Boss SD-1 (I was setting it to high noon and getting more output than the SD-1 full-up).

I have used the SD-1 for over a decade now, and wouldn't go so far as to say the TO has removed it from the pedal board, but the dynamics of the Dano make it very tempting. I'm constantly amazed at how easily the pedal responds to tweaking my strat's volume knob.

Another thing worth mentioning is that the TO sounds as good on my SS L5 as it does on any of my tube amps--which is terrific. It's definitely a good pedal for the money.

 

[Blaze]

On this clip i did with the Coolcat Tod , I found that the Es 335 tone have nt been colored by the Danelectro pedal ,maybe a little bit by the delay..

In fact I just pushed it with a little gain , the eq & volume at 12 oclock..
I realy enjoy this pedal..

The Wah part is played with DVM Rabid Rodent..

Lydia's Dream-Clip

 

[duhvoodooman]

I've never played through a Timmy or any of the "boo-teek" overdrive pedals claiming to be ultra-transparent, but I can comment on some of my own experience with the Dano pedal, which I own:

I would call it the More-Transparent-Than-A-Tube Screamer Overdrive (MTTATSOD? ), but I would agree that it's not a truly transparent OD (i.e. doesn't noticeably alter the EQ profile of your guitar's signal). It's still got a mid-range hump, just not as pronounced/peaky as a Tube Screamer. Which isn't to say that it doesn't sound damned good and represent a great pedal value at only $40!

As far as it sounding like a Timmy--from what I read, a guy over at freestompboxes.org analyzed the TOD circuit, and found that it was identical to the Timmy except for the ratings of two power filter caps, which aren't in the signal path anyway. Assuming that (1) he's correct, and (2) the controls can be set analogously, the two should sound alike. If they don't....well, who knows what else might be going on?

In my own limited experience with the quest for OD transparency, BY FAR the closest I've heard to truly achieving that is an Allums "H2O Plus" modded Blues Driver BD-2. I recently installed this mod for Nelskie on a used BD-2 he'd gotten off eBay, and was so impressed with the result that I ended up buying one myself and doing the same mod on it. So for ~ $50 for a used BD-2 in good shape and another $28 for the Allums mod kit, you can have what I think is a truly transparent overdrive--which incidentally also has a boatload of gain available at the high end of the Gain knob. It sounds just freaking unbelievable with a Strat.

 

[duhvoodooman]

Top Secret, Hush Hush!!!

Just 'cuz I love you guys, here's the layout for my ultra-top secret ULTIMATE TRANSPARENT OVERDRIVE pedal. Absolutely will not color your guitar's tone in any way!! Don't tell anybody else, though!!

 

[Gutmann]

Just 'cuz I love you guys, here's the layout for my ultra-top secret ULTIMATE TRANSPARENT OVERDRIVE pedal. Absolutely will not color your guitar's tone in any way!! Don't tell anybody else, though!!

:master: :master: :master:
Kepp it secret! You should start gooping it before Danelectro copies the layout!