The Last Bass Outpost
Gear Discussion Forums => Other Bass Brands => Topic started by: Chris P. on August 21, 2008, 01:04:15 AM
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Guys,
I can get a brand new Longhorn very cheap. It's the one with hotter lipsticks, adjustable metal bridge, two controls and a toggle switch. Any experiences with those basses?
Thanks in advance!
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I think Danos are great. I'm a die hard Fender bigot and have been for almost 40 years but I love those Danos.
Bang for the buck ,there is nothing even close :o.
I have not played any of the new ones, but I've heard good things. Same old vibe.
Rick
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I've recently A/B'ed one with my vintage one and they don't sound alike. They are more treble focussed with less "vibe" in the sound then the orginal had. I must say that some of the mods make the unit much better playable; the individual saddles, the toggle switch and the two controls (I can have a hard time finding my sound with those stacked pots)..........
Also, they don't have their pickups in series like the old had
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Thanks guys.
It won't be my main bass, but more something fir fun. And I can get one really cheap... I can always mod it!
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I've recently A/B'ed one with my vintage one and they don't sound alike. They are more treble focussed with less "vibe" in the sound then the orginal had. I must say that some of the mods make the unit much better playable; the individual saddles, the toggle switch and the two controls (I can have a hard time finding my sound with those stacked pots)..........
Also, they don't have their pickups in series like the old had
Interesting news :) When I heard a demo of one of the new Danos online it seemed to me that there was a whole lot more treble than I remembered,but unless you're the one who is playing it and tweaking it in , you don't really know what you've got.
The thing that I always liked about the old Danos was the distinctive bottom end. The few that I played really had a definate personality and that is something you don't usually find without a heaviy price tag.
Rick
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+1 on the personality! I love mine (from '67)
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I say snatch it up!! I love my Dano Longhorn, it has such a great sound and is perfect for traveling (backup) or practice.
I have heard some unkind things about the newer adjustable saddle bridge, but I'm sure that the newer tuners would have to be an improvement.
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Interesting news :) When I heard a demo of one of the new Danos online it seemed to me that there was a whole lot more treble than I remembered,but unless you're the one who is playing it and tweaking it in , you don't really know what you've got.
The thing that I always liked about the old Danos was the distinctive bottom end. The few that I played really had a definate personality and that is something you don't usually find without a heaviy price tag.
Rick
Yeah that's also my experience from having played a vintage one at last March's vintage fair in Veenendaal. It felt rubbery and small but it has a seemingly bottomless low end, I tried it through an Ampeg SVT head and 4x10 cab. I played some Beatles and some Jack Bruce and the Dano held the thing together nicely.
Ade, my bassplayer who was there when I played the Dano, is looking towards getting one of the new ones as a backup for his Gretsch Baritone jet six string bass because he really loved that "Brutal low end" that little Dano gave. I hate to dissappoint him about the new ones seemingly sounding different.
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Chris did you see the Longhorn that Neil Merryweather played in the vid that I did? From about 2:12.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1k7l9LaIpdI
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Cool clip, nice Longhorn!
I think I'll order one, so I can give you some info about my experiences. Maybe it's a bit more trebly, but maybe it's better usable in a band situation too... I know it has hotter pick ups, and normally I don't like that. But for the money...
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I played one today through an Eden set up and was pleasantly surprised, it sounds really good, it does have that "Twang" of a short scale and I did a decent Stanley impersionation when using the bridge pickup and playing the main riff of "Schooldays" But even more surprising was how good the little bass sounded when I slapped my way through Level 42's "Lessons in love"
My drummer who was with me said "There's NO WAY a bass that cheap has the right to sound that good." But it does.
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Okay, thanks Blazer! I keep in touch.
And what about thundering lows? ;)
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My drummer who was with me said "There's NO WAY a bass that cheap has the right to sound that good." But it does.
That's what everyone says ;D
Dano violates so much of what we've learned about what it takes to make a good instrument(like ...start with a fine piece of wood). I dunno ....but they make it work.
Rick
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Hey, they are hollow :)
Not so much wood on these ones!
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Hey, they are hollow :)
Not so much wood on these ones!
The bodies are made of masonite or some such material. The only real wood is the neck :o
Rick
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The the originals had a poplar frame which was stapled together and then covered with masonite. The necks were poplar with a non-adjustable reinforcing rod.
The newest reissues have a plywood frame.
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The the originals had a poplar frame which was stapled together and then covered with masonite. The necks were poplar with a non-adjustable reinforcing rod.
...and Brazilian rosewood fretboards. At least the one I used to own, a 1960 6-string bass (shorthorn with "baby seal" pickguard).
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Yes, AFAIK they all had Brazilian rosewood boards. It wasn't expensive at the time compared to ebony.
Poplar isn't very stiff, but with the reinforcing rod and the fretboard's stiffness you seldom saw a bowed Dano neck.
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The the originals had a poplar frame which was stapled together and then covered with masonite. The necks were poplar with a non-adjustable reinforcing rod.
The newest reissues have a plywood frame.
I knew someone would jump in with the specifics ;D
Based on the construction methods and materials you stated, it sounds like a definate recipe for failure, but it wasn't.
Rick
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Not to mention pickups encased in surplus lipstick tubes, cheap tiny machine heads, the aluminum nut held in place with a screw, and the textured cream wallpaper glued to the sides to save paint. But it all worked very well. That's the magic of guitar making, sometimes you don't need exotic tone woods, figured tops, gold plated hardware, fancy inlays and active electronics to achieve good sound.
Old Danoelectros had a neat tone circuit. A switch toggled between "normal" tone (treble cut) and treble-bleed (like a variable baritone switch).
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I have no switch on mine; just 2 dual concentric knobs
Pickups are placed in series (humbucker); you regulate tone and volume of em with the knobs so you can make great single coils sounds with it.
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I have no switch on mine; just 2 dual concentric knobs
Pickups are placed in series (humbucker); you regulate tone and volume of em with the knobs so you can make great single coils sounds with it.
I don't know which model you have, but your pickups are definitely not in series if you can make single coil sounds using the knobs. Two coils wired in series is the equivalent of two lights controlled by a single dimmer switch. There's no way to turn only one light down.
Also, a humbucker consists of two coils with one reverse wound and reverse polarity of the other. The coils can either be in series or in parallel. There are single coil guitars and basses with this setup but I've never heard of any vintage Danos wired this way.
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I have no switch on mine; just 2 dual concentric knobs
I should have mentioned I was talking about the single pickup model.
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I bought one, and liked it so much I bought another---really light and fun to play---
They do fingerstyle, pickstyle & slap pretty well--within kind of a unique framework---kind of "Rickish" sounding--a little hollow sounding, but yet Fenderish also.
They also set up within what I call "professional" specs--i.e. I'm kind of picky, and they set up well.
I generally use them with both pickups on, as it is quiet--since they're in series, the volume goes down significantly when you use only one of the pickups.
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I generally use them with both pickups on, as it is quiet--since they're in series, the volume goes down significantly when you use only one of the pickups.
Again, that's not series wiring. Pickups in parallel without a selector switch will do that unless you wire them like a standard J (with the hot wired to the center lug). Pickups in parallel with a selector switch will do that when both pickups selected
If you can control two pickups separately, they're not wired in series.
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Not sure of the mechanics, but I read the series thing in a Bassplayer review---said the decrease in volume when switching to a single pup was because when both were on, it was in series.
I'm more of a musician-type so I can really only tell about the tone...both is good'n hot / bass only is o-k / treble only is useless far as I can tell...it's real close to the bridge so it sounds kind of anemic like a capped Rick bridge pup.
Seems like I remember reading something that said they wired the pickups like that because for some reason it allowed them to use that cheap little toggle switch as the only switch for all of their guitars and basses????
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BP obviously hasn't improved. :-\
I'm no wiring authority but that's definitely incorrect. As I said above, series wiring is like two lights controlled by a single dimmer switch.
I think where people get confused is that with most humbuckers, the two individual coils of the humbucker are wired in series, so people assume that a Les Paul or SG is series wired. But the two pickups are actually in parallel.
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At least in my instruments you don't have controls for the separate pickups--one is volume the other is a tone cap / both of these affect both pickups--this is from the Danelectro history page---if it helps...cutting and pasting this was about the limit of my computer skills...
Both lines came with either 1 or 2 pickups, concealed under a baked melamine pickguard. Concentric stacked tone and volume knobs were used on the two pickup models only. Notably, when both pickups were used together, the tone was much stronger. This was due to wiring the pickups in series, instead of parallel like most other maker's two pickup guitars.
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If you have one volume control that affects both pickups equally, then they're in series.
Edit: I want to make it clear that I'm not familiar with various Dano wiring schemes. I see that the Vintage Guitar Guy site says they wired two pickups in series. And he would know a hell of a lot more about it than I do.
But I do know that in any series circuit, the same current is flowing through both pickups. They can't be controlled by two separate volumes acting independently. So if you have a two-pickup circuit with two volume knobs that act separately on each pickup, it's not a series circuit.
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The longhorn shape is an acquired taste.
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especially sitting down
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Thanks again folks.
Since I started playing bass, I was attracted to the Longhorn. But al my former band members thought it was fookin' ugly. And I agree;) But now it's time, I guess....
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I wish I could get my grubby hands on an eighties Hondo Longhorn, they were made at the Matsumoku plant and featured active electronics and Dimarzio model P pickups. They are without a doubt some of the coolest eighties re-think of a classic.
(http://www.fatdawg.com/345.jpg)
Here's one next to a geniune Dano, the long scale neck apparent.
(http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v441/Thedudepit/Hondo%20Doubleneck/DCP_1016.jpg)
An even rarer double neck
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I played a Hondo Longhorn in a store about 5 years ago. It had the style but it was solidbody, heavy and even more unbalanced than a Dano Longhorn. Did they make a hollowbody version?
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Something else I've just noticed, the "new" Dano shapes -- the second reissues -- are gone from the company's website and are now replaced by a "Dano 63" series: guitar, baritone and long and short scale basses.
http://danelectro.com/bass_ls_aqua.html
http://www.musiciansfriend.com/product?sku=516194
No more Longhorns?
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It's strange: All the distributors offer them, but theywhere never on the site the last couple of years... Only the Dano 63. The same with the rectangular model if I'm correct.
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I'll make a copy of the wiring diagram so you can all decide if it is in series or in parallel :D
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Don't know for sure, but I think Danos are only made in limited runs, and when they're sold, they're gone till the next run...my guess is that they are licensed out to a Korean jobber...
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Don't know for sure, but I think Danos are only made in limited runs, and when they're sold, they're gone till the next run...my guess is that they are licensed out to a Korean jobber...
Maybe there's a masonite shortage ??? ;)
Rick
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Maybe there's a masonite shortage ??? ;)
Rick
Yeah, that must be it. A worldwide shortage of wood chips. :)
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;D
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Lol, somewhere a Rainforest breathes a sigh of relief. ;D
They did the big reissue in '99 of the DC, U1, U2, U3, Convertible, & Longhorns. Then they added the Hodad & Mod line in somewhere after that ('00-01). Then I think the company that had/has the right to produce Danos changed hands/bankrupted/something. The next time new reissues showed up was '06, with the Longhorn with the adjustable saddle bridge and then the Dano Pro, and Dano '59 guitars the next year. Now they're issuing the Dano '63.
My guess is they're doing limited runs to increase the popularity or demand. I dunno. =)
I'm not as big a fan of the newer ('06-) reissues, not because of the hardware changes, but the lack of matching neck and headstock paintjob. I think it made the newer reissues less reminiscent of their older brethren (Minus the Dano 63', since they were shooting for the Silvertone vibe).
Also, for anyone interested, http://www.danguitars.com is a good site that has a lot of history of the Danelectro/Silvertone company and has a lot of great pics. Plus they buy and resale the Reissues and parts to upgrade/repair them.
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AFAIK there was no change in the company or any bankruptcy. The reissues (and all the pedals) have been done by Evets Corp. all along.
There was a legal dispute between Evets and Jerry Jones over the rights to the body shapes. IIRC Evets claimed they bought the Danelectro name from the bankrupt succesor to the original company, but Jerry Jones was making his Dano-style reissues before that.
Nat Daniel sold the company in the late 60s. If Evets had bought a successor company that was still operating and had been making the guitars all along, there would have been no question who had a claim on the body shapes. But that's not how it happened. Evets had no connection to the old company. When Jerry Jones started up in the late 80s, any trademarks of the old company had been abandoned.
So there was a time when Evets was not making any guitar and bass reissues. But now they are, and Jerry Jones is making his original series again, so I guess the legal dispute is over.