Danelectro: NICHOLS 1966™
It’s a fuzz. It’s a distortion. It’s a distortion-fuzz..? Whatever you want to call it, the Nichols 1966 rocks and has great big tubs of tone. There’s a story behind this unique pedal, and I quote: “In the hills above Hollywood, California… sit several well known canyons. Beachwood Canyon, to the East of Hollywood, is home to the famous HOLLYWOOD sign. To the West sits Nichols Canyon, where Foxx pedals founder and current Danelectro® owner Steve lived with his parents in the mid 1960’s. It was in the garage of that home on Nichols Canyon Place that Steve created his first effects pedal, which he named “The Liverpool Fuzz Tone”. Steve had no money to buy a fuzz and no access to any schematics. So he created a completely unique circuit architecture that has never been seen again. Although he called his box a “fuzz”, it was in fact half way between a distortion and a fuzz. This incredible box dishes out delicious tones unlike those of any pedal ever made. While Steve labored to create this new box in 1966, less than 2 miles away in Laurel Canyon musicians were collaborating on what would become the most famous songs of the 1960’s.”
The full and uncut ‘jam’ component of this video can be viewed at https://youtu.be/qPf40IDbZ-c
Today’s tools:
Guitar: 2023 Danelectro Triple Divine & 2023 Charvel Prashant Aswani Signature Pro-Mod PA28. Both stock.
Amp: Axe-FX III Turbo running Cygnus X-2 24.05 Mid-60’s Deluxe Reverb model.
Cables: BOSS
Strings: Ernie Ball 10-46
Pick: Signature Honey Pick https://www.honey-picks.com/collections/all/brett-kingman
Mic: Audix USA PDX720 – https://audixusa.com/products/pdx720-signature-edition/
Camera: GoPro HERO10 + Sony ZV-1M2 x 2
Soundcard: PreSonus Quantum 26×32 (No longer available)
Desktop Monitors: PreSonus R80 R-Series Active AMT Studio Monitors – https://www.presonus.com
Monitor Control: SPL 2Control – https://spl.audio/en/spl-produkt/2control/
Headphones: Audix A150 – https://audixusa.com/products/a150/
All Stands: Gravity Stands – https://www.gravitystands.com/en/
Computer: 2017 Apple iMac Pro, 2.5 GHz 14-Core Intel Xeon W, 64 GB 2666 MHz DDR4, Radeon Pro Vega 64X 16 GB
Backing track “Twister” courtesy jamtrackcentral.com
#Danelectro #NICHOLS
Originally posted by UCBHoPcJMiFe6CuVY2X7I0YQ at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kjXbh6h3oV0
Having a Fuzz that cleans up with your volume knob on the guitar is the 2nd most important thing to me on a fuzz besides the tone. Great demo as always ????????????????
I like how this one cleans up. Must fuzz is so out of control where this one you can get just a touch added to the distortion to make it sing.
Gilmourish!!
14! That’s nuts. Great no BS demo as ever Brett. Thanks for keeping it real.
Well done! Just bought one from Sweetwater.
My favorite thing about this video is the way he SHOWS us what he's doing instead of describing every single turn-of-the-knobs in painful detail. Great demo. Great review. Thanks.
Steely Dan lead tone in a box.
This brand is sold here in the Czech Republic, but I have not yet seen this effect on offer. Beautiful piece and sound. Greetings Pavel CZ.????????????
I'm really impressed by the controls and sounds you get from this pedal. To think that this was made up without any schematics by a bloke in high school back in the day, impressive to say the least. That sparkling cleanup is a thing of beauty.
Dang. That sounds hella litty.
That’s a good-sounding pedal! And I don’t even like fuzz—I much prefer overdrive. I’ll have to check one of these out.
Yup, this one goes on the list.
Great sounding original pedal! Awesome review Bret.
Another Good'un…
A nice sounding pedal, and it looks cool too. I'm glad they didn't make it look like a space ship with unreachable knobs (Fab series.) Although, I owned a few of them and they sounded amazing for the price.
all that and top mounted input & output!!
Actually sounds good.
Thanks Brett, great demo as per.
If any Aussies watching this hear of local stock, can you mention it here please.
Sounds amazing, wow!
Sounds almost like a Dumble with skunk playing
Great sounding fuzzy od 🙂
Danelectro is soooo cool.
So it’s a Dano French toast rehoused?
It sounds AWESOME ????????
Cool pedal and an excellent demo. Sounds like it's designed to give you that fuzz-into-an-overdrive sound. To my ear it sounded best with less output from the guitar (either lower output lipsticks or vol rolled down).
Sounds fantastic!
Nice.
Danelectro guitars are so effortlessly cool, would love to own one.
Sounds great, amazing demo Brett!