Quick Review – Danelectro 56 Reissue Electric Guitar- Aqua – Humbuckers

Originally Posted on November 17, 2010 by admin

Spent a few minutes tonight playing the new 56 Dano reissues from Danelectro. Chose to play the aqua colored model with the lipstick humbucker pickup in the bridge position and “dolphin” headstick.

The build quality seems to be first rate on these reissues. None of the guitars we got in had any quality issues – even with the tape which has been a traditional issue with Danelectro. I found the tuners to be first rate and the guitar’s intonation was fine right out of the box.

The neck was smooth and not very deep in the back. However, the fingerboard seemed wider than on previous reissues but was no problem to play. The tone was typical Dano with the twang and treble overtones. This guitar was very low noise and did not notice any excessive hum, even in the neck position pickup. The lipstock humbucker, unlike traditional humbuckers, did not product a lot of drive; just provided a little warmth to the tone rather than any type of severe clipping of the signal.

Played it through a Visual Sound Route 66 pedal (with compressor and overdrive) and that is where this guitar really came through. I was able to get very good bluesy notes out of it and then with a little echo (again, Visual Sound H2O) it was surf city.

Danelectro has worked hard over the last couple of years to increase the quality of there guitars as well as keep the price steady. With this guitar, they have really succeeded. Excellent playability, cool looks (love the clear “D” pickguard) and classic tone, you cannot really go wrong for this price!