Danelectro Sitar Red Crackle

I was a little nervous about buying this instrument online and untried. These things have a bit of a reputation for being unruly and difficult to set up, with poor intonation and uneven response.

I shouldn't have worried!!! First off, the instrument is well built with a decent fingerboard and frets and good hardware. Electronics are noise free. In addition the instrument arrived very well set up, and after a quick tuning tweak it was plug and play - the buzz response is even across all strings and all up and down the fingerboard - no choked notes, or undesirable clean ones either! Intonation is a tiny touch iffy above the 12th fret on the bass strings, a bit more tinkering with the bridge and the string gauges might improve this, but even out of the box it was possible to play lead runs, double stops and chords in higher positions without too much problem. The "Balrog-burst" err, eye catching, but it's durable.

The only downside build and setup-wise is with the harp strings. They work fine, but tuning is via a peg and wrench system (like an autoharp). You have to go easy with the (supplied) wrench whilst tuning as it's very sensitive. Having said that, once the harp strings are tuned, tuning is pretty stable.

The guitar (yes it's a guitar, not really a sitar) is pretty easy to play with a flattish uncramped fingerboard and a comfortable satin finish neck. The floating plastic string guard over the harp strings acts as a comfortable arm rest.

Sound- wise, there is quite a range available, albeit always a bit buzzy. The lipstick pickups can give plenty of jangle and sizzle but also plenty of body if required. Anyone who thinks this instrument is a one trick pony should think again. Especially for recording it adds a very useful set of tonal options to the player's palette and it's great for doubling lines to add colour. There is so much more you can do with this than the obvious ethnic/psychedelia stuff. You just need to be inventive.

The harp strings do add an extra shimmer when left to ring, especially when recording. They can be tuned chromatically, to a scale, or to a chord. Or turned off!

This instrument is robust and stable enough to be played live too, as long as you don't throw it around too much. Be prepared for lots of comments about it! A downside in a live situation is that as it takes more than a little time to retune the harp strings, you'd need to limit yourself to one tuning.

Highly recommended for any guitarist who likes something unusual. Good value, very useful, and lots of fun.

I have dreamt about this instrument since the 90s after I saw it being used by some of my favourite artists like Steve Vai and Pat Metheny, also by bands like Yes and Genesis and I am happy that Danelectro reissued it and it's now available on Thomann.

I think the quality, in general, is very good - the neck is straight, feels nice to the hand and it's comfortable. I could say that it's pretty much like a Stratocaster neck.

The finish of the body looks very appealing and the plastic guards are nice too although one needs to be careful with them because they seem a bit fragile.

The volume and tone controls are wisely designed and they give a wide variety of sounds one can choose from.

There are just two downsides I see so far and because of them I gave only 4 stars on "quality:

1. if one needs to make truss rod adjustments, they need to remove the plate of the neck pickup and this might be a bit annoying.

2. The sympathetic strings are difficult to tune precisely and it might get annoying too if one isn't patient enough.

Besides that, the sitar sounds very nice even purely acoustically and this was a pleasant surprise to me because I didn't really know that the body is actually hollow just like on a real Indian sitar.

My overall impression is good so I think this instrument is worth the investment.

You probably wouldn't believe just how many records the original Danelectro Coral Sitar guitar was on, but there are many. If you want to get your sixties groove on or just want something weird and wonderful to try, this is the guitar for you. It delivers that classic sitar inspired tone in a relatively cheap package.

My only criticism is that the buzz bridge is almost impossible to intonate properly, but I guess that comes with the territory. Also the plastic guards that adorn the instrument aren't exactly sturdy and could possible crack if they took a knock.

Other than that, the cheapest way to get that far-out sixties sound in a tribute instrument! Recommended!

Well I bought this without any clue on how to play the harp parts but otherwise it is a great instrument like everything from Dano I have seen and had so far. Very typical sound, memories memories. Will take a while to master but I am glad I got it. Perfect construction, no complaints, even the strings seem properly set up for action etc. A great add-on to a guitar collection for sure, at reasonable price.