Domenic Troiano's Danelectro Coral Electric Sitar, 1968 [USED]

Presented here is Domenic Troiano's Danelectro Coral Electric Sitar, used on many sessions at studios in Toronto throughout the 1980's and into the 1990's. It was particularly useful for hundreds of episodes of shows like Night Heat, Diamonds, True Blue, Top Cops, Counterstrike and Secret Service.

Here is a description of this wonderful instrument's provenance, provided by his brother:

"This Danelectro Coral Electric Sitar was built during 1968 at Neptune City, New Jersey and was purchased by Domenic Troiano sometime in the early 70s. He used it in the Nimbus 9 studio (see photo) in Yorkville, Toronto during the Guess Who era. The sitar was added to his stable of guitars in his new studio, Round Sound in Toronto, Canada in the early 80s. By then he had come off the road and was involved in scoring TV shows and movies. He mainly used the Coral Sitar for special effects.

At Round Sound Studio Dom used the sitar in order to make ethnic style music cues for some of the cop shows that he scored. Dom loved using the sitar to add lead lines to tracks where he programmed cool drum loops. The drum loops contained ethnic percussion sounds which sounded very East Indian and when he added the sitar leads it was the icing on the cake. He would also strike some open strum shots with the sitar to mark things in the picture as music stingers. He had a lot of fun with his sitar. He was exceptionally good at enhancing what we saw on the screen and making it as authentic as possible."

Instrument Description

The Danelectro Coral Electric Sitar was built from 1967 to 1969, originally developed by LA Session player Vinnie Bell for production by Danelectro. For various reasons, Danelectro branded it with the 'Coral' name, so its full name is the "Danelectro Vincent Bell Coral Electric Sitar". As a truly niche instrument it could not have a wide market, but it was immediately accepted and was used by many artists for many recordings. A number of re-issues have been made over the years and the key component, the 'Buzzing Bridge', was offered by Gotoh as a standalone part. The bodies are Masonite over a poplar core, the neck is Poplar with Brazilian Rosewood for the fingerboard and headstock. There are two sets of strings, the 'guitar' section and the sympathetic strings. For the sympathetic strings, the precise tuning and order is not very important.This example is in good condition, original except that it is missing the 'Vinnie Bell' branded pickguard and the clear plastic arm-rest covering part of the sympathetic strings. The action is fine and the instrument plays reasonably well.

The original black rectangular hard shell case is included. 

Danelectro History

Danelectro was founded in 1947 by Nathaniel Daniel to provide low cost amplifiers to department and catalog stores like Sears, Roebuck and Montgomery Ward. These were often sold under the names 'Silvertone' and 'Airline'.  By 1954, the rise of the electric guitar was becoming meteoric and Daniel introduced a number of low-cost models using materials like Masonite and Plywood for the bodies and Poplar necks with metal stiffeners.  For pickups, Daniel found and purchased a trove of surplus lipstick tubes and repurposed them as pickup housings.   It's possible that over all of its models, Danelectro shipped millions of guitars and amps.   

In 1966, the Danelectro business was purchased by MCA - yes, the MCA that later became Universal Studios and Universal Music Group in 1996.  This included a move from Red Bank NJ to larger production facilities in Neptune NJ. MCA pushed Danelectro to sell directly to retail stores, but the company didn't have an appropriate sales structure.  This led to the 1969 collapse of Danelectro.   It has been revived a few times and the current owners offer a full line of instruments including the Electic Sitar. 

 

There are no refunds or returns on used items unless authorized in advance by a Twelfth Fret Sales Associate at time of sale. View Our Full Terms Here

 

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DETAILS: 

• Instrument Model:  Danelectro Vincent Bell Coral Electric Sitar
• Instrument Manufacturer:   Danelectro / Coral
• Instrument year:   1968
• Instrument Finish:  Red Crackle
• Instrument Class:  Vintage
• Instrument serial number:  82008, built during 1968 at Neptune City NJ
• Country of Origin:  USA
• Instrument Condition:  Good
• Playing Condition:  Good
  
• Right-handed 
• CITIES Documentation Required: Yes
• Case included:  Yes
• Case original:  Yes
• Case Type: Hard
• Instrument Weight Imperial:   7.568 lbs
• Instrument Weight Metric:   3.44 kgs
• Scale Length Imperial:    24.88 in
• Scale Length Metric:    632 mm
• Nut Width Imperial:    1.782 in
• Nut Width Metric:  45.27 mm
  
• Items in Case: N/A
• Consignment: Yes
• Product ID: 190324

 

There are no refunds or returns on used items unless authorized in advance by a Twelfth Fret Sales Associate at time of sale. View Our Full Terms Here