A Couple of Danelectro Pedals....

[duhvoodooman]

As I mentioned in that birthday thread, I got a couple of Danelectro pedals as gifts and got to fool around with them a little bit last night. I hooked them up to my Valve Jr. and played my Dot through 'em. The Corned Beef reverb pedal does a pretty nice job of "opening up" the sound of the VJr. I much prefer playing through a bit of reverb, so it will get a lot of use. The Hash Browns flanger pedal is more of a novelty effect, but still fun to play with on some tunes. Anyway, I recorded a quick clip--very crude--just to demo the sounds a bit. Starts off clean, then with the reverb, and lastly with the flanger plus a little dirt dished through my ZYS. Played through both pups on my Dot. Apologies to EVH on that last bit!

Danelectro Pedals Clip​

 

[Robert]

Cool, VDM! The Chicken Salad is a great little pedal. It sucks a bit of your tone though, and darkens a bit with you use some OD/Distortion. Still a cool pedal for the low price.

 

[duhvoodooman]

Cool, VDM! The Chicken Salad is a great little pedal. It sucks a bit of your tone though, and darkens a bit with you use some OD/Distortion. Still a cool pedal for the low price.

Yeah, I have one of those coming, but it's backordered at Music123 and I won't get it for another week or two, last I heard. But it was only $25 and they were running a free shipping deal, so I had to go for it.

I also bought the Chili Dog octave pedal, which does some pretty cool single/double octave-down sounds. I'll try to get a short clip out for that in the next day or two.

When the Chicken Salad shows up, I'll have 4 of the 5 slots filled on the Danaelectro mini-effect pedalboard I bought along with these pedals. Hmmm, sounds like I need one more! I have distortion pedals out the wazoo, so whaddya think I should go for? Phaser or compressor, maybe? I'm fixed for echo/delay, chorus and EQ. Maybe the DJ-25 chromatic tuner....

 

[snarph]

Sounds neat but those names make me hungry

 

[oldguy]

All I've got is the PB & J delay, but I like it.

 

[duhvoodooman]

The Chicken Salad vibrato pedal finally arrived, but I'm sad to say that the issues I've read about Danelectro pedal quality came with it!. When I hooked it up, it obviously had something defective inside, 'cuz the volume was about a 10th of what it should be, and the tone was thinner than a Vogue cover model.

I called Music123, where I'd ordered it from, and asked for an exchange. Unfortunately, it's backordered again, and will be another 3 - 4 weeks to get a replacement. But the CS rep surprised me by saying they didn't want the old one back--told me to just throw it away. Apparently, at this price point ($25) it must be more expensive for them to process a return than just forget about it.

Anyway, rather than just toss it out, I decided to open it up and see if there was anything obviously wrong that I could fix. It had two small PCB's inside, but only one could be removed. Other than a few funky looking solder joints that I cleaned up a bit, nothing stood out. All of the components on the 2nd PCB were that ultra-small surface-mount stuff, far beyond the abilities of a home tinker like me to tackle. I put the pedal back together, and it still sounded the same way. But before I threw it out, I tried the last desperate act of the busted electronics owner--I whacked it sharply a couple of times on the floor. Plugged it back in and it's been working great ever since!

Probably something like a loose chunk of metal or solder shorting something out and the sharp blows dislodged it. Who knows?! Anyway, it's working for now and will hopefull hang in there until the new one shows up....

 

[tot_Ou_tard]

Vood, you must have the magic thwack! How much do you charge to perform your pedal repair services?

 

[Robert]

Hey, that's the Goofy way, isn't it? He kicks the car and it starts. We can all learn from Goofy and duhvoodooman!

 

[duhvoodooman]

We can all learn from Goofy and duhvoodooman!

Hey, I resemble that remark!

 

[Spudman]

Hey, I've been sounding a little thin lately too. Can ya come by and whack me so I start sounding better too?

Great story...and I just love a good whack...mostly because I deserve it.

 

[Leonidas]

Hahaha. Thats great DVM! Nothing like a good smackdown to get things working.

Only tiny danelectro pedal I've got is the Fish and Chips, which is an EQ. I think it works pretty well! Does exactly what its supposed to. I don't use it very often, but sometimes to get the right sound out of an effect you just gotta tweak the eq going into (or out) of it. Works pretty well, and doesn't steal much tone.

 

[Sblack]

I whacked it sharply a couple of times on the floor. Plugged it back in and it's been working great ever since! QUOTE]

Arthur Fonzarelli had the same touch with that old juke box at Arnolds. He just whacked it and it would play any song he wanted. There is something to be said about faulty electronics and a good, swift whack.

I own a Dano Fab Distortion, and it sounds awesome. I can't believe it was $15. All hail cheap pedals!

Nice clip!

 

[duhvoodooman]

As Paul Harvey would say, here's "the rest of the story":

The replacement Chicken Salad pedal showed up last week, much quicker than the Music123 CS guy said it would. This one works perfectly. The original one continues to function, though it did cut out on me once, and another sharp whack brought it back. So you wouldn't want to gig with that one, but it's great for my backroom playin'!

The Chicken Salad has turned out to be my favorite Danelectro mini-effect pedal. Turn both the intensity and speed knobs up around 1 - 2PM, and it does a very credible Univibe impression. Not bad for only $25!! I was fooling around the other night playing my Dot on the bridge p'up --> Bad Monkey --> Chicken Salad --> Corned Beef reverb --> Valve Junior and getting some wicked cool tones. I'll have to post a clip....

 

[tot_Ou_tard]

Hey, that's the Goofy way, isn't it? He kicks the car and it starts. We can all learn from Goofy and duhvoodooman!

Did you see that Disney animation too? The one where good natured Goofy gets behind the wheel of a car & gets '50's era road rage?

Classic!

 

[tot_Ou_tard]

Hahaha. Thats great DVM! Nothing like a good smackdown to get things working.

Only tiny danelectro pedal I've got is the Fish and Chips, which is an EQ. I think it works pretty well! Does exactly what its supposed to. I don't use it very often, but sometimes to get the right sound out of an effect you just gotta tweak the eq going into (or out) of it. Works pretty well, and doesn't steal much tone.

I'm thinking of getting a Fish n' Chips. When you say it doesn't steal much tone, do you mean when its on or off or both?