Danelectro AO-1 Wasabi Overdrive

Not too hard to figure out.

It does a decent job and especially for the price. Wasn't noisy. Very comparable to my Boss overdrive when turning the distortion down a bit, which is what I do... as I play more of the 80s/90s rock and not really hard rock (If you really want the hardest sound... you'll need to go witht the Boss). I tested it by taking it to a gig. I traded between it and my Boss (had them both in my line) and could tell only a small difference.
I'm surprised to see a lot of 10's on this page for ratings. I was verging on a 7 or 8.. but decided on the 8 because I've always liked Danelectro. Still.. it was "good" sounding, but definitely not "great" sounding. I played it with 3 different guitars through a Fender Hot Rod Deluxe.
You can tweak this thing a lot.. which I did like.. but I was interested in it for the 'lead boost' button. Forget it... not even noticeable. I play out 2 - 3 X a week and believe me.. this will do nothing for making that lead jump out from the rhythm sound.
Finally, the Secret Slap Echo Doubler is a joke too. It is the worst sounding slapback around. Maybe I'm spoiled because I play with the Danelectro Dan-Echo pedal.. and it's got the best sounding echo/reverb/slapback around. Not even comparable. This switch will only muddle your sound up and you'll never use it.
Still.. minus the added worthless features, the distortion itself is pretty smooth and can be tweaked a lot, and since the price isn't too bad, I'll give an overall of 8.
If you want a truly great sounding disortion pedal with a really fat sound, go with the Ibanez Tube King. I've still not found anything to compete with this and I test pedals every week. http://www.harmony-central.com/Effects/Data/Ibanez/TK999_Tube_King_Overdrive-01.html

built tough.. like all Danelectro pedals.

Never had to deal.. but I've always heard good things.

I'm surprised to see a lot of 10's on this page for ratings. I was verging on a 7 or 8.. but decided on the 8 because I've always liked Danelectro. Still.. it was "good" sounding, but definitely not "great" sounding. I played it with 3 different guitars through a Fender Hot Rod Deluxe.
You can tweak this thing a lot.. which I did like.. but I was interested in it for the 'lead boost' button. Forget it... not even noticeable. I play out 2 - 3 X a week and believe me.. this will do nothing for making that lead jump out from the rhythm sound.
Finally, the Secret Slap Echo Doubler is a joke too. It is the worst sounding slapback around. Maybe I'm spoiled because I play with the Danelectro Dan-Echo pedal.. and it's got the best sounding echo/reverb/slapback around. Not even comparable. This switch will only muddle your sound up and you'll never use it.
Still.. minus the added worthless features, the distortion itself is pretty smooth and can be tweaked a lot, and since the price isn't too bad, I'll give an overall of 8.
If you want a truly great sounding disortion pedal with a really fat sound, go with the Ibanez Tube King. I've still not found anything to compete with this and I test pedals every week. http://www.harmony-central.com/Effects/Data/Ibanez/TK999_Tube_King_Overdrive-01.html

Getting a good, smooth overdrive is a piece of cake. PLEASE don't buy this box if you're looking for full on crunchy distortion tones. This is similar to a good Tubescreamer/Maxon 808 type pedal, but with some extra goodies. It seems to be able to squeeze out a little more gain than my Maxon 808, and it has a little less bite than the 808, but is therefore nice for overdriving on chords or creating a very buttery lead tone.
The manual is fine, and tells you clearly what the myriad of switches and knobs do. I could see how the many switches and knobs could confuse some users. Just be sure to set any switches you can to their off setting before starting to fiddle around so you get an idea of the basic sound.

It is very quiet and the Dano powersuplly is really hum free, so that's a great start. I reiterate that this is a true overdrive and a smooth one at that. I haven't found any of these 'insane, wild, non-pedal like' sounds in this thing yet, but what it does is over a very high quality overdrive with some cool EQ curves that I find useful (some more than others, but this is a very subjective thing). Whatever circuit is doing the EQ curves isnt adding any noise or grainy phaseshifted sound. There is a nice solid low end on most of the EQ settings.
The added 'blend' feature is really the icing on the cake - I havent played the voodoo labs sparkle drive, but this thing can cook up exactly what voodoo labs put up as a soundbyte on their site. I love being able to set a very mild amp breakup and then have a 60/40 mix of Wasabi overdrive and plain amp signal it's like live double-tracked guitar! Lower settings on this knob sound a little stupid; A clean guitar with a swarm of bees hiding beneath it - but HEY - who knows?... Sometimes you just need that 'stupid' sound to finish your track.
Oh yeah, and we have a BOOST, too ... How much did I pay again?!?

This thing is HEAVY. It is built very well and I don't foresee any problems. The knobs have a smooth action and feel like theyre about 50 times better and pricier than on the dano 'mini' effects.
I keep the AO-1 near my window at night, and if there's a fire, I'll just chuck it through the double-glass, climb to safety and plug it in and play a dirge for my house. If one of Dano's stupid plastic 1/4" jacks doesn't break, that is.

Dunno, but only heard good comments (not just on Harmony Central)

Wa SAAAAAA bi! I love it! It looks cool, sounds friggin awesome and you could track a whole record with this thing and never use the same sound twice. Don't forget to mess with the little black pickup type switch and set it wrong. You get even more sounds. I'd almost sell off my pricier Maxon 808, but that does give me a few other nuances the Wasabi doesnt. Not that one or the other is better - just a little different. The only thing I wish it had was a back massager so that I could lean back on it and loosen up after the hours of fun tweaking around with the sounds.
If you have no other overdrive - GET THIS ONE! ($60-80) - or get an extra part-time job and then buy a Tubescreamer, a Sparkle Drive, a clean boost and an EQ pedal ($400-450). In the meantime I'll be playing guitar.

Very easy to use, had great tones out of it in minutes. The manual is generic, but you don't really need it.

Using an G&L ASAT Special, through a Fender Twin. Did not seem to be noisy. I have spent $200 before on overdrive type pedals, this one cost me $74 with shipping, and sounds as good or better than pedals costing 3 times as much. True Bypass? Don't know, don't care. It didn't seem to effect anything. I found 3(1,3,4) of the EQ settings to be useful, one is the "flat" signal, which is just your guitar signal, and the #2 setting is too harsh. I really like the mix knob, it allows you to blend in the amount of drive with the clean guitar tone, a lot like a Voodoo Lab Sparkle Drive, making it very useful. The boost switch is not affected by any of the control knobs, all it does is boost(+5db or +10db), which works great with other pedals. The overdrive never seems to sound too compressed or harsh, which is nice. There is a pickup selector switch on the input side of the pedal that allows you to select between single coil and humbucker type pickups. The "single" setting boosts lower output single coil pickups, and the "hum" setting is attenuated to match pickups with high output, which will allow you to slightly overdrive the input of the pedal and increase harmonics. All in all, a very versitle overdrive pedal!

Just got it, don't know. I might buy 2 at this price!

Never had to deal directly with Danelectro. I have owned a few of there pedals in the past, and had no problems.

I play blues rock type music, this pedal works perfectly for that. Been playing 15+ years, and have purchased and sold several other expensive "boutique" pedals, some great, some OK. This pedal, in it's own way, sounds as good if not better! Awesome pedal for the price, buy one!

Very easy to use. Knobs do what they should/claim to. Well desigend product.

This pedal is truly a FREAK pedal. What I mean by that, is: it is the most UN-PEDAL sounding pedal I have evr owned, and I have owned a ton. Klon, Budda, Fulltone, Ibanez, Maxon, K. martin......and many more have all occupied my board at one time or another. This pedal ranks among the best, and in some ways is hands-down #1. yes, I know.......crazy. It just sounds great. Now, it is my experience that this pedal WILL NOT get you very overdriven tones. Rather, it truly becomes a subtle extension of your amp's tone, and clips VERY much like a good tube amp will clip when pushed. The notes ride out front, the OD ooozes in behind the notes, in a very nice, and NOT over-middy fashion, leaving your tone in tact and felt. The pedal is very touch sensitive, as claimed. The added EQ sets are ok, I only use the nuetral setting myself. The boost is incredible. It is the cleanest, fattest boost I have owned. I am still trippin on how good that feature is. My only complaints are, as one other user mentioned, and he is right: very dark pedal, i keep the tone wide open. Also, it cleans up when I back the guitar down, but not as well as I would like. The OD remains lurking in the backround. However, because the OD is not overbearing to begin with, it is workable, but I have other pedals that clean up better. I must stress though, I have no pedals that sound as "organic" as this one. This pedal just does not sound like a pedal, when properly dialed. You can get it to sound very much like a pedal, don't get me wrong......but if you are looking for transparency, this thing is the shit!! I am truly floored. The boost just kicks ass, and can be used to push other pedals as well. Alot of value here. A gem in hiding for sure.

Seems sturdy, other than the cheesy jacks. just gotta be careful. one year warranty.

Gotta give it a solid 9 folks. It really shines as an overdrive. It actually made me put away my attenuator I normally use with a 74 JMP. The pedal sounds better at any volume. It is out-doing the JMP's own drive, which is not an easy thing to accomplish. At rehersal volumes, it sounds like GOD. Killer pedal, two for the price of one.

It is very easy to get a great sound if you take a little time and attention and dial your sound in. The manual is easy to understand and user friendly.

I use this in conjunction with my 59 Fender bassman, my Agile AS-820 semi-hollow body guitar and my Sx SST57 Strat style guitar as well as a Tele and a Les Paul. It can get a touch noisy when it's in the single coil mode and the boost in the 10db mode but other than that it's very quiet. I would suppose you can accomplish any artist overdrive sound with it for the most part but I am focused on my own signature sound. This pedal gives you great varieties of Overdrive, anything from the sound of a stack of overdriven plexi's or Mesa's to the sound of a pre-CBS Fender twin or Delux when overdriven. It's extremley touch sensitive and reacts to every nuance of your attack.

I would and absoultely do depend on it. It is built like a 59 Cadillac! The only weak possible link is the input and output jacks because they are plastic in material but like any good tool, if you take care of it it should not let you down. Because of the plastic jacks I'll give it a 9 here but only because of that. It allows me to accomplish the sweet overdrive sound of my 59 Bassman only without having to have the volume set so high as to accomplish this sound.

Never knew Danelectro ever made any pedal this nice but I stumbled on it by accident and man am I glad I did, I've never dealt with the manufacturer but I suppose they back up there product.

I play the blues and some rock and roll and jazz. I've been playing for more than 46 years. I own too many guitars to list here but only use my original 59 Fender bassman exclusively. If it were stolen I'd pull the SOB's you know what's thru his nose and take it back but if I couldn't catch him then I'd definitley buy another one, no doubt. In fact I may buy another as a back-up now that you mention this question. It has all I could ever want in an Overdrive pedal. It not only helps you make music, it will make you smile when you kick it in and wish you don't ever turn it off.

no one should have a hard time with this pedal...

the Wasabi is a cool concept-most of the preset EQ choices sound good and the blend knob is handy...the only big thing i noticed(no one else seemed to)is that the tone knob needs to be up or things are way too dark-it would have been nice to have more top end range,as of now it is just bright enough to use for a gig. the boost function is great and sounds just as good as most 'clean boost' pedals i have used.

heavy enough but inside it's most likely made like a cheap DVD player.

it's worth checking out-looks totally cool also! i don't know why the tone knob range is so narrow but you can't have everything i suppose...

This is a very easy product to use. 5 knobs doing exactly what is written next to them. No need to be a genius here. Manual is good for explanation on what does what. It has two different settings - Boost and Overdrive. There are 2 different settings on the back for amount of boost required. Also, has a single coil, humbucker switch on back for Overdrive settings.

My setup is a Cort G250P Fat Strat Copy with mighty mite pups and fishman power bridge (piezo pup) > Jim Dunlop Crybaby > A01 Wasabi Overdrive > Marshall JCM 800 2205 with 1960A cabinet. I also use an Orville Japanese made Les Paul copy. I play mostly medium to hard rock - Greenday, Good Charlotte, Chilli Peppers, Pearl Jam and I also like to tinkle with some blues playing.

Anyway playing through the JCM i needed something to boost up my sound over the other guitarist in my band when lead playing. So this pedal was primarily bought for the Boost. The boost setting is brilliant and does the job perfectly. Then i started tinkling with the Overdrive setting and found heaps of endless sounds. The sounds you can get out of this thing are endless. Best tube sounding Overdrive pedal ive ever heard. The Overdrive setting has 5 different built in EQ tones and you can get some really cool Black Crow sounds out of setting number 2 when used with my Les Paul copy. Crank the gain up and turn the effects knob all the way up for a cranking Steve Vai sound. Not much noise from this thing either just the normal hum when i use the single coil pickups on my Cort.

I tried out Marshall's Guv'nor 2 and Jackhammer in the store in the same day (Funny that, I love their amps but their pedals - nah). Also had a look at Ibanez TS-9 and the Daddy O' OVerdrive. This pedal kicks their ass in versatility and sound. I highly recommend this pedal. Only half the price of the top brands too. I only gave it a 9 because nothing can match the sound of my JCM.

I tell ya this thing is heavy, built like a tank. The only worry as stated in a few previous reviews is the plastic front where the input and output jacks are. Not sure how long this will hold up for, but maybe it last for ever............who knows. I have gigged with this thing a few times and it went great. I would gig without a backup as the other guitarist in my band has a few overdrive pedals so i could nick one of his.

Never dealt with them.

I have been playing for about 18 years now and gigging for about 12 years and have never bought anything because of a brand name. Thats why i only have generic brand guitars. These guitars do me well and the ability of a great player can make any cheap product sound awesome. I'm not saying Im great just that top name brands dont make you play any better. This is why i bought this pedal instead of a top name brand model. You gotta ply it and you will know if something is right for ya as soon as you here it. Anyway, if this thing was stolen, i would shoot the person down dead then go buy another. If you looking for a boost pedal try these out and as an added bonus you get a great overdrive as well.

Incredibly easy to get a good sound out of, the EQ offers plenty of possibilities from deep, booming OD to a really scratchy sound (BSSM-era John Frusciante). Great manual for a pedal in this price bracket too.

8 because it's simple enough, but there are a lot of knobs and switches. It'll take a bit of time to find your favourite tones, but in a good way.

I use a Strat or Tele into an old Fender Deluxe. Current setup is Tele -> Crybaby -> EH Double Muff -> EH Small Clone -> Wasabi OD -> Boss DD-6 -> Fender Deluxe. Doesn't add any noise at all that I can notice.

Once you get the EQ set to your liking it is impossible to pull bad sounds from this box, it's sublime, the best OD I've ever heard.

Gain at max gives you the Radiohead "Airbag" sound, winding it down gets you into Chili Peppers territory. I'm generally using it all the time, just adjusting the gain to suit.

You could beat somebody into a coma with this thing very easily. Reminds me of a Crybaby with the feel of it, very sturdy.

I'd gig without a backup no problem, I'm not particularly violent with my gear anyway, but it'd take a beating.

Completely superb. I play Radioheady, Blur-esque, kinda RHCP-like kinda stuff, this does it all. You need it. It kills the Boss ODs, SDs and BDs stone dead.

Extra marks for the handy Boost switch, which raises your level by 5 or 10dB for solos. This is independent of the OD, so it can be used as a clean boost too. Very handy.

If it got stolen, he'd probably get about 5 yards before my Tele stopped him, it's quite big, heavy and reeks of durability.

For the price paid, absolutely perfect.

GREAT sounding box! Gives me everything and more than I wanted. Very responsive of light and heavy touches on the strings. You'd swear there were a couple 12AX7's in there because it sounds SOOO fat(!). The manuaul is very clear to understand. Great job guy's.

I use it with my Agile lawsuit les pual jr. going through a vox wah and then coming out of a Roland Blues Cube 1-12. With having p-90's you are obviously going to get a bit of the classic 60 cycle hum, but switching this in hum-mode, it kills almost everything out. AWESOME option! The effect sounds great at every setting for me as long as you take the time to get yourself familiar with the thing first before you go out and gig with it. It's got lots of switches and can do some pretty funky things. I try to not sound exactly like my favorite artist's, but if I had to choose one, I'd have to say Sam Andew of Big Brother Holding Co. fame.

I certainly think I can depend on this for a long time. I saw after reading a couple other reviews there was a guy that had the same concern as I do about the plastic in and out inputs. That will more than likely need to be replaced over a period of time, but it's nothing I can't do myself. So, I too gotta dock that one. I would for sure use it without a back-up though since I keep up on all of my gear making sure before-hand it's in top shape.

Never dealt with them before, so I can't say. I'm sure they're great!

I play classic rock, so it's a wonderful match for my style and those P90's sound outstanding through it. I've been playing for 25 years and have been through lots of gear (vintage and modern). I own a Roland Blues Cube 30 1-12 combo, a Vox wah and an Agile Les Paul jr lawsuit copy. I would FOR SURE replace it if it were lost or stolen. To be honest (and this isn't easy for me to say since I'm so critical) I haven't found anything I don't like about it. I actually chose this pedal because I was looking for a volume boost but despise those stupid wah style volume pedals and found out the Dano had a push-button boost. I bought it for that alone and was blown away when I discovered the amazing array of quality tones this thing can produce. The cool sounds I get are very inspiring and I recommend it highly. Boutique sounds at a price anyone can afford.

Reguardless of all of the switches and knobs ( and there are a lot ), this little doodad is pretty intuative. The controls all seem to do exactly what they say and changing tones on stage is quick and relatively painless after you've spent some time getting to know the unit and how it reacts to your different axes.

What a responsive sound! Very natural overdrive and smoooooooth. I generally play archtops ( ES-175, Guild Manhattan etc.) but now own a little strat. It's a very tough, very small backup but compared to an archtop, not much of a guitar.......but wait...... I've actually been using it on a few blues, or classic rock or country gigs( I do a lot of sub work with eight different bands of all types as well as my jazz trio) This little jewel makes playing that strat fun. Fills out the sound in a natural way that I haven't heard before. Now, bear in mind that I running only a trem and echo through the effects loop of diffent all tube amps (410's usually) use monster cables all the way around and NOS tubes and good quality gear will make a BIG difference in the way pedals sound. But for me, who is not much of an fx fan much less a fan of distortion or overdrive. but this thing is great for enhancing the sound without distroying it. Not really into sounding like my favorite guitar players but I think you could get some viable jimmy page sounds and the like.

Have only gigged with it 20 or so times ( only had it a little less than month ) but seems to be tough enough. would NEVER gig w/out a backup, I have to pay rent you know.

A marvelous box. The adjustable boost is great very useful, in fact, That's the best thing I can say about any pedal since most are useLESS for making music and are simply to hide the fact that some people can't play. and that's ok... when I was a kid I had too many boxes too.. everyone starts somewhere... anyway. Very nice piece of work here and definately worth trying.