Danelectro D-2 Overdrive

Very easy to use. Three knobs: volume, tone, drive. Doesn't get simpler than that.

Okay, alot of people are posting low numbers because this isn't the neat Butler Tube Driver but get a grip! You paid $15 for it! You can't use this alone and expect it to work miracle. Most of my tone is controlled at the end of my effect line and I used this as a boost at the front of the line. I haven't gotten exotic with my effects but I am using it for front end drive and I'm expecting to to work as advertised. If you're using this to drive your tone, then you're just fooling yourself. Use it as intended and it's fine.

I'm sure I won't have many problems with it but if I do, I can always pick up another one for $15!

Probably won't need it.

For $15, you can't ask for much but it does do the job of overdriving. If you're looking to control your tone get something more intended for doing so.

As easy as any pedal to setup and use.

I'm a strat thru a tweed/jtm/plexi guy. I like thick rhythm stuff like AC/DC back in black, chimey dynamic clean/dirty like SRV little wing, and too many other sounds to mention. There are so many beautiful guitar tones out there but at some point you have to pick one and really work with it to make it your own. I've been playing for about 14 years and have been on a tone hunt for the last year.

I think this pedal gets alot of undeserved hype. Yea, I know it's only a $15-$20 overdrive but still, what's with the hype? It does'nt sound like any kind of classic or boutique overdrive. It has it's own color and alot of it. Even with the drive at zero, using the pedal as a boost, it's color is all over your tone. What's it sound like? Rolled off hi's, lo's, mid bump.........overall color is almost like a cheap chorus pedal *barely* engaged. It does'nt particularly sound bad but it's not inspiring either. I honestly don't have a use for it's sound. I think it may be useful for someone that plays smooth, modern blues/rock on a tight budget. You know......those old guys with the 80's look that think they're playing blues. I call it rock elevator music.

SRV, Hendrix, ZZ top, Black Crowes, AC/DC..........forget about it. This pedal does'nt put a foot in any of these territories. It puts out pretty limited dynamics and frequency response. Kind of a cheap compressed sound.

I've used it a handful of times over the last couple of years, never a problem. I've literally played thru it probably 4 hours total over 2 years.

No need to use customer support.

It's a one trick pony and unfortunately I did'nt find it's trick. Since it is a $20 pedal, I don't want to slam it's rating too bad but I have to do my part in bringing down some of the hype. So I'll give it a 3 overall. For what it's worth, I tried the pedal out in the shop before buying and bought it anyway. I figured it might be a useful alternate sound for recording. I was wrong. Two years later it's sitting unused.

With a decent amp, this thing is very easy to get results from.
Three knob adjustments, but they are so simple you don't even have to read the instructions. My kind of gizmo!

I play a MIM Standard Fender Strat. I plug the guitar straight into the Fab Overdrive, and then run this through a Danelectro BLT echo pedal. I have one of the brand new Epiphone Valve Junior combo amps.
With this combination, I am totally happy with the sound.
Also, the Fab Overdrive greatly increases the versatility of my amplifier. Without this product, my amp would only do extremely clean 50's sounding stuff. With the Fab, I can get anything from Sun records rockabilly to Ramones level gain. This pedal really works.

It's reliable, but I operate it with my hands. Stepping on the plastic button doesn't seem like a good idea to me. This being the case, perhaps this product is more for the Joe Blow playin-guitar-in-his-garage than the professional musician.

I've never had to use Danelectro customer support. But I've had their BLT echo for a year, and it still works fine. The Fab overdrive only cost me $15.00! The price and effectiveness of this unit can't be beat. If it poops out on me, I'll just buy another one.
One suggestion. Buy the nine dollar 110 volt power transformer that Danelectro makes available. They work great, and it won't take you long to save money by not buying those silly 9 volt batteries. These pedals don't need the battery; they will run straight off of the transformer.

I like country and rockabilly, with a little bit of surf and 70's punk thrown in. I use gain with all of it, and the Danelectro Fab is awesome. It really just enhances the sound of your amp without making it sound "electronicky."
However, I don't know how it sounds through an ultra-cheapo solid state amp. The Epiphone is my first good amp, and this pedal is a perfect match.

Level, tone, OD, on/off. Easy.

Hmm, it's okay. It's very limited by the tonal range -- even with the treble cranked, it's really too bassy for really juicy leads, IMO. If you stick a 7-band-eq after it, it takes care of that, but it's a bit of a hassle. This thing would be much improved if they fixed the tone circuit. It seems to just drop out over the 1K range. I know it's trying to be a psuedo Tube Screamer (which is a mid-rangy pedal), but it still doesn't have enough treble for that.

It does sound nice for some very mellow rhythm sounds though, and to a certain extent some bluesy John Lee Hooker riffage, depending on your amp setting ... the treble cut kind of makes it sound nasaly, if you turn the gain up a bit, and especially if you run it with another overdrive. I mean, it's not a bad pedal, but it's really limited by the tonal range.

I a/b'd this with a Boss SD-1 (not the DS-1, the SD-1), and the SD-1 was much more transparent tonally, and worked better if you want to add some kind of modulation effect after it. Very clear and transparent. The Fab OD imposes itself upon your tone, and doesn't work well with my Electric Mistress. It does have a very loud clean boost, so it could certainly send your tube amp into overdrive by volume alone.

It's okay, but I really liked the Fab Distortion much better, because it doesn't cut out your highs. The Fab Distortion, interestingly, also works as a clean boost (I wasn't expecting that, but it really does completely clean up with the distortion knob at 0), a mild OD and a saturated distortion. I would recommend you get the Fab Distortion, rather than this pedal. The Fab Distortion does everything the Fab OD does, but does it better, and then goes beyond it into medium-high gain territory.

The Fab Overdrive is okay, but there are better overdrive pedals to be had, though not as cheaply. I'm planning on picking up a Boss SD-1 soon. I was impressed with its clarity and the interesting enhancements it made to my tone used either clean or with mild dirt. It seemed to take the tone I already had and just made it a little better. The Fab OD completely changes your tone, not always in a bad way, but it just doesn't have enough treble enough for my tastes. The Fab Distortion is much nicer, and more versatile, if you're looking for a nice $15 dirt box/clean boost.

Ok 3 knobs no probs. We all know the old three knob drill.

This is what I hear out of this one. It is a very dark and or treble-less sounding od pedal which is ok if that is what you are looking for, but I am not. It simply lacks enough treble response for it to be usable for my type of playing.

That being said it is not overly noisey and it seems to have plenty of available volume and gain. I ran it through my 66 Bassman and my Ampeg reissue but it seemed to have the same results.

It seemed tough enough for usual gigs.

N/A

I play blues and various blues/rock types of music and have been playing for 15 years. This pedal does not seem crappy or poorly made but to my ears its lack of treble is its main problem and so much so that I have not found a use for it in my rig. If you want/need a darker sounding overdrive this may be for you and for the price it is not a bad little pedal at all. As I mentioned it has plenty of volume and enough gain for a decent od so for the price you may want to check it out. I just might recommend trying to listen before you buy it to see if it is for you.

Three knobs (drive, tone, and level)--how much easier could it get? Well, I have to agree with those who wish the knobs faced up instead of away from you. It looks cool, but it isn't very practical.

This thing has a super sweet mellow tone. I absolutely love it. It's perfect for jazz and mellow rock. I'm using an Ibanez AS73 copy through an Epiphone Valve Special, neither of which produce a lot of treble. This pedal does NOT make up for that. If you already have a lot of treble, it will probably be fine for harder rock, but it doesn't work for me. The tone control certainly doesn't provide the variety that, say, the Boss OS-2 does. Also, I hear so many people say that you can take an OD pedal and turn the drive down with the level up to saturate your preamp. I haven't found an OD pedal yet that does this without coloring the tone, and this one is no exception. If that's what you're looking for, try a dedicated boost pedal or a jacked up EQ, or look elsewhere.

It's about as sturdy as you can expect a plastic pedal to be. But it isn't made of metal, so be somewhat careful. I've had mine for six months with no problems.

This is a great little pedal for mellow overdrive. The tone is surprisingly deliscious and FAR better than you would expect for such a low price. I suppose the plastic construction is one big reason the price is so low, And since the price is the big reason to buy it, I can't knock it too much for that. The design isn't perfect, as the knobs would be much more useful on the top instead of the back. I doubt this pedal will give you many tones you can't already get with the OD pedal you have, but for the price you can buy one just to play around with. Who knows? You may just fall in love with it. I wouldn't be surprised.

According to the scale we have to choose from, 10 is a "fantastic value." Despite my misgivings, I can't deny that this pedal is one of the best values I have seen in all my years of playing.

It has the three basic knobs for an overdrive pedal - level, tone and overdrive.

This pedal has a good sound for any price but considering it only set me back $15, I am amazed at the sound coming out of this thing!

Depending on the settings you use, it has a good range of sounds - from a subtle overdrive to a harsher, almost distortion-like sound.

I haven't had any problems with it. It has a plastic housing but I'm not very rough on pedals so it doesn't make any difference to me. The plastic is pretty thick though. I think it would still be hard to do much damage to it even if I were trying.

I haven't had to deal with them.

For $15, everyone should own one of these!!! After I bought this pedal, I actually ended up buying a second just to play around with different setups. I sort of wish the tone knob was replaced with two tone knobs (high and low) but even many expensive pedals don't have that! My only complaint is that the battery life seems to be a little short. I suppose if you are a "serious" player, you would probably have plenty of 9V adapters at your disposal anyway.

There are 3 knobs, not really that much to it.

Only 2 complaints. 1) The level pot runs really really hot. 2) The tone pot needs a little more boost too it.

Fender American Standard Strat, AIMS International 1969 vintage 105 watts at 8 ohms.

At low volumes the tone has the tendency to get really muddied, I have had a chance to turn it up when the neighbors aren?t around and it sounds great. Almost all of those problems work themselves out.

HOWEVER . . . I have a TS 808 that I stacked it up against for comparison. The FAB Overdrive has a tendency to still sound a little muffled as far as tone. It has a slight bit more overdrive than the 808, but let?s just say I'm not getting rid of the 808 anytime soon.

I have a strat, it has single coil pickups, and because of this it tends to pick up a hum from the lights, the TV, the microwave. Pretty standard for stock overdrive pedals that don't use heavily shielded cables. On the 2 and 4 positions on the switch sounds great, a little hum in the 1, 3, 5 positions, but if everything is off it sounds great.

I opened it up, plugged it in, messed with it for about an hour and mounted it to my pedal board. I like it a lot, enough to use it.

I build a lot of my own pedals, so of course I opened it up. There are a couple of things that I don't like about the way they have done things. 1) There is a small plastic button that is attached to an arm that triggers the switch. I am pretty positive that if I really stepped on it hard, a lot it would break. I am seriously considering re-wiring a switch and mounting it in a new enclosure. 2) The DC jack is a little deeper than traditional jacks. I have quite a few manufactured pedals, and the multi-out power supply I use has always worked fine. . . Except for now. I thought about throwing it on the drill-press and taking the plastic down a little, but in the end figured it would be better just to wire it up off of the battery snap. So I drilled a little hole to pull the wires through and made a new dc cable. Easy, BUT a big pain in the ass.

I am giving it a pretty unfavorable rating solely on its construction and the DC-Jack, But hell its 15 bucks, don't worry too much.

It's 15 bucks, just buy a new one if something goes wrong.

I play a lot of rock, blues, that sort of stuff. It sounds nice, has a small footprint, but also has a few hang-ups. These are pretty minor concerns, but danelectro has a pretty great reputation despite their price and I truly believe that this is part of a last-ditch effort to save their company. So right now quality and name is more important that price. It is a nice pedal, kind of cheaply made, but then again it is a pretty cheap pedal.

30 seconds can dial this pedal in!

I can't believe it sounds as good as it does!

If you want a smooth Overdrive this is a great pedal.
I also have a Daddy-O & I think this D-2 sounds better (maybe).
Great Ac/Dc, Thin Lizzy type tones.

For $15, if it lasts a couple years that's fine.

Don't know.

I bought this pedal to leave at rehearsal. I don't want to use my Barber LTD all the time. This pedal doesn't sound like my Barber, but for $15 it kicks ass! Solo's cut thru big time. Yeah, it's made of plastic! Who cares! I know good tone when I hear it. This pedal sounds better than most new stock Boss or Ibanez pedals! Really!

Danelectro makes some great sounding pedals & some not so great.
This thing is worth every penny. Runs off of any Boss type power supply. It kind of has a DOD 250 Preamp vibe to it.

For Hard Rock, Punk Rock or Classic Rock it will be the best $15 you'll ever spend.

Easy to use as falling off the pavement when pissed... plug it in, there's 3 knobs to fiddle with and a BRIGHT blue LED so you know when it's on (although you'll know when it's on anyway...)

I've tried this with a strat, a tele and an old Gretsch Corvette into a small Marshall Lead 12 (transistor amp). I love it! Careful with the level though, as this pedal gives a serious boost. It's quiet in terms of background noise though. Unlike the guy below, I love it. It sounds like a tube amp breaking up, thickens up the tone immensely and gives a much more convincing overdriven sound than turning up the gain on the Marshall (which is actually pretty good in it's own right).

It's not the most solid pedal... the case is plastic but, unlike the "lunch box" series, the knobs don't look like you'll be able to kick them off.

This is great for "vintage rock"... I love the sound of it and wailed away for about an hour on it the first time I plugged it in. It's not subtle, the range of sounds available aren't huge but, for #16, it's an absolute bargain. Not sure if you could use it as the only pedal in your arsneal but it's a huge amount of fun for VERY little cash...