Danelectro DJ-1 Pastrami Mini Overdrive

Very Simpl 2 knobs

Excellent mild overdrive/distortion for Blues. Quiet operation. I use it as basically a Lead channel because my amp has only 1 channel. It works perfectly to enhance blues lead work. Wonderful, warm tones.

Looks tough. I do not abuse my pedals.

This pedal is aperfect match for someone needing a bluesy, mild overdriven sound. Very nice, warm, tubey sound. In 30 years of playing I've learned that you have to coax pedals, not crank them full out, until you find the sound that's yours. This is true for ALL pedals and this one's no exception. Most guitarists today want a pedal that when cranked will make them sound better. Not going to happen! If you want a pedal that will enhance your already good playing then look at this one.

Very simple unit to set up. I got a good useable sound in less then one minute

Good basic overdrive sound. Turned up it gets a little fuzzy.

I have it attached to a pedal board, so it isn't just "under foot".
I had never had problems with any Danelectro mini pedal.
Having said that this unit is not bullet proof, by any means

Never dealt with Danelectro. I deal with Kevin, Zach, Jim, or any other employee of Uncle Ike's here in Dub town.
They have always helped me with any gear problems I have ever had.

I bought the pedal based on cost, first and sound, second.
I noticed some reviewers stated that their units had a buzz/hum problem.
I actually took some REAL duct tape (the kind made out of aluminum stock) and covered the base plate of the unit. I have no hum/buzz problems.

Not an issue at all.

I have a MexiStrat with 3 single coils, including a noiseless in the bridge position. I play through an old 65 watt Peavey Classic VTX (solid state preamp and 2 6L6 power tubes) with two Madison Minstrel 12" speakers in a separate homemade cabinet. The Pastrami does a fine job of pushing the 6L6s. I have no problem at all with excessive fuzz. I only notice this when playing through small, solid state practice amps, such as a Fender Frontman 15R. I go back and forth between the Pastrami and a TS7 Tubescreamer. The Pastrami has more low end, and has more warmth and punch. It really needs to be used with a good tube amp, however.

No problems. When I'm moved to Flamenco, I try to avoid it.

The Pastrami is a really good, simple, effective overdrive, when used to drive power tubes. It will not transform your solid state practice amp into a Marshall stack. It is certainly worth the ridiculously low price.

Two knobs, drive and lever. THAT MEANS SIMPLE!

Well it's a cheap pedal and it's so tiny, so don't expect the holy grail of overdrive. I usually set it low on drive so it gives me a good kick on the distortion and a dirtier clean sound without much time wasted tweaking. But if you want an overdrive to crank up look somewhere else (Tubescreamer anyone?), unless you are a beginner and want an entry level OD since this is cheap and simple.

Not the sturdiest pedal i got, too much plastic. I wouldn't recomend kicking it

never tried

Well i like it for a distortion booster and for some color on my clean sound, it's simple and it works. Cranked at full distortion it doesn't sound great but not even that horrible. Considering everything it's not that bad, if you want a cheap distortion booster, a replacement overdrive to use live instead of an expensive one or simply need your first overdrive give it a shot. Personally i love it

its not even easy its so easy

sounds pretty good for 20 bucks.its not very heavy so i set it with a rocktek compressor.that gives a pretty good sound with the compressor but a lot of hiss

i can depend on it with what i play, its pretty much on the whole time so i dont really need to stomp on it

never dealt with 'em

i play pretty techie stuff with single note riffs (cky) but it doesnt work great for that. but i did find it sounds pretty awsome with deep purples smoke on the water and sabbaths iron man. i love that it so small.i compared this to the rocktek overdrive,much better than that.i wish it had a heavier overdrive. it doesnt help me make music becuase every time i stop that anoying hiss. some times it picks up the radio and shit.

Danelectro, as far as I've seen, keeps their stuff as easy as possible.

As far as the sound goes, it's alright for an overdrive - nothing like AC/DC or something - I've noticed it reacts well with power chords. LOUD, with little sustain.

I don't use this in my current setup, because of the fact that I can get better pedals that won't slip'n'slide all over my board.
It isn't very noisy - one of the quietest Dano's I've had.
The effect is somewhat weak, but is good for gradual picking intensity.
I used a small-but-tough amp to use the Pastrami.
I don't know anyone who plays with this little of overdrive.

Apart from the fact that the activation switches on Dano's Mini-Pedals are extremely weak, they're fairly dependable. I would use it on a gig without a backup, if I ever used it.

Never had to deal with the company, the thing always worked.
Never had to get it repaired, either - worked/works just fine.

I play metal/funk/whatever, and this isn't a good pedal to use for that genre of music. I've been playing for about a year and a half, and I own three other Dano pedals, as well as 2 Ibanez Tone-Lok pedals [very nice], and a Mister Crybaby Wah/Volume pedal that doesn't work. BE WARY OF BUYING WAH PEDALS ON EBAY. I chose to buy this pedal because I had little money, and I wanted to see what pedals were like.

omg if you can't settup a lil pedal like this, there is something wrong...

crap crap crap crap crap... Well if i turn it on, i get a VERY annoying RAIDO???? freaking fm radio... it picks up a radio station where ever i am...i can't stand it. it does it in the recording studio too..hahahaha. there isn't any good warm tone, just bright, ugly, useless distortion, for a lot of styles. I mean a fender amp is more verstaille..come on now..how did they manage that? I got a marshall avt 50 stack so this pedal doesn't do any justice to the amp.. so i smashed the pedal to smitherines..hahaha good times

plastic? radio? smashed in smitherines? no

hahahaha i am too embarrassed that i bought this that i don't even want to talk to them

i really don't recomend this...there is like better pedals out there...like all them except this brand. danelectro sucks and they should quit making these pedals.

Like most of the Danelectro mini-pedals, this unit is minimalist; just the basic Level and Overdrive controls. It's intended to be a low-budget entry level option I guess.
Sounds okay - doesn't take more then a minute to tweak a few good sounds out of it. Could of used a tone control though. That and it's too damn light. Everytime you tap the footswitch, the pedal moves around slightly, and that's with a soft tap.

The sound is ....... hazy...... for the most part. It's not so much overdrive as it is just a lot of fuzz. Mine tends to have a slight hiss to it when it's plugged it, but nothing major.
The higher you crank the Overdrive control, the scratchier the tone gets, but it doesn't break up - there's still a bit of bass and mids in there somewhere. That's probably been it's saving grace for me - I'm so sick of trebbly distortion.
I've used it with a variety of amps (Marshall, Peavey, Fender) and guitars (Telecaster, Strat, SG, Les Paul) belonging to myself and my bandmates and there's been little difference across the board. Ironically, it actually sounded quite good with our bassist's Karina 4-string and Peavey amp!
This pedal works best if you have a good EQ on your amp or responsive tone controls on your guitar.

It's dubious as to if this would be reliable or not. The basic footswitch principle is good, but lack of weight in the unit means it moves around a lot and although that plastic casing is thick, it's not metal a-la most other pedals.
I would never gig without a backup, but I have another overdrive and a distortion pedal so that's not a issue. They are also very good on batteries - I'm still on the orginal one I got with it nearly three months ago.

Never dealt with them. The Danelectro website was reasonably helpful though.

I play rhythm and sing in a five piece indie/dark rock band. We're part Black Rebel Motorcylce Club, White Stripes, Strokes and Pixies.
This pedal is limited in its applications, but works quite well if coupled with either an EQ or another distortion/overdrive pedal with
better tonal control. It's biggest asset is that it's not a high-end screamer, probably sits in the middle catergory of tone.
I got a Boss BD-2 Bluesdriver a week or so after I got the Pastrami and it's much more suited to the sound I want. However, I still like the Pastrami despite its shortcomings. We have a couple of more punky, garage numbers that this pedal sounds mean on - I'd say it's good for all those playing punk/emo/ska and even nu-metal.
Just remember, this is not really comparable to other more expensive pedals like a Big Muff, DS-1, Tubescreamer or Fab Tone.
However, if you like a bit of oldschool fuzz, you'll like this unit. I've found it sounds best with single coils rather then humbuckers so a Strat or Tele gets a wicked tone out it.
If it were stolen, I wouldn't rush out and buy another one, but they're cheap enough 2nd hand to make it reasonable to justify repurchasing.

well, two knobs, volume and drive, as for application, that might be tricky for some...

i found that it sounded good it was more a distortion than overdrive, but it sounded better than any of the proclaimed distortions by danelectro(mini any ways)... but that was before i went mod crazy... it no longer has a volume knob, but rather a color knob and drive knob... i disconnected the blue wire that was connected to the white socket and connected it directly to R101 with a 10k resistor (point to point). then i exchanged the volume knob for a 500k pot and the drive for a 50k pot. with "volume" all the way down it sounds like harsh hendrix fuzz and all the way up it is muddy fuzz. the drive knob acts the same ijust changed it to accomodate a new case (the new "volume" knob was too big for dano case, drive was too small for new case... this thing is loud and harsh, so i wouldnt recomend it to any one that has ever complained about either of these in a distotion pedal.... harmonics are great. levels equally with bybass volume( gets louder, but in my opinion if as distortion unit doesnt get louder than the clean signal i take it apart and then mod the hell out of it( id rather not have to do this all the time, though it is funn)

though its plastic and ive cracked a few of these in half, it never affects the sound, so i say they are pretty reliable.. dont like the knobs though, super glue phillips heads interchangeable screw driver bits and you have some heavy duty knobs...

f@ck them... if you have a problem fix it yourself...

it was good left alone, but got boring and now it is great

Very easy to use. Just two knobs. A level and a distortion knob.

All the Danelectro mini pedals are a little noisy, but they are a great value for the money.

Since I started playing out again, I really wanted a simple foot switch able overdrive unit. This fills the bill.

I had the French Toast Octave distortion, but it was too much fuzz for what I needed and just too much in general for Jazz and blues.

The mini overdrive works perfect for what I need it to do. You can dial it up to just where it is starting to break up. Very nice, but it does have a tendency to lean on the fuzz side of distortion.

New so far. As long as you use an AC adapter, I don't see a problem with it. Because it is an over drive unit, I always have a backup, the amp itself.

Very good. I did not have to contact them on this pedal, but I did on another one. I sent an e-mail out at 10:15PM and got a reply by 10:30PM. Wow, that was fast.

This is a great little unit. You can really adjust it the way you want. Great Blues / Jazz pedal. Will work great for rock also. Versatile.

I can live without it, but why would you at that price?
So if you are low on cash, but still want a decent sounding / quality overdrive pedal, then this is it.

The only down sides are that it boarders on fuzz, and the are a little noisy.