Danelectro DJ-12 Chilidog Octave

too easy.
Knobs a little small thought (not mine, the pedals..)

Don't approach this pedal with high hopes of accurate digital tracking like those clinical boss octave pedals from the 80's.
This baby is definetly an early 70's sound grit and all.

Unless you jump up and down on your pedals you should be o.k

not as yet

I play experimental psychedelic music and this pedal has found a home.

Most of the negative reviews are from 80's children who expect prisine generic sounds..samey..dull..clinical.
You can't expect great sounds from an octave pedal if you don't know how to play WITH an octave pedal.

If you want the crowd to go "WOW" go for dano.(just don't jump on them from a great height)

Shame about the tiny plastic knobs though.

The manual stinks, frankly. It's a sheet of suggested settings for several Dan-o pedals. This pedal gives you your original sound (effected slghtly as it's not true bypass, but it sounds OK to me), one octave down and two octaves down. Each of these three sounds has its own level control. And there's a red LED telling you (if you can't hear LOL) you have it switched on. It *does* take a while to balance the three sounds, but it's definitely worth it.

I use six different guitars with this unit, from expensive homemade to cheap Squier. It's in a chain including CryBaby, Ultimate Octave, DS1, DSD2, Whammy Reissue, cheap Compressor. Behringer V-Amp2, and more, all into a mixing desk. There's NO noise, despite reviews to the contrary, and the effect is always very very good. I have an Electro Harmonix Octave Multiplexor and this pedal is way better than it. Tracking is fine if you know how to play cleanly, and it tracks all notes on the neck equally well.

i can jump on this thing and it's just fine.

Not needed them.

I play instrumental guitar music (Satriani, Vai, etc) and so when I use an effect it's got to be good - there's no way it can hide in the mix! This pedal is used sparingly (like most effects should be) and it's not let me down. I've been playing for many many years, and find this particular pedal sometimes quite inspiring. It's great!

Without a manual it took a bit of experimentation to figure what "direct" means, tho a monkey could prolly have guessed. Three knobs, three separate octaves (including the original) couldn't be much simpler to begin with. It takes a bit of fiddling to get great sounds [that it is capable of] out of it tho.

My setup: ESP Viper 301 > Danelecto Tuner > Boss Volume Pedal > Marshall AVT50H Amp head > Marshall AVT412B Speaker cabinet
I use the fx loop from the amp head into a Boss NS2 Noise suppressor and i use the NS2 loop for my FX... At the moment [Chilidog][Boss PH3][Boss CS3][Boss DS2]
The noise is not a problem with my setup (the NS2 takes care of that] but it does produce some hiss when used "raw".This pedal is capable of producing some nice octave effects, great for fattening up riffs and the tracking is good as long as you use it first in your FX chain so you dont track harmonics and overdrive...
Overall the sound quality is sweet as long as you take a bit of time to find a balance between the octaves [mine is set at O(100%) O-1(50%) O-2(20%). I give it 7 because the O-2 sounds hideous with anything above about 30%.

Ive gigged with this [remeber the name Ticketless Fans for when were famous] and I can saftely say it wont break if you treat it right. If you stomp on the plastic knobs it will snap (and the actual STOMP looks a tiny bit shaky) but I feel that I can trust it.

God knows, never had the need, but I was pissed that they didnt supply a manual with "suggested settings" like Boss Pedals do.

Its good for rock/punk/metal styles if used in moderation, but you might have to sack your bassist if you get to addicted to the pedal. I think its a great item for creating a bit more variety and has certainly made a differece in our bands sound. I tried the boss pedal but this one is PINK! how much cooler can you get! Anyway they sound identical (maybe this sounds slightly more "electronic") and the Danelectro was #15 cheaper so... a great 8 out of ten.

Very easy to use. It's a very straightforward design. It gets a 10 because a monkey could use it. Only because of that.

This pedal is awful. The octaves are out of tune, and cut in and out when they want to. Sounds like a child's toy. I paid 40 bucks for it and can't even find a use for it in my daisy chain. I am posting it up on ebay as soon as possible, and buying the Boss Octave pedal. I tried to save a buck and got ripped off.

It's made of plastic. But the switch works well.

No use.

UGH. I would use it to hold open doors but its made of plastic and would break in no time. It does give an octave, of sorts, so I'll give it a 2.

I've been playing with it a while and have finally found a good sound. It took a while to get used to the way the knobs really effect the parameters.

I have a les paul copy to the danelectro to the boss bass overdrive(awesome sound on guitar) to a boss noise supressor. I use my bridge pickup which is a Seymour Duncan JB. It has some trouble with tracking but with a little work you can learn how hard to pick and adjust the tone on your guitar to make it sound its best. HINT turn tone down on guitar for best tracking. I usually dont even use the 2nd octave but use the 1st octave at about 9 oclock and the mix at 3 oclock. This really thickens my leads and riffs. I can get the Tim Mahoney sound dead on.(TIm mahoney of 311) overall i give this an 8 b/c you have to learn how to use it to get the sounds you want.

the 2nd octabe knob broke off but the 2nd octave is garbage anyway
i would gig with it

no

i like it, you just gotta learn how to use it like any other pedal. GIve it some time and don't get frustrated like others have. Just remember you won't get the Boss sound from this.

very simple controls

I have to concur with one of the other reviewers here.... sorry, but the people who are giving this a good review do not know what a good octaver sounds like. Really bad warbling decay (much worse than others I've tried) with a very high signal to noise ratio. Not warm sounding at all. Obviously cheap components. Maybe it's a "great deal for $30" but I don't want my guitar to sound like this. The only way you're going to get any semi-decent sound is if you have the gain on your amp absolutely peaked. Only then, and i emphasize that the result will be semi-decent.

tried it in store, did not buy.

This was the second Danelectro pedal i tried in a week, the other being the even more horrific Sitar Swami pedal. I suppose you can't expect much for $30 but this really does not qualify as remotely cool at all in terms of sound. Reminds me of the equally pathetic pedals DOD produced in the 80's when i was growing up. If you're going to spend $30, wait two weeks, get $60 together and buy something used from your local guitar shop which will sound 10 times better. There's no excuse for this kind of worksmanship at any price. Kept hearing great things about Danelectro. After this experience and the 'swami' I will never try or buy anything danelectro ever again.

THis is to add to my review below... I have found with this pedal that if you pick double stop chords VERY lightly, this unit WILL track them! I run my unit first in the effects chain and then into a Dnaelectro Fabtone. The gain from that sucker is WAY up there with the guitar's volume maxed, so light picking will not drop your volume level much. With practice, I am now able to use the Chilidog in conjunction with palm muted "chunka chunka" scooped mid riffing and it sounds so brutally heavy it's sick!!!!! I'm am now even more impressed with this pedal! If you know how to use picking dynamics, this sucker will sing for you!

3 knobs that's it!

For 30 bucks it's great! Octave 2 is useless for my style of playing. it only muddies up the sound and won't track right. Octave 1 works well. It will even track the low A on my Drop-A tuned 7 string guitar as long as it's slightly palm muted! It will start to mis-track if it's a ringing note lower than low E. You MUST learn good muting of non played strings!!! it will try to track everything it hears so any string noise and it will start to warble and buzz. As long as your notes are clean it works great, though it will have problems tracking if you try to throw in a slew of 32nd or 64th notes! When I play it with a brutal distortion going, it sounds like there is a bass playing with my note for note. You MUST run this thing first in the signal chain! if you put it after anything else (like a distortion or chorus) it will try to track the overtones and harmonics generated by the other effects. The Boss OC-2 has the same problems, by the way! The sound of the chilidog is a bit more processed than the OC-2, and the OC-2 tracks faster. The OC-2 costs 3 times the price too!

only had it for one month, but it's plastic and it's small. it's about what you'd expect for 30 bucks!

never had a problem to bring up to them.

I use this thing for beefing up single note lines and to add a "sitar" like drone when used in conjunction with a phaser. For 30 bucks, I didn't think it would work as well as it does. If it got stolen I would buy another one. I have been playing for 12 years and am an effects junkie! This is one of the best bang for the buck stomp boxes I have!

Self explanatory

This pedal is the poorest piece of equiptment I've purchased... I returned it after one day of use. Here's why:

The problem with this pedal is that the tracking goes to crap once you get below the 4th fret of the E string. It jumps up the octave most of the time, but other times it bobbles and gargles. Either way, it renders itself completely useless for playing basslines on the guitar. Everytime I got down to a G#, G, F#, F or E, I was basically rolling the dice as to what note would emerge from my amp. Higher notes all translate fine, although the tone is very muffled and it does not track more than one note at a time... nonetheless, it would at least be a semi-useful tool had it been designed to track well for the entire sonic range of a standard guitar tuning. I mean, that seems like a no brainer on the design spec... come on, Danelectro.

I only had it for a day, but you can tell it's made with cheap materials. Plastic casing, and poor wiring on the inside... it's Danelectro, so what do you expect. If you take care of it, you'd probably be okay... but it's no Boss.

N/A

The real travesty is that I bought this pedal based on the reviews below. I was absolutely amazed at the pedal's poor performance given the syndication you'll find further down on this page. Unfortunately, you never know who's writing these reviews, and from time to time, you get great reviews from amateurs who just don't know any better.

PLEASE LISTEN TO ME AND DON'T WASTE YOUR TIME WITH THIS PEDAL. Danelectro is infamous for poor quality, but I was fooled by these reviews and attracted by the price. If you want good a effect, you won't find them for 35 bucks... that principle holds true for anything you buy. Lesson learned again:

cheap price=cheap product

3 knobs. level for signal, octave 1, octave 2. Need a while to get the right sound though.

Great!
My setup:
ESP MH-300 --> Crybaby 535 Q --> BOSS DS-1--> Octave --> BOSS NS-2 --> BOSS DD-5 --> Marshall Amp
It makes ths dist. sound so full. When turn up the octave a little, it is like a bassist jamming along with you.

This one is defective. I tried to open the back one day but the screw
just kept skipping and I couldn't open the back. Beside that, everything is fine.

It sucks!!!

I bought it on clearance from Marsmusic. Since it's a defective one so I took it to Mars and asked for a exchange. At first they just wanted to show me the "right" way to open the back (Well, I play 10 years and don't know how to do that??? ). Of course, they failed and agreed to give me another one. There wasn't a same one in the store so I asked whether I could get another same price Danelectro mini pedal on clearance instead. (I knew my octave is a clearance item so I did not ask for a refund.) The answer is NO! I am really upset about this. Does clearance mean that you can sell defective products without notifing the customer? It is a ripping off.

Well, I thought, I aslo had a factory warranty anyway. So I sent the warranty and a email to Danelectro. NO A SINGLE REPLY! It really pissed me off.

These two damn companies are the good examples of the two-faces companies. They just want to get money from you and do not stand behind their products.

If Mars and Danelectro do not treat a customer like that. I can give this product a 9...