Danelectro DJ-14 Fish & Chips 7-Band EQ

You could not ask for a pedal that is easier to use. just experiment with the frequencies and let you're ear be you're guide

I use this pedal with my 50 watt hiwatt dclr. I use it in my effects loop and it helps create a tone that is very similiar to eric johnson's. i know this is hard to believe, but it is true. the only other effect i use with this is my ibanez reverb and the dano is first in the effects loop. I rate this a nine as it is my first experience with a eq pedal so i have to leave some room for whatever else is out there

I only play at home and this pedal just sits on top of my amp. I would not be the best one to ask, but it does seem kinda fragile.

Not an issue for me

I play everything from heavy metal to jazz inspired writings and i leave this pedal on all the time on the same setting. once you find a good tone it sounds good with any style in my opinion. if it were lost or stolen i would definetely purchase another. this pedal allowed me to be completely satisfied with my tone and that is priceless. I have played on many different combinations of amps and guitars with a myriad of effects over the years and this pedal with my hiwatt and esp 7 string have nailed it.

I cannot rate this. It all depends on your experience and knowledge of the frequency spectrum.

I wanted to let you guys know a cool trick I read on another area of harmony central: You can make your EQ sound like a QZ-1 Cry Baby Q-Zone pedal! I was debating buying one until I tried this trick out.

"Anyone with a 6 or 7 band EQ can put it before their distortion and boost the 800Hz frequency, cut the 100Hz frequency, and it will sound almost exactly like the Q Zone with the controls set at 12:00, 12:00, and 1:30. A/B an EQ and a Q Zone like this side by side in a store and you'll see what I mean."

The only reason you'd still want a dunlop Qzone is if you get sick of changing your EQ's around instead of the easy 3-knob sweep interface of the Qzone.

It works just fine with a Danelectro.

I'm amazed at this.. clear.. No hiss or noise! The cheapest and most quiet EQ I've had.

This is the best eq for the money if you can get past the fragile plastic! If you are at home playing then there is no need to worry. No problems in relation to the operation. had it 6 months+

never needed them

I've recently learned that EQ manipulation is the greatest tool known to musicians. Before you lay down $50+ for a distortion pedal buy yourself some kind of eq to place before you preamp!!! Just experiment. You can unlock many sounds, especially if you invest in a parametric EQ which I have done. This is a tone secret among the greatest artists out there. I've kicked myself in the ass recently because all the money I wasted on trying distortion pedals when a freaking EQ could take my amp far beyond. There are obvious reasons for pedals, but get to know your amp before you go on a spending spree trying distortion pedals

It takes a while to find the EQ setting you really want... unless you've had other EQ pedals. No manual, just a couple of suggested settings on back... comes in same kind of packaging they use for action figures, cool!

I have a tele and a strat. The fish and chips is very fun, and definitely can add a certain sparkle to your tone.

I searched the internet in vain for sample 7-band EQ settings... none to be found. So, I started making my own.

An accentuated glassy strat sound:
(Sliders from bass to treble, numbers indicating
db cut or boost, + -):

-7 +6 +1 0 -15 +10 +11

A nice jangly tone:

+1 0 -2 -5 -1 +5 +10

More of a jazzy tone:

+7 +5 0 -1 +1 +4 +7

Lipstick pickup tone

+5 +4 -4 -5 -4 +9 +8.5

Andy summers Tele bridge tone ... very mult-purpose

0 +6 +1 0 -8 +6 +7.5

Sort of humbuckery

+8 +9 0 0 0 +6 +5

With the strat setting (maybe w/ extra bass), with the master level all the way up, driving my daddy-o overdrive pedal into a fuzz pedal, on my tele neck pickup, guitar tone knob all the way towards bass, I get this funky, fat, billous fuzz tone. It will sustain for literally a minute. It would get lost in a mix of various instruments, but alone or with something minimal, it's a killer tone.

I use the andy summers tele tone in conjunction w/ lots of compression, just the barest hint of overdrive (you wouldn't know it's there unless you were paying really close attention) and a chorusy EH Electric Mistress flanger on, and you're in Police heaven.

Basically, the Fish 'n' Chips lets you get the tone of many guitars without having to go out and actually buy them. I haven't been able to totally nail every guitar tone imaginable, but it certainly does help. I've never bought an EQ before... quite a useful tool, in my opinion. For $30, it's quite a deal.

Seems toyish, but I've had the tuna melt tremolo for 4 years, no problems. I don't worry about it falling apart.

It's the cheapes EQ I've seen, and it's actually a good quality pedal, though small and plastic. I'd recommend it to anyone, and encourage others to post their settings here.

Very easy!!! Helps if you understand EQ. I'm an audio engineer so I have an edge over novices, but even just fiddling with this thing should be easy enough.

I was very surprised. I bought the pedal while I was in the midst of searching for an EQ. What I wanted was something to add bass to my Jaguar, which sounds kinda thin even with seymor duncan quarter pound pickups.

I went into the store, looking for the Boss GE-7, and saw the dano pedal in a sale bin for 25 bucks. I figured what the hell, and tried them both out. Honestly, they are nearly identical. The dano pedal functions using the same bands as the Boss, and seems to have a very similar Q setting or each band, as adjusting the faders on either pedal produced similar results.
A lot of people have complained that the Boss pedal produces noise. Well, it seems to, but that what you get when you EQ noise . If you boost at the 3.2K fader you boost the noise at that frequency just as much as you boost the guitars tone. Sadly, this makes an EQ pedal appear noisey. However, if anything, the Dano pedal seems to be less noisy than he boss - by a little bit. This may be the result of a slightly narrower Q, or because there is slightly less boost involved. Regardless, the Dano pedal achieves the same results, and with slightly less noise. At less than a quarter the price of the Boss model, it was a no brainer for me.
I give it an 8, which is good, if you ask me. However, I can easilly imagine better sounding EQ's. Certainly no pedal I know about can compare to good rack gear, but what can you do. I don't like fussing around with racks unless I'm in the studio.

Well, it seems kina cheap, and they must have cut corners somewhere. The switch seems like it could go at any time, but then again, it hasn't yet...
Would be better if the housing was metal and the switch was higher quality.

For the buck you can't beat this pedal. It is just as good as the Bos GE7, and a lot less expensive. Even if it doesn't last as long I could buy four of these Dano pedals for the price of one Boss.

For anyone thinking about buying an EQ, let me tell you they are a god send - even this cheap little thing. It transformed by tinny, scratchy jaguar into a full bodies, glittering tone machine, and I'm not kidding. I have had mixed feelings about my jag, and when put againt my strat it didn't seem as full or rich, yet with the EQ pedal my (non EQed) strat sounds tinny and harsh. In short - an EQ is the best pedal you can buy. It is the most important pedal I own and the cheapest!!! For comparisons sake you should know that I also use a Full Drive II and a Deluxe Memory Man. Both of these pedals cost over eight times what the Dano cost, and though they are fantastic, the Dano is more integral to my sound. Go figure.

Very easy to adjust to your taste, assuming you know how to use an EQ.

I am very surprised at the sound quality of this pedal. It's very quiet, and originally, I only bought it because of its small size. I needed something that would fit on my very crowded pedalboard, and this was the only one I could find that was small enough. It was a nice bonus to dicover that it compete's with the Boss GE-7 sound-wise. It's only noisy if your signal is already noisy. Mine is dead-quiet. I use George L's cables throughout, and a regulated power supply, which is nicely powering this pedal, along with 8 others. This pedal does not steal tone when it's bypassed and does not make any detectable noise -- I am picky about tone, and this one's impressive.

No problems so far. Yeah, it's plastic. Yeah, it's got a weird stomp switch. Yeah -- it was $28.00. This pedal will remain installed on my pedalboard, which travels in a padded roadcase. I don't jump on my pedals, so I'm not really worried about it breaking. If it was in a duffel bag, and I was treating it roughly, I would probably expect a medium to short life.

No experience with them.

Amazing that you can get this kind of sound for $28.00. I highly recommend it!

If you have an EQ pedal, you already know how to use it and why you have it.

I am truly amazed at this thing. it does not suck any tone in bypass and its sliders slide without any noise. i don't notice any artificial tonal coloration on the part of the pedal aside from the obvious boost/cut of the selected frequencies. not only that, there is no added hiss! none whatsoever!

i use this with my bass often because it boost the definitiion by 500%! that helps a lot when your bass is a Squier that you had to modify heavily just so that it wouldn't make you cry from the poor sound quality.

well, a lot of people say that these plastic pedals are weak and likely to get damaged in a gig situation. i am not one who jumps on his pedals, i tap them gently and this pedal mostly stays on or off anyway - no frequent on/off switching. i have never had any problems with it, but sometimes i wonder if the button will break.

have not talked to Danelectro.

it's a great pedal, i use it on guitar and bass. i keep it hanging from a rope i tied to my Laney GH50L so that it doesn't get beat up. i own two of these things and i can easily say i'd buy 5 more if one was stolen.

Very easy to use. Sliders are smooth an quiet. Essentially no manual, but it isn't a super computer, its a graphic equalizer so it doesn't really need one.

Fabulous. Extremely quiet. Of course there is some hiss when you turn the gain way up and the high bands up. That is just physics! No tonal color until you want it.

A lot of folks don't like the plastic case. It is plastic, but it is thick and solid, The base is steel and the hole thing just feels solid. The sliders are smooth and quiet. Don't be an idiot - if you try to break it you probably can. If you try not to, you won't. Besides, it really doesn't belong on the floor as a stomp box in most cases. It should be up on your amp where you can adjust it easily.

No experience. Instructions were scant to say the least

I have been playing blues and vintage rock since the 60's. By the way, I am an electrical and mechanical engineer, so BS about equipment doesn't go to far with me.

This is a fabulous unit and a great value. Do yourself a favor, before you spend a lot of $$ on new guitars and boutique pickups, drop a few $10 bills for one of these and experiment with it. Push up each slider indivudually, and listen, push down each slider individually. try "shaping" the sliders. Try them in a "V" and an inverted "V". Try sloping them up and sloping them down. I won't go into a lot of techno-mumbo jumbo, but most of the tonal variation between different pickups can be acheived with appropriate EQ. In my opinion, this is the best thing you can spend a few bucks on, regardless of the kind of music you play, the kind of guitar you use, or the amp you use. You can DO SO MUCH with it. Really!

It is very easy to use. Just move the sliders up and down.
There are two things that may challenge you a bit: 1. Learning how the changes you make will affect your sound. 2. Experimenting to find out how to hook it up to your rig to get the best results.
It's not like it's work-you're playing guitar so it'll be fun to experiment.

Sorry for the long post but I seem to have to keep explaining this to people. Hopefully I can fill in some of the gaps some people may have about this stuff. There is a lot of good info in the previous posts. Always take the time to read as many posts as possible.
For me, this EQ pedal is fabulous. As with any pedal/stompbox your results will depend on the gear you have. The guitar you have PROBABLY will not have a negative or positive EFFECT of your OPINION of the pedal. What WILL affect it is what amp you have and what other stomp boxes you have in your rig, and the order you have everything hooked up. Some stomp boxes just simply will not work with some amps. Just as some stomp boxes just do not like each other.
What does this EQ pedal do? There are 7 different frequency ranges you can adjust with this pedal. And it also has volume adjustment that raises or lowers the overall guitar signal after the EQ pedal does its thing. The adjustments range from ?15db to +15db. (db=decibels) Setting a particular slider to 0 means the pedal is not affecting that frequency. Setting the EQ on your amp to 5 usually does this also. Raising a slider makes that particular frequency louder. Lowering a slider makes that particular frequency quieter. This means that as you make adjustments with the EQ pedal your overall guitar signal will get louder or softer. You will need to use the volume slider on the EQ pedal to raise or lower the overall signal as needed. Don?t use the volume control on your amp to compensate for the EQ tweaks you make- use the volume control on the EQ pedal, that?s what it is for.
The Fish n chips is quiet. In my setup, this pedal does not add any noise when it is on. It also does not make any noise when turning it on or off. I am very happy with it. This is the only EQ pedal I have ever used, by the way, and will always have one in my rig from now on.

Here is the rig I use:
Fender Vintage Player Strat with Texas Special pups
Kustom RC 30 Watt 1 x 10" (onboard EQ are set to 5)
Marshall Jackhammer pedal (distortion pedal)
Danelectro Fish n Chips
Seiko ST767 tuner
One spot power source
Here is my signal path (how I have it all hooked up):
Guitar> tuner>Jackhammer >Amp?s instrument input
The Fish n chips is then hooked into my amp?s effects loop
(amp?s effects loop send> Fish n chips>effects loop return)
So, in my case here is what happens to the signal. The guitar sends its signal to the tuner. Fortunately this does not seem to have a negative effect on my sound in terms of tone or noise, as long as the tuner is OFF. The tuner sends the signal to the Jackhammer and it adds in the distortion I want. The jackhammer sends the signal to the amp?s instrument input. Now, no matter what amp you have (unless it is something like a Tech21 Power Engine 60) the amp will in some way modify/color the input signal. That is why a Fender amp sounds like a Fender amp and a Marshall sounds like a Marshall. This is true even if the amp is on a clean setting. So ideally what you want to do is use this EQ pedal in such a way to EQ the signal after distortion is added and after the amp processes it. The only way to do this is if your amp has an Effects Loop. Unfortunately, even many good combo amps do not have an effects loop. So you may have to experiment to see how you get the best sound. We?ll assume you are using some sort of distortion pedal.
Guitar>EQ>distortion pedal>amp (in this case you are EQ?ing the signal from the guitar and then distortion is added.)
OR
Guitar>distortion pedal>EQ>amp (you are EQ?ing your signal after distortion is added. This will probably yield better results.)
Keep in mind that you can put your distortion pedal in your effects loop also. It sounds awful when I do that with my rig.
One last thing? Make sure you use good cables to hook everything up. I bought some LiveWire cables to use with this and once I got it home I discovered I wish I had lo

I place mine in a chair and turn it on and off with my hands. It is plastic but it seems to be pretty sturdy for such use. I turn it on when I play and turn it off when I am done. Like everyone else, I would not want to stomp on it too hard with my foot, but I think the case and sliders are built pretty good but the switch does seem to be fairly cheap plastic.
I have never used the battery compartment. I use it with a OneSpot power adapter.
I think it should last me for quite a while.
For for the price I don't expect a welded metal case.

Never dealt with them.

I generally play classic rock. But with my setup I can get beautiful clean sounds.
It is definitely worth every penny I paid for it.
When it dies or breaks in a couple of years I?d probably get the same thing again but if I have some cash burning a whole in my pocket, I may upgrade to a BOSS or MXR

Very straightforward. No need for a manual if there is one. It's your typical EQ. Raise or lower each frequency band as desired. It shapes the sound well. It's not hard to get good tone out of it.

I actually own two of these pedals. I use them with a Les Paul Copy into a Marshall JCM600 combo, and I've also used one with a telecaster. It works well with both. There is some noise that it introduces into the signal, so I felt that the claim on the packaging that it was "studio quality" is mere hyperbole. Of course you can use this to cut out noise also if your signal is noisy when it gets to the Fish & Chips pedal. Obviously it is better to cut frequencies than boost them. I've used this EQ pedal to try to get a variety of sounds. I listen to bands like Thursday, Emery, Finch, Glasseater, and play music like that, so I need to be able to have a couple different tones throughout a song. This EQ pedal is the best pedal I purchased because it helps me to get the different sounds I need. I've never owned another EQ pedal, but for versatility's sake, I'm convinced EQ pedals are the first pedal you should purchase. This pedal has so much more EQ than the EQ in the JCM 600 combo I have that it's almost necessary. I used to have a problem with too much bass in this amp (from my amp tech modding it the way he thought I would like it), but this pedal can EQ it out if I choose. That's another thing: you can experiment with this pedal in different places in your pedal chain, or put it in the effects loop of your amp. It behaves differently depending. I'm giving it an 8 rating because it is noisy in my experience, which doesn't bother me for live playing, but I wouldn't use it to record through.

The build quality on these is horrible. The back (bottom) where the battery goes is held on by a small plastic screw and once you take the back off to replace the battery, it's hard to get it back on where it will stay. I have picked up this pedal a number of times to find that the back falls off and the battery dangles out. You can see that the insides are very cheap. Now that I mention it, the whole thing is made out of plastic, so I don't think it is the kind of pedal you would want to depend entirely on. So far I have used it without too much trouble, but it is the one pedal I have that I worry about. It's pretty cheaply made. If you utterly had to rely on this pedal, I wouldn't recommend it. Buy something sturdier.

N/A

Overall this is a useful pedal with a barely adequate build quality. Since it was so cheap, I bought two so I can really control my tone as it travels through my pedal chain and/or my amp (via the effects loop). I've been playing punk and screamo for about two years and before that a variety of music. The best thing about this pedal is the "Level" slider that lets you boost or cut your signal. It has come in very handy and I couldn't imagine an EQ pedal without this feature.

Took me two days playing with it before I found the sound I was looking for. But it was in there! Not much of a manual, just 3 suggested settings printed on the back of the card. None that I found useful. Needed time to experement. If you have 7 sliders you can have a lot of choices.

I thought I needed more tone control out of a Crate v1512. It seemed no matter what settings I set on the amp, the tone is mid heavy. I tried retubing with mesa tubes, then I bought a Celestion G12H. A good amp but still not THERE. This fish and chips is just what this amp needed. I haven't tried it though my 5150 peavey combo yet because that amp already has the tone I crave. I wanted to have an amp I can practice with that has some balls. With fish and chips I now have what this amp needed. Before I had thought about eq's I read a bit about eq's, (which I have never owned in my 27 years of playing) now I thought I would give an eq a try. First pedal comes to mind is Boss for me. I try to win one on eBay for about $40. Can't do it. Got outbid several times. Next tried to get a DOD for $40 Close but not quite. Get surfin' the web and see the reviews of the Danelectro "fish and chips" (yeah, that really describes this pedal) I think Danelectro, yuck, cheap crap, right?

Ok, now that I have held this little beauty in my own hands, I have changed my perception of this being a cheap TOY. I has a pretty solid feel to it. A lot heavier than I expected. Thicker plastic than what I expected. Not as cheap of battery clip I expected. Nice heavy plate on bottom. Also has a pretty good feeling switch. No, it's not a Boss. It's not $89 either. The way I take care of my stuff it should last.

I think anyone could find a good use for this. For 29 bucks this is a steal. I've changed my mind about the company Danelectro. I Still think the silly names of the products is stupid but what do I know? I don't sell a million pedals a year called Dave-electro!