Danelectro DJ-15 Chicken Salad Vibrato

Speed and intensity pots, on/off stomp. You'll know pretty quickly whether or not you like it.

Screw-type battery access isn't my favorite, but one screw certainly beats four. You'll get used to changing the battery on this unit.

I don't use a lot of time/pitch-based effects, and therefore don't have a lot of comparative knowledge about what factors make one superior to the other. That said, I'm satisfied with this beast as a cost-effective way to approximate that pulsing Robin Trower feel. Roll off treble, stir in flatted fifths, makes its own sauce...

I primarily play Strats with hot passive single coils. Trower reference notwithstanding, for my own style (which I'll dub "Pre-Van Halen rock") I prefer the sound of a small Fender amp turned up to the point of breakup, as opposed to either the Marshall roar or the modern high-gain, compressed tone.

The Chicken Salad pulses nicely at settings below about +8, then becomes a little too warbly and un-subtle for my taste. Your mileage may vary.

I find that the rotary controls are both nicely linear, so when you only turn the knob a little way, you only get a little change in the sound. Non-linear pots are a pet peeve of mine; they are all too common on inexpensive gear. It's nice to see that these operate smoothly and gradually, on a $29 item. The payoff is that the controls, though simple, can be fine-tuned throughout their full range, without frustrating jumps between knob positions.

Overall, the CS does what I expect it to do, without any serious downside.

Everybody's skeptical about the on/off stomp button. So am I. I'm a light user, though, so I don't require road-warrior build quality.

When I first bought the Chicken Salad, the effect occasionally did not engage when the light indicated that it was on. I swapped the battery (it comes with an old-fashioned Dan-O battery of dubious quality and lifespan) and things were ok again. Not long afterward (say, 2 hours of playing time) the pedal begain to tick in time with the speed control. "Junk!" I declared. But: I swapped the battery, and once again, the bad behavior turned out to have been a false alarm. I learned from all of this that the optional battery eliminator is a sound investment, especially for those of you who plan to use this frequently. The pedal seems to be, as others have noted, a bit of a battery hog. So learn from my stupidity: When you hear ticking, it's not broken. It's just the pedal telling you that it's hungry again, and sooner than you'd have expected -- like a teenager with a tapeworm.

No experience.

I have more gear than I would ever admit to my wife, collected over 33 years of playing.

I was scouting vibrato pedals, and was about to shell out $225 or whatever for a Uni-Vibe. Then I came across an online video comparing the Chicken Salad to the Uni-Vibe; I truly couldn't hear much difference. There may in fact be one (perhaps more sophisticated controls, probably increased ruggedness?) but certainly the Dunlop did not sound 7x better. You can judge for yourself; the vid's out there on YouTube.

I'd call it a good value, with the caveat that it does go through 9v batteries at an alarming rate.

Very easy to use stock. But to get the best out of the pedal you need to do the trim pot and foil mods. Not too hard, but taking the pedal apart takes some work. So I give it a seven. Once the mods are done, simple to use.

Incredible. Gets the Robin Trower tone and the Ritchie Blackmore tone of Catch the Rainbow on the "On Stage" Rainbow album. I love this effect. I can't believe it is only $25 bucks. On the other hand, I had to mod it and I am going to re-house it in an MXR style box to protect it, so it is not that inexpensive taking that into account. But it is worth it. I also put in the diode which fluctuates with the speed. Cool.

Well... I use it right now in a true bypass loop so I don't have to stomp on it. so it is very reliable that way, IF you don't try and use a battery. I tried the battery and it lasted about five minutes. Literally. But it is plastic and has cheap pots, etc.
SO I am going to re-house it with good parts in an MXR type box. Then it should be bullet proof. I got an 8 MM purple diode to fluctuate with the speed. That should make me dizzy all by itself.

No idea, it does not matter. THe day I got it I opened it up and did the mods. So thawt voided the warranty instantly. Cool.

This is greaat. I had a Fulltone Mini-Deja Vibe that just sounded weak and I sent it back. You can get five Chicken Salads for one Deja-Vibe. LOL.

The Chicken Salad has a bulb and four photo resistors in a box which emulated the basic concept of the original Univibe. Amazing. $25 bucks. Gets a 10.

Theoretically very easy to use speed and intensity. I give it an 8 because that internal trim pot is a bastard to get to but not terribly hard to access. The pedal is sensitive and pulling the guts out and putting them back in can take a toll. Genital hands and patience is what it takes. You really have to listen to the pulse and find good ratio's of speed/intensity to get that vibe sound.

I would give it about a 4 out of the box. Tweaking with the trim I give it an 8. To say this thing doesn't suck your tone you must live on another planet. It makes your signal sound a little thin but not too bad. It just takes some low end out of your signal. When using this pedal I run it first. Chicken salad, TS-9 analog/Silver, Keeley Sparkle Drive, Barber Tone Press into Hotrod Deluxe with a U.S. Strat. One thing that gets annoying is that it has to be first in line to get the best sound or else!!!! I found that the trim pot is very sensitive and controls the bias of the pedal. One way you get no effect and the other is all the effect. I found this pedal sounds the best when the trim is set to around 1 to 1:30. Compared to my Megavibe this pedal doesn't respond as well with other pedals and is not as organic and transparent sounding. Think pro baseball stadium (MV)to highschool baseball field(CSV). If tweaked right it does sounds real good and hits more of a phasey sound which I like. Think DSOTM and WYWH/ Hendrix. And yes with the speed around 3:00 or 4:00 and the intensity around 9:00 or 10:00 you can get a cool brain damage/ abbey road rotary sound. It did take me a while to get a perfect ratio of trim/intensity/speed. Just listen to the throb and experiment.

I would use this pedal live but it is plastic and very delicate. I play blues/jazz/fusion and respect my equipment very well but a spade is a spade. The thing I noticed to go in and out with touch sensitivity is the 9v power jack. Batteries don't even think about it, what a drain.

Other than my Boss CE-2 this was the best $25 I have ever spent on an effects pedal. I got this pedal in waiting for my Megavibe a year ago and I'm still proud of this little thing. My advice is that if you don't have $$$$ to spend on a vibe then get this and tweak the trim. I plan on rehousing this with True-bypass, better pots, and nooooo plastic. I pretty much look at this as a project pedal with unbelievable potential and if lost or broken I would probably buy another b/c of the price. I just hope some one comes up with a mod to get this thing to let your tone shine through a little better. Maybe an opt-amp or something. This pedal can almost get you you there and with a little mod or three I think people would be shocked at what $25 can get. Check out youtube for some sound clips.

After reviewing several Uni-vibe models the Danelectro Chicken Salad for $29 is a bargain!2 knobs and you can tweak your Leslie sound in.There is a manual but really basic picture showing best setting.Mine was new in a box and I believe they came out in 1999.Danelectro has a new Vibe pedal haven't heard it yet.

I play blues.Once and awhile an SRV tune comes along and needs that little rotovibe sound!It does a great job at Trower and Hendrix also.
I use the following:Peterson Strobo Stomp 2 (Highly reccommend!),Chicken Salad,DOD FX10 Preamp clean boost,TS-808,Vintage ProCoRat,and Digitech Digidelay.Use 1Spot to power all pedals.No noise from pedal and the lack of no true bypass doesn't affect my tone.All pedals into either Fender Reissue Deluxe Reverb, or Reissue Super Reverb.Like the Chicken Salad in front of all my distortions.Sounds like a real 1960's UniVibe.

The price is so low the box is plastic, knobs delicate(mine came with prtective clear cover I leave on to protect knobs), and I believe button switch is metal.Should hold up if you don't stomp hard.I use it for a couple of songs so no need to have 2 of them.

No.The $29 keeps you from contacting them.Get a new one if it breaks.

This pedal fills in some of those rotovibe blues sounds along with some great organ like effects when playing rhythm chords.I do like Trower as well and it does nicely!Use a neck pickup, low tone, and the rhythm sounds fill in nicely.Love this pedal for the price!Can't justify $200+ for another model.Wouldn't use all the time like a wah wah or fuzz just adds to your tone.Been playing for over 40 years,use 1991 Gibson Les Paul Standard,a couple of Agile guitars 1956 Les Paul Goldtop with P-90's and SG copy with Gibson Pickups (great great clones when you tweak them with pickups, new pots, etc.)and 2 SX guitars stratocaster and telecaster style also tweaked.Telecaster using Fralin Classic pickups.Wow!I use the knock offs because they are made very well,look like the real thing,made with great woods,and don't worry about them when playing out like my Gibson.I'm also left handed and these are all left handed models.Note I have several pickup combinations on these guitars P-90's, humbuckers, single coils.Plenty of room to experiment for your tone.I've had several Fender amps through the years, various pedals, and other guitars as well.I love the price of the Chicken Salad, sound of it, and especially the fact it does not suck tone from my setup.If you want to try a UniVibe sound try one of these.$29 not $200.This is not the you get what you pay for idea.The pedal is plastic and looks cheap on my pedalboard but there is noe cheap sound.

Could not be any easier

At first I pedal had been way over hyped. Sounded like a very muddy tone killin' phaser?! So, I was gonna scrap it for parts and build something useful...low and behold I found me a trim pot!! She'd been glued in place at the factory- so I popped the glue off and started to reset it and found a beutiful univibe sweet spot at about 2 o'clock on the pot. Now this pedal is worth all the hype and more. Great little SRV kicker know.

Don't know yet.

Pretty easy to use. 2 knobs, right? How fast and how much. But of course the knobs are small and not so easy to turn. But that's not really so bad, kinda keeps you from overshooting. So, i won't knock it a point for that even though I should.

Yeah, you can get some Hendrix types of sounds out of it and on the cheap. Sounds like a messy 4-stage phaser. That's good. I don't know if it is a 4-stage phaser, I'm just saying that's what it sounds like... but deeper and more off-kilter.

The thing about the chicken salad is it sounds a lot different depending on where ya put it. Mine with my rig, anyway... effects loop, cuts a lot of bass. Out of effects loop, doesn't seem to cut as much. Maybe I'm just crazy? Sound different with a power adapter and a battery too. Making no appearance otherwise, you can get some cool sounds from 2 o'clock speeds with a half-dead battery but you have to boost the depth all the way.

Some settings can satisfy your auto-wah cravings pretty well too. Fool around with it.

Even though I gave it an 8, I have to qualify that with an admission that it has kicked some other pedals out of rotation that are prolly 9's. Why? I dunno... this thing just sounds neat.

Well, it's plastic. Never had any problem with mine and I got mine used.

Danelectro? I'll just be political here and say 'no comment'...

Got to boost it. Oddball but useful effect. Well worth 20-30 bucks. I recommend it as a 'just for the hell of it' buy.

Two knobs and a switch, how easy is that?

You can get a Hendrix / Trower sound with this pedal.Just put the speed around 1 o'clock and the other knob around 3 o'clock and put the pedal before your distortion and you should be close enough to cop the "Bridge Of Sighs" sound.

It's plastic 1st off so if you have a habit of doing the stomp on pedals be careful with this one,also it's better to use an adaptor for this pedal cause this will eat up batteries.

This pedal has been called a poor man's Univibe and so right they are.It's not a bad pedal if you're into getting that Hendrix/Trower type of sound without spending lots of $$$ for the real thing.

Stomp GENTLY on the switch to engage, turn the 2 knobs as you like and dial in 100s of sweet spots. Couldn't be much easier than that.

Allright, a pedal for a few bucks in a crappy plastic enclosure with a bad bypass? Hmmm ... what could this sound like? .... FANTASTIC! I've tested some Phaser/Vibe-Clones/and stuff and the Chicken Salad was my Vibe at choice. It sounds fantastic. There's no try to create a new kind of vibe-sound, it's more or less an exact Univibe-copy with THAT great sound.
Only the bypass sounds like a farting dog ;)
Use a True-Bypass-box or rehouse it like i did ...

I would give a 10, but that bypass, man ...

Uargs... Don't even try to stomp it. I don't trust that plastic and even the stompswitch seems like you should stroke it instead of stomping.

I often use it in combination with my Digitech Synth Wah to create some synth-like spheres. Works great for that! You can use it for fatten your sound up, have a little more myterious wobbling in your sound or to go crazy with a whooshing Vibe ....

If it was built in a more sturdy enclosure and it would have a good sounding bypass I would pay MUCH more for this unit!
You get a huge piece of sound for a little money ... great deal!

This is a follow up. I meant to say I have owned 13 different choruses, 7 different flangers and 4 phasers. For modulation I have settled on a flanger as it is my favourite and now I have added this.

I have noticed that if you set the Intensity to 3'oclock and the speed to 12 o'clock you get realy nice Jimi sounds with for some reason with an enhanced layer of treble over the top. If you put the speed to 3 o'clock also it seems to become darker sounding. I have a theory that the higher speed means the light inside doesn't get a chance to become as bright as it does when more slowly ramped up. This effects the tone of the unit.

With the 12 / 3 settings I give it a 8.9

Everyone makes a chorus, everyone makes an overdrive, but not everyone makes a Uni-vibe. The fact that this vibe pedal exists, combined with the affordability provided the only reason for owning a Dano mini pedal. I would not bother with any other dano mini pedal because it violates the different pedals rule. I am however finding the cheapness of this pedal hard to live with and may buy a Voodoo Lab Micro Vibe. In any event this has been a great introductory pedal to check out the uni-vibe type of sound with my own playing.

Mine came in a box, you have to be able to open a box which is not too hard. Then the pedal is plugged in however first you must work out how to take the back off to install the included battery or else use a power supply which I highly recommend.

Two knobs which need to be used from a minimum of around 11 o'clock on-wards. These are small but even with the plastic guard on you can turn them easily.

Sound is good, no hiss or hum through a loud gainy amp, no tone sucking when bypassed. Makes a small pop when turning on. I plugged into my amp direct, then through all my pedals and it doesn't sound like tone is being sucked out. If this was a little tone sucker as some people have said (mine can be with bad power to) then I would put it on eBay toot sweet.

I may still sell it as I am not sure I like the sound of it. It is a little like some of the tones Jimi Hendrix and Robin Trower used to get. Robin still gets em but from a Fulltone Deja 'Vibe 2. I am not sure the Fulltone is better than a Mojo Vibe personally. I am not spending the cash for either of those when this thing kind of does similar things and also given that I'm not too excited by this type of effect over my Nady Flanger. The two or not alike of course.

It is like you might get a flanger or a chorus. You might try the Boss one and go yeah thats great. You may try more than one flanger or chorus and say I like this one a bit more because of this or that. I have had about The thing is if you like a type of effect you may kind of pursue that line of musical thought. Well this little pedal is the Uni-vibe type of effect. It is not the same as other 'vibes say Voodoo Labs, Fulltone, etc, but it is this type of sound.

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YOU NEED TO USE A GOOD POWER SUPPLY!! i.e. a regulated 9V DC supply.
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Don't talk about noise when used after a distortion pedal or weird tone sucking when bypassed because that means you don't have a good power supply. Other pedal may work fine but this one really suffers when the voltage drop below 9 volts. This means if you load up your small power supply, for example I was using a 200mA supply. I was running wah, distortion, flanger, tuner, delay no problems. When adding the Chicken it didn't like the low voltage. I put on a 1A supply and it is happy. With the smaller supply I had every bad thing listed in these reviews happening and then some!

I have a rule about pedals, well three rules. One, they must all be different brands (to give different shapes, sizes colors) and two they must be metal cased. Three they can't be Boss because they tend to sound like crap, and are overpriced cheap pieces of crap. The only pedal I ever had die was my first one, a Boss BF-2 Flanger with a silver screw.

So this pedal breaks a rule but it is one of the few 'vibe pedals you can buy and clearly the only one you can buy to try the effect out. I was almost going to buy a Mojo Vibe as I believe they are the best but then I just got a better power supply and this pedal began to shine. I have a Kaden Effects Fluttertone on the way so I may not use this 'vibe pedal as the tremolo should just goes up and down in volume without tonal or pitch changes whereas this pedal changes the tone and the pitch and is a bit nasty overall but I think it is supposed to be. The uni-vibe was a dreadful thing, it sucked tone, it added distorions and effected all sorts of things but that made it sound a certain way.

About the plastic case. It is such a tiny unit that it probably is very tough. I made my plastic rule after purchasing a Behringer tuner pedal which I returned due to it being as weak as piss physically. I don't think this is as bad as all that.

This is a druggie sounding pedal and it is best used when you have had a few cones and are feeling very mellow or at least when you are wanting to have that sort of effect on the listener. Since I don't smoke dope I kind of don't like this pedal as much as I thought I might.

It has some pretty great sounds with intensity nearly but not actually on full with the speed on around 3-4 o'clock. When you play with some amp overdrive it nails bridge of sighs if you use your imagination a bit, and it definitely refuses to get too revved up in terms of playing speed.

It is definitely a strum the chord and feel the vibe type pedal. If you want to play a little quicker through things I would strongly suggest a flanger. When you play slow a flanger gives the spacial quality that this has without the harsh stoned feeling, and when you want to play faster rhythms it adds sparkle. This one is like you took a handful of Valium on an empty stomach.


I give it a 7, it's a good sound, it works, I don't think it's the be all and end all and I don't think you could buy worse because this is the bottom end of the market. Things can only improve from here but it definitely gets you 70% of the way so I give it a 7/10