Danelectro DJ-2 T-Bone Distortion

Two dials, volume and level of distortion - simple as that. No manual provided, other than a 'recommended settings' guide which covers most Danelectro Mini-Pedals. I found that on all 'Dano' distortion or overdrive pedals, you need the level at about 1 o'clock - this doesn't seem to alter regardless of the amount of distortion.

My current setup is:
Gibson Les Paul Studio Lite >> Boss TU-15 Tuner >> Dano French Fries Auto Wah >> Dano T-Bone Distortion >> Dano Pastrami Overdrive >> Dano Pepperoni Phaser >> Dano Milkshake Chorus >> Dano Hash Browns Flanger >> Dano P B & J Delay >> Marshall Practice Amp.
I have found, as with almost all Dano pedals, that this is very noisy, even on it's own. It doesn't do subtle distortion well, so you need it at at least 3 o'clock for a good sound, by which time, the level of noise is plain silly. I like JUST enough distortion where you can get a 'chug' when playing palm-muted power-chords, but nothing as extreme as the 'metal' pedals. This doesn't q-u-i-t-e give that level of distortion, even at pull-pelt, although it does have a unique, warm fuzz which is pleasant (if very noisy).
I play most kinds of rock - Classic, Heavy Metal, Punk, Emo, and quite a bit of British Indie (Blur, Shed Seven). I have found this to be best suited to the latter and some classic rock (so I suppose, on that level, it does exactly as stated, being a 'vintage' pedal.

I use my equipment mostly for songwriting and home recording (as a practicing musician, I play Bass). I get very annoyed when I read comments like 'I wouldn't kick it' - It's a peice of electronic equipment, not a football!! I own several of these dano pedals and, although the quality of sound on these pedals is sometimes questionnable, they are ALL very sturdy. The footswitch is metal, as are the dials and the base, and the casing is hard, thick plastic. Anyone who thinks they are not up to the job on build quality surely has anger-management issues!

As you will see from my setup above, I have bought several of the dano mini pedals. These were all bought at once from ebay without first having the sense to try them out in a store first. Of all the Danos I have, I have found only the Auto-Wah, Phaser and Delay to be any good (despite this, the phaser is still noisy). I have now invested in and MXR Noise Gate. Noise reduction is essential when using these pedals - perhaps they could bring out their own - the 'Gammon and Pineapple' they could call it. I've also just ordered a Proco Rat Distortion pedal because I found this to be not what I wanted. There's gonna be some Dano pedals back on ebay pretty soon. Lesson learned - Try before you buy.

Well, it's easy to stomp. The problem being that if you stomp too hard the knobs fly off. And then if you breath on them they break off. Normally that's a reliability issue, but when they're THAT FRAGILE it suddenly becomes impossible to know where your settings are, etc.

Hey, I thought like everyone else that this was good distortion for the money. But then I compared it to my tube amp's natural distortion and holy crap! This thing sounds incredibly plastic. Disgusting, tone sucking, blurry, and full of negative feedback. My amp at the time was a Crate Vintage Club (they're only good amps, not really a Crate design). I smacked myself in the face and have used my amp's distortion ever since.

This is impossible to depend on. Danelectro messes up some of their AC jacks, but this one happened to have an ok one. Like I said, the knobs fall off and it begs not to be gigged. Don't waste your money.

Haven't tried to contact them. Maybe I should since they made this crappy thing.

I've been playing a couple years, and I'm pretty decent by now. As I already explained this is a tone sucking piece of junk. I play garage rock. Believe me, I like fuzzy tones and I am not a tone freak. This pedal, contrary to some reviews, does not deliver fuzzy tones. I am a minimalist. I should have every reason to like this pedal. But it's awful. If you see one in a store, don't look at it because you will become petrified. This is a great example of plastic tone, not even decent-plasticky like a DS-1 (at least how Kurt Cobain set his).

can't be any easier, a footswitch, level and distortion.
An extremely irritating problem is that my t-bone only works on a specific volume (5-6) of my guitar. At first i thought this was caused by my guitar, but i've tested it with some other guitars and i always get the same problem. if i turn it off, it still doesn't work on most volumes (i get some crackling sounds on max volume)

When it works, the sound is very nice and smooth. Very clear and singing lead works and deep bassy riffs too.

no problems whatsoever except for the volume thing

haven't met them yet

terrible volume problem, the rest is okay

there's not really anything to say.... two knobs and a button.
It'd be fun to read a manual for this one!!!!

Setup: Epiphone Les Paul 100 --> t-bone --> Fish N chips (eq) --> Pepperoni (phaser) --> Blt (slap echo) --> amp...

Of course this pedal is noisy, but it's a dist/boost/fuzz pedal.
I think this pedal sounds like an overdriven amp with a fuzzy sound, so it's not supposed to sound like a High-gain pedal. You can't get a metal sound out of this, but'you really shouldn't expect that from a pedal that "simulates" (I just hate that word) the sound of the 60's!

I totally love this thing, especially with a slightly overdriven amp and using the t-bone as a booster/fuzzer. great for heavy-blues!!!!

I'm giving it a nine because it's a great pedal and it does what I expected and because it isn't the best pedal, I really can't give it a ten.

I don't like to jump on pedals, so this thing will last forever, though'it's made of plastic.
but who knows... someday (or night) I might fall on it....
I never use backups, because I rely on the gear I'm using.

well....... don't care, I live in sweden, so nobody cares about me, but I guess they are nice people (never met them though)

I play some kind of blues-rock-punk-pop...it's great for my music.
I've been playing for 6 yrs.
By reading some reviews, I doubt anyone would try to steal it and because of it's low price it would be impossible for a thief to sell it....

Anything I wish it had?
I wish it didn't have a built-in compressor
A tone knob would be perfect, but an eq will also do the job
and they should get rid of that plastic housing....

Very easy to use. There is a level and distortion knob. Stomp-on , Stomp-off. Very basic.

Sound is not bad at all. This is not a screamer pedal. It gives a very smooth distortion tone that gets thicker sounding as the distortion is turned up. Its a little noisy as compared to a Boss pedal, but as long as the amp you use it with has a fairly clean preamp stage, the noise is minimal and not that bad. I use it mostly with a Fender Hotrod DeVille 2/12. Its not my main unit, but I find it usefull for its thick midrange tone when doing certain solo work. If Danelecto had added a tone knob to this pedal I would give it much higher marks. But you can't complain to much when dealing with a pedal in this price range. For what it is, its not bad.

Ok, here is the shortcoming. The knobs on these pedals are cheap plastic which is easily broked if you don't carefully place your step. If you own one of these danelectro mini-pedals, you will be superglueing broken knobs back together. except it.

Never had to contact them. So i'll give a middle of the road remark here.

I have to give the pedal a fair overall rating. Heck, its not a Boss pedal by a long shot, but it does sound fair, and i intend on keeping mine. Its tone is a real-world-I-can-use-it sound. I don't regret buying it. Its cheap, decent sounding, and useable in a real world enviroment. Alot of pedals out there are not.

Two knobs. Easy to operate.

Yeah, this may be a bit noisy if you're looking to record. If you're just hacking around, this is a fun little pedal that has its own flavor. Nothing subtle, but also, brings the rock. I give it a 10 because "pristine sound quality" isn't my definition of a good distrotion pedal.

I'd depend on it to work fine through a gig. BTW - I don't know anyone who brings a second distortion pedal to a gig just in case. What's the point? It's not a camping trip.

Haven't tried to contact them.

You know, let's give this pedal a 9 because it's cheap, sounds pretty cool and not too fussy and you can buy it for really, really cheap. Close your eyes and you can make music with it.

Very easy. Two knobs. Level and Distortion.

Very fat and very juicy. It has sort of a lo mid/hi bass boost.
Not a lot of highs. It has a lot of gain. When you have it on high
gain you might as well leave your guitar volume up as you'll get too
much noise if you turn the guitar down. It's sort of like a big muff pi but without the flabby bass. I suggest you put an eq after it. If
you know who Leslie West and his playing with mountain this t bone sounds somewhat like that, fat and juicy like I first said.

Why do girls dance on pedals but guys seem to know better?
Anyway its very cheap, just get another one, but mine is the same
after two years.

Fine for classic saturated hard rock tones but if you need more treble
you'll probably want an eq after it.

it can't be easier! the well-known two knobs.

by now I'm only a bedroom player, but i've played with a lot o stuff before, so I can tell how much good it is. I'm playing with a strat-like guitar (3 single-coils)through a small, 30 watt amp. For rhythm I use the amp distortion on full, for a fuzzy-tone, and for leads I step on this baby. It gives me a warm bass-mid boost tone, with sweet highs and great sustain. Playing with it without using the amp distortion gives me a pretty dynamic sound with a pretty good sustain. In my opinion this pedal doesn't really "distorts" it's more kind of a boost, I can hear some 60's-early 70's sound on it, a cleaner fuzz, great for blues and old hard rock like sabbath. On lower gain settings I can get the "while my guitar gently weeps" sound. Other thing: this pedal likes feedbacking, even playing on low volume,without being "hissie" or making unconfortable noises. I don't use any modulation or compressor, I don't like this kind of pedals very much, but both my little amp and the T-Bone still sounding great while I'm using my amp's "Echo". Anyway I'm giving it a 9 'cause I wished it had just a little more gain.

first time I saw it I was like "i'm gonna smash it with just one stomp", but then I realised that they were a bit more sturdy than I thought, but they're plastic anyway. I would gig with it without a backup, but I would keep the T-Bone on a very safe place.

I live in Brasil, so I better not even think about it!

I play basically indie/60's-70's rock-hard rock, so, believe me it's great for this kind of sound. I would buy another even if it were NOT stolen, only to keeping them to me! The best thing on it is really the 60's-early 70's vibe I was looking for and that Dano claims to have, it just needed a little more distortion, but i'm giving a ten because of it's price, incredibly cheap for what it makes!

Very easy to use

No offense to the company... But this pedal really sucks. I was it to sound like trust company or something, but it sounds nothing like that. There's so much noise you can't hear what't being played!

It's a cheap pedal, it would probably break if I used it somewhere other than practice. If I had to, I'd make due, but unless that was the ONLY option, I'd throw it in the trash.

I haven't dealt w/ them...

I play rock. IT SUCKS. I play a pretty sucky guitar n have a pretty bad amp, but those dont SOUND too bad, theyre just not put together to well... If it were stolen, I'd thank GOD for a reason to to buy a different pedal. Then again, I don't understand why someone would steal that... I compare to the Boss DS-1, and ya know what? I DIDN'T choose this one. That is a nice pedal, this sucks. I couldn't really understand what i was playing when I used this when I wrote, so now I write unplugged, because it just sounds so much better and I can hear what I play.

Very easy to use. Level and distortion. Duh.

I am currently using a mess of other Dano pedals(about 14 others), along with a Fender '72 Custom Telecaster and a Fender Deluxe 85 amp. I personaly think it sounds pretty awesome. People complain about noise and what not, but just tweak the tone knobs on your guitar and the mid knobs on your amp, and it should reduce most of it. Keep in mind that playing at high volumes with any distortion will create some amount of noise, and some simple knob adjustment will keep any distortion from being too noisy. Also, ive found it helpful to turn the distortion knob all the way up, and just tweak the level knob. I do this, and I can get some phat distortion. Keep in mind that the amp has alot to do with sound quality as well.

Ive had it for about seven or eight months, and so far no problems. I use it just about every day, be it for practice, gigs, or in the studio. Remember that it is plastic, and that it wasn't made to be "stomped" upon, so to speak. I recommend buying a pedal case for any Dano pedals you have to extend their lifspan. I would use and have used it in gigs without a backup. Also, this pedal only costs $20, so its not like it will put a major dent in anyones pocket to repair it or buy another.

I personally havent dealt with Danelectro, but from what I hear, they are very helpful.

I am in an alternative rock band that plays Radiohead/The Pixies/Nirvana-ish music, and this pedal can pretty much cover it. If it were stolen, I would definately buy another. I plan on using this thing for as long as I am able to play my guitar. If properly taken care of, it will last quite some time.