Danelectro DJ-20 Rocky Road Spinning Speaker

My rocky road did not come with a box or manual...which shaved a few pounds off of the purchase price!....not a tragic state of affairs because this unit is easy to use. It posesses the neccesary features one would expect from a leslie simulator. Not 'usable' in fx pedal context without mod

Rickenbacker 330 through a Marshall G80R CD with this unit inbetween.

Debate rages about this pedal and I would wish to consolidate some of this into my review. I personally decided to go for the mod as I was unhappy with the volume boost. That said someone rightly pointed out that it means you can only use this pedal in a true leslie context - after all......the real thing is fairly noisy.

The original design is indefensible....it is an effects pedal....and therefore requires some degree of compatability with other electronic equpitment.......without the mod this pedal is useless as a pedal. As a leslie simulator it works.

It does sound real and the ramp up and ramp down (speed of the rotary 'horn') is great (hendrix - angel being the important comparable i wanted to imitate). Get the pedal....get the mod and (short of getting the real thing) you should be happy. Would have liked a stereo output and a bit less chorus when the ramp is down.

i am not confident it will last as long as my other units. Nothing else on market for similar price.

The fact that the customer has to resolve the main problem with the product is abysmal..........danelectro should be ashamed of themselves. It would not be cost effective to offer to fix them all......but still...they could have either discovered the defect before putting this product out.

I'm obsessed with the doppler sound...i cant fit the real thing into my room.....could afford one if i wanted....but this is a more compact alternative......its reasonable

Last night, I did the R44 mod to my brother's Rocky Road. I was following the instructions posted by John Adams when I noticed something that John overlooked (or at least didn't mention).

He suggests that rather than soldering directly onto the R44 resistor, one should use a wire to jumper between the middle terminal of the "Drive" pot and the solder pad between the "R7" and "R46" markings.

When I was examining the PC board before adding the wire, I noticed that if I followed the circuit trace from the solder pad up and to the left, it ends at an unused plated-through hole between the "C3" and "R47" markings. You can use this hole to mount the wire going to the "Drive" pot instead of just laying the wire on the solder pad and soldering it in place.

Doing this mod certainly makes the effect muce more usable.

While the Rocky Road doesn't sound exactly like my Leslie 205 (I know, a rather unusual Leslie to be using with a guitar), it sounds good and is much more portable, although the $25 that I paid for the Rocky Road is 25 times more than I paid for the Leslie (picked it up for $1 at an estate sale where no one else knew what it was).

Now that I've figured it out, its easy to use - but it took me a while without any manual.

I posted a review below, but have just done the mod and the sound is light years better. In the mean time I'd bought a Boss Chorus (CH5?) which did quite a nice Leslie sound, but this blows it away. The sound is much more liquidy. Without the mod, I would not use the effect with much distortion, but now it sounds awesome not matter what setting I use. The slow setting is magic with really heavy overdrive, but I guess 4 out of 5 players are going for Cold Shot! I use a couple of strats (USA standard & Jap 50's Reissue loaded with Seymour Duncans) into Marshall JCM900, or a Peavey Classic 30 or a Fender Blues Junior. Other pedals are too many to mention - Boss compressors, TS808, flangers, delays, the usual. The effect is certainly not noisy.

Mmmm. I had to take my first Rocky Road back to the store and get a new one because it just stopped working after a week or two. Just by stepping on them, you know they can't take too much abuse. then again, you could buy 5 of these for the price of a Hughes & Kettner.

Overall, I had given up on the pedal without the mod, but its been re-inserted in prime place in my pedal board - and it will stay there! The sound is really beautiful.

OBF Very intermittant operation.

Not very reliable Bought new off Ebay factory sealed with factory
defects. Product is not service friendly due to plastic control
knobs being super glued onto the plastic control shafts that break when you pry them off. Bad solder connection found in multiple locations and the cause of intermittant operations turned out to be one pin on an 8 pin IC was not placed through the whole but bent out on the top of the PCB. Bad not good!!!!
Obviously...no quailty control or functionality testing exists at Danelectro.

Can't find an email address anywhere on their web site to
let them know what kind of trash they MFG

Not worth $2 in parts.

It's not hard to get a good sound out of this pedal. The controls are simple- 2 buttons, 2 knobs and 1 toggle switch. But (as others have said) it gives you an unwanted volume boost when on.

If you plan on leaving it in your signal chain, do the gain modification at http://home.comcast.net/~adamsjohn/rocky_road.htm. It's not hard, and you can reverse it later. All you need are basic soldering skills.

So, I'll give it a 4 for Ease of Use. It would've been a 9, but I'm subtracting 5 points for needing the mod.

I'm using it with both a Fender Strat and an Epiphone SG, going into a silverface Fender Pro Reverb. It's not noisy. The effect isn't weak, despite the lack of an intensity control (you can only control the speed and drive).

I can't say that I've ever owned a real Leslie or Vibratone, but I've heard lots of keyboardists and guitarists use them, often in small clubs where I could get close to the speaker cabinets. So this review is based on my subjective ears and memory... and comparisons with other effects boxes I have.

At fast speeds, The Rocky Road SUGGESTS the sound of a Fender Vibratone cab. It will get you close to a Stevie Ray Vaughn sound. But it doesn't quite nail it. It's sort of a simplified version of the effect- about what you'd expect from a stompbox. It's somewhere between a chorus, a vibrato, and a phaser. It swirls and throbs like the real thing, but doesn't sound as juicy or dimensional.

I like the ramp up/down button. It aproximates the effect of a rotor accelerating & decelerating. But seems a little too gradual to me (even when the toggle switch is set on "fast").

At slow speeds, the RR sounds like a chorus pedal... a good chorus pedal, but not a rotating speaker. This is understandable, because a slow leslie sound is nearly impossible to duplicate. If a Univibe can't do it, I'm not surprised when a cheap little Dano pedal can't.

Now here's the weird part - the drive knob. Why? What possesed the designers at Danelectro to include this? Sure, real rotary speaker cabinets can be overdriven for that cool Spenser Davis "Gimme Some Lovin" sound. But why try to duplicate that in such a small pedal (especially when there are so many overdrives already available)? If you turn the drive up, you get a weak distortion. But even when it's all the way down, your volume is boosted. The mod mentioned above can fix this. But I think it's just poor design on Dano's part.

I've used other Dano mini pedals at gigs without backups. The Tuna Melt tremolo was a staple of my sound for years (until I got my vintage Fender amp). I've never had any problems. They're plastic, but they're pretty durable.

N/A

All in all, it's a decent effect. I used to have a DOD Vibro-Thang, but I sold it because it made a loud thump every time I hit the switch. This pedal has a totally different personality. The DOD was warm and dark (think "No Quarter" by Led Zep). The Rocky Road is brighter and less adjustable.

I tried the RR side-by-side with my Peavey Dual-Clock Chorus (cool pedal, see my review). The Peavey can do a passable faux-leslie sound, so I wanted to compare them. I was surpised to find that the Dano sounded very similar to my favorite setting on the Peavey. Go figure... I also compared it to the "Rotary" effect on my Digitech RP-100. No contest. The Rocky Road sounded better (the RP-100 has too much tremolo in the effect and not enough vibrato). I wish I still had my Rocktron Vertigo Vibe to compare it to.

I like having 2 speeds in one little pedal. Plus the Dano takes up a lot less floor space.

If it were lost or stolen, I might look for another one. But then again, I have too many effects as it is... Maybe I'd save my money until I could afford an H&K Rotosphere.

Same as any effects unit.

Danelectro aren't the best for sound, but in some cases they are O.K.
For the to much distortion and gain, you can alter (make less or improve the quality) of the distortion, by opening the box, and adding a soldering a capacitor between two points. Well, you can find out how to do it by searching the internet for Keyboard Tech tips. Ofcourse this will void the warranty and to do it if you don't know how, have an Electronics person do it for you.

As good as any.

A pain in the Royal, you know what!

Good for Keyboards!

I just got this little "Leslie" impersonator...because I play keyboards, but can't afford the best, nor can I lift the authentic! Basically, after reading the many other opinions shared here, (including the re occuring ones about having to fix the gain problem)...I thought I should write in. Perhaps for guitar, this gain boost thing is a problem, however I feel that for keyboards, it actually makes my sound a little better. I primarily use a couple of year old typical Yamaha keyboard. This Rocy Road unit gives the organ sound a really wonderful "growl" on both fast or slow modes. It is a definate plus to my overall sound, and to the band. It is very easy and intuitive to use.

I play a Yamaha keyboard using a Hamond B3 sort of patch, thru a Peavey Keyboard amp. It sounds real dirty and bluesy, and just perfect for my jazz group. In fact, I actually like the "gain" problem that everyone complains about. I think it's great for keyboard, because it acts kind of like a bright/booster...so my organ doesn't get lost in the band, even at low volumes. I can imagine for recording this might suck. But for live, you don't notice the "white noise", and it's a definate plus.

seems fine. I just got it (it's new), too soon to tell. casing seems sturdy though.

I would say the only draw back is the stomp buttons are so little, that even with socks on (that's how I play keyboards) you can't really use it as a foot pedal...but like the leslie switch on actual Hammond B3's, I just set this unit on top of my keyboard, and press the buttons manually when I want to switch from slow to fast. For this I am going to rate it a 9, not a 10. But for the money, it's definately worth it. If it broke or dissapeared, I would definately get another one. By the way, I also got a "tremelo thingy" by dod, which kind of sucks (at least for organ). Once again, I am not using mine for guitar, but I thought keyboard players might want this info.

This is a pretty straight forward pedal which is why it didn't come with a manual. I wish there had been an explanation of what to expect from the ramp switch, but this is my own lack of knowledge I guess...

I mainly wanted to simulate the Leslie sound found on Stevie Ray Vaughan's version of "Cold Shot" and Double Troubles' "Tightrope" for the least amount of money possible. It wasn't until I saw and heard the guitarist from the group "The Nighthawks", Pete Kanaras, use it at a show not to long ago that I realized that the "Rock Road" would do the trick. He was using it and got a really great swirling speaker effect out of it, or atleast what my ear perceived as a swirling effect. Well, I thought maybe he had something else working for him behind the scenes so I probably wouldn't get the same quality of toe out of my rig. My rig is a SRV Strat ( all stock ), Fender Pro Tube Twin, TS-808 Tube Screamer and wah. On initial use, I was VERY impressed. It nailed the tone on "Cold Shot" and "TightRope" and many other Stevie Ray songs. When I kick in the Tube screamer and set the pickup select switch with a mix of the bridge and middle, I get a very FAT, harmonic lead tone out of it. Frightening close to the Stevie Tone. I have not found that I need to perform the mod as mentioned in earlier posts to rid the unit of any harshness. For ME, the effect as is, gets ME the tone that I want to hear, but this is with my rig and my own personal taste.

This is the Achilles heal of this unit for me. When I got the unit and put it in-line I wouldn't turn on. I found that I may have a bad solder on the battery connector somewhere. I took battery out of the unit with it still connected to the battery connector and the unit turned on when I hit the On/Off switch. Gingerly putting the battery back in the unit seemed to have fixed it, for the moment. I may need to resolder the lead.

For a pedal this inexpensive, I'd rather not deal with the headache one usually encounters with tech support.

I play Blues/Rock: Stevie Ray Vaughan, Alan Haynes, Jim Suhler, ZZ Top... I find that this pedal was a great deal more than what I expected. It delivers a very nice underlying effect for rhythm and lead for this genre. The swirling effect is just right for my ear and wallet. Like I said, it nailed "Cold Shot" and "Tightrope", according to my ear. I have not really compared this to other products simply because I didn't want to spend more and since it helps me get the tone I like there is no need. I really haven't gotten past the neat factor in recreating the tone of these artists' recordings to concentrate on creating any of my own music, but the day will come and I will certainly have the tone to inspire me.

Very easy to use.

The unity gain modification is ABSOLUTELY MANDATORY. At the lowest drive setting the pedal overdrives a tube amp horribly. See the link I added below.
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I think the leslie effect it produces is quite good, especially when ramping up or down. Very convincing considering that it's a mono effect. Surely we all realize that NOTHING can take the place of the real thing, but at the price this little guy is hard to beat. It has some white noise when running in-line, but none to speak of when running it through the effects loop.

Time will tell. I had to make a screw to replace the very poor plastic back cover screw. It was bad from the factory.

No idea.

I like this little thing but it distorts the amp in a very nasty way if you don't perform the unity gain modification on John Adam's web page

"http://home.comcast.net/~adamsjohn/rocky_road.htm".

Thanks John!

I like the pedal and intend to use it in place of my digital chorus. I highly recommend it for people like me that need chorus or the leslie effect five or six times per gig, but the gain mod HAS to be done (trust me).

Hey, Mr. Danelectro! Why aren't you fixing this at the factory? Huh?

Very simple to use, speed and drive knobs, ramp time switch, and bypass /fast/slow footswitches.

I think they were being very liberal with the use of term spinning speaker simulator here. With the footswitch in the fast mode it does a barely passable Leslie impersonation, but the slow mode barely has any depth. It just sounds like a chorus pedal, and a noisy mediocre one at that. The slow mode is also too metallic sounding. My small Stone set to a slow speed sounds far more Leslie-like than this. The slow mode needs much more depth. The volume reduction mod is a must-do as has been pointed out. It took about 10 minutes incouding disassemblreassembly.

I would trust a Dano mini pedal only about as far as I could throw it. They have a one year warranty, but it wouldn't be worth the postage or time and effort to send it in for repair. If you like them buy a few of them.

For $20 brand new from Musicians Friend it's an ok pedal to have around. It does slightly resemble a Leslie sound. I use it with my Vox Continental organ as well as guitars and it's a usable sound but isn't going to fool anyone. That's ok, take it for what it is and you might be happy with it. I only wish they could've added another LED to the speed footswitch becasue sometimes I'm not sure If I've hit the switch enough to engage it.