Danelectro DJ-20 Rocky Road Spinning Speaker

Pretty easy to use. I figured it out in a couple of minutes without a manual (I got it on E-bay). Not rocket science.

When I first pluged it in, I thought: Geez, what utter crap. It was very "gainy" and bright.

I immediately whipped it out (my soldering iron, that is) and jumpered out the offending resistor (see below for details). One comment: It's REALLY hard to solder surface mount resistors especially when you have 47 year old eyes. As much as I hated doing it, I just let a big ole glob do my bidding.

Before I made the fix, I'd give it a 5, afterwards, a 6.5. It's no univibe or microvibe. It does sound kinda sorta like a leslie. Sorta.

Don't bother with the OD though. Bites.

I would use it as a backup for my univibe clone, I don't trust it enough to use it as my primary.

N/A. Not observed.

It's not bad, just not a univibe. but for those who can't afford to buy a real leslie or even a high end pedal, this is the one for you ( after you make the mod).

this is where the category should get a 1 or even a 0 because of the need for the MOD..... other than that the ramp switch is cool and although i think the pedal should have a depth instead of overdrive it is still very easy to use...but if you are smart enough to do it the Modification is well worth it..(if there is any distortion left on this pedal you did not do the mod correctly..it is that simple)

great sound especially for the price or you can buy a rotosphere for 300 bucks my buddy has a ross chorus pedal that is equally awesome.. but try finding a vintage ross chorus for under 50 bucks its not gonna happen.. try the pedal out then imagine that same sound free of distortion if you like that then do the mod if not buy a rotosphere

no problems yet even aftr the Mod except it wont work with my ac adapter.. maybe i need a different one but nothing a 9V wont cure

never dealt

been playing 6 years blues mostly and listening to any great music... can tell a crap pedal when i hear it and before the mod it is crap but after the mod it is well worth its money... give this pedal a chance then enjoy that Couldnt stand the weather tones) my setup is a MXR dynacomp - 535Q WahWah- to (2) ts-9s(not modded YET) to a boss OD-1 (if satch uses one it is good enough for me) - boss dd-5 delay-- old crybaby pedal(for post distortion wah tones) to a DJ-20(rotating speaker) to peavey classic 50 With 410's...

As for ease of use these Dano pedals are pretty straight forward... i mean come on you have to knobs... it's not like some of those pedals out there where you have to have a degree in electrical engineering to get a cool sound. Granted it would have been nice if it would have come with a manual because you have to play around for a little bit to figure out exactly what the speed switch controls... in the beginning i wasn't sure if it had something to do with the speed of the speaker rotation or how fast the ramp ramps up. Obviously it turned out to be the ramp.

Ok here's where it gets funny. Yes, I'm going to repeat what damn near everyone else has said... without the mod, this pedal's sound quality is crap... it has this like ratty nasty over drive when you kick it in that sounds like someone took a knife to your speakers... i mean you absolutely could not play this thing live unless you wanted to punish the audience. Now, here's the reconciliation... THE MOD!! It totally changes this pedal. I mean TOTALLY. For the record, the mod is very easy to do if you just use sodder. Rather than sodder a wire accross the resister just dump a big glob over top of it. It works trust me. The mod takes this pedal from a piece of crap to a very VERY cheap and GOOD leslie simulation. Couple this with a Dano Cool Cat Chorus and you have one AWESOME sound. To be honest i would have given the sound quality a ten with the mod but the fact that I can't just buy it sounding good knocks it down a few points

hmm... well the first one I bought (unmodified) literally died for no reason in two days. I went to turn it on and nothing happened... so I took it back to the store and they gave me a new one. Since then I've had no problems so I figure I just must have got a lemon... it happens. As for reliability... i mean come on this is a rotary pedal... not a big distortion pedal. I can't see myself jumping on it with every ounce of weight I have coming down on it. i mean if you jump on it with enough force to crack it that's what's gonna happen. Commen sence. Granted it's not the fortress that a boss is but I don't see myself driving over it with a dumptruck any time soon.

Never dealt with them

Over all after I performed the mod I am VERY happy with this pedal. I play rock/blues and it will give you a very suitable SRV vibratone/leslie sound. If it was stolen I would find the SOB that took it and beat him savagely... and if the punk ruined the pedal than yes I would buy another one. Like I said couple this with a cool cat chorus (no i'm not a dano spokesperson) and you'll get a very cool sound... pet hates... wish those buttons were just a tad bit bigger

I am a rock keyboardist, and would like to be able to control the rotary simulation in the usual manner; with a toggle (or "half-moon") switch by my left hand, and a pushbutton for my foot. I prefer the foot pushbutton to be normally-slow, momentary-fast. I don't see any easy way to modify this unit to support such a setup, and I have to fumble too much to find and press the speed pushbutton on the unit.
There was no manual with the unit (but I bought it used).
I had to perform the gain modification to make it at all usable with my line-level instruments, and it still really has more gain than I'd like.
The ramp-up and ramp-down rates are too slow even in the "fast" setting, and there is no way to adjust them to be faster. As it is, the "fast" ramp rate is comparable to the lower rotor ramp rate of a standard Leslie 122 (ie, slow).

I played my Hammond M-3 and CV through the Rocky Road and compared it to my Korg G4 and Motion Sound Pro3-T Leslie simulators (I don't own a Leslie). The simulation is of a single "rotor", affecting all frequencies the same. The unit does create somewhat of a spinning sensation, apparently with delay and amplitude modulation, but doesn't really sound like even a single-rotor rotary speaker, and it would have to be a whole lot better sounding before one could even begin to entertain subtleties like mic placement with such a simulation. As I mentioned above, the speed ramp rates are both too slow to effectively simulate a Leslie horn; perhaps they were going for a single-rotor "guitar" Leslie like the Model 16 or 18, but it should even be faster to cover that range. There is only one (monaural) output. There seems to be a light amount of "cabinet simulation" equalization, but it is much more subtle than that of the G4, and doesn't sound like a "gold standard" Leslie 122 or 147. The overdrive is truly unusable, being a fuzzy hard-clipping distortion rather than the desired soft tube overdrive effect; it's so bad, you can't even use it for Uriah Heep or Emerson/Nice distorted sounds, let alone Steppenwolf or Deep Purple kinds of sounds. It's like the old "Boss Tone" clipper, not even as warm as a FuzzFace. And the fuzz doesn't come on subtly; it just starts clicking and spitting as the input level is increased.

The construction seems to be on the flimsy side; it uses very tiny potentiometers with the knobs "spiked" into holes in the pots, and the footswitch buttons have to be pressed too hard to actuate. I wouldn't trust it as my sole Leslie effect (which is a very important part of the Hammond sound), even if it sounded good enough. It's small, cheap and light enough that I may keep it in my gig bag as a (very inferior) backup to my other Leslie simulators, though.

I play mostly classic rock on Hammond and piano. Although the Rocky Road might work as an occasional "Leslie" effect for a guitarist, I wouldn't use it as my principal Leslie effect for Hammond sounds. I've been playing since the sixties, and own several Hammonds, a Clavinet, and several synths and samplers. I usually play through my two Mackie SRM-450 powered speakers, which I like very much. I frequently play a friend's B3 through a Leslie 122, so I know what "the beast" should sound like. Even though this is about as inexpensive a "rotary simulator" as you can buy, it just doesn't do it; save your money and get a Tube Rotosphere, Voce Spin / Spin II, used Korg G4 or Dynacord CLS-222, Motion Sound gear or a real Leslie (the best choice if you have the room).
The one encouraging thing about this unit is that it seems to use DSP to do its stuff; this makes me hope that someone, perhaps even Danelectro, can someday release a Leslie sim in this price range that gets usably close to THE Leslie sound.
Unfortunately, this isn't it.

This pedal is the opitome of TRASH. It's buttons are way to close to each other, and the knobs are not very effective

This doesn't even sound like a gutted leslie with a blown speaker. Even with the mod, the gain is too strong. I get a better leslie effect from my $15 casio keyboard. OVERALL IT SOUNDS LIKE !@#$%

JUNK...CHEAP JUNK. DON'T BUY ANY MINI PEDAL FROM DANELECTRO. CHEAPLY MADE, POOR QUALITY PARTS USED. SUBSTANDARD.

N/A

WARNING: This pedal is the worst product Danelectro has ever come out with. I am so dissatisfied with the pedal- it's sound, design, etc. This is the biggest pile of junk I've blown fifty bucks on. I kick myself for buying this P.O.S.

Pedal gets a 5. This is a micro pedal, with two switches. I have had this pedal for almost a year, and hate the fact the the two buttons are way too close to each other.

Based on sound quality:: DO NOT BUY THIS PEDAL. This is my setup:fender strat=>cool cat chorus=>ibanez metal screamer=>ibanez ts9 tube screamer (orginal)=>fender twin.

This pedal is so loud it is horrible!!! Dale leaves notes below to fix this. Also, the gain is so high on the pedal, that it puts a distrotion sound through my clean channel. Horrible, horrible, horrible.

The leslie spin sound is good. That is the only reason I haven't tossed this thing up on Ebay yet, until today!!

Almost a year, never failed. I wish it would die.

n/a

Double thumbs down. Don't waste your money. I purchased a Rocktron Vertigo Pedal today. See my review. For anybody who has had to deal with the pedal this Rocktron Pedal is the answer to every comment about the rockey road.

I only tried this pedal in a shop for about 10 minutes out of curiosity to see how much like a leslie it sounded and guess what...
it doesn't sound anything like a leslie - more like a weak chorus.

Even with the depth maxed the effect is quite subtle and certainly less leslie-like than I can get with my old Ross chorus pedal.
However, if you're not looking for an accurate leslie soundalike, or don't already have a chorus, then you may like it - the slow down/speed up thing is quite cool.
There is a noticeable volume boost when engaged though.

You definitely need to try before you buy with this one!!!

This thing does a great job of impersonating a Leslie type rotating speaker! There would room for a small manual or some kind of instructions in that tiny box if you please Dan-O. Ever flipped a switch and blown something up? Forget about the gain knob, turn it down and remove it, and "Do the R44 Mod!"

I play either a Fender SRV Strat, 72 Tele Deluxe, Ibanez Ghostrider or a 59DC Danelectro, through a early Crybaby into a Fender Deluxe or Supro Super w/a Dan-O Daddy-O (distortion) looped through the clean channel. Sounds like the big sound what ive been looking for in a small package. The pedal has very little noise. I've been working on my own sound...so I try not emulate others. I would guess Storyville's David Grissom might be close. I dig chunky mids.and rhythms.

Dunno! Haven't had it long enough to tell yet. No backup yet.
If it fails I probably would pull out my Nobels Tremelo & DanEcho till I got another & made the mod.

Late return emails from Danelectro on other items. No replacement or upgrade parts. Lots of new items with little info. Support has been close to nil. It's like they are making disposable instruments! We want upgrades! (upgrade tuners, compensated bridge etc. Nothing has needed repair yet, I treat this stuff like it was glass.

I play mostly Blues & Classic Rock. I've been playin for over 35 yrs.
If lost I would get another. I like the small footprint, sits right on the amp. I compared it to Ibanez Rotary Chorus (needs ramping at 3x the price) and others. Wish this thing had a control for amount of effect instead of the gain knob, and a metal case. Put it in one of the bigger effect boxes! Purrrrrrrfect! Hmmm I may do that myself!
It's a big Plus to the sound i've been shaping.

NB: SEE THE WARNING BELOW, IN "OVERALL RATING" BEFORE ATTEMPTING THE GAIN MOD...

This pedal is dead easy to use - two knobs, two footswitches, one miniswitch. That's it really! Just as well, as there were no instructions with it at all and it would have been good to have something to explain exactly what the "speed" miniswitch does - it takes a bit of working out, as the difference between the two settings is a bit subtle.

I play on the UK and European blues circuit with a 6-piece Texas-style blues band called The Rockin' Armadillos (mostly vocals and harp, though I'm a bit of a guitar nut and enjoy playing guitar at jam sessions and one-off "scratch -band" gigs whenever I can). Both me and Owen, the Armadillos' guitarist, have been "Leslie nuts" for a several years - partly an SRV thang and partly the influence of people like Jesse Davey of The Hoax and David Grissom (Storyville, Joe Ely etc). Finding a useable, practical, portable and affordable Leslie sound for guitar has been something of a "Holy Grail" for us for some time!
I made a couple of attempts to build Owen a portable Leslie cab suitable for gigs. The first was not very successful (using a plastic bucket for a baffle and an electric fan motor to drive it! ) mainly as it suffered from mechanical noise and the speeds were never quite right. It was also a bit unreliable, but still managed to find its way onto our first CD, "Texas Cockroach".
The second version used a 10" speaker Leslie unit that I found in an old organ and sounds great - although again, it is a bit prone to mechanical noise - and splitting the signal between the "normal" guitar amp and the amp driving the Leslie does kick up a bit of mains hum (eventually overcome using a Roger Mayer X-Roads as a splitter/isolation box). This one can be heard on our second CD, "Armadillo in the Road"

Still, it meant carting around an extra amp and cab which produces space issues (both in the car and on smaller stages!) so a convincing Leslie pedal was definitely the way to go... We've tried a few - Korg (can't remember the model - OK, but not all that convicing) Multivox MX10 (hard to find - sounded great, but too noisy ) Univibe (unconvicing) Hughes and Kettner Tube Rotosphere (expensive, but sounds great, if rather noisy). Owen is currently using a borrowed Rotosphere, but was keen to try the Rocky Road, as it was cheap, compact and runs on 9v supply like his other pedals - unlike the Rotosphere.

We both play Strats through a variety of Fender amps (silverface Bandmaster, Blues de Luxe, De Ville etc ) and Owen' also has a totally fabulous Matchless Chieftain (lucky sod!). Live, Owen uses a range effects with the Armadillos, notably a Boss compressor, a Vox wah and an original '80s TS9 Tubescreamer.

So, to the Danno... Right - first things first - the gain thing. Yes it's there and yes it could be a problem if you let it. Mind you, with the gain turned right down, it's probably just about workable - you might need to back off the volume on the guitar a bit when the pedal's kicked in, which would be a pain, but the pedal sounds so damned good otherwise, that it'd probably be worth putting up with, if you couldn't be bothered with the gain mod.
The pedal is remarkably quiet (miles better than the H&K or the Multivox) and the Leslie effect is very useable and quite convincing (as good as anything I've heard), though the time it takes to ramp up between the "slow " and "fast" could do with being shorter. Having the option of a speed control is a nice bonus over the H&K. It does lovely lush choruses and a terrific Fender Vibratone sound - very like SRV's "Cold Shot"/"Couldn't Stand the Weather" tone.
The gain problem aside, this is a truly fantastic-sounding pedal - how do these guys do it at the price?

I've just got this, so have little practical experience of its reliability or otherwise - except, that is, for my comments about what happened when I took it apart to try the gain mod the other reviewers suggested(SEE WARNING BELOW).
Construction-wise it doesn't look any too strong - plastic case, pots/sockets attached to the PCB, funny little footswitches (and this is one pedal I would find myself stomping on a lot ( to go between speed settings).

Having said that, I've gigged a couple of the other pedals in this series for sometime (a delay and a tremelo) without any mishaps, so maybe this concern is misplaced.
I wouldn't bother with a backup because if it packed up, I could manage to finish the gig without it.

No contact, though I hope the guys at Danelectro have read everyone else's comments and taken note - this kind of shoddy behaviour is quite unacceptable from any company! It's not enough to simply make good geat - you've got to take care of your customers, too!!!

Right then, the famous gain mod.

First of all, a big thank-you to the guy who worked out this fix and decided to share it with the world. It works perfectly, transforming a rather flawed but brilliant pedal into a thoroughly useable bit of kit. Thanks, too to the guy who worked out that a judiciously-applied blob of solder on the relevant resistor (they are tiny, aren't they?!!!) would do the trick as well as a wire jumper. It makes the job relatively simple, even for cack-handed idiots like me, armed with two ham-fists and a16-watt soldering iron!
A WORD OF WARNING: When taking the pedal apart, extreme caution is needed when removing the knobs from the two control pots (necessary before the main pcb can be removed). I thought I was being careful - an even, gentle tugging with a suitable pair of pliers - yet I managed to snap the shaft on the "gain" pot. It was lucky it was the "gain" pot (ie the one I'm not likely to want to tweak - it can still be moved with a small screwdriver, like a preset pot) and not the "speed" one! This aside, the mod was relatively easy to do - though I did double-check I had found the right resistor, by bridging it with an opened-out paperclip while running a signal through the guts of the pedal, before committing myself to solder!

If this thing was stolen or lost, I would get another (and hopefully manage to modify it without damaging the pots!) I love the compact size, the fact it runs on a 9v supply, the fact it did not cost a fortune - but above all the sound of this little brown baby. It's as good as anything on the market - better than most.

Pet hates?
The fact you have to wield a soldering-iron over the circuit to get the most from it. (Why on earth did Danelectro feel the need to make it this way - and when are they going to come to their senses and rectify this glaring mistake?)
The fact the two footswitches are so close together - those us with big feet find this hard to deal with! A better option might be the inclusion of a remote footswitch socket for the "ramp" switch, to allow better separation of the switches.
Also, it would have been nice to have a stereo output - though at this price, its an understandable omission and in any case, it's questionable how many guitarists would use this feature.

To anyone weighing up the pros and cons of buying one of these, I'd say: It's cheap enough to take a chance on - and it sounds tremendous. And don't be afraid to attempt the mod it's not that hard to do - just a bit fiddly.

Easy.

The sound quality, as noted below, is good but suffers from a truckload of unwanted gain, which is not good. Do the modification and it's much better

???

???

The mod is a must. I'm no electronics expert and I feared doing it, seeing the warnings below. But a little use of my high school chemistry knowledge suggested vto me that I could jump the r44 capacitor without actually tapping a tiny wire on each side. I just dumped a glob of soldering fluid over the whole thing, and guess what? It worked!