Danelectro DJ-4 Corned Beef Reverb

I picked up this thing for $10 AU on eBay. It only has 2 knobs but it's not easy to dial in a good sound. Mix knob controls wet to dry mix and high cut rolls off the top end sound of the effect the more you move it clockwise. Rolling off too much of the highs weakens the effect but there is a sweet spot around 2 'o'clock where you get a nice balance.

All right. This is not a great sounding reverb on its own. Nor does it sound anything like spring reverb. But it does sound better in an effects loop with the mix knob on max and some high cut engaged. The hi-cut rolls off some of the inherent tinkey electronic sound. It sound like garbage if you run it into your amp's front end. It is technically a reverb pedal; as the echoes do sound dispersed to my ear. And if you turn an additional delay unit on in conjunction with the Corned Beef you'll notice this echo dipersion more. I tried the Dano with a Moen Pretty Dolly Delay set for around 250-300ms of delay with minimal repeats and it really brought this the reverb effect to life. You can also get quite a decent slapback going but you can't control the feedback for one discrete repeat which is what true slapback echo actually is. But I have a Dano Fab Echo for that task anyway. This is not their best pedal; but it may be useful for recording. Like blending it into the effects mix of a song for example. Or, just for a more whacky, unusual guitar tone. It sounds pretty good with another delay unit on top of it just to strengthen the sound of the effect which is rather weak and a bit electronic sounding by itself.

Well...I bought it s/h and one knob had been broken off and reglued on by the original owner. I managed to fix it by fabricating new pot shafts and knobs from plastic tubing and small scale model tank wheels respectively - all held together with gel-type super glue (cyanoacrylate). I think these Dano "food-name" pedals are rather sturdy, although the knobs are susceptable to damage (obviously). Just look after them and you'll be fine.

N/A

I play lots of styles and have always loved the sound of Fender spring reverbs. This pedal is not capable of achieving that type of sound by itself. With another delay engaged it does sound closer to that though. For the price I paid I can't complain about it. But it isn't really a very inspiring piece of equipment and not as good as I have come to expect from Danelectro gear which I usually like a lot. Maybe okay for someone on a very tight budget who wants to add a small amount of wetness to a dry amp sound. Not too bad for slapback effects too.

2 knobs
mix- turning it clockwise will give you sound from reverb to slapecho delay type at max setting
hi-cut- is just a reverse tone control

The verdict!

1. Very limited reverb/delay sound spectrum. Mix below 12 o'clock is un-usable or is very weak. The sweetest spot is at 2 o'clock mix for the reverb and 3 o'clock for the slap echo

2. The hi-cut knob is has a very subtle effect and barely unnoticeable. The sweetest spot i could use is from 7 o'clock(zero) to 9 o'clock.beyond these setting will weaken the reverb effect.

3. Reverb type is vintage so don't expect this one as a big ambient type like church or stadium like.

TO finalize
my amp doesn't have a reverb so I purchased a used one for almost 1/3 of the price

overall its recommendable. IF YOU'RE LOOKING FOR A VINTAGE TYPE REVERB. It does what it's intended to do.

yeah easy enough, but hard to get a good sound out of this thing.

wow everybody. who thought fake reverb can sound so bad? it's just a silly slapback delay, and that's what it's good for. a lo-fi crappysounding slapback. I have my fun with that. putting it in front of an autowah works great for some really funky staccato reggae chops, but that's about the only use i have for this pedal. or for creating total noisechaos.

seems fairly sturdy. though plastic.

for 15 euros it's a fun toy. but it doesn't sound good as a reverb by any stretch of the imagination

Not hard to use, just no amount of fiddling gets a decent reverb sound. Manual? Wouldn't need on with just two buttons.

It doesn't sound terrible, it just doesn't sound like a reverb. Think Mr Spacely's reverb from the Jetson's! No way to adjust the sound for a good reverb. It's a short repeat, electronic sound, not a reverb.

I would not use this thing. Someone could use it for a different sound but it would not be a sound that you would use frequently.
Funny thing, I have five other Dano $15 effectd and they all work fine, some better than others, but all quite usable.

I play several differnt styles and this would work for noone of them. i returned it within 24 hours.

Easy to use, although on initial use the hi-cut confused me - the higher you set it the shorter the reverb gets - its labelled correctly, I'm just used to getting more effect when turning to the right. No manual required.

Initially, I was dissapointed as it seemed to be too close to a slapback delay instead of a flat reverb. I'd characterise its sound as a slapback delay infront of a short reverb. I put it infront of a marshall jcm800 head - and I love it. It reminds me of Beatles abbey road or playing in a large bathroom. A very engaging sound. Does not remind me of a Fender reverb, due to the strength of the delay repeats. I put a long dealy in front of it and the combination is very pleasing - kinda has a ducking effect and smooths the edges off of the dealy. Does not add much noise.

It came with a protective plastic manifold to protect the knobs during shipping. As is doesn't interfere with use, I left it on - with this it looks reasonbly durable.

30 years, a tone-freak-on-a-budget, classic rock, blues rock, schecter CETs, Fender Twin, Marshall JCM800. It adds a unique spring-y ambience to the dry marshall head that will be very usefull. I was worried about the price of $29, but turned out to be very cool.

I had to write this review after reading the review from "myself" who said that this would be a good pedal for a "nashville imitating guitarist in south dakota" As the president of the Nashville Imitating Guitarists of South Dakota, I take offense to that! Actually, I laughed my ass off.
As for the pedal. I never bought one, I've tried one three times at the music store. And I honestly could never tell if it was on or off. I couldnt hear anything.
So the verdict is, NO, it's not even fit for the Nashville Imitating Guitarists of South Dakota, lol.
ps. we're on the internet too!

I play mostly South Dakota Nashville Imitation music. My favorite guitarist is of course Brent Mason, and before that it was Steve Wariner. I also like JT Corenflos and Dan Huff. Ricky Skaggs and Jerry Reed are kicking too.
My favorite singers are Carrie Underwood and Shania Twain.
(Dude I'm hilarious!)
Seriously, don't spend (?)$ for the nothing that this thing does. Thats stupid.

Nothing there to use.

Setup doesnt matter, this thing stiks the high heavens.
Noisy> Always.
The effect is very weak and sounds like crap.
No amp or setup could help this turd box.

Wouldnt give it a chance.

Never delt with them. Made some good pedals in the past that Ive never had a problem with. They might be ok.

Crap Crap Crap Crap Crap... Stay away. Anyone saying they like anything about it is lying. Saving face or somthing.

Easy enough to operate, only two knobs.

My rig:

Ibanez JetKing->MXR Dynacomp->in-line Muff Fuzz->Danelectro FAB overdrive->EH Electric Mistress->Line 6 Echo Park-Fender Princeton 65DSP

Very noisy and fake sounding. Too echoe-y, sounds like a concert hall with delay. Sound also degrades with the reverb/echo output.

Bottom of the line cheap plastic Dano pedal. I would be very careful. Though I've never had a problem with any.

Never dealt with them.

I play classic rock, psychedelic music. Playing for eight years. I bought this when all the little Dano pedals came out. Some were good (phaser, tremelo) some sucked (reverb *this one*, flanger), etc. Anyway I took it back ASAP.

If I were given another as a present and it were being stolen I would not chase the thief.

Well, two knobs and one button, set it and forget it, doesn't get much simpler! the manual was a folded piece of paper with a couple of simple diagrams "sounds best like this" was about the extent of the instructions, I rather like that!

I have a few different compinations I use the pedal with, the bottom line to the whole thing is, I keep wanting to not like this pedal, but then every time I use it, the little punk sounds bloody great; I mean it's got this silly little 40's retro styled case and is named after a piece of meat!!! However, I won't try to say that it gives the tonal equivalent of a vintage Fender Dual Reverb, but hooked to a little Mesa Subway and a decent strat, it does have a very pleasing vintage garage kinda sound!! This little pedal seems to be way better than the pittance Ipaid for it, and that's a godd thing, which adds considerability to the like-ability factor.

Well I've had it for only a few months and I tend to take very good care of my equipment, so to date no issues about reliability. Like all pedals however it does eat the batteries, if I was going to really start using it much I'd buy one of the power supplies for it.

No idea, never tried to contact them!!!

I paly a crazy mix of celtic/punk/metal/garage/industrial/retro. I've been playing, well longer than most of you folks have been alive!! If it was stolen, I'd hunt the bastard down and flog him/her (as the case might be, hopefully her for the flogging!!!!) and tell them to buy their own, I mean they don't cost that much. I would probably go out and buy the pedal again, unless I felt rather flush with cash and wanted to go top end. I bought it on line because a friend had loaned me the Mesa Subway amp which didin't have reverb. The pedal was cheap and so am I so it seemed a good fit. The end result was a very plesant suprise, the thing pretty much worked as advertised. I didn't really compare it to anything else, just bought it because it was cheap. It's easy to use, cresates a remarkably decent spring reverb sound (close anyway), doens't create any extra major hissing or other distracting sounds that would make it a nusiance and seems to be fairly well put together. So in closing, You could easily spend 2 or 3 times as much and not get any better!!!

Very easy to use. 2 knobs and a button.

When I'm taking about sound quality I want to make it clear I'm talking about reverb quality for surf. The reverb sounds very artificial. If you want to play quality surf music, I'd recommend poning up a little more money for a quality reverb pedal like a Digitech Digiverb.

This may be just me, so read the other reviews as well, but my corned beef reverb pedal had a lot of problems. Whenever I played any notes low on the neck, the pedal would make the amp create this hideous high pitched shriek, and I'd have to turn off the amp. I was paranoid everytime I did a slide of any kind. Months later the thing stopped working completely.

I didn't bother to call anyone, since it was so cheap. I could probably have just bought a new one...but I didn't. I upgraded from the corned beef pedal to a Digitech Digiverb pedal and i am very satisfied with the upgrade.

I play surf music and you can't play surf music without lots of reverb. The Dano corned beef pedal was the first reverb pedal I ever owned. It was fine for awhile, since I was only a novice guitar player and didn't ever plan to play infront of anyone. If you are a surf guitarist I would strongly recommend you do not buy this! Buy a real reverb unit, a Digitech Diverb or a Holy Grail (they are good from what I hear) instead. This dano pedal may be cheap, but if you are willing to put up $50-$60 more, I recommend getting a Digitech Digiverb or a Holy Grail. If you aren't a surf guitarist, you may like this pedal so don't judge it based on this one review.