Danelectro DJ-5 Tunamelt Tremolo

2 knobs, speed & level

a switch for hard or soft trem. it doesnt get any easier than that without having some ho's kick your fx on & off for you :)

a very good, very useable sound. whether you need the soft setting for traditional/classic trem, or the hard setting for stutters, this pedal delivers. i have not noticed any extra noise when using or bypassing this pedal.

im running a strat into a wah, trem, then marshall and with the gain about midway for a nice little crunch this thing sounds so sweet.

i do know that if not abused these pedals WILL last, but it is plastic, so i cant rate it as durable as a metal box

however with care it should last a long time

i have dealt with dano (eets corp.) before and they were extremely helpful and prompt with return

great deal on a great trem. it sounds better than alot of trems out there, but its not in a metal box with a boss nametag so it gets overlooked.

just try one and see for yourself. if you have a need for trem, this will work. if you dont really need a trem, i guess they all would be useless.

Es muy sencillo de utilizar. No hace falta ser Einstein!
Quiza el unico defecto que le veo es que el mando de "Speed" es un tanto logaritmmico, es decir, a partir de la mitad de recorrido se disparan las repeticiones con tan solo mover el mando unas micras!

La calidad de sonido es aceptable (sobre todo por su precio) aunque lo cierto es que hace un ruidillo de fondo q en estudio puede ser inaceptable, aunque para casa o concierto sobra calidad

Es altamente recomendado en cualquier estilo, digo yo

El tremolo es un efecto esencial en casi todos los estilos (al menos esa es mi opinion!)
Ya que no deberia faltar en tu pedalera uno, pienso q es buena idea tener uno tan bonito y tan barato como el Dano Tunamelt y ahorrate el dinero para pedales en los que la calidad sea definitiva (distorsiones, delays, etc)

Two knobs. Waveform (?) switch. and an on/off button

I like effects. And I like melody and I like noise. One this is an effect. Two this is melodic, three it can be all cooly cool for werid noisy stuff. I liked my friend's delay alot until I bought this pedal. Now I'm a trem fan (Note: I've always loved modulation, so Well yeah.) I also thinks this beats the pants off of the Boss TR-2 which my friend who works at Guitar Center was telling me to buy. It has character. And does what it says it does. Well if it could talk.

As long as I don't go nuts on it. I see this lasting. Plastic and all. I ausually take good cre of my equipment

Um. At the moment Danelectro seem to be inbetween hands, so I don't know how the customer service would be, but I really wouldn't bother. I also don't forsee any problems, and if there were I would just save up for a new one.

MY friend and I stand by Dano products. We have never tried anything by them we didn't like. Say nay to naysayers. These pedals fight Fascism

If you can't figure this one out, you should probably take up basket-weaving and forget music.

I have mine run in the FX loop of an all tube 50 watt amp. Rarely use the 'hard' setting....mostly use moderate ( 11- 3 O'clock ) Settings on the speed and depth controls, varying them to suit the song. Recently, Myself and three other proffesional guitarists were playing back to back sets at an outdoor festival and since we all use tremelo, we set up all of our trem pedals in line and all played through the whole line of fx. Between Boss, EH, Dunlop and Dano, at the end of the the night, we all had to agree that the Dano was, by far, the best, most musical and unobtrusive of the lot.

I now own three and have yet to have a problem

great little device whether used all the time or occasionally.Would not gig without one. Been playing proffesionally for 15 years, I'm not a FX nut, but this thing is great!!!

This thing is real easy. Two controls, depth of tremolo and speed. There's an extra switch which turns the depth knob all the way up, so you could conceivably get two settings out of it, but why bother.

I don't like this pedal on its own. But in tandem with my analog delay, it gets the job done. It's a harsh, square wave style tremolo, if it's harsh enough that you can hear its effect on your tone then you have the effect of somebody plugging and unpluggin your guitar really fast. No smooth, Pink Floyd "Money" tremolo here. If I set up a distortion unit before it, and after it, and use my analog delay to fade it out a bit, I can get the sound of REM's "Monster" Album pretty well, but there's not too much variety. It has two usuable sounds out of it:

1. "bubbly" fast and soft tremolo, which makes you sound like your guitar is scared of the dark.
2. Helicopoter takeoff noises.

Not really worth the money, I should have gotten a used Boss one off of Ebay where I could choose a smoother waveform. But it gets the job done.

It's plastic. But strong plastic. The optional footguard is a gem.

I got one by mail order, and it didn't have the optional foot guard. So I sent it back, and they gave me a new one. I think I had to pay for shipping. Funny, the corporate headquarters is in my town, and I couldn't just walk in to replace it. Oh well.

Not smooth enough, not very versatile at all, but I like the fact that a stomp on it can bring up helicopter effects. The extra "hard/soft" switch is superfluous, but it's not a bad effort for the price. Although, I have to say, I had twice as much fun with the Dano Pastrami Overdrive, and it was half the price.

The "hardest" part of figuring out this pedal is deciding where to put it in your signal chain. I settled on my effects loop so I could use the trem on both clean and distorted sounds on my Yamaha DG60-112. It's ridiculous easy to get a good sound out of it. The only way I could see anyoneh aving a difficult time with this is if someone had the trem depth set too low for the pulse to be audible.

After two years of use and abuse this pedal has provided some of the best musical moments I've ever had. I love finding new ways to use it: whether by itself with another instrument (bass, trumpet, lap steel), with other effects (varying the order of your signal chain is always fun for a bit), or playing what might seem like a mundane picking passage in time with the trem.

I prefer the HARD setting for my sonic explorations. Teamed up with generous amounts of delay just about any reasonable speed setting (for me, noon to about 2:30) on the Tuna Melt and you've got a surreal effect, especially if you can sync up your delay via tap tempo to match the speed of the trem. I don't find myself using the SOFT setting for much other than strummed, quieter chords. That setting adds a nice depth to chords, but I really, really bought this pedal for the helicopter-like staccato chop.

The only negative comments I can make about this pedal are, and maybe this is just in my setup, but when I click mine on the overall volume of my playing is boosted a bit. A level control would be nice to help tame slight increase in volume I can hear. Also, when it's on and you're not playing it's very, very loud and hissy, even on clean amp settings. Distortion is obviously another story. I think a level knob could help this tremendously by reducing the idle gain level to the rest of the signal chain. My setup is usually pretty quiet for the most part.

Other than that, this is one of the best <$50 purchases for music I've ever made. It's dead quiet when not on, and when it's on you know it, which is a good thing.

I have had it for over two years, Velcroed down into my pedalboard, and running off the PedalPad's power supply. It has never once failed, surged, or otherwise crapped out.

I've never had to deal with Dano myself, but any company that makes wah pedals that look like Cadillacs can't be all that bad.

As I said above, it's easily one of the best <$50 musical purchases I've ever made. For guitar, bass, or anything. I've always been tempted to get a Boss or similar equivalent (yes, I do have Gear Acquisition Syndrome like all of us), but I always ask myself "Why the heck would I want to do that? This pedal is awesome!" Plus, it's bright yellow, which is a bonus. It helps to pick up chicks.

Knobs and micro-switch can be a tad fiddly if you need to change something on the fly. Battery changes aren't super-easy but I've seen far worse. Actually operating the thing is damn simple. If you don't understand this then for your own safety you should probably only play electric guitar under careful supervision.

No noticeable noise problems - I haven't noticed any extraneous ticking, humming or pops when the switch is pressed. I can't hear any notable loss in volume/treble etc when using this unit.

If you're comparing this effect on a true scale, with the finest vintage amp trem at the high end, then by rights you'd expect to find this right down at the other end. you'd be wrong. This unit produces a highly pleasing throb which sounds surprisingly analog. I wouldn't say it's as fat and buttery as a boutique pedal such as colorsound or electroharmonix or a classic amp trem, but it's appreciably close. And I'm not factoring in the price right now, just comparing the sounds up against each other on a level playing field. If the vox/fender trems are a 10, this one is an easy 6.5/7.0

Now factor in the price...

Other guitarists, and normal people, seem to like the sound of this when I play. So do I. I use the 'soft' setting the most - the 'hard' one can be a little dramatic, but certainly makes the point if you use it judiciously.

I haven't experienced any problems.

Battery life seems pretty generous even with the crappy own-brand 9v they throw in. I've replaced it once in several dozen hours' worth of playing.

Actually, when the battery's into its last 2 hours or so of life, the pedal starts going completely wierd, speeding up and slowing down of its own accord and -freakiest of all- doing some strange compound rhythm like <dut-dut-dut... dut-dut-dut...> - frikkin' morse code?!?

I imagine one very heavy stomp would mean game over, however I don't tend to leap up and down on my *own* equipment ;p , neither do I wear diving boots very often while playing so I think I should be OK.

Never dealt with them.
If this unit breaks I will simply give it to my missus to make some kind of trendy kitsch decorative home feature with.
And I shall laugh in a carefree manner while buying another one.

It must be said however, the styling does kind of make you expect tic-tacs to drop out of the jack socket every time you press the footswitch. But bravo for making it look interesting and different. The design is unashamedly tacky and lightweight, however the circuit itself would not sound out of place in a cast-iron, over-engineered unit at a considerably higher price. (How about a heavy-duty deluxe version with a half-speed switch and a rotary soft-hard knob, Danelectro?)

My overall rating isn't 'for the price', it's a rating up against EVERY trem unit I've tried on a completely level playing field. If we do factor in the price I'd say if you want any better than this then you need to get either a #200 boutique hand-made pedal or a fender/vox amp with trem. So my advice is to buy this pedal REGARDLESS while you save up for one of the big guns. You may even, like myself, decide that this is the trem for you, full stop.

So simple even a drummer could use it:)

I use a decent LP copy and go through my chain to a DI and mixing board (No amp). I tested this with a boss distortion pedal before the tremelo.
Interesting sound, but not exactly what I was looking for. The speel range is from fast to really fast. The "hard setting is kind of interesting--by setting it both speed and depth to max you can get an almost tone-wheel effect.

Seems solid enough for a plastic box.

I play mostly metal (gothic/death). I think it has possiblities for textural playing.
I am definately going to get another trem though--one that has a wider speed range. (I'm thinking of using a analog lfo/vca combo it the studio. If I lost this I would probably pick another IF I could get it at a similar price.

This is easy, no need for a manual, sounds a LOT better then the overpriced Boss tremolo, more high cuts,more vintage sound.

I use a CIJ Jazzmaster with SD Antiquity pick ups, a Vintage 60'ties Farfisa F/AR solid state reverb unit and a Dinasour Digital delay on a Sovtek Mig 100 and also on a 72 Silverface Fender Bandmaster reverb coupled on a Marschall 1960 A 4x 12" cabinet.
It's sound nice as long as it got a fresh 9V battery in it, if not it reduces the overall volume quiet a bit.
I wanted to add a trem effect to my playing, but now with the Bandmaster which got a built in tube tremolo it is becomming a bit obsolete.

I gigged with it several times and it's reliable (with a FRESH 9V)
it serves it purpose as it should, so no problem there.
I got a backup in the Bandmaster, but didn't need it so far.

never dealth with them.

I play mainly instro Surf stuff and some Jazz. It sounds sweet in those old surf tunes together wit a nice wet reverb.
I play for about 12 years now and used a lot af gear so far, but the Tuna Melt is one of my better effects.
If it were stolen I wouldn't replace it, but get a foot reverb/tremolo foot switch for my Fender Bandmaster instead. (Nothing beats the Fender tremolo, IMO)
I wish it wasn't as plastic as it is, but I don't complain.
I compared it with the Boss Tremolo and the Tuna Melt is so much sweeter, more edged and clear, the sound is very vintage when compared to the Boss effect. It comes close to the Fender Tremolo.
I wish it didn't eat batteries as it does.
Surf's up and the Tuna Malt makes the waves, what more can I say...

if you can't figure this out then you probably can't feed yourself either...has tiny little knobs and toggle switch though, something a bit larger would've been nice but you know, cost blah blah blah.

I suckered a girl into buying this for me a few years ago...I was in a band that did mostly garage rock type stuff and I figured it would be a cool addition to the sound. I only used it on a couple of songs but it worked nicely and I didn't have the extra noise/volume drop that you often get with amp tremolos. I play mostly rockabilly and 50's blues type stuff now and I hadn't even looked at this thing for a couple of years. I dug it out the other day and plugged it in and was pretty impressed. I'm a vintage snob to a point (I probably wouldn't buy this now but wait, I didn't buy it anyway...) but haven't always been. I used to not think a whole lot of old gear but I've come to find that the vintage stuff really is the only way to get the sounds I like. Anyway, this is a modern pedal but it has a nice warm trem sound. Doesn't color your tone too much (although it seems to a little), if you plug it into a good tube amp you get a nice, warm throbbing tremolo sound. It's not quite as good as a good amp tremolo but doesn't suffer from the noise and volume drop that you often get with amps so it's a pretty good trade off. I usually just use the "soft" setting and it's a cool/spooky vintage sound. I could see recording with this.

I did use this live for several gigs and I also have used a Danelectro overdrive and slap echo and never had any problems with any of them. I take care of my equipment and never really abused these things though. It seems like it wouldn't take much to break one of these and Dano doesn't have the greatest rep for consistent quality. I've never personally had any problems with this or any other Danelectro gear but I never really put heavy use on any of it either.

I've been playing for about 10 years and have had 3 or 4 amps with tremolo. It's not a feature I use too much these days but every once in a while it's a very cool thing. Like I say, I just rediscovered this and was surprised at how nice it sounded, very vintage sounding. I wish it had a metal case and was a bit larger but beggars can't be choosers...Really, a good effect for the money, tremolo pedals have always been pretty pricey and this does the job as well as a lot of them for not too much dough. If it were stolen or lost I probably wouldn't worry about it too much but I like knowing it's there, sometimes you just want to get that humid, creepy thing going and this gets the job done.