Danelectro DJ-5 Tunamelt Tremolo

Very simple controls, easy to use, just the way I like it.

I use several different guitars, both LP-style, Tele-style, ES-355-style, and even a Dano' 63, all of these combined with my fender Champion 600, an Epiphone vale junior cabinet, and 3 other Danelectro pedals.

The sound is great, so great that I have sold my strat, because I no longer feel that I need it's Tremolo arm, and I haven't used it for a while. This could be a way to replace the Trem' arm of a strat(in some ways) if you are not NOT a fan of vibrato bridges.

Never dealt with them:D

It's well wort the money, and more. It's far better than the trem' sound of any multi effectboard, so try to listen to Mark Knopflers: "True love will never fade" and "we can get wild". If you like that that sound, you'll love this baby.

very easy to use - mine is the older unit with the toggle switch instead of rotary to change from "hard" to "soft" modes. Two knobs for rate and depth. The knobs are small and sensitive, a bit difficult to adjust on the fly on dimly lit stages...I use a homebuilt poser supply to power my pedals

This is the last effect on my pedalboard. I use it with a variety of amps depending on the venue. No noise whatsoever. There is a bit of volume boost when the pedal is engaged. Although I was initially annoyed by this, over the years by actually using it on countless gigs I have found this to be useful. It helps the effect cut through instead of being lost int the mix. The "soft" setting is definitely the winner. Classic tremolo sound. The "hard" setting, I have found no use for after ten years. Goes from on to off. I bought it from a band mate about 10 years ago for 20 bucks at rehearsal. I plugged it in, switched it from "hard" to "soft" and started playing some CCR. He instantly wanted to know how I got "that sound" out of it. Geeze!

Well, it has had a permanent position on my pedalboard for about 10 years. I would say that is reliable enough.

never contacted them, I only own two dano pedals

I play classic rock, blues, alternative, contemporary adult and original music with some folks from Nashville. I love the small footprint on my pedalboard. I love the classic vibe of the effect. It is not used often, but it fulfills it's intended purpose for cheap. It has not let me down for nearly a decade. Too bad it has been redesigned.

Built the way trem pedals should be built - just like an amp tremolo, just with two knobs.

Simplest thing to use.

Want to add that there's a very slight boost to the affected signal that just keeps at the same level as the unaffected signal. The boost is nicely done - not too much, just enough.

For this price? The best in its range, or anything costing twice as much.

Just really nice and warm tremolo waves like amp tremolo. This must be the cheapest (and best for the money) solution if you have a tremless amp.

The only drawback is the fact that the knobs are just so tiny, making it hard to turn on the fly. Have considered just housing the guts in a bigger metal case with bigger knobs.

These dano tunamelt things are the winners in the cheapo dano range. I've got 3 of them. Enough said.

Not hard at all, but knobs are so small it can be tricky to tweak them just right.

Danelectro are a budget brand, and as such, this pedal performs well enough. You get a tremolo that works, you can choose whether it's fast, slow, whether you want it subtle or strong etc, etc. It works fine. But the problem is it really doesn't cut through that well all the time and gets lost a bit on some settings, even when you set it to a hard tremolo. It just lacks a bit of solid umph that you'd get with a better pedal. If you're thinking of trying out tremolo, get this and then decide if you want to invest a more expensive one that will inevitibley work and sound better.

Had mine for a few years, and it had the stomp guard with it, so very solid.

Nice little tremolo, but if you're experienced with this effect, spend a bit more and get a better effect.

easy

Great sound when switched on, absolutely useless in bypass mode, it seems to mess with the phase, had to remove it from my board. It's a shame because the trem itself sounds beautiful.

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I'll have to try another one, unfortunately...

The guitar player in my former band had this pedal. I borrowed it from him once to use in my bass setup. Immediately ordered one for myself.

A great tremolo pedal with just the controls you need: speed, intensity and a switch for soft or harsh tremolo. You won't need a manual to get the effect you like out of this baby. Just plug in and start twiddling; You'll find a setting to your liking in no time.

I use this stompbox at the end of my bass effect chain:
Boss GE7B Bass Equalizer -> Electro Harmonix Q-tron -> EBS Multidrive -> Danelectro Tuna Melt. I play Reverend, Fender and Squier basses through a 1972 Fender Bassman rig. It really doesn't matter what bass I plug in; the Tuna Melt just does what it needs to do. With both knobs at 3 o' clock and the switch set to 'soft' it gives me a nice tremolo effect for quiet, spacey movements. When it has to be freaky, I turn every knob at max and turn on the Q-tron. Sounds wicked.

There's a very, very small alteration in my tone when the pedal's on, but it doesn't bother me that much. Hey, this is a pedal that costed me ??? 27 right out of the box. I'm not gonna complain about a slight change in tone. Besides, this thing ain't noisy at all, so there's another plus for it.

I didn't bother trying other tremolo pedals. I noticed the guys from Oceansize using it so I guessed the stompbox had to be decent. It is!

When I borrowed the guitarist's Tuna Melt the intensity knob wasn't working. According to him the knob functioned normally before he gave it to me...and after I gave it back :S

I would gig without a backup, but don't put too much faith in its reliability. If it would fail on stage, I'd probably toss it and play on.

Never had to deal with them.

I've had experience with other Dano pedals (distortion, tuner) but didn't like 'em that much. I was a bit sceptical toward the Tuna Melt therefore. However, it's a great pedal, certainly for the money I paid. What's more to say, the pedal just does what it's supposed to do. Nothing more nothing less.

If it would break down or was lost, I'd probably look into other tremolo pedals out there. I'd try to locate a more reliable stompbox and one that would even had less effect on my tone.

It is very easy to use this tremolo pedal. It has a Rate/Speed knob, Depth knob and one toggle type High/Low tremolo sound selection switch. This pedal has a very warm, full and rich sound. It has really amazed me when I first heard it. I used it for both acoustic and electric guitars and it is superb. I mostly use its Low end tremolo sound by selecting it from the toggle switch. The Low end tremolo effect is a real pleasure to play. I found its sound very smooth and have not noticed any backgroud noise. It did not come with a manual and I think there is no need of it because of its very simple understandable operation.

I found its sound quality one of the best. It is very smooth, rich, warm and has plenty of depth to be used in any kind of home or live situation. It can produce from the most mellow to the lightening tremolo effects with ease. It is not noisey atall. It remains noise free at any setting. The effect produce by this small box is very strong. I do not agree with some's review that it has a very weak sound effect, mine has a real powerhouse of tremolo effects. I think may be someone has got the defective one, he should better replace it from the company if it still falls under warantty period. I have used it for both single coil and humbucker pickups guitars and found great. I am using Fender FM212R, Yamaha G50 112 III and Yamaha JX50 combos and it handle each of them perfectly.

I have been using it for the last one year and it has not yet give me any sort of trouble. I have used it in live gigs and it is okay. But I did not like its thin plastic body. The knobs are again very small and thin, pedal looks to me more like a toy against Boss pedals. I like the thick metal base plate which gives it a heavy feeling and more reliable bottom side to withstand the rough handling at stage. Circuit & operation wise I will give it 9 points but body wise I will give it 5 only.

I play rock, blues, popular and country music. It is a very good match for all kind of styles I play. I have been playing guitar for the last 27 years. I have lot of gears including Yamaha Studio Lord SL400S (Les Paul copy)1980, Yamaha AES620, Yamaha Pacifica 412V, Epiphone les paul black beauty, Ovation CS257, Fender 12 string D6 and Yamaha FG470S guiars. I have lot of Boss pedals and other brands pedals. If this is lost I will buy it again because of its sound quality otherwise I would perfer to buy the Behringer Ultra tremolo pedal because of it good professional shape and same price range.

The knobs are small and I can't get the sound I need. The pedal is absolutely worthless to me. The battery is a little difficult to get to for a mass produced pedal. I expect to pull out a screw driver for my boutique pedals but not for a plastic cheapy.

This pedal is worthless unless you are only looking for a slight trem effect. So much of the original guitar signal comes through it's difficult to hear the trem effect at all. Even at the "hard" setting you don't get a hard sounding trem.
There seems to be a slight decrease in volume also that is impossible make up with this pedal. Not a problem if you have a boost pedal, but it's annoying. It's just not good enough for pro use.

It's cheap plastic but it seems sturdy enough at that.

Didn't deal with them.

I hate this pedal. I can't say it any more plain than that. Maybe I was expecting too much for $39 but you can barely hear the trem effect because so much of the original signal comes through. The slight decrease in volume is unacceptable. Maybe it would be good for a bedroom jammer, but even still, there are much better pedals out there.

Great sound, but small knobs make it difficult to change settings in live setting. You'll probably want to find your setting and leave it, and also get one of those plastic protectors that Danelectro makes. I put it on top of my amp, and don't stomp on it, so the fragility doesn't bother me.
Basic two knob function of classic tremolo, with added bonus of having the hard switch, making it sound like you're turning the power on and off rather than the soft which is like turning the volume up and down.

Fantastic. I also own a Carl Martin tremolo (SurfTrem) and this sounds just as good at half the price. Plus, unlike the SurfTrem it has the hard switch, which allows me to get machine-gun like heavy Cramps style tremolo effects. Versatile, high quality sound and cheap. Get it!

I play secular music so I like to keep mine on the soft setting with both knobs around 2 o'clock, more or less, or for the Cramps sounds, put it on hard setting, crank both knobs, and crank the reverb on your amp. You will become a bikini girl, baby!

Cheaply built case and knobs, but worth it for the sound. I've had mine for about three years with zero problems. I set it and forget it, leave it on the amp, not on the floor.

Fantastic value. Cheaper than a set of bass strings, but it sounds great.

Easy to use-take a little time to find your sound.

Sounds great to me regardless if some may think it looks cheap. Who cares-if you get the sound ya want and you take care of your equpiment it should last you. Made of thick plastic and the smaller compact version is great to save room. 2 tremolo style--old classic and newer. does the job and is great. Better to use a power supply tho. Sounds just as good as more expensive pedals. Higher price doesn't ness. mean better sound. That's all also to do with someone's own ears. Some may like it some may not.

Yes great. Just don't use it as a hammer.

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Great pedal, if you're concerned of the plastic, mod it by putting it into a different metal box then. But great sound, looks, everything.

Pretty much explains itself. Easy.

I love this thing. I especially like pairing it with distortion. Reminiscent of Chicago blues tone. Plenty of variation can be had when tweaking. I tend to go to a subtle setting more so than the Tommy and the Shondells thing. Mine is very quiet and the price was definatley right. I only use it with guitar.

I gig with it with all confidence. Granted it's plastic but I've had mine for a bunch of years and have never felt I had to treat it any different than any of my other sturdier effects.

No idea. Never had to contact them.

Been playing 42 years. I've learned to let my ears determine what I like and not what a particular artist endorses. I do put a lot of stock in the reviews found here.

That said, I do have some favorites in my chain like an Ibanes AD-80, Boss ce-2 silver screw, Analog Man modded ts-808, block logo phase 90 and Dynacomp. This pedal fits nicely in the chain and I find myself using it frequently. One downside is too much "depth" feels heavy and uninspiring to me.

One last plus is it doesn't make that tell tale "click" that the tremolo pedal on my Twin makes when I engage it.

It may take awhile to get the tremelo setting your looking for but once I figured mine out then it wasnt hard for say someone else to mess with and for me to still find my old settings

Im not too familiar with tremelo's at all but I tried the boss TR-2 at guitar center and still loved my tunamelt's sound, it's fun to mess with as far as with other pedals like distortion or wah especially.

I use a Fender HotRod Deville 212 and American Telecaster as well as other effects, I used to own the milkshake and hashbrowns and these were great sounding pedals too so to me they all sound nice but I like this pedal cause it does put out some nice sounding tremelo and it's just simple and cheap.

I hate the plastic part of this pedal and the fact that its so small compared to other pedals

For example I have trouble finding a spot for it on my pedal board because its so short and other pedals are so much taller than it that my foot has to push others away before I can click it.

Its too light as well, my patch cables sometimes make this thing Lopp sided.

and no volume knob :( Somtimes its too loud when I turn it on and other times its not loud enough but I have this same problem with my other pedals so compared to them the volume is set just right

I may or may not keep this because this is a beginners pedal in my opinion but its doing well for now and sounds great and this is all one really needs but I make get pedal picky in the future and buy another tremelo pedal but it seems this pedal just keeps getting better the longer I own it.

For example little things like knowing what kinda 9volt ma adaptor it needed conveinently placed on the bottom like other pedals should.

Easy, has Speed, Depth, and Hard/Soft controls. Turn the knobs and listen.

First of all, I purchased this pedal because I love simple old-fashioned tremelo. I love that Crimson and Clover by Tommy James and the Shondells tone, or Love Hurts by Nazareth. I just wanted this to pick chords arpeggio style or strum simple chords. I always use Soft mode, always leave Depth at around 3 o'clock position, but I do vary Speed according to the song. And for what I want this pedal works very well, gets the tones I mentioned before. I own a 1958 Premier Twin 8 amp with fabulous tremelo. This pedal is not quite that good, but close enough. It is warm and full sounding. This pedal is not noisy at all, but does give a slight volume boost when you kick it in. I do not find that it affects tone when off in the chain at all. I have tried the Hard mode but did not care for it. Not saying anything is wrong with it, just not something I'd ever use. But for good old fashioned vintage tremelo, this pedal is very good. If I had to say anything negative (and it's not really a negative) about this pedal it would be that you have to carefully tweak the speed.

I currently own 7 Danelectro pedals and have never had a single problem with any of them, some over 10 years old. I play in a Classic Rock band and use several of them on my pedalboard. Not all Danelectro pedals are great, but some like the Daddy-O and the Fish & Chips 7 Band EQ are. They are often far better than "name" brands that cost 2-3 times as much. I am never afraid to take my Danos to the gig, they have proven themselves over and over again. I have had a few of the expensive names brands break, but never a Dano.

Never had to contact support 'cause these pedals never break down. The best customer support is a good product to begin with.

I give this a 9 because this pedal gets me very close to the old vintage tremelo I want at a good price. I have tried other more expensive brands that were far worse. I have been playing 34 years, play in a Classic Rock cover band, so I think I know good tone when I hear it. If lost or stolen I would buy it again for sure. Danelectro makes some good effects pedals, and this is one of them.

easy - bought new in 2005

guitar >>>>> a s**tload pf pedals >>>>>>>>>> amp

not noisy - I use it with a tweed bassman / strat
this gets the right sounds for me
It does effect tone when bypassed.

so far/so good.

40 yrs playing - past 10 yrs gig x2 per month in pop-rock/party oriented cover band ( translation - a garage band that does pretty well ) I use tremolo for maybe 15 minutes in a 4 hr gig. I have been the happiest with this cheap little plastic box. - much more organic and warm. Others I have tried: Swamp Thang ( $200 boutique box - whatever that means ) Dunlop ( the one that pans - the tone on this was the worst of the bunch ) Voodoo labs box - uh uh. vibrato on a re-issue vibrolux reverb I sold in 1999 ( $900 ) - this was pretty good - but this $10 little yellow box
( ebay ) is better.


there are only 2 downsides to this pedal:

1. it effects overall tone when off - so I use a true bypass looper to keep it out of my chain when it's off.

2. you might be embarassed to have people see this little thing next to your 'boutique' pedals - but you can cover it with black tape and stick it inside a cardboard box stuffed with paper and spray painted black so nobody will see what it is.

Extremely Easy!
Play a note and fiddle with the knobs until it sounds like you want it.

Brilliant!
I play a mixture of styles (Heavy to 50's / 60's) and it somehow fits in everywhere. Works particularly well on a clean setting with just a touch of Reverb...

Again - faultless.
I bought one of these little boxes about 5 years ago. Bearing in mind that I *do* look after my kit, it hasn't gone wrong at all.
Power consumption is almost negligible, so I've not had to change batteries very often at all (although this isn't the easiest thing in the world - a bit fiddly, but certainly not Rocket Science...)

As I've said, 5 years without a single fault - I've had no reason to call them.

My basic setup is this - Sexy Mexy Telecaster / Tuna Melt / Occasional Delay Pedal / Classic 30 valve amp.
This setup covers almost everything I need to do and the Tuna Melt is a great (and dependable) piece of gear. I bought it un-played as a bit of a cheap risk, with a view to buying a more expensive unit if I really liked the sound. I'm still using my faithful Tuna-Melt. It's great. I'd be distinctly upset if it got stolen / broken / lost, but at this price, I'd go and buy a replacement the very next day. I can't rate this little beast highly enough.

Incredibly easy to get a good sound out of this. No manual needed at all. They give you a few example settings, and those work good though.

I don't find it to be noisy, and it works great and enhances a lot of other effects. Overdrive, ring modulation, chorus, you name it. This does what it is meant to do, and very well.

I got a little plastic protector with it. I don't think it is gonna break anytime soon.

I have never contacted Danelectro, but I assume they would be friendly. I've always considered Danelectro a company on the verge of bankruptcy, but that is just because they discontinue stuff often and have a cruddy website.

I play shoegazer/gothic/post-punk/post-hardcore. I use it mostly in slower noisier songs, as that is where it shines. It is a great effect, and the hard/soft switch makes it more than a one trick pony.

Two knobs, speed and depth, and a hard/soft switch. Piece o' cake, except as mentioned before the knobs are tiny.

My setup is a late 70's/early 80's Memphis Tele Custom copy(don't laugh, awesome guitar from back before Memphis turned to complete shiat), Tuna Melt, Danelectro Fab Tone distortion, into a 70's Music Man RP 112 65 watt combo. I play a mix of blues, rockabilly,surf, old-style country and hillbilly(not this Toby Keith watered down Bon Jovi garbage), garage, punk and 70's style hard rock. I used to be in a few bands years ago, but now I just play mostly around the house. I got this specifically for that Duane Eddy/John Fogerty/Bo Diddly/Louisiana swamp blues sound and it NAILS it. A friend of mine used to have a '66 Vibro Champ and this thing could give the Fender's trem a run for its money. I think I detect a SLIGHT volume loss, but nothing major. Switch this thing on and it's the early 60's again. I thought about other tremolo pedals, such as the Boss, but I'm on a fairly tight budget, and this little yellow box will do all I need it to do and sounds INCREDIBLE for the money. I'll give it a ten, considering how inexpensive this little yellow beauty is.

Can't say as of yet, as I've only had it a couple days. However, I've had other Dan-o pedals and never had a bit of problem out of them. Switch seems a bit dodgy, but for the price I can always get another. Stupid Dan-o battery that came with it crapped out in 20 minutes though.

Never had to deal with Danelectro on anything.

Like I said previously, I'm mostly a retro style player and got this for Duane Eddy, Bo Diddley and CCR type stuff, and it nails it. Any rootsy guitar player looking for a tremelo, you'd do well to take a chance on one of these before shelling out $100 and up for something like a Boss.

I didn't like changing the battery on this pig. Couldn't be designed any more poorly. But hey, use a digital power for all your pedals and you're golden. They're cheap. Also, I didn't like the tiny little knobs either, but I guess that's part of the charm of the 'Dano' pedals.

I was playing my strat through an Ibanez UE-300 multi-fx compressor/tube screamer, then the DJ-5, holy grail reverb, out to a crate vc-2110 EL84 amp. Sounded real good, no loss of high end, just a little putt-putt on idle which wasn't bad.

However this little pedal is no longer with me - I actually put an axe through it, then my lawn, after trying to wrestle the battery out after an apparently too long day at work. I'm embarrassed. Geez there were little Chinese plastic parts all over the place. It really was a cute pedal.

Otherwise, I think it would've held up pretty well.

I highly recommend using a power supply with this pedal.

Extremely easy to use. There is no manual - just some notes on the packaging.

I love it! I've wanted a tremolo pedal for a long time, but they're so damn expensive that I could never justify spending the money for one. This thing really sounds great - I'm very surprised. It seems very quiet too which is amazing for such a cheap pedal. I spent a couple of hours playing with it after it arrived - must have played Born on the Bayou for 20 minutes....

OK - it's plastic, and the footswitch doesn't seem very solid. I was thinking about trying to either replace the footswitch or even moving all of the components to something a little sturdier, but I'm not ready to start hacking this thing to pieces. The good news is that it's cheap enough to replace and I may even buy another for a backup.

Haven't had a problem yet.

Fantastic value for the money. I just wish the footswitch were a little taller and sturdier.

Pretty easy to use. just two knobs, a switch, and the on/off button. not exactly rocket surgery. getting the speed set to the exact rate you want can be tedious though. that's not all that uncommon with tremolo though.

The main guitar I use this with is my Les Paul and I run it into a Fender Blues Jr. I have other pedals, but thats irrelevant. The tremolo effect itself is pretty good. Not great, but good. I like how the volume doesnt drop like the Boss TR-2 does. I used to have the TR-2. The TR-2's effect sounded better and was more flexible, but the volume drop turned me off. I use the tremolo a lot of the time for arpeggios over strummed chords and if the volume drops, i cant be heard so the TR-2 was almost useless to me. The Tunamelt though doesnt have that problem. Doesnt sound great, but for the price, it certainly sounds good enough. If I had $120 to blow, I wouldve gotten the Voodoo Labs Tremolo pedal, but this will do.

dunno. i'm sure its not Boss reliable, but i'm gonna give it the benefit of the doubt and say i'm not worried about it fizzing out or anything.

never dealt with them

I play Brit-rock and this thing gets the job done. I rarely use tremolo, but when I do, this thing works fine. I've been playing for almost 6 years and i've had 3 tremolo devices. One being the boss tr-2, the other being on one of my old tube amps that i no longer have, and the third being this. this is better than the tr-2, but not as good as the amp's tremolo. if it were lost or stolen, I dont know what i'd do. I probably wouldnt get another tremolo pedal for awhile and i dont know which i'd get if did get another. I bought this on an impulse. it was $30.49 (including shipping) for a new one (still in packaging) and i've been wanting a trem pedal for awhile so i snagged it. i'm definitely glad i got it. $31ish isnt much for a pedal, especially one that is pretty good.

if you want a decent tremolo and are hurting for cash, this thing is great. great value.

Very obvious and easy .. speed, depth. And a switch for hard vs. soft trem.

One minor complaint is that because the input and output jacks are so close together, I can't use two of my right-angle patch cords with it; one has to be a straight jack.

I don't have any experience with other trems, but I have absolutely no complaints about the sound. It does exactly what it's supposed to, with no obvious signal degradation or noise. When I say "obvious", I mean in a live gigging situation ... I haven't tried it for recording.

I'm using it with a Strat and a Gibson GA-15RV combo. I use it mainly to get some vintage trem sounds like for the intro to Born on the Bayou and similar. Also planning to use it to get the lead-in to Green Day's "Boulevard of Broken Dreams", though I think to get that to sound right will require me to change the order of effects, putting the trem before the overdrive pedal.

I have no reason yet to be concerned about reliability. Seems well constructed for the price, despite having what appears to be a plastic body. I've played gigs for 3 years without it, so if it failed, I'd just return to playing without a trem until I got it replaced.

I'm putting an 8 just because I haven't owned it long enough to give it a 10.

No experience with customer support. If this unit broke, I'd probably just buy another.

How I bought this: I went into the rec.music.makers.guitar forum and posted a question about decent quality trem pedals. I got lots of good advice, but the recommended models were all in the $150 to $190 category. WAY too much for an effect that I use on maybe three songs in a 50-song gig. Then someone highly recommended this unit and suggested that I could get it on e-bay for only $30. I found one on e-bay, bid, and sure enough, won it at $30 the same day. It arrived in like-new condition. I am very happy with it for the price; if it were stolen I'd buy another.

I've never seen an easier pedal to use. Just 2 clearly labled knobs and a switch for hard (choppy) and soft (classic, traditional) trems.

The hard switch is for that stutter, cutting the volume completely out of the picture, the soft switch is more like what you hear on your classic rock and blues songs.

Have you heard this thing? Have you heard any of the pedal-sized competition? I think this blows them away. It is definately an upgrade from the Boss Tremelo pedal.

It also sounds organic, natural, and smooth. I can't think of anyone who needed a tremelo effect who could say a bad thing about this pedal. I think the most important part of it is how well it blends with good equipment. I do notice a very very slight volume boost, but not enough to even really notice. If anything it makes the parts you play with it stand out just a human-sized hair more than it does with the effect off.

I am loving all of the Creedence Clearwater Revival covers our band has been doing lately and thats why I got this. I compared it with the Boss Tremelo and it was no contest in sound, although I know the Boss is built like a tank.......but why could'nt it sound as good as the Dano Trem??!!??

Great sounds for that classic trem, and the hard switch nails the Green Day "Blvd. of broken dreams" stutter effect at the beginning. I like a nice smooth trem that is medium tempo, great for blues. If you like that wet/vibe sound with your trem all you need is a chorus effect before it!

Some would argue, but Ive personally never saw one broken and Ive even used a few other Dano mini effects for at least 3-4 years with no problems. Thats all I can ask out of a $30-$40 dollar pedal.

I know they are extremely helpful and kind. I had 1 mini pedal (ordered) that was defective upon delivery and they replaced it no questions asked.

I don't understand how any person could say anything bad about this particular effect unless they simply have a hard-on for steel housed pedals. What I mean is to at least try one. I have used the dano mini EQ for 3 years with no problems so they have to be a little tough. I don't treat them any more gentle than I do the steel pedals.

Sound, that's where this little puppy shines. What else is there to know?

Dead easy. Two knobs (speed and depth), one switch. On/off button. Go figure. The only complaint is that when the removable plastic cover is in place, it is hard to access the knobs, but I guess that's the point of it, so I can't complain. It does mean that during a gig (when presumably you would have the cover on) it is very fiddly to change the settings. The knobs are very small and quite stiff, but I have podgy fingers, so maybe it's my problem.

Great. Unlike other reviewers on here, I cannot tell any different in overall volume with the effect engaged. It is a very transparent effect, by which I mean it adds a tremolo effect, but does not change the tone or volume in any other way at all. It seems to be pretty quiet, and does not generate any adverse hum. Hmmmmmm.
All effects pedals benefit from a level setting, but seeing as the level setting is only there to allow you to ensure the overal volume is the same with the effect on and off, and this pedal does not seem to affect the overall volume, this is not really necessary.

Can't comment. I've only had it a week. It has not broken yet! It is made of plastic, and seems less robost than some other pedals, but hey, it's #30 so what do you expect. If you insist on stamping on your pedals as if they were cockroaches then they will break. Treat them nicely and they shouldn't. As another reviewer correctly said, you don't stamp on your guitars do you? I don't. Mine are too pretty.

No comment. Never had to deal with them. I have however looked at their website and it's rubbish, so I wouldn't get your hopes up.

I like it. I wanted a nice late 50's early sixties sound to use with a telecaster, a little distotion courtesy of a Death Rattle, and dripping in rich springy reverb. Boing. I then go through a cry baby, and into a 1970s Traynor TS-50 combo. In this guise it sounds delicious. It makes me think of drive-ins, diners, lipstick tubes, black leather and chrome. And a vampish young lady drinking milkshakes and smoking dirty cigarettes. That might just be me though. I find the "soft" setting is far more useful than the "hard" setting, although I do use the hard setting when soloing. (hit a note, let it ring for a bit, then switch on the pedal with the hard setting, a moderate rate and maximum depth. Nice action. I use it like this instead of vibrato sometimes.) For #30 you can't really go wrong with this. It's a cheap basic, unassuming pedal that does what it claims to, and does it pretty well. It's yellow too, which is cool. Go get one. <a href="http://www.masht.com">www.masht.com</a>

Speed, depth, hard/soft switch. Not rocket science lol.

How can you go wrong with a decent sounding $30 pedal? And this thing (out of all the dano minis) is probably the best sounding one. It can distort a tad under heavy attack. I wouldnt use active pickups on this. But otherwise it has a very warm cool sound.

It is plastic. It is also $30. But if you treat it nice it should be fine. I have had this thing for about a year with no problems.

Never dealth with em.

For 30$ this is a GREAT sounding Tremelo. As mentioned below, when it is on hard, you can still hear the guitar way back there, but I mainly use it on soft, so for my purposes it sounds great. Have used this in the studio and even there it did great. Just as good as any $150 pedal would. Like I said, it can clip a bit under heavy attack, but even then it is a musical clip. If it were lost I would replace it. Who can afford backups?

Although the knobs are clearly labeled and easy to understand, I've got big meaty fingers that have a hard time switching the toggle from Hard to Soft. I ran into this problem with the French Toast Octave pedal too, but it's not that big a deal.

Pretty good. It has a warmth and vibe to it that is very inspiring. Soft mode is more versatile, with a good amount of country and blues to it. It's not what I would consider super, but it is a very useable sound. It's great to add a slightly colored shimmer to your sound, and this mode just loves open chords. Hard mode is good for that stuttering, "Money" a la Pink Floyd sound, but it's not a true square wave sound. Between the oscillations, you can still hear your signal, although it is rather quiet. In a well-mixed studio track or in a live situation, it will sound like a square wave tremolo for all intensive purposes.

I'm leary. It hasn't screwed up yet, but I had a Chicken Salad Vibrato that died literally an hour out of the box. I can't help but mistrust a line of pedals that go from new to dead in under 60 minutes...

This pedal specifically seems to work fine. Still, I'm apprehensive...

Pfft. Like they give a rat's tail about these things brand-new, let alone after they've been bought and played through...

For the money, this pedal is a steal. I try not to let one bad apple ruin the bunch, but you've got to remember that paying $30 has its costs, and in the case of Dano Minis, it's not in the sound. You're playing Russian Roulette buying these things, so beware...

I truly do like the Mini series, though. I'm a studio musician and I like to experiment with very effects-heavy sounds. Being that I'm not a millionaire, when a track needs a good sounding tremolo I'm apt to find something good n' cheap rather than spring for the big daddies. If you're okay gambling with your money, the Dano Minis are everything you could hope for.

Its extemely easy to use. The knobs are very small so when setting the tempo on the trem its hard to get the sound you want. A tap tempo would improve it. Other than that though the sound is excellent. I love the pedal. I hate the Danelectro Minis to be honest but this one is worth more than what i paid for it

With this i am using - Fender Jazzmaster - Big Muff, BOSS MT2, BOSS PH3, de Milkshake Chorus, BOSS DD3, Line 6 Echo Park, de Reverb and a BOSS Ns2 noise gate through a line 6 Spider 150watt combo and the Tremolo makes no annoying noises at all. The power in the trem is massive and you can turn your guitar sound into something very ambient but just turning on this pedal.

I use this pedal as part of a giggin line up and although its plastic id say its reliable. Obv if you get carried away and batter the switch it will die on you but i could rely on it,

Have never needed to get in touch

You cant beat this pedal for value. Although its plastic you if have never come across a trem i trust more than this one. I try to make my guitar sound as little as a guitar as possible and this pedal helps to do the trick. Id defo replace this if it broke because i know i can depend on it.

Piece of piss. Dano minis aren't brain teasers. Knobs are small and fiddly.

Gordon Smith (Gibson style) guitars amd Marshall valve amp, plus a load of FX from Dano, Electro-Harmonix, DOD, Line6 etc that I never have more than 2 on at a time.
This is where this particular pedal shines. I have a few Dano minis and this one punches above its weight. Slightly compressed edge to the sound, and a useable range of speeds and intesities. Sounds retro and cool.

Cheap, plastic....reliable in the way a burger is reliable. They're everywhere and you know what it's gonna do.

Dano minis have the WTFWT factor-you turn 'em on and people say What The F**k Was That?! Get a load of 'em and hit one for each solo in your set.
They all suffer from some bad points: they're too small if you wear wide-toed shoes, they're plastic, the controls are fiddly. Who cares, they're fun and cheap.
Some other Dano pedals sound lofi and cheap, and I like their charm. The Tuna Melt is a bit different in that it can hold its own against pedals costing twice as much.
Do you really need Tap Tempo for a once-a-set pedal? Naaa...

If you can't figure out how to use this tremolo, you probably shouldn't be playing any instruments other than the bongos. The pedal comes with a manual with some example settings, but it works best if you just fool with it to get the sound you want. It couldn't be any easier to use.

I'm using this pedal with a Fender USA Telecaster and a Sans Amp GT2. I have found the tremolo pedal is very quiet, but if the gain is up really high (I mean really high) on your amp/preamp, you'll hear modulation (woosh-woosh-woosh) even when not playing the guitar. That's just the way things go for mod effects-- there is nothing noisy about this pedal. I think this pedal sounds as good (if not better) than the Boss tremolo which costs over twice as much.

I don't gig, but I think this pedal would be okay live if you're reasonable. I am concerned that over the long term, the pedal (which is about 100% plastic) will conk out. But I paid $28 new so how can I whine about it!? For home studio use, this pedal is great. If you weigh 250 pounds and like to jump on your pedals while death-metal rockin' at a club, this pedal probably isn't going to keep up with you.

Typical American-owned, Chinese-slave-manufactured product. You will likely never really get to talk to a human at Danelectro, but I can't say that they are any worse than Boss or other companies. These companies have all realized there is more money in succesfully hyping and marketing a shoddy product and selling a ton of them to kids than in researching and designing a fine product for dedicated musicians. Why else do you think Danelectro would make a PLASTIC food pedal? I've seen these things for sale at the music store in the mall, but hardly ever at musical instrument shops.

I think this pedal is a great value, but I would have paid more for (and been happier with) a metal casing or a higher-quality plastic pedal. It sounds great and is very easy to use, but my only concern is the long-term reliability. As long as I keep using it in a home studio, I can't imagine there will ever be any problems.

You turn two knobs, flip a toggle switch, then step on it. Its easy to use and easy to make annoying...if thats what you want.

Guitar-Black Bawl Wah, MXR Micro-Amp, Voodoo Lab Micro-Vibe, Boss CE-2, Peavey Classic 30-f/x loop(Dano-Land)-Tuna Melt Tremolo, French Toast Octave Fuzz, Fish & Chips EQ (mid boost), Mu-Tron Volume/Wah, Fish & Chips EQ (mid & volume cut), PB&J Echo.
Its not really noisy at all, especially compared to the Micro-Vibe(noisey swirl anyone? must be defective after 2 years) I love the soft setting, its quite warm. Has a much smooter and fatter tone than the built in tremolo on my Dad's Peavey Delta Blues. Sounds similar to his '66 Tremolux...just not nearly as sweet. It works for those classic CCR tunes, old school Blues, and a really cool jazz Piano/Fender Rhodes wanna-be tone (using piano style chord voicings). The hard setting is kind of fun to play around with, but it can really get annoying if used more than once or twice a set..

I've been using the majority of my Dano-minis for a little over a year now and I've only had to replace one of the EQs...still kind of works...but not really. Don't stomp on them too hard or be stupid with them and they will be alright for a while. Besides, these are like $20-$30 pedals...you get what you pay for...just remember that when your using them.

why?

Rock (50's-early 90's) and Blues. I'm happy with a new pedal as long as it sounds descent I can find a use for it for more than 3 or 4 songs a night. This one does. Seeing as how its cheap I would buy it again. I like the tone, I hate the plastic. I wish it was a little more durable but I'll deal with these Danos until I can afford stuff I "shouldn't" have to worry about.

Really easy, in a few seconds you'll be sounding like you want!

I use it with a Fender AMST Strato and a Epiphone Les Paul Classic in Marshall VS65R amp and some other effects like boss compressor, ts9, vox v847, boss eq, boss chorus and boss delay. This tremolo is vintage and awesome! I compared it to the boss' trem and the dano sounds really better, it haves the old amp's tremolo, very good pedal, the only thing I think could be better is the level of output!

The new ones came whith a plastic protection for the knobs, and is durable, but is plastic

Haven't deal whith them!

It's a very good pedal for a very nice price, take a look if you can, is one of the bests of danelectro's mini pedals, i thing it's the best! very vintage nice tremolo!

Easy. It might be kind of difficult to learn how to control the speed, but it's ok.

here's the example:
www.rodikkoles.narod.ru/tuna.mp3
(sorry for the low speed, but it's a free hosting)
sounds great. really. I like the surf. I like playing tremolo.

low. some people are used to marshall or boss pedals. they like to kick them to turn on/off. if you kick tuna melt, you'll break it. but... do you hit your amp, guitar, or cut the wires with a scissors? I don't.. therefore, reliability is not important. just treat it as you treat you guitar/amp/etc.

It won't break, unless you break it.

never needed one.

Two major disandvantages:
1. NO bypass (at high gain and volume you'll still hear it, even if it's turned off. but if you are using power adapter - as I do - it's easy to just cut the power, and the problem is solved)
2. HIGH durability (don't hit/kick it, and this problem is solved)

after all, it's a great pedal. I like it, and I hope you will like it too.

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.

2 knobs and a toggle for "hard" and "soft" sounds---easy

For the money, this is the closest to a Fender amp tremolo. The Voodoo Lab pedal that does this is really great, but it will never be in the price range of the Tuna Melt. This thing gets great sounds: like, "How Soon is Now," by the Smiths, old Bo Diddley, "Cuban Slide," by the Pretenders, etc.etc. Lotta great sounds for not a lot of cash

The little plastic thing is rather delicate, therefore, it is permanently hooked up to my effects box.

no experinece here, thus...no opinion

very vintage-sounding, very versatile, very economical----Dangerously close to the ultimate:a Fender amp tremolo unit! Awesome.

Easy to use, manual is a joke

my setup consist's of a 62 fender jaguar through a load of stompboxes and into a fender deville, sounds great on the clean clean channel, not quite as good when distorted, although when on the hard setting with the depth ramped up gives some great square wave sounds

i would use it without a backup although i think the dannelectro mini pedals work and sound better with battery power rather than a mains adapter, the casing is plastic so it,s not going to last a life time

never needed it

i recentley bought a second one as i needed two different speeds instantly, one of the best value pedals i've seen

This is an update of a review I did a few days
back, after some feedback from others.

My Tuna Melt ticks audibly, even when off. Without
a second one to try, I did the usual troubleshoots --
different guitars, different amps, different cables.

I'm not imagining it...it ticks.

I corresponded with one reviewer, and read
the review posted immediately after mine. Having
done so, I'm willing to give the suspect bypass
design the benefit of the doubt, and conclude that
my unit is simply defective. That's not exactly a
feather in Danelectro's Quality Control cap, but
it at least indicates that the basic design is
not necessarily total crap. I'll retract my bypass-
design rant, though I'm sticking to my guns on
everything else.

I'm still pretty unimpressed with it sonically,
but now I feel justified returning it to Dano
for a new sealed unit, which I can turn around
and re-sell unopened in order to recoup most of
my losses. Dano's supposed to be pretty good about
such things, so I expect that to go smoothly. I
could not have sold the first one to someone else
in good conscience.

Thanks to the other reviewers for addressing
this issue. As I mention in my 1st review,
I went to three different stores looking
unsuccessfully for one to hear before I decided
to just buy it by mail order so that I'd have
trem on four amps instead of just on my Princeton.
Finding a second unit to audition in person
probably isn't practical in this case.

It's good to have a place where quick feedback
is readily available. Magazines tend to
sugar coat even their less than positive
reviews for fear of lost advertising. It's good to
see stuff where you don't have to read "between the
lines."

Thanks again...

(And off goes my sickly Tuna Melt to San Clemente, CA.)

speed knob, depth knob, and a switch for hard/soft tremolo. When in hard mode, the depth knob becomes irrelevant. Manual is non-existent, but it is not hard to figure out.

I read another review that mentions a ticking sound when it is off? I don't hear a ticking even when it is on. I can hear whatever noise is in the signal being tremmed at the appropriate rate, but no ticking. The pedal does cut the highs a little bit when engaged, but the bypass of this pedal seems to be on par with my Boss, Ibanez, and DOD pedals, but not as good as my Visual Sound Route 66, which is a great pedal by the way. Good trem sound. the hard mode is good for slamming the front-end of a tube amp for a "Who Are You" type of sound. I am using this with a Parker Fly Deluxe and a highly-modded Mexican Strat through a Boss PW-10 (great), VS Route 66 (amazing), Boss DS-1(classic), Boss MT-2(you know), Boss CE-2B(Bass Chorus, it sounds good), Dano Octave(iffy), Dano French Toast(good for a few tricks), Dano EQ (perfect), Dano Tremolo, Dano PB&J delay (good stuff), Ibanez Chorus Flanger Tonelok (not great). All somewhere in front of or inside the effects loop of an Engl Jive (great little German amp).

so far so good, but I'm really nice to my stuff. They are made of plastic so they will not stand up to a Boss in terms of reliability

N/A

Got mine as part of a collection that was supposed to be the mini-tuner, french toast, octave, and vibrato, but instead of the vibrato, I got the tremolo. Reading HC, I figured I lucked out 'cause the vibrato didn't get as good reviews as the tremolo. This pedal is permanently in my chain, and I have never heard it tick. I suspect that something is electronically wrong in the below user's unit, and suggest that he try to find one at a music store to see if it ticks or not. For the price and decent sound quality (not-quite-transparent), I'll give it a 10

Easy to figure out, though there's no explanation
of how things work -- just 3 sample settings on an
insert sandwiched into the hanging "blister-pack".
Battery change is the usual one clunky
"Dano Mini Series" crappy rubber screw. The battery
harness wire is too long, which means you need to
stuff it down -- not too swift.
Ease of use docked one extra point for not having
even a cusory explanation for novices of what
the controls do.

I dunno, ok I guess. I've always found tremolo to be
an effect best used in extreme moderation. That
brings me to a complaint...
The pedal's packaging boasts of a "virtual" bypass.
Apparently, "virtual" in this case means "not really"
or "not exactly" a bypass. Or perhaps "we shouldn't
even use the word bypass in referring to this unit."
Most or all tremolo circuits "tick" as they pulse at
whatever time rate you set; even one on a good tube amp
will have at least a slightly audible tick. The ticking
tends to increase as you dial up more "Depth" or "Intensity."
This is perfectly normal WHEN THE EFFECT IS ENGAGED.
But when the tremolo's switched off, you shouldn't still
hear the ticking -- and you wouldn't if there was any type
of a "bypass" worthy of the name.
Well, this little beast ticks like mad EVEN WHEN THE
EFFECT IS OFF. This isn't of much consequence to me
personally, as I'd most likely just use this effect
as a pad sound, way down in a mix. It wouldn't drive
me crazy, because I'd just unplug it when I was done.
Or I'd use my Princeton Reverb, which has a Tremolo
circuit built right in, instead of one of my non-trem
amps.
But pedal board types take note: If you leave this
box in your signal path, you're going to be listening
to that ticking sound all night long, whether or not you're
using the effect. That really sucks donkey hog. Off is
supposed to mean off...
So I'll give it a 5 for its effect quality (it sounds
fairly convincing at a few settings, though I agree that
the controls are somewhat fickle.) But leaving it plugged
in during a live show would be completely unacceptable
to me. I suppose a noise gate might help, but how over-
processed do you need your sound to be???
So: 5 for the trem sound, plus 1 for the ticking, divided
by 2, equals a 3 rating. Disappointing.

Used gently it should be ok for a while. Dano switches
and knobs are notorious for breaking off or for
failing, but I can't personally say that it's ever
happened to me.
I don't like the strain placed on the too-long battery
harness wires, either. I've had to re-solder a lot
of battery harnesses over the years, and in most
cases it's because the battery compartment is a poorly
designed afterthought.

Well, I'd like to return this, but the packaging
(a hanging plastic blister-pack) is pretty much
impossible to open without damaging it. With
shipping, and a 20% restocking fee because of the
damaged packaging, I'd be out about $15 just
sending it back.
I'm hoping that it will break under warranty, and that
they'll be out of new ones. Who knows -- maybe they'll
substitute something decent (like from another manufacturer.)
Hmmm... hopefully not Jim Dunlop... I can dream, right?
And while I'm griping: The packaging pisses me off.
If a product sucks, then at least have the decency to
put it in a re-sealable box so that we dissatisfied types
can get their money back. Otherwise, they start to
think twice before they buy any more of your "Most
Favored Nation" crapola. It's called damage control.

Some day I'm gonna learn not to buy solely on the recommendation
of others. God bless Harmony Central, but hearing is a
subjective thing, and how each player actually uses their gear
affects what they do or don't hear. The exact same setup in
the hands of two players will often be radically different.
I know that; I just forget sometimes.
To be fair to myself, I did try 3 different stores
looking for a Tuna Melt to hear. All 3 were Dano dealers.
Nobody had one in stock, so I mail ordered one. Now
I'm stuck with it for a while. I'll never make that
mistake again with a Danelectro box.
It doesn't actually sound too bad (better than the digital
tremolo on my Lexicon MPX100) but that friggin' ticking when
it's off makes me want to fill it with rancid Egg Foo
and fling it back to China. And did I mention that the
packaging pisses me off?

Fairly easy to use. Hard/Soft switch and two control knobs. Push-button foot switch.....No manual came with mine, although, I don't think one was needed

Mine was used, but still worked (kind of). I got this because the reviews were favorable, but I was not impressed with the sound. The controls were too sensitive and it went from one extreme to the other. You get what you pay for, and I feel like I spent little money for a little pedal with little use for me.

Fairly cheap construction. Unlike the DanEcho, this has a plastic housing with the circuit board not being very protected. Also, the pedal seems to have a mind of its own giving me tremolo sometimes and doing nothing at others with very little play in the knobs

No opinion.

I was told and read this was a decent pedal for the money. While that may be true, this has left a lasting impression on the Danelectro mini-effects in my mind. I had a feeling they were cheap and would not sound all too great, and, in my opinion, this pedal supports that hunch. That being said, what works for me, might not work for you. For the money, you can try it and if you rarely ever use tremolo, you probably will be happy. I don't expect to use tremolo every time I play my guitar, but I need a pedal a little sturdier and with a more consistent sound that this. I know it's cheap, but I can't give this pedal a very good rating at all. Nothing's a deal if you aren't going to play it. I hate to be this negative, but I was really dissapointed with this pedal.

This pedal is quite easy to use, really self-explanatory. My only complaint would be that the speed is so slow as to be useless until about noon on the dial, which means half of the dial is useless, and you have to be very precise to get the sound you want.

I use this on my bass setup: Epiphone Powerbass II with the electronics all switched out ---> Zoom 607 Bass Effects ---> Tuna Melt ---> Crappy Fender Practice Amp

And on my guitar setup: Epiphone Demon FX (GREAT cheap guitar, btw) ---> Dunlop Crybaby 105q Bass Wah (I tune down a lot) ---> ProCo RAT Distortion ---> Tuna Melt ---> Crate 120W Twin 12" Amp

It can nail that vintage Tremolo sound, as heard in "Crimson and Clover" by Tommy James and the Shondells, but it's not quite punchy enough to nail that RATM "Guerilla Radio" sound. The Boss tremolo does that much better. I don't use this very often in my guitar setup, but it's good at doing it's vintage trem thing.

Well, it's a little too flimsy looking for me to feel comfortable with, but it doesn't really come up because I've never felt the need to use it at a gig before.

No idea.

I have been playing for about a year and half now, and I'm just starting to get serious about my sound. I play Glam-tinged Nu Metal (Think Kittie and Godsmack with a lot more glitter, both in the sound and on the stage), and as such, I rarely have use for this pedal. I use it more at home for just messing around than anything, but it does totally nail that vintage sound. On the other hand, it cannot do the "Guerilla Radio" thing, which the Boss totally NAILS. Awesome at what it does, useless for anything else.

This is a reply to the person named "gunnar" who said "(Strat-Surf&Turf comp-Ibanez TS7-Auto Wah-Tunamelt-Korg Pandora for noise reduction-Pignose)." The reason why there is just noise with the overdrive pedal on is because of the increase in gain (noise) and the volume boost overriding the noise reduction. try setting the noise reduction so it's strong enough to take out noise but still leaves some sustain on clean mode. also, to take some noise down try lowering the compression on the surf & turf. right now i'm playing with pretty much the same setup and know exactly what you're talking about!

dead easy. tremolo is quite a simple effect and this took me no time at all to get the hang of - and i am a slow learner when it comes to guitar gear!

absolutely amazing. i play a custom sg thru a cry baby, rat2, dd3 and "occasional" pedals such a this. i use an old carlsbro 50 top cranked to the max. this pedal sounds warm nd really cuts through with no volume drop. nails that voivod/the heads weirdness easily. sounds equally cool with or without distortion. combine it with a wah and phaesr and you can sound very strange indeed!

definately. dano now house their mini pedals in the dano-protector, a plastic guard which covers the knobs. as a result this is very robust and i have leapt on it with no problems.

some dano pedls suck, but this isnt one of them! very "authentic" tremolo, at super cheap price. not a pedal i'll use ll the time, but a lot of fun!!

easy to use and get a good sound - 1 knob for speed, 1 for depth and a switch for hard / soft which also makes things interesting. The manual suggested settings are quite useful - in fact i probably use them the most. only downer would be the little knobs!

i am using this with the idea of getting something similar to the sounds of chicago blues artists of the 50's, 60's - commonly they used fender amps, fender guitars (lots of clean single coil sounds that get distorted when they are cranked). i am using it with a maton mastersound electric (good for clean sounds) and a yamaha amp, which is also quite similar to fender style in that it doesn't distort easily. In my opinion, this pedal does the trick - it has a warm, rich and consistent tone, a reasonable variety of settings and doesn't affect the guitar tone too much. it can really enhance your sound as a very subtle effect, or you can get more experimental with it. you can even get some echo type sounds with the hard switch on. It sounds pretty good when an overdrive is put in front of it as well.

no problems yet, but i'm pretty gentle with my gear and i haven't gigged with it.the plastic case would worry me a bit if i did.

no experience with them.

i play mostly blues and some experiemental stuff. Listen to some of John Lee Hooker, or Magic Sam's recordings when they uses tremelo with a slightly distorted single coil sound, and that's what i was after with this pedal. The pedal fits in well with others, i like to put the speed on maximum and place it before my wah in the chain to get some spacey sounds. i would get another if it was stolen, as it is a cheap but very worthwhile effect. i love the sound and 'vibe' of the pedal, but i wish it was big and metal and cumbersome because then it would seem more authentic or something.. a level control might also be useful, but what can you expect? it inspires and helps me to make music. i have used it for home recordings, etc. and found that even on a very subtle setting for leads or rhythm applications, it is very effective. the reviews for these class of danelectro pedals generally say that this is one of the better ones. And good luck to Danelectro for daring to be different with their pedal ranges and guitars etc.

Very easy to use.

No manual.

This has a great tremolo sound. To me this was one of the best tremolo pedals I've ever played (the other best were the Dunlop Tremolo and the Boss Tremolo).

This pedal is not noisy at all and can go from really slow to really fast.

This was my first Dano pedal and have used this pedal in gigs and have never had anything wrong with it.

This pedal is in a plastic dano case (with AC power).

I've never delt with them.

A great tremolo pedal (and alot cheaper than the other tremolo pedals ... Dunlop and Boss).

Basic to use. It has 2 knobs, speed and depth, and a hard/soft switch. Has a great range, you can have it very thick and fast or only slightly on and really slow or whatever. The switch changes the tremolo type. One annoying thing is the kobs are a bit small to change on the fly. No manual, but a warrenty in the U.S.
The on/off button could be a bit small for a big footed or uncoordinated person, or someone who realises they need to press the pedal in the next secound and they're on the other side of the stage.

No hiss, no pops. Dosen't detract from your tone, if anything it adds punch (or that might just be the nature of the effect). The switch in the hard position is very drastic tremelo, on, off. this is especially good for use with distortion as it really cuts through. This effect is good for sustained chords, appegios or slow leadlines rather than 300bpm lead breaks. But I guess there are no rules. I use an Epiphone LP standard with a Roland 408 amp along with a boss Flanger and a DD-5 (I'd prefer a DD-3). I also use it with my Theremin along with a Delay. Great for wierd Sci-fi sounds and also can do great telephone rings by itself.

The plastic shell does seem a bit fragile but it hasn't broken yet so I can't say anything bad. The plastic knob guard is a must but make sure you get one, because some older models don't have them. This guard does tend to get in the way of tweaking the knobs but's removable so do whatever. I would use it at a gig without back up, but that's more to do with not having enough money to do otherwise.
Keep the box or get something to protect it if you are giging.

Never had to deal with them which says something good about their reliability I guess.

I'm in a band that's influenced by a lot of british bands (Radiohead, Gomez, Pink Floyd, Coldplay....ect.) and it's kind of Atmospheric rock I suppose. I've been playing for 5 or so years and have recently landed a contract, so I decided I needed new stuff. I bought this one because It won some award and it was cheap. I tried it first, always try it first. I'm VERY happy with it's vale for money and would definatly put it on my X-mas wish list if it got stolen or lost. I usually by boss stuff but the cheapest I could find was a secound hand temolo for $165. the only feature difference was the boss trem had a knob instead of a switch for tremolo type. I didn't play the boss one but the knob Idea does seem to offer more possibilities. But the Tuna Melt wasn't short on sound types by any means.

There are two knobs, which I find convient because I can't count any higher than that. There's also a hard/soft switch, which I found a bit confusing at first, but then I figured out that you have to flick it from left to right rather than twist it like the knobs. The fact that the sound is altered by the slightest tweaking of the knobs makes for a very versatile pedal, but also means you have to turn the things with surgical precision. I wish I didn't have stubby fingers.

The pedal doesn't effect my original sound. I was kind of hoping it'd make me sound more technically competent, but c'est la vie. I use a Marshall amp and a Pacifica 112. I often use the Tuna Melt in conjunction with the Fish & Chips EQ/Milkshake Chorus/Boss DS-2 Turbo Distortion.

By tweaking the recommended settings outlined in the recommended settings for the Tuna Melt on the recommended settings sheet, I was able to replicate The Smiths' How Soon Is Now sound. For some time, I was able to fool my sister into thinking I was Johnny Marr, but then I signed my own damn name on her copy of The Queen Is Dead. I also found a setting that sounds like the one on Detachable Penis by King Missile, which, of course, uses the 'hard' setting. I also found that by either removing the battery or letting it run down and not using a power supply, you can replicate the piano sound that John Cage used in his famous '4 minutes 33'.

I wouldn't go dropping it from any ten storey buildings like you can with Boss pedals, and in fact, I wouldn't even want to accidently tread on the thing or even use my foot on the switch.

As I said, it's a versatile pedal. Whilst I don't use it every time I play, I wouldn't want to be without it now that I own it. I need that sense of commitment from a pedal. I mourned for a long time when my Morley wah pedal died, but then I decided that it was time to start seeing other pedals. This pedal has really livened up my playing. If you're a quasi-talented, quasi-employed youth like me, I can't think of a better pedal to make you sound like a more interesting guitarist than you actually are.

Very Easy to use.

Great Sound Quality. A slight gain in the signal when you kick it on, which is nice for this effect. I love the hard soft setting.

I have played countless gigs with this unit. It's mounted in my pedalboard. I usually find myself messing with the knobs for different settings on diffrent songs. It has never failed or given me problems. I wouldn't mind having another one, one set to a fast speed on the hard setting and one set to medium speed on the soft setting.

N/A

Great Pedal. Would buy again no problem. I actually stole this from my bass player, so I'm gonna have to buy him another one someday.

It's very easy to use, which is a good thing, since no manual is included. Two knobs for repeat speed and depth and a toggle switch for hard or soft. I worked out three good, usable sounds in less than five minutes.

I play a Spector bass through an Ampeg SVT3, with an overdrive chained before this and a reverb pedal after. As far as I can tell, it doesn't introduce any noise to the signal when bypassed, and none is noticeable during use. The effect is good and clear, and what's more, it doesn't strip out any of the low frequencies, making it very useful as a bass pedal. On the "soft" setting with both knobs at 3:00, I get a nice, resonant and full tone, and on the "hard" setting, I get a nice echoing growl similar to the bass on R.E.M.'s "Sweetness Follows." Controls are very sensitive. I've tried the Boss delay, but this one sounds better, with much better low-end response.

If this thing came in a metal case, like a Boss or Ibanez, it'd be absolutely perfect, but the plastic casing and knobs on this thing make me nervous whenever I use it on stage. The pedal just feels cheap, and the way the circuitry is mounted, this thing'll get crushed as soon as someone walks over it. The footswitch is soft and not too accurate, which might not be a problem if only I weren't afraid to step on it too hard. This would be a great product if it were just housed differently. Still, for $35, I guess you can't expect much more.

Never had a need to deal with them.

I play folk and electronic music, and this pedal's great for both. It's easily the best-sounding tremolo I've heard, hands down. It's easy to get that "Twin Peaks" sound from it, and the hard setting generates a tone similar to Johnny Marr's sound with the Smiths. Used with distortion, it does a great job of bringing out upper harmonics, and it just plain sounds great. Very clean. If it were lost or (more likely) broken, I'd definitely buy another, and at the price, it won't hurt much. As it is, it's a great bargain, but I'd gladly pay twice as much for the same circut-board in a metal or hard aluminum housing. As much of a downer as the cheap case is, though, this is a must-have.

Straightforward, 2 knobs, one switch. Sounds good pretty much however you set it, just depends on what you're looking for. couldn't really get it to sound bad actually. Problem is it died after about a week. More on this....

Sound wise, this thing was awesome. I was super impressed with how warm and sweet the tremolo sound was. not noisy as all. clean as all hell. quiet switching on and off. i was using it with an SG with pickups taken out of a les paul, into a Fender Deluxe 90 combo amp. Thing is, it broke after about a week. Suddenly, while jamming with a friend, not even gigging, the effect switched itself on, and wouldn't shut off.

I was so disappointed, because I loved the sound of this pedal. After about a week, I am jamming with a friend, and the effect switched itself on, and would not shut off. The footswitch became worthless and didn't do a thing. Tried fresh batteries, tried the Dano power supply, no difference. the pedal underwent absolutely NO abuse at all during the week i had it. just died out of nowhere. EXTREMELY bummed, cause it sounds killer, oh well. thing is a few days before this died, i sent back a Danelectro Daddy-O pedal that was not working correctly right out of the box. I will make sure I avoid all Dano products in the future. Wish they'd up their quality.

Didn't have to deal with Danelectro directly. I bought it from American Musical Supply, and they just refunded my money.

I wish it had worked. I don't know if i just got a lemon, or what, but it's the second Danelectro pedal I've had to return in one week that wasn't working right.

Two knobs (speed and depth) and one switch (hard and soft). Very easy to use. The speed and depth knobs are very sensitive so you have a fairly wide range of settings open to you.

The sound of this thing is incredible! I have tried at leat eight different pedals before buying this. In fact, I would'nt even look at it before because I thought it would be cheezy given it's size and price. I looked at the voodoolab (really not for me), the guyatone flip (beautiful but very expensive), the guyatone mini (nice but annoying volume boost), the boss (slight volume dip but not bad) and a few other lesser name brands. I was considering shelling out alot of money hence the fact that I was considering the flip series pedal. I love the subtle smooth buttery tremelo one can get out of this thing. Very rich sound. I don't use the hard setting. Also, it does not alter the guitar's tone when it is disengaged. Finally, there is no volume boost or attenuation when the pedal is engaged (other than the intended tremolo effect of course).

Seems like it will be fine.

Don't know and I don't care. For the money I paid for this thing...bedsides, the store I bought it from are solid when it comes to returns and exchanges so I'm not worried.

Great pedal! I highly recommend it. Apparently some of the other Dano pedals eat up batteries in a hurry...this one does'nt however.

Simple, even for Simon.

I've tried a number of different brand tremolo pedals and this one is the winner by a wide margin, IMO. The "soft" setting with both knobs dialed at noon is lush, sweet and very "chorus-like" when fed by any kinda guitar, single or dual coil. The "hard" setting's staccato sound is worthless to me. Very quiet. Excellent clone of vintage tube amp tremolo, and if your amp lacks it, this is THE tremolo pedal to get.

It should NOT be used as a foot stomper pedal - treat it well and it will last. I never gig without a backup pedals.

Oh please, spare me.

Playing since '55 - gigged as a pro for 11 years - into blues, jazz, new age surf, ragtime - use Strats, Teles and old tube amps - this pedal should be a mainstay for any amp without tremolo - don't leave home without it.

Simple. I didn't get a box or manual (forgot them on the counter).

I hafta tell you that I was impressed with this little sucker. The hard setting is useless TO ME, but not to others. The soft setting is sweet. I tried other tremolo pedals and could either not hear a difference or could hear that the others were not as pleasing to my year. Can be a bit hissy now and then with a compressor in front of it, but that is to be expected.

EZ, if you've got ears- and know what you want to hear. No manual needed, and you won't get one either. Dano's suggested setting is right on money, tho.

I would've given this 10, but with my steup (Strat-Surf&Turf comp-Ibanez TS7-Auto Wah-Tunamelt-Korg Pandora for noise reduction-Pignose) there's a problem I can't get around: any boost in signal will turn tremolo into annoying tremoloed noise, particulary nasty when the guitar is not played. This means I can only use Tunamelt on clean sound through noise reduction (even the Pignose alone will spoil the signal). It doesn't matter much, but clearly it is a handicap. I don't know if the pedal is faulty, but I haven't bothered to change it, since I can get overdriven trem from Pandora. And the clean sound from Tunamelt is just great! The best trem i`ve heard, soft/hard switch gives you enough choice like explained in earlier reviews, but the only really usable sounds appear after the dials are turned up to about three thirds thru.

I give you one word: plastic. It poses a risk.

Dano is very helpful, they replaced my EQ, I'm sure they'd replace this too, if i wanted to.

Probably great if you buy one that isn't broken, these minipedals seem to be rather poorly made in that there are many cases of having to replace one early on, BUT Dano will do that!
Mine worked well in the store, with their setup, so I'm not even sure if this one's faulty.
Would replace if it got lost, and don't try to steal it!

Pretty easy to get a decent sound out of it, two knobs and a switch that instantly turns the 'depth' knob up all the way. The switch seems redundant... No manual really, but it takes about 30 seconds to find the right sound. Oh, and mine is the latest version with footswitch cover.

There really isn't any noise on this pedal, but if you turn the rate knob any farther down than the speediest settings what you're doing is turning your guitar on and off. Slowly. But it almost works with my Boss analog Delay to fill in the bits for some interesting chords on the slower settings. You can get an REM sound, any sort of tremolo sound with this pedal with the very nice depth control- from humming to helicopters.

My rig:
Dano 56-U2--> Snarling Dogs Very Tone --> Boss Flanger --> Dano Pastrami --> ProCo Rat --> Dano Tuna Melt --> Boss Analog Delay --> Cheap Peavey Amp.

The limters on the Rat help make this tremolo sound smooth, otherwise it runs the risk of being a bit choppy. But apart from exceptionally smooth tremolo, you've got everything a Boss tremolo can get you with this pedal. And it's cheap.

This thing is made of plastic. I won't drop it out of a second story window like my Rat, but it'll do for some local gigs. The footswitch seems a bit flimsy but it has worked perfectly for the last few months. Don't stomp on it.

I purchased this from a tiny local music store, and got the older version w/out the plastic foot shield. Told the store, they called Danelectro, I sent the pedal back and got another newer model with the foot shield installed, for the cost of postage ($3). They're really quick, too. Nothing but praise.

The choppiness gives it a 9, but it does everything else perfectly. A great addition to a rig with some pedals you can run different tones through it, but it sounds really tinny lonely by itself. I'd buy another one if I lost it, it's better than the price of a used Boss tremolo on Ebay.

2 knobs, 1 switch... piece of piss. Plug it in and off you go!

The knobs control the speed & depth, the switch moves from soft (warble) to hard (square wave).

This pedal is brilliant! The hard setting is great for atmospheric parts - the effect is kinda like the "morse code" sound you can get using the toggle switch on a Les Paul... absolutely huge with my 12-string. Use the speed control to match the BPM of the song, strum and let it ring. Not subtle... unlike the soft option, which is a gently pulsing, rather than the "on/off" tremelo.

Very, very useable!

As with other Dano mini pedals, it's got the little knobs but they've obviously been listening to feedback and have added a removable protective cover... well done!

Pretty new, so I haven't gigged it yet... I wouldn't recommend jumping on it...

Total bargain! I'm a retro-sixties timewarp kid and this is just my bag... subtle Stones (think "Gimme Shelter") to mad-morse Wilco style. I'd been looking at the DOD job but this is a shed load better!

I've used it with my 12-string to great effect (huge, strummed chords) and it also adds a lovely warble to slide parts... why are you still reading this - GO AND BUY ONE NOW!

So easy even my toothless cousin could figure it out

I use this for studio stuff only. I've got an old Hagstrom Strat copy, and a custom built rig with three Duncan P/U's. I run this either into a Sans Amp GT2, or straight into my Roland VS 1880HD equipped with the effects boards (great amp modeling). I was a little worried about how much noise this pedal would introduce...virtually none. Unbelievable sound for the money. Unbelievable sound for any money.

Since I just use this thing in a project studio, I'm not too worried about having a backup, but I was never too bright so if I were still gigging live I would more than likely use this without a backup. So far so good. Something I haven't seen mentioned anywhere else in this thread is the "protective cap" that the unit came with. It's a semi-transparent piece of plastic that snaps down over the front end of the unit to protect the knobs and switch. It's really functional, and I will be leaving it on. I may hamper quick access to the knobs, but that beats the hell out of no access (meaning broken) to the knobs. So far so good - no problems whatsoever

Haven't had to deal with them as of yet.

I play "Roots Rock" this pedal is right on the money for me. I would buy another immediately if it were stolen or lost. You gotta love the price,the excellent tone, and the extremely low noise level, and as long as I don't have any problems with it in the next couple of years...I won't hate anything about it. It's an inexpensive inspiration for sure. If you own another trem - pedal, buy this one and use the old one for a backup. Maybe you'll need it maybe you won't, but I'll bet this little brat sounds better than what you have now... it's that good. If I could put these guts in an old Ibanez pedal "body" (I don't care which pedal - I've just always like the way the Ibanez switches felt under my foot) then I would be in stompbox heaven.

2 knobs and a switch. Easy

My setup: ibanez ar 250(Les Paul Double cut look alike)--Carl martin Hot drive n' boost--Boss DD5--Tuna Melt--Boss RV3--Old Hohner tube amp. I can't hear any noise comming from it.
The boost some people are complaining about sounds pretty natural to me. The tremolo on old amps also boost the signal. I must say I was surprised by the warm sound. I used to own a daddy O and I hated it. I thought I would never buy a danelectro product again. This tremolo converted me. good old tremolo sound and very affordable.

very crappy knobs, very ugly, too small.
I've put an extender on the on/off swhich so I won't break the knobs when I step on it. It was easy. Took me about 20 minutes. If they had made better knobs and made this thing a little bigger it would be almost perfect, but they didn't. I also hate the shape of all danelectro pedals, don't you?

besides from being small ugly and fragile it's perfect sounding and that's pretty important to me.
Tremolo fits almost any style of music so I'd say this pedal is pretty versatile.

Two knobs and one switch. Very easy. No manual but why would you need it?

Sounds very good. No loss of tone or volume when on or off, so it's better than boss in this respect. I would have liked to have seen a knob for Hard/Soft, not a switch. You can't quite get the "How soon is now" level - it's either too hard or soft. But for most things it's fine. It doesn't quite do the shimmery sound that some other trems do. But for the price who's complaining?

Oh dear. It was broken when I got it, the switch would often refuse to work and wouldn't turn on or off. I exchanged it and the new one went the same after a week. People complain about the plastic case - it's not that, the plastic is quite hard and tough and I've had some very durable plastic pedals before now. The problem is with the components. I do have one major complaint about the case and that's it's shape. The "D" and ridge on the top gets in the way and means that you can't step on it, you have to CONCENTRATE and use your toe. It's not the plastic or the size - it's the basic design.

Never delt with them. I heard that they replace broken pedals which sounds quite good for such a cheap pedal. Not much good in the UK though.

Sounds great for the price. It's worth getting if you are going to change the sockets and switches and put it in a better box. Otherwise don't bother. Save up for another couple of weeks, it's really worth it.

tweak and go and also a hard/soft switch. Real simple both setting work great and tremolo a different feel.Noiseless switch

Very good trem if you don't like the sound of this you don't like trem period.It adds no noise in the loop or suck tone. The only thing I don't like is its boost on clean setting but I can fix that with my guitar volume.

Be careful they are made of plastic I use it in the mini board, so hopefully it will last. So far no problems but I do baby it.

kinda slow emails but they will exchange pedal if problems occur.

there is a question of build quality just be careful. Circuit wise this a very professional sounding trem. If you stomp hard get someone to make a box for it. I seen some pros with homemade trem and I bet theese gut are in it.For money get two and soundwise this thing is good.

Plug it in and use it. Couldn't get any simpler than that. Turn some knobs, flip a switch, the sounds change. Great sounds right away

Well, it sounds pretty darned good. I was very happy to have it. Not noisy at all. I did notice that it seemed to add a little high end color to my sound when bypassed, but that wasn't a bad thing - it was like having a free enhancer!

Died on the third use. No rough stuff. I plugged it in and was only getting erratic pulses out of it. I think there's a short on the pc board. Bummer. Not worth replacing if it's only going to happen again.

Actually, these guys are great. I've dealt with them in e-mail several times and I think it's a good company, trying to do a noble thing and provide cool tools at bargin prices. Sometimes they fail, but hey, don't we all? I thought about writing to ask them if they wanted their dead pedal back, but it seemed too cruel.

Well, I have to give it an eight because it died so young, but it was a great sound while it lasted.

Very easy to use. Firmware? Yeah right....

Sounds astonishingly good with my Ampeg SuperJet or Fender Quad Reverb with a Strat or my Les Paul. I own a FullTone Supa Trem too, and I gotta say this--the DJ-5 comes damn close! And for $150 less than the FullTone. Simply put, this is a great trem pedal. Quiet, retains the highs, smooth sounding, easy to use...killer!

I just bought it. Ask me in 6 months.

I play all styles and used appropriately, this pedal does the job perfectly. The downside to this pedal is the cheap switch and tiny knobs. I can forsee a problem occuring in the future with this pedal but heck...at $40.00, I'll definately get my moneys worth. Tons of fun for cheap, and sounds great.

The Danelectro "TUNAMELT" is yet another example of their commitment to building affordable pedals. The Tunamelt is simple to use right out of the box: a control for speed and depth with a toggle switch for hard/soft effect.There is a manual that isn't really necessary but they through it in anyway.

The Dano Tunamelt captures the speed and texture of an old Fender amp tremolo.There is NO noisy hiss or "pops" when the pedal is engaged. The Tunamelt does not alter the tone of your guitar/amp combination- there is no loss of brightness when the pedal is activated. I used a "Vibro Thang" pedal about a year ago (and I hated it) because it sucked up all the treble frequencies-yuck! The Dano lets the tone shine natuarly! If you enjoy the trem sounds of the Everly Brothers' "All I Have To Do Is Dream" you'll like this pedal.It also nails those CCR "Born On The Bayou" trem tones as well. Cool!

I'm currently using three Dano pedals with a Dano pedal board at this time. I have experienced no problems during gigs, at home or rehearsals. I trust these little devices so much that I don't use a backup (or plan to use a backup in the future).

From past experiences I have found Danelectro to be helpful with their customers. They were a little slow in dealing with me but I'm sure they did their best.

I'm very excited about the new Dano mini pedals! They are a great value, fun to collect and work well. Invest in the case/pedal board and you'll never have to buy another 9-volt battery again! After using these pedals I'm sure you'll ask yourself, "How did I ever make without them for so long?" I like the fact that these pedals do specific jobs...Dano does not promise these pedals will do everything under the sun! If you want a good trem pedal get the Tunamelt!

Two knobs , two switches, how hard can it be !?
Speed and Depth knobs, Hard/soft switch, stomp switch.
Unfortunatly this unit had no manual, but it doesn't really need one anyway.I was making great sounds within 30 secs of taking it out of the box.
I would of given this a 10 but for the size of the controls.

I use this with my Ibanez StageStar, PSK wah, OD-01 and Fender 25r ampilfier. VERY little or no buzz at all. Sounds pretty good, I think the diference between hard/soft could be ajustable.

Fairly solid ABS plastic.
I've found it reliable for the short time I've owned it.
If I was gigging hard out I would get a backup, but for now I would prefer to buy another mini effect.
I'm pretty careful with my gear so I'm not worried anyway.

Never dealt with Danelectro but I've heard their customer service is very good.

I play bits of everything, and this unit covers most tremolos well.
If it were stolen or lost I'd definatily buy another.

This pedal is pretty easy-you have the speed and the depth controls and a switch going between square(hard)wave and triangle(soft, pulsing)wave.It does what it does.

Danelectro Pedals, particularily the big ones, are brilliant.really quiet, really cool looking things, built like tanks.The Tuna Melt was really quiet, and with a bit of gain, a few cool shapes and a Floyd I was melting the bowels of everything in the room.There's only a slight volume boost, barely noticeable out in the field, so i wouldn't worry about it.With practice it's possible to get the 'Tom Morello' sound, like the beginning of 'Know Your Enemy'.(but it's cheating)

It was doing some regular use in the house, but out on stage it took a good stamp and disintegrated.I think it must just have been the box, as I've got the Surf n' Turf compressor and it's fine.My Daddy-O is indestructible and even after I broke a guy's jaw with it in a fight, it's been fine...

Dano rule!really helpful.

I think it's great.If you can't shell out for the boss tremelo or you want to spruce up your pedalboard with a hint of yellow, I reccomend getting this.brilliant for the money, and since i reinforced mine it can survive elbow drops

Pretty easy - 2 knobs and a switch...but no manual (a least a few setting hints would be fine).

This pedal sure does a nice job!!! It's hard to get a bad sound, it sounds great especially at low and mid-fast settings no matter if you use it with a clean or a distortioned sound. (Our sheepish drummer giggled: "Oh! that sounds kinda REM" :-))

I play a Mexican Strat Special trough a Peavey Transtube Amp and I have no real Problems with noises from this pedal.

The switch lets you dial between hard and soft Trem and I don't need more!

Result: Everyone including me likes the sound of this pedal!!

But heres is the problem: Tough this one is really cheap I don't see why Danelectro build it with these really lousy plastic knobs on top of it!!!
Today I wanted I kicked at it to turn it on and the "Depth" knob just broke (and hey - I "kicked" and not jumped on it!. Drummer was laughing I was nearly in tears, because it does not seem to be possible to replace this cheap (f***ng)knob.

Result: If used at a gig - watch your step buddy or get a solid build like the one from Schaller

Nope, because I think thats no opinion for me.

I am playing kind of Brit Rock Style (at least our singer wish I would) but I just play everyting from Blues, Jazz to Sonic Youth-style Alternative stuff and this is my 5th year of playing guitar.

I got this pedal via Musik Produktiv wich is I think the hugest musicstore in Germany and have not tested any other but I love the look of the Schaller Tremolo!

I think if it is stolen I would give other and better build Tremolos a try. If any of them sounds better okay, but this has to proven!

This pedal sounds great!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
It covers nearly everthing from soft Trem like Radioheads "Creep" to REM kind of stuff to...I dunno just give this one a try...

But don't forget that it is build with cheap plastic if you want to use for rehearsing or gigs be careful!

Because of that only an 7 otherwise it would be 10!!!!

no manual, but you'll figure it out.

oh god, ugh, so good. even through my little gorilla practice amp this sounds fantastic, tremolo like they used to make it. very warm, just boatloads of fun to use. buy it and you will want to write parts just so you can use it. even if you dont like danelectro's other pedals <which i do and have several> you will like this one! i first heard it when a friend of mine who is much better than i am used it live to cover "beautiful day" by u2, and that was all i needed to hear. trust me you will love this pedal!

well, here's the only problem...i bought one of these on clearance at mars for 5 bucks, and it did not function properly, you have to jam the instrument cable in just right, and then it can't be cut off. so i went to another store to buy a fresh one, tried one out, and it had the same problem! i got another one, it works like a charm, no problems at all, or in fact with any of these pedals. just be sure to try yours out before you buy it, and if you're getting it online, good luck!

couldnt tell ya

this is a great pedal, it reminds me of the 60's tremolo on vintage amps, but costs a good bit less. great tone and flexible enough to meet your needs. if you want a tremolo, take my advice, skip everything else and get this one.

The pedal has three controls, rate, depth, and a soft-hard switch that can soften or intensify the depth and cutoff of the tremelo. It is relatively easy to get a good sound, but somewhat difficult to adjust on the fly if your band's tempo isn't matching the tremelo rate. The knobs controlling rate and depth are very small and especially on the rate side, a slight adjustment of the dial produces a dramatic change in sound.

Surprisingly, despite its cheezy looks and sometimes touchy controls, this pedal produces some nice tremelo sounds. I've used it for almost every type of tremelo, from a mild slow volume shift to simulating the toggling of a pickup switch on a les paul with one pickup off, and found the sound to be quite sufficient.

The housing, knobs, and footswitch are all plastic, which makes me concerned about the pedal's safety. It is obviously cheaply made. Battery life is very good.

You can't beat this price, especially for the sound quality of this particular dano mini. If you're looking to add tremelo to just one or two songs, or you can't afford an expensive unit, or your amp tremelo just bit the dust (they can be expensive to repair), this is a decent pedal.

pRETTY EASY, 2 Knobs and a switch Hard/soft

ANOTHER RUDE...RUDE...RUDE PEDAL... It has an effect on you after you use it too long. I can still hear it now. I Play A Strat with EMG's and play it through a Tech21 trademark 60 (killer amp) and when we do "closing time" I can still her the tremelo effect when I'm trying to get to sleep. I also own a Mesa Trem-o-verb and the tremelo is different, but the Dany's is "IN YOUR FACE" tremelo

good, made the cows come home and my penis grow two inches longer, Just kidding, hey I've never had one break down and I own seven of them

don't know

I'd replace it if I kept on playing or if it was stolen, this thing has the most tremelo effect I have ever run across in 20 years of playing.

It's extremely easy to use. two knobs and a switch. Speed, Depth and Hard/Soft switch.

The setup i use with this is an Ibanez TR-300 bass, with a Dixon Metal Rocker followed by a Zoom 506 with the expression pedal followed by this pedal connected to a Laney BC-50 amp. It's a bit noisy since when you turn it on it increases your output volume which is a major drag and when your not using a battery.. but it sounds good and gives a good enviorment to the music.

It's made of plastic and I accidentaly broke one of the knobs. It's a bit weak. Still works very well.

I play a lot of blues-punk and rock n roll, it gives a good enviorment to the music. It suited my expectations. The thing i hate about it is that its made of thin plastic. It does help to make music and to add extra fx after it's outlined.

This is not a necessary question for me to answer in this review.

Alright, ladies and gentlemen... This pedal has a virtual bypass. It appears to be digital to me. It definately has a digital sound to it. Although the converters work well, this is NOT worth even 30 bucks that you would spend on it. If you listen carefully, you will notice that it boosts your tone everytime it is activated. While on, your guitar tone is changed slightly, and the volume is raised 3-5 db's. I am fairly against this, and I seriously don't think anyone can speak against what I've said. This is the ONLY pedal I've put a review on, because the others (from other companies, etc...) speak for themselves. If you want the best possible tone for your guitar but still want to use a tremolo, get something else. I'm using this with a Fender HotRod DeVille 4x10". This robs the tone. I cannot get the sound of my "favorite artists" as the questions in this review state because when they use tremolo's, the volume doesn't change.

It is fairly reliable, but I've only used it a few times because of the above mentioned problems with it.

They do not respond promptly to questions, etc... The phone line (I'm fairly certain of this) that is posted on the website is the wrong one, and I don't believe it has call waiting... BUMMER.

BOSS TR-2... I should have gone with it. Yeah, so what if it's an extra 20 or 30 dollars... You get what you pay for. I guess that saying will always be true when it comes to stuff like this.

Blah blah. Two knobs=easy (no real need for a manual). Minimal effort yields a good sound.

I run an Ibanez Iceman through a Marshall half stack (VS100CD head). With a ProCo Rat2 and an EH Smallstone Phaser, you can get a neat machine-like sound (ala ORGY, Coal Chamber, et al.) This thing gives such a nice variety of trem settings no matter what you set it to.

Ay, there's the rub. I put the pedal in the band's cable box, and one of the knobs was snapped right off. Yipes. A little super glue and a few layers of skin later, the thing is back on there. I REALLY wish the construction wasn't plastic, but I would wager that would add $20-$30 to the cost, which I would be a little hesitant to do.

I play in a post-industrial darkpop band FWIW (sodaashband.com). This thing is one of the most underrated pedals I have run into. I find myself writing parts just so I have an excuse to use it. While I would be a little concerned to use it at gigs in the winter where it would possibly go from extreme cold to extreme heat, but then again, I don't like bringing any of my gear to shows like that.

Two dials controlling depth and speed, one switch to alternate between hard and soft tremelo. Being small though, if you've got a particularly complicated pedal range, you may start accidently treading on other switches in your set-up. Just lay it out accordingly!

I use this pedal with both dials at 3 o'clock, which gives quite a pacey, classic result (though far subtler results can be easily gained by using, say, more 12 o'clock settings).
I'm using it through a JCM900, with a Ricky 330 12 string, and Gibson SG, and the tone is superb - very crisp. I've used the Boss Trem and Marshall, and this 'lesser' model beats them hands down. I've used them side by side and the Boss had a significant volume drop when the pedal kicked in. The Marshall, which I bought twice, broke within weeks, though it sounded ok when working (check out my scathing review for further info!). Can occasionally get lost behind a wall of distortion, but traditionally it's a vintage, clean effect and works best like this.

Obviously the dano mini-range looks pretty delicate, though I'm yet to break one. Just don't do anything stupid and you'll not find out for yourself is the idea!
The switches are pretty fiddly though, and I've known these to break with less than sturdy collisions. But as I haven't had any problem, this is a winner.

Never dealt with em.

This is the best out of four tremelos I've used (Boss, Marshall and some other make I can't forget were the others!). I would replace it in an instant. Without doubt this is the most effective, and at that price - half that of the Boss, a tenner cheaper than the Marshall - I intend to use this pedal until something better comes along. But let's face it: it's not likely.

Extremely easy to use, like most dano mini's. i traded in my useless shitty zoom processor for three dano mini's. no manual, but an idiot like me could figure it out, the knobs just do what they say. speed, depth, and the hard/soft switch.

I use a kramer pacer through the marshall mg100rcd and run the tremolo last in the effects loop. it's very good sounding, my friend has the boss one which cost almost triple of this. pretty much same features but instead of a hard/soft switch, the boss has a knob. the hard tremolo means that comes in and out real suddenly, and the soft makes the sound fade in and out to the speed desired. i don't really see how you could go in between there( what's the use of that knob on the boss? ). i got his pedal cuz...i actually can't remember why i did, like i can't remember if any of my fave artists use tremolo, i know stephan carpenter of deftones used a tremolo on dai the flu on around the fur, but i dont think that's why i got it, oh well. i'm glad i got it

don't throw it around, it's really not built very tough, but as long as you don't launch it at a stone wall after a good gig gone bad, it'll be fine.

don't know, hope i don't need to know either

i was really happy with it and surprised at what sounds i could recreate. i use it one one my songs so far, but i would like to use it on maybe on another ( my band doesn't like songs that sound the same, so we try to differ as much as we can ).

Very easy to use. It's a tremolo, not a nuclear submarine.

This is a very good tremolo and could easily compete with pedals costing two to three times as much. The Dano sounds as good as a Boss tremolo pedal that I used to have for less than half the cost of the Boss. My favorite trems are the Fulltone Supa-Trem and the trem on my Peavey Valverb (a rackmount tube, spring reverb/tremolo unit that is no longer in production). The Dano isn't as awesome as these units, but in the $39 to $150 price range it's a little ass kicker. You won't find a better tremolo pedal for $39 PERIOD.

I have had no problems with it, but I don't gig with it. If I did I would have a backup. At $39 I could actually afford to have a backup. I can't say that about my Supa-Trem.

I've heard that Danelectro is good about replacing defective units. I've never had to deal with them.

I think most of the Danelectro pedals are a great value. You get good sounds for a little cash. That's always a good thing. I use mostly boutique pedals for my live and recording rig, but I always have a Danelectro Mini Pedalboard for tooling around the house and recording lo-fi sounds. I would even use them for a few things things live, but not as my main source for tones. My Dano pedalboard has the following Dano pedals in it.

EQ > Pastrami Overdrive > French Toast Octave Fuzz (with octave off) > Peperoni Phaser > Tunamelt Tremolo. It's sort of a cheaper mini verson of my main rig. I'm thinking of replacing the phaser with with the Chicken Salad Vibrato, but I have heard that these have a tendency to crap out of you put a hot signal into them like the kind that the French Toast Fuzz puts out.

Ultimately the Tunamelt Tremolo is the best tremolo value on the market. For the price, nothing even comes close.

This is not difficult. Two knobs, a hard/soft switch and the on/off button.

Excellant sound, especially considering the price. I use it in an effects chain which can range from 3 to 8 pedals. If you put in early in the chain and run a lot of effects, the signal is pretty weak (no surprise there), but otherwise pretty good. I prefer the old Boss Tremolo/Pan pedals, but they're not easy or cheap to come by. I wish it would go a bit slower...
<example setup> telecaster -> big muff -> vox wah -> tunamelt -> boss ds1-> boss flanger -> boss sd-1 ->boss dd5- > line 6 delay mod -> vox cambridge twin/ vox pathfinder (stereo)

unless you're really rough with pedals or use those spike KISS boots, you shouldn't have a problem. they are plastic though, but..

never needed this

I play dreampop, etc (u2-verve-radiohead-lush-live).
I don't use it that often. nice spaced out sounds when you play with the knobs as the signal is coming through....... of all my pedals, this is the one i *could* do without.

Uhh....Pretty easy speed and depth ..oh yeah and a hard/soft switch. The switch is tiny so I'll mark down a little for that....

Hmmm, well it's an awesome tremolo, I'm pretty amazed, personally. When I first got it - I thought maybe there's a single sound in there that I could use .. and hey, for $39....Well, guess what ? It's no univibe...but it sounds really good. no noise, either

Ohh ... well ... it's pretty cheaply made - but hey if it goes squish, buy a new one. Not a lot of moving parts, though .. I 'm, sure it'd last awhile if you don't bang it around much

Never dealt with 'em

Play Pop - Rock, 50/50 cover/orignal band - this thing really does th job - I use a tremelo for maybe 2-3 songs and it does just fine. For the price .. hey ....

Easy to use, but no manual...even if you don't need it I like when a company includes a manual. I like to have something to read while I am sitting on the toilet.

I am using it with a Fender Jaguar and Fender Bassman amp with a bunch of pedals that seem to change weekly. I haven't noticed any noise but this thing sounds really good. I have the Boss tremolo as well. Is the Boss better? I would say it is built heavier but sound wise I can't tell a difference. I use the Dano on my pedal board if that tells you anything.

We are all tired of hearing everyone complain of the plastic cases. Don't act like an idiot and jump 6 feet in the air to land on the switch and it should be o.k. I am not sure if I would be real comfortable using one of these mini-effects for distortion since I switch in and out of that a lot. However, for modulation effects I think they are a real good bet.

Nobody cares what I play or for how long I have played. It is a great tremolo for a great price. If you take care of it, you will get your money's worth out of it. Do not buy the Boss Tremolo just because it is Boss, you can almost buy 3 of these for the Boss price tag and I don't see much of a difference. I really wish they made these in the USA, but I guess cheap child slave labor in China is why these things can be so inexpensive.

Well its a tremelo pedal, so they're never very difficult. You've got three controls - depth, rate, and a "hard-soft" switch. The "hard-soft" switches between a square and a sine oscilator. The only hassel if that the knobs are so small, it's difficult to twiddle them quickly, but I guess that can't be helped on a "mini-pedal" such as this. The "rate" knob provides a suprisingly large range of speeds, from less than 1-cycle per seccond, to a very fast tremelo (I haven't worked it out - maybe 15 or 10 hz?) The depth knob is less usable. When cranked to the full it provides a total cut-out, but at the 12 o'clock position you can hardly hear the tremelo effect at all, especially though distortion. But the rate knob is the most important one anyway.

The sound is great - just a very smooth tremelo effect, with almost no "noise". It really sounds great with a clean or a dirty sound, and you can achieve a wide range of effects, from psychadelic chord strumming, to stuttering surf-guitar, to my favourite: I actually used it to create a sort of "wall of sound", shoegazer effect, by running my Ibanez Sonic Distortion --> Tuna Melt --> Ibanez Digital Delay. It created a great, throbbing, pulsing guitar sound. Good stuff.

I haven't used it for very long, but despite being small and plastic, it seems quite sturdy. The plastic is thick, and the base is solid rubber-based metal. My only concerns are that the "Soft-hard" switch is a bit small, and might get damaged if you put your foot on the wrong place, and that there is only a single, plastic screw holding the back on. The screw on the back could probably be replaced with your own metal one pretty easily though.

This is an amazing pedal for the price - $93 Australian Dollars is the kind of price I usually pay for cheap 2nd hand pedals - You don't get a Boss pedal for less than $250 new, but this Danelectro was so much cheaper, and the sound doesn't suffer a bit! It's cute, it's fairly sturdy, it's easy to use, and it does deliver a great sound. If you're hankering for a tremelo but don't need anything too fancy, the Tuna Melt is a great choice.

A chimp can figure this out!

I haven't tried this out with all my stuff but with my Japanese 335 copy/open faced hb's (don't discount this thing) and my mesa/boogie dc-5 I get a very surealistic jazz tone. Imagine swelling lush chords in a bed of hollowbody tone. My tele and dc-5 combined with this effect have that high end chime, almost a leslie type of feel which I have a particular fondness for.

Like one of the other reviewers here, I am fussy about noise. This unit is virtually noisless which makes me very happy. Overall it gets a 9 because as good as it sounds, imo the sound of some of the Fender (albeit they're not pedals) tremolo's are superior.

Haven't had it long enough to give an opinion but I did receive the case when I purchased 2 Dano mini-pedals from Guitar Center. Great deal. I think this is the issurance needed if you have fears as many have reported here that the plastic casing is going to implode. Curiously, I don't remember seeing and significant failures with the construction reported here. I'm hoping this is a good sign!

Never dealt with Dano. Liked their site but it seemed to lean towards stimulating your appetite rather than providing professional facts and information.

Styles of music are blues, classic rock, jazz, country, contemporary christian, latin, ballroom, Klezmer ..... let's just say no metal, rap and some of the current alternative stuff confuses me. Playing for 34 years (old guy). Lots of gear. So what. To the reason why I've given this pedal the rating I have:

* Sounds great with single coils or hb's
* Virtually noisless
* Very affordable
* Guitar player rates it well
* It was a great excuse to visit with my old friend Chuck Duck at Moe's Music in Virginia Beach. Of course he gave me a good deal!
* I like canary yellow
* It makes me hungry

As with most danelectro pedals this one is failry easy to use. Depth, speed, and a hard/soft switch. pretty easy I think :)

This is my setup:
JB player sledgehammer guitar (check them out)> dunlop crybaby> danelectro daddy-o> danelectro fab tone> boss super phaser> tuna melt tremolo> boss digital delay 5> Crate GFX 120. I love the sound of this unit. It perfectly simulates the old tremolo, but more importantly, it just plain sounds good. Mostly I use it with the fab tone and the phaser, and put the tuna melt on the hard setting with the depth up and the speed at about 3 O'clock. This creates a stuttered sci-fi effect that in pretty unique. For added depth I throw on my DD-5 on the reverse mode. This pedal is the shit. Only problem I have is it doesn't move as slow as I'd liek, but oh well. Good for the price.

their pedals are the shit. It's a plastic casing, but it won't break anytime soon. yay for the strength.

I've never actually dealt with them, but they need to make the warrenty valid in canada too!!!!!! For that the entire rating gets shot down.

well, I was going to buy the Doss tremolo pedal. It's great, but it would cost me $250 Canadian. That is way more than I wnat to pay for a simple tremolo pedal. So I came across this one. For the price you simply cannot beat it. Anyone wanting to creat some interesting sounds should get this pedal!

super easy with only 2 knobs and a switch

Very warm. This is comperable to pedals three times or more its cost in terms of sound. I guess that is why this pedal is an editor's pick for Guitar Player magazine. You really can't believe the tone that comes out of this little plastic effect box unless you hear it. I have used this on numerous amps and guitars and it sounds equally good on every one. I think you would have to have some pretty terrible equipment and try hard to get a bad sound out of this.

Cheaply made and I would definitly need a back up on a gig. I agree with the other review that it is only a matter of tie before it breaks. I am even thinking about transplanting the guts to a sturdier housing. I have seen numerous broken mini-effects at guitar shops but what do you expect for the money?

Not very fast on their e-mail response. I wonder if they are any better at repairs?

Great value. I wanted a Dunlop tremolo but I couldn't afford it. This may not have a metal housing or stereo outputs but the tone is to die for. Maybe the solution is to buy one of the mini pedal boards that Danelectro is now making or maybe just buy an extra pedal and keep it on hand since the pedal is after all such a good value.

2 knobs, very self explanatory. Speed and depth. You can flick the switch between hard (cuts alot more obviously and sharply) or soft (more gradual into and out of cuts). The knobs are so tiny, getting the perfect speed is kinda hard.

Running it with a Boss Metal Zone, crybaby Wah thru a laney 25w amp. It's not the best, not in the same league as the boss tremolo, but you get what you pay for. As far as pedals go, the little Danelectro pedals are really cheap.

It's too damn small! You have to turn it off and on with one of your toes. The shell is plastic, and I think it'd stop functioning instantly if you dropped it, looks pretty flimsy. You wanna be careful with this thing. It's reliable though, works fine for gigging, just make sure there aren't any clumsy roadies around.

Never had to

Good for nin, tool, experimental, alternative rock/metal. Works great for the intro of Rage's "Guerilla Radio". I use it alot in original material. Play a chord, and let it get diced up. It's cheap, but it doesn't stand up to the boss tremelo. For a frequently used yet interesting effect, it's a good price to pay, and it does what you want it to.

Simplest thing in the world. Hard/Soft switch and two knobs (speed of trem. and effect level). Basic stompbox construction

I have a Fender Fat Strat with a Seymour Duncan invader on the bridge into a Budda Phatman distortion into a Morley bad horsie wah into a boss chorus and a boss flanger into a Marshall valvestate half stack. I also have other various effects that i don't always use but that is besides the point. This thing has it's best sound clean but it can cut through most distortions that i've tried. Distortion and trem is a cool effect. It produces no extra noise and is just as good as those tremolos that cost $90+!. The speed control is very acurate and you can come up with lots of settings with these three controls. One reccomendation is to not overuse this effect.

The thing is pretty sturdy even though it's pretty much all plastic. I've dropped it a couple of times without having any damage to it. I have and would use it at a gig but i am careful with it in the studio because of the slight, sharp noise that it can make when you turn it on. I just wish that it was a metal casing so i could be a little more sure of it.

Haven't dealt with customer support because it hasn't broken and i've never tried to mod it.

I play hard rock and it is a great assent to my pedalboard at times. If it was stolen or lost I might not buy it again only because i don't use it enough. I do use it once and a while and it always amazes me. I don't think the hard/soft feature is needed but i guess someone might use it. It is very versatile even when you aren't using this feature. I bought this one because it cost less than the boss pedal and it cost less than half. It hasn't gotten in the way yet so i plan to keep it for a long while.

Very easy. Two knobs and a hard/soft switch. Turn them and find what you like. I wish that the knobs had a bit more travel to them, but beggars can't be choosers.

I like the sound. There is a slight pop when you turn the pedal on, so I wouldn't use it for studio work, but the effect itself sounds great.
My review is a little different than most of the reviews in this category because I running a Rhodes electric piano through this pedal. I think it sounds great though. I had a marshall VT1 vibratrem pedal,paid 100 dollars for it and hated it. I hated it and then it broke after only minor abuse. I got this pedal for a fifth of the price and it sounds 100 times better.
My setup, not than many readers of this review should care since the majority of pedal purchasers are guitar players, is
Rhodes->dod preamp 250->westbury wc-20 tube preamp->tunamelt tremelo->ibanez ad99 analog delay->Roland KC500 amp.

I don't know. It hasn't broken on me yet, but I am basically positive it is only a matter of time. The construction is really cheap. One of the knobs already broke off on me, and I have only had it for a few months and have been treating it nice. It is a plastic pedal, so it is naturally fragile. I would use it on a gig, but I wouldn't be surprised if it broke at the gig.

I would buy it again. At 30 or less, how can you afford not to?

Simple. If you can't figure it out, you are stupid.

I play through everything. I primarily use a Mesa Maverick with a Fender '57 reissue strat. Effect sounds great. No noise. Definitely, you can get favorite artist sounds out of this thing. Cut swtich is real cool and allows warm, choppy sounds--very spacey. However, it does sound a tad like a tremelo pedal rather than an actual amp circuit--mostly because it is too quiet. Anyway, it does a great job overall.

Dependable. I don't like that it is made out of plastice, though. I would use it on a gig, however.

It's a great trem pedal. It gets the job done and is warm.

Way E-Z Controls... a depth knob, a speed knob, a micro toggle switch to select between soft tube-like or hard transistor-like tremolo sounds, and a bypass foot stomp switch.

Amazing sounding tremolo effects, from lush Fender Vivrolux with the toggle switch set on 'soft', to Outer Space death ray with the toggle switch set on 'hard'. Plenty of great sounding switch / knobs combinations. Very low added noise.

My setup is...

- Custom Tele Thinline (Stewart MacDonald parts... www.stewmac.com ...Highly recommended for building your dream guitar as long as it is Fender like.) with Fender blue LACE pickups.

- Epiphone Casino (a 335 style true hollowbody with P-90 pickups).

- Pignose G-60VRH head (60 watts, all tube, 12AX7's preamp/reverb, 6L6's power. An incredible TUBE amp for just $299. www.pignose.com )

- 15" Eminence speaker in a homebuilt open back cabinet. (

Yes. Played it on many gigs.
- Use an AC to DC adapter to power your effects. Don't worry about poor sound quality due to a low battery.
- Make yourself a pedal board. A small piece of sheet metal 12" x 18" from a hardware store works well. Just use wide double-sided-adhesive velcro to mount your stomp boxes. The sheet metal lays very low and flat to the stage, and it is light.
- Go ahead and stomp on this device. Even though people complain about it's plastic construction, this line of quality low-cost effects has been well engineered and will handle the abuse.

This line of Danelectro's is so inexpensive, why bother with customer support? It is more cost effective to buy a new unit if yours fail.

Oh yeah momma, I'd get one of these babies again instantly if it were to disappear from my sphere of influence. Also a Surf and Turf Compressor, a BLT Slap Echo, and a Hash Brown Flanger.

I play blues and rock (28 years, hell I'm old). Usually the amp's master gain knob is set to 10, with the amp's preamp knob and guitar volume knob adjusted according to the gig. I've swapped out all my old MXR and Boss pedals for these new Danelectro's

The pedal is easy to use. Just plug it in. The best way to get the desired tone is to experiment with the depth and speed controls. The hard/soft feature is nice though I would seldom use the pedal in hard mode. The delay is too long.

Grear sound for a $50.00 pedal. Sounds as good as the tube tremolo in my silver face Fender Deluxe Reverb. Lots of flexibility and low noise. I have used it with a Blues Deluxe and an old Fender Champ with a strat, tele, and Epiphone Les Paul.

Danelectro could have beefed up the controls. The on/off switch is fine but the knobs are plastic and would not stand up to a lot of abuse. The plastic case is ok but its no Boss.

Other than the plastic knobs the unit is great. Can't be beat for the money. Highly recommend it.

2 knobs, 2 swtiches (footswitch & hard/soft) really easy to use, got a useable tone in only a few twists of the knobs. Extremely easy to use, and this is my first pedal.

I have a modified Fender Standard Strat, and a Fender Frontman 15G. Now granted, this is a crappy amp but it seems to sound good with the Tunamelt (as good as one of those gets, never get one, if you do you will be sorry, it's getting replaced in a few days.) I can nail R.E.M.'s monster sound, which is why I got the pedal. Doesn't mud up the sound or anything, it does get a signal gain when on but not bad. Makes this cool rotating speaker-like sound when turned all the way up.

plastic but not chinsy plastic, I like the back being metal, gives it weight and makes it less likely to break, also lots of grippy rubber so it won't slide around. Don't stomp it too hard but seems like it will stand up to reasonable use.

heard it is really great but never called them

Definitely a good buy, cheap, good sound, looks cool, and nice and small. Don't buy a Boss for $90.00, this is just as good, and lets face it, it isn't the most heavily used effect ever created, perfect for me.

Pretty simple. Two knobs, a switch and a footswitch. There's no manual but you shouldn't need one. A speed knob, a depth knob and a hard/soft switch. It did take a bit longer to get a cool sound though.

Right now my setup is as follows Cort Stellar Electric-->T-Bone Distortion-->Tunamelt Tremolo-->Milkshake Chorus-->Cort El-10G practice amp. The actual tremolo was pretty good but it lacked something... I'm not sure what but I just knew something was missing. Great sound and pedal for the price though. My main complaint is that when you turn the swith to hard it doesn't sink and raise the sound, it turns it on and off.

I already have two of the things and I haven't had a problem yet. I'd gig without a backup-but probably only because the pedal isn't too necessary.

I play rock and although this doesn't go great with my sound I really think it's cool, and I'm trying to think up different ways of using it. My only other complaint is that when you step on the button there is no latching feel, you have to really rely on the LED display o tell you when it's on.

Easy as sweet potato pie. Speed and depth, plus a hard/soft switch.

Using with many effects and Tele and a Strat. Good stuff. Very usable sounds. Combined with many other effects I can get a really really cool oldschool techno/synth sound. By itself, Monster-era REM and Bends-Era Radiohead. Yeah, baby.

I've had a Danelectro cool cat for 2 years with no problems. Of course, this pedal is much smaller and made of plastic. We'll see.

No idea

I play everything. This is a good tremolo unit, and combined with my Big Muff, the tuna melt makes my pedal board one big vaginal reference. Cool. It's a good tremolo, and I'm finding cool, unconventional ways of using it.

Very easy to use, except for the main button which needed to be pressed more than once to switch on.

The sound was decent, but I wasn't having any fun after 25 minutes. It lacked magic and life.

When I saw the "Made in China" label, I knew I could never rely on it for very long. There were metal shavings inside the pedal when I unscrewed the bottom to install the battery. It's better to get a fast refund.

I just didn't like it, even though I've loved tremelo on professional records every time. For the price, it was not versatile enough. I'm left with an aftertaste of mediocrity, and will steer clear of Danelectro from now on.

Sorry about doubling up on info below - my first review took much longer than usual to appear, and I thought it must have been lost. Plus I bought the Boss to compare it to. I made a printing error in the first review. To clarify, the Dano boosts volume when switched ON, the Boss does not.