Danelectro DO-1 Daddy-O Overdrive

you have to search your sound with 5 knobs. 3 of them are eq. so it's not so simple.

sounds not so bad, from little bluesy overdrive, through crunch to dist\fuzz. and eq allows you control your tone. but it sounds a little bit plastic.

hmmm, not sure, using it for a very short term only

using it for a very short term only

ok pedal for that money, though if stolen, i would rather buy something else.

Just wanted to drop a line about this Daddy 'O'. I pulled the back off and changed the clipping diodes to red LED's. It gave it more of a slightly fuzzy overdrive tone rather than the tight sound it normally has. I changed them back again and yep, I didn't like it as much. I think I swapped em back and forth about 3 times. So if you want to change the character of this pedal fairly easily and moreso reversably, give it a try.

I'm not the biggest fan of dirt pedals so I sold it but it's got some found memories of a really usefull tone with that mod.

Hey in case you didn't know either, the circuit is basically the same as the old Marshall Guvnor pedal with some buffering in front. The Daddy O is a really good pedal. The EQ can shape things to suit different amp and guitars also. Ok that's all folks!

In spite of having 5 knobs, this pedal is very easy to use. It has gain control and a volume control, as well as a 3-band EQ. If you can't find a good tone, read the manual (download it). Me? I don't need no instructions to know how to Rock! But if you can't find a good tone on this pedal then you simply don't know what you're doing with this pedal.

It's quiet--like all the old Dan-o pedals. I have a tube amp. I did an A/B comparison with this pedal's knobs set up the same as my Boost channel preamp. This pedal does a GREAT emulation of a tube preamp. This is NOT a distortion or a fuzz pedal. If you think it is, then you simply don't know what you're talking about--period. This pedal is NOT going to sound like a Marshall Plexi or a Mesa Rectifier. It doesn't emulate a monster amp head with 4 preamp tubes and 3 power tubes, but it does emulate a tube overdrive.

Understand what I'm saying:
This pedal accurately emulates a SINGLE 12ax7 tube being overdriven. Think of a lower wattage amp that might be used for Blues or small gigs. That's what this pedal sounds like. It's great for Jazz, Blues, Hard Rock, and Classic Rock. This pedal is NOT what you're looking for to play Nu-Metal or any Metal other than maybe some Classic Rock stuff.

I have not tried this pedal with a solid state amp so I'm not sure if that will drastically change the quality of the tone you get but with my Marshall amp, this sounds very good. If you had an all tube amp (like a smaller Fender amp) this might be just what you need for those smaller, low volume Jazz, Blues, and Classic Rock gigs.

The 3-band EQ is just amazing! I can't say enough about how much control you get over your sound by having that EQ on the pedal. You can get the mid-boost nasal growl (think Tube Screamer) or hollow it out a bit (like a Heavy Metal, Classic Rock tone) or boost the bass for a fat Jazz tone. Pump up the highs and mids just a touch for a punchy Blues tone. Like the song says "You can have whatever you like".

I've never had any trouble with any of my Danelectro pedals and I own 4 of them.

Never used them. The used to be non-existent about 3 years ago but now they have a Customer Service department with an actual human being there!

If you're looking for the tone of a small, low wattage tube amp then this pedal will deliver. If you are looking for a crunchy distortion box for Metal, don't use this one. This gives the vintage tone of a single 12ax7 tube being overdriven. For the price, I'm not sure you can beat it. The Boss Blues Driver is more expensive and it doesn't sound any better (to me). A Tube Works Tube Driver or Blue Tube has an actual 12ax7 tube in the pedal but it's MUCH more expensive than this little nugget. This is definitely worth the money.

Impossible to get a good sound out of it. Easy to use but can't do much with it.

Impossible to get a good sound out of it. This is a Fizz Machine not an Overdrive Pedal. The noises out of the pedal sound like a dead bird. It is also very noisy. The only thing this is good for is to Mod it for $24 using Monte Allums. Then it sounds like a Marshall. Otherwise, don't even look at this pedal.

Used with both a Fender Tube and a Solid State. I can't imagine any artist using this pedal.

The first big version was built like a tank. The new ones are very small and don't look like they would hold up if you dropped it.

No Clue.

I play all kinds of music from Blues to Metal. Been playing for 25 years. Own many very high end guitars, amps and pedals. I would pay someone to take this pedal. However, I did just spend $24 to Mod this pedal with a Monte Allums Kit and it actually sounds great now. The kit pretty much rebuilt the pedal so that tells you something...

Couldn't get much easier. Only the small knobs bother me, when I need to change the EQ settings playing through some other amp than mine. Not that bad of a prob though.

The Daddy-O has been kind of the cornerstone of my own sound for years and years. It was a beautiful warm-up for my previous long-time partner Laney TF-200 hybrid combo (actually solid state only, since I used only the clean channel), and seems to work great with my current 20W Laney LH20 all tube head + MesaBoogie Three-Quarter Back 1x12". Can get quite heavy old-school growling, or then just back off the drive a bit for nice crunch.

Since it's cheap, you can't expect it to be top notch, though. It's a bit noisy (even for an overdrive, I guess), and I remember noticing years ago that the noise is worse when used with an AC adapter. Haven't used it with battery for a long long time... But noise is something that doesn't bother me when it comes to drive pedals - as long as the sound is good, I'm fine with it. You don't have to keep the pedal on when not playing, do you?

The only thing I wish the Daddy-O had soundwise, is a little bit more transparency and dynamics. But hey, it's still the cornerstone of my sound (for now at least), so it can't be that bad... ;)

Unfortunately heavy gigging seems to do bad for it. :( The housing is sturdy, but there are few weak points:

1. The switch feels cheap
2. The pots feel cheap and when rotated they don't feel like I was dealing with high quality - could break anytime (haven't, though!)
3. The plastic, not-attached-on-the-box jacks are unreliable
4. The AC-adaptor jack is even more unreliable - mine has already broken a bit. It transmits the power, OK, but the plug needs to be at certain position; deep enough (too deep compared to when the pedal was new) and not straight. I'm still gigging with it anyway, because it hasn't failed in the middle of a set, only needs to be checked every time before the start.

I do use it kind of without a backup - don't have another one, but got a MEK Tubedrive 2, that can be tweaked quite close to Daddy-O's sound. Funny by the way that the MEK is not my main overdrive, but this cheap(ish) Dano!

Haven't dealt with them.

I play a wide range of styles, since I study it and do it for living. My own "thing" is old school, blues-based rock etc. and this pedal nails it (and many many many styles) great. My own sound is recognizable (so I've heard), and this OD makes much of it at least for now. I play mostly Strat, but the pedal works with humbuckers and P90s too.

Adjustable to sound good and produce quite the same sound with very different kinds of amps is the best thing about Daddy-O. Not forgetting the healthy basic sound it has through the drive knob's range. Transparency and dynamics are not boutique, but neither is the price. Quality is the weak point. Seen lot worse though.

Slight minus from the lack of true bypass has to be mentioned.

I would definetely buy another one if it was stolen or lost - my first one was stolen by the way...

This is a pretty easy pedal to get a good sound out of. It has a three band EQ which is very nice. A rareity with Overdrive pedals.

I am Currently runing a Epiphone Les Paul Ultra(With Gibson Burstbucker pickups) into a Slash Crybaby Wah - Rocktron Metal Planet - Danelectro Daddy-O Overdrive - Digitech RP350 - Into a Crate V16 All Tube Amp. This is a good setup to have if your tight on money. This unit can be a little noisy when cranked up, but that is to be expected from a cheaply priced unit. The overdrive is very good. It sounds fairly warm, not as warm as a tubescreamer but it suits my needs just fine.

I havent had any problums yet. And I have used it live, and will continue to. The battery life seems good.

This is a very good overdrive for the price. And dont forget that the EQ is a bonus. Get it, you wont be disapointed.

This pedal is a sturdy and inexpensive way to boost your volume from R to L

I use the TCOB setting just for this. It is one of the few pedals that keeps the tone as the lower volume. In the TCOB setting that is, As far as tthe other settings go, well, then you may have a problem

But, as I said and will say once again, in the TCOB setting it can't be beat.

Just twiddle the knobs and Let your ears be the judge

I use this pedal with my Peavey Classic 30 and DC Solid Metal. I use it for my lead breaks. I find its very organic and pretty much just boosts the signal. The bypass on it seems to be very good also. It has a very unique tone to it. For what I use it for it sounds great

Built like a tank.

Fairly average price pedal, sounds great, strong and versatile. If its its good enough for Mike Campbell(Tom Petty's Guitarist) then its sure good enough for me.

Simple. Use your ears

I use this with an Epiphone Valve Junior, Laney hybrid and also with my gnx3000 and boss me50. I love it has a variety of tones because of the 3 eq knobs. I find it adds alot of warmth to my ss/digital rigs also.

Had it 4 years, so far so good. Its a very heavy and well built pedal. Dont get this pedal confused with the tiny little new dano's.

Never dealt

A very nice pedal suits me down to the ground, I use it for a solo boost and it does the job great

has tone controls that work .. nice - (kind of small though - so what)

i held off on getting one of these for a while because i saw they were so cheap on ebay and i thought it must suck - NOT SO! I tried it and I LIKED IT! my chain (one side) is an ibanez compressor >> then MXR phase 100 >> and then Daddy O - into fender 6v6gt tube amp ... i like it a lot - please dont do what i did, and judge it based on how other people don't how to use effects properly in their chain or expect a single pedal will give them every sound in the book. this pedal ESPESCIALLY for the money is a great value - i liked it better than the boss blues driver (no disrespect)

solid build

please

i think this pedal is underrated - if used with the right setup could be just the ticket for VERY LITTLE money - big value IMHO

Very easy to use, just use your ears.

Im using this with a Laney Hybrid LV200 and Boss ME50mfx. I find that the ME50's ods/dist can be a little harsh and this pedal warms them up just great. This pedal is very good used as a boost I find.

Had it for 4 years now and no worries. This pedal is one of the older style Dano's and is built like a tank. Very dependable

This is a great pedal for what I use it for. A nice warm sounding overdrive, which can do crunch and fuzz if tweaked.

Its easy to get a ok sound out of this box, but the knobs are too small and too close to each other, so even if my fingers are thin its hard to fine tune. the box is kind of large, so i wander why they have to make the knobs the way they do. like that it has a 3-band eq, makes it more versitile. the manual is ok.

Loved the sound until i tried something else. TS9, vox v810 and fulldrive 2 are all pedals far greater than the dady-o, the first two are in the same pricerange. I sold it years ago. Just didn't like it anymore. the sound lacks quality. it dosen't sound like a cranked amp, a beautiful distortion or a strange noisy peace of crappy wander. Now I use a fender japan tele, TU-2, CS-2, V810, TS9, Muff, Maxon CS-550, DD-6, PN-2 throug a fender Princeton and a Hot Rod Deville 212.

The only thing that can break is the knobs, and they will break if you step on them. The box is so heavy that i almost belive it's made of ledd. nothing can penetrate that shield! Give it a 5 because of the knobs, which is an essential part of a stomp, but everything else seems relieble.

I play mainly british rock, but dont think that influenses my opinion. this pedal just isn't great. It's not even good. It's OK, and ok is not good enough. You can get better pedals for less. I would like to share some thoughts about the design. It's different, but not good different. It's f.... ugly. The size of it makes it difficult to make place on the pedal-board.

Knob (indicators) are hard to see. Tiny little close-spaced knobs are hard to turn. Volume/Gain/Tone labels are hard to read to see which knob does what. Making this pedal relatively difficult to adjust on stage on-the-fly. Most pedals don't need too much tweaking so maybe this is nit-picking. Especially considering that this pedal pretty much sucks regardless of where you turn the knobs to.

I've always liked the BIG 'ol push button though.

This has got to be one of the worst sounding overdrive / distortion / gain pedals, whatever.. that has ever been created. Thin, bad tone, unresponsive. If it were just a little worse it may be bad enough to be good in a unigue way. If you like good tone I would stay away from this one. If you have a bad guitar, bad amp, AND you are a bad guitar player, buy it!!! Because it won't matter. And it does look cool so if your into looks more than tone, this could be a good buy for you. Maybe it's just me.. but aren't all the good pedals just square boxes. And all the bad ones look like a stealth fighter or a '57 chevy?

100% reliable. Never a problem. I think it is well made, quiet and consistant. The case is cast aluminum or zinc and "built like a tank". Insides are cheap-o but they always work. And this thing has been beer soaked and danced on many, many times.

The pedal has been reliable. So N/A.

My guitar playing style as is a diverse variety of hard rock, roots, country twang, blues. This pedal is not a good match to my playing style. Probably because I LOVE GOOD TONE! I have been playing steady in working bands for over 30 years. I have many tube amps (5watts to 130watts) from Fender, Mesa, Vox, Harmony. And I play real & old Les Pauls, Teles, Strats, 335. All stock, no fancy added stuff. I have used the Daddy-O on and off (over 10 years) as a back up or for a "less gain" sound to my vintage ProCo RAT. I have to say this pedal is not a good buy at any cost. It may be better than nothing. So for $10 ok, if that's all you're willing to spend. But I have never been pleased or inspired to play better while using this pedal. The Daddy-O & I just don't get along. It has overall a thin and nasty tone. So much so that I hesitate to use the word "tone" in decribing this pedal. I would not recommend this pedal to anyone. Sounds funny but the reason I have used it lately is that the name of my band is The Daddy-O's. So it was more for a laugh. I have decided to bury this pedal at sea by flushing it down my toilet. So my musing here is it's epitaph.

Dislikes: Tone-sucker: overall sound quality is poor. Knobs are difficult to see and adjust on-stage.

Not so easy, there's gain to be equalized!

So volume, gain, plus a gain equalizer... It's a lot of options,
and not all of them sound good. Could've been done simpler, that's all.

Another point-eating thang is that the knobs are small and bunched
together, so no play-by adjustments.

Nice one - I use it for a little crunch 'cause I like it.
It's attached to my Bolt-60 amp, and I'm feeling versatile and good.

I find that it sounds exceptionally lo-fi on higher drive
settings; it's not rude or shrieking, just not so good.
Charming for me, maybe, but people will generally say it sucks.
No shame in playing it that way a little just for fun, though.
Better stuff is to be had for high distortion sounds.

The equalizer is worth it's weight in gold for me, because I can
iron out my P-90 equipped guitar's sound, 'nuff said.
A smidgeon of drive gives me the honk I need when I dig in,
and I feel that this little tin-can responds to playing dynamics.
Not in a grand way, like an overdriven tube amp, but still
it shows some feeling, and it's better than none.

Certainly no noise, hiss, volume drop or boost - it's quiet and
peaceful.

If it stayed true in higher gain settings, it woulda earned
a niner easy due to the super-useful equalizer. More expensive
things don't have it.

Sure!
No backup needed - this thing is durable and thick,
plus it's designed fabulously for all vintage freaks.
You don't have to like it, but the design really works
for people of a certain sensibility.

Speaking of sensibility, my Daddy-O has been kicked and
banged around quite a bit, but still works like a charm
and keeps batteries for months. Good one.

Never tried. Assessing from the looks of their webpage,
I don't think that would ever be a clever idea.

Works for me! Can get into that Scofield vibe a little,
can even try and push it up a notch and hammer-in a few riffs too.

If it were stolen, I would buy something better-sounding,
then forever regret the lack of 3-band drive equalization.
Unless...

Five knobs, fiddle around a bit and you got it.

On my strat it produces a nasty fizzy tone, very transistorish and plasticky. This was one of my first few OD's but I quickly sold it because it sounds plain nasty. I modded mine, changed the op-amp and other stuff, sounded a tad better but still sucked.

Low gain simply doesnt work on this one, you need dirt at at least 9-10 o'clock. Anything higher than 2 o'clock sounds like angry hornets in a tin can.

The only reason anyone would get this pedal is the cheap price.

Casing is solid metal but sockets are plastic. Why?

Ok cheap beginners OD, play with it a few weeks till you tire of the artificial sounding nasty raspy buzzy tones, and get a decent pedal. Even the digitech bad monkey is a great OD compared to this.

Pretty easy to use, if you start with everything at 12 o'clock and work from there making small adjustments you can't go wrong. Easy to put you foot on the switch and the led is big so you can see it easily. The color is very purty to, awwww how sweet lol

Wow, how cool is this thing!?! It is really pick responsive and has a slightly loose and fuzzy lower string sound when plucked softly, give a distortion type tone on the middle strings when you dig in, and has an overdrive sound on the higher strings. When you use a bit of delay and chorus/flanger higher up neck it gets a fusion type of overdrive of the typical 808/ts9-ish variety but totally in a different way, namely without the lack of bass or huge nasally mids but it's definately a crisp overdrive sound not a distortion. I guess I should point out that I am using it to 'overdrive' my valve amp which is by itself giving anything from a proper clean with guitar volumes low up to a pushed clean to a mild overdrive with volumes up. So that is the sort of amp situation I am using when I describe the sounds and response of this effect box. Comparing to a Boss Blues Driver it is miles ahead because it doesn't sound like a sterile processed overdrive and I'm talking even with the Monte Allums H2O mod. I did do one of the Indyguitarist mods to this DO-1 to make it smoother, as well as changing out the TL072 to an RC4558P ala the ts-808's other widely great sounding IC. BUT.... even stock I imediately liked the sound of the Daddy-O. I would like to give an 8.9 with mods and an 7.9 without.

Seems built well, but the plastic knobs mounted onto plastic shafted pots mounted on the pcb poking up through a plastic retaining section seems to be asking for failure. Don't kick the knobs off the unit and it would be fine. The push button is military strength, and the switch is also very big -- way bigger than boss.

I like it a lot. I have tried a few pedals for dirt to and I am liking this one.

Boss SD-1, DS-1, Zoom 2020, Fuzz Face, OS-2, MT-2, Zoom G2.1, BD-2 and Daddy-O. This list is pedal, not including amps, TSL etc.

Pretty straight foward stompbox. No bells or whistles here. Just adjust and go. Set and leave. Whatever. Controls are good and tight. LED included.

I bought this initially because Steve Howe uses one.

First some background on overdrive pedals. You are making a mistake if you think a pedal labeled "overdrive" should be a modern "distortion" box, for example a Boss DS-1. The ABC's here involve a little history about the development of the business, so just realize what it is exactly you have purchased. The microchip design of the Ibanez Tube Screamer and it's related cousins (vice earlier 60's-70's era transistor Muff styles), require at a minimum an all-tube amplifier. The basic function of the 80's style pedal, is to raise a buffered signal level, or active signal, or powered signal, however you want to define it, then hit your front end of the amp with that higher voltage. Raising your signal beyond a saturation sine wave for the power tubes, helps them clip into a soft edged square wave. Hence, the label --> overdrive. Ever wonder why the amp had a volume knob...AND a gain knob?! Raise the knob labeled volume first, then bring up the knob labeled overdrive secondly. (The pedal, not the amp.) The subtle characteristics of overdrive pedals is what separates them from boost pedals. The modern distortion circuits, "process" the waveform more directly, therefore I did find my Boss DS-1 into a tube amp, actually lacking when compared to my old practise Peavey Transtube solid state amp, for instance. The distortion pedal into a Randall is what separates the Pantera/Sevendust sound from the early Metallica/ACDC Mesa/Marshall sound. They both sound very close to each other, but not quite. It's just a preference. Warning! The Dunlop 535 Crybaby Wah works in a similar manner, unlike their 95 re-issue. Completely different circuit components.

Straight forward, yep, the big plus to the Daddy-O, all you Moon Dog big daddies out there...is that over the Tubescreamer...this has an equalizer! The Ibanez has a built-in circuit mid boost for large spaces at high decibels, but the Daddy-O gives you a little more control in the bottom end of that eq. I use it in small spaces for practice only. In my rig right now, it's a stand alone pedal chain buffer, vice a compressor pedal. Sustain should come from the thickness and weight of the guitar body/neck.

Maybe maestro Steve uses it alone, I have no idea. There are other ways to use it, don't get me wrong, and I probably paid too much for it, but just don't get too excited if it won't do an all-in-one digital thang on the cheap. Digital delay modulation and time effects should never be summed before power tubes, or intermodulation distortion will result in a decay/destruction. All-in-one devices need to go with solid state amps only, but some digital "distortion" clocks out fast enough up front with good software. Breaking up the signal can be done, but it WILL sound sonically maximized and flat, if not extremely loud at ALL times. I prefer the picking dynamics, impedance reactance of the tone/volume controls, and multi-harmonic orders of vacuum tubes, played clean. It's a cut and paste ProTools world though. I never said I liked what was popular, just what was available on my "crunch" palette. Don't even get me started on British punk pop. America's Mississippi Delta is where the blooz gets played.

Initially I was disappointed with my Tubescreamer purchase to tell you the truth, against the Danelectro, but now after reading the history of the business, I realize it was just an "application" issue. In other words, my living room prefered the versatility of my Daddy-O.

It now gets swapped back and forth with the TS-808 re-issue, depending on the decibels needed for my space.

The Ibanez has a more transparent sound than the Big-Daddy, so it's better for other uses on my pedalboard. It's all experiment, but I prefer to think logically about it, so it stays for now.

It doesn't sound anything like a fuzz face in my book.

No issues. Attractive design.

No failures.

Besides my Wah, it's the only pedal I'd sell.

But Gear Aquisition Strategy...is part of the fun anywayz.

My 4 Real blooZ.

GAS

It's an ok pedal for the money. I paid $20 for it, second hand, which is about as much as I'd consider paying for this pedal. The 5 controls take a short while to get adjusted to but it's easy to get a fairly decent tone out of it.

Is this an overdrive? A distortion? A fuzz? I just can't figure it out. It seems like a cross between all three. When the gain setting is all the way down, it's quite irritating to use, there's just a hint of the signal breaking up, but no way like a true tube amp, it's like a little transistor farting. Gain between 9 o'clock and 1 o'clock is ok, anything above that and the pedal sounds like a high pitched trebly farty fuzz.

Maybe it's ok for some zz-top or some old ac-dc, but useless for anything else.

Dunno. The sockets are plastic, but the body seems to be armor plated. I'm more worried about the sockets though. Why couldn't they have spent a little more money and given us steel sockets?

Never needed any.

Well it feels solid, but the sound leaves a lot to be desired. I would look elsewhere. The boss sd-1 is a great starting point.

Takes time to find the right setting's for your amp/amp's and the mid knob in the center should be left in the middle.

I have many distortion /overdrive pedals.But this pedal really supprized me.It has a great smooth sounding dist sound thats not over the top and great for chording.Black crow's style and Bad Company sound with just the right amount of buzz.Not powerfull enough for solo's but i beleive people should have two overdrive pedals in their chain anyway.Here is an example of my setting's

volume @ 2 o'clock
bass @ 3 o'clock
Mid @ 11 o'clock
treb @ 2 o'clock
o'drive @11:30 or knob position pointed right at the "o" in O.Drive.

This is not a death metal pedal or dimebag derryl sounding.

Insted it is smooth and can give you fuller bass response than allot of other more expensive models.Not noisy at all.

Solid built well and looks great!.

N/a.

I have about 10 diff dist pedals and out of the lot i only use two.
My Daddy o and an OCD fulltone for thicker drive and for solo's.

I use it with a Marshall 2204 and 4 12 marshall cab.
Fender strats,gibson SG and les paul pro 1976.

for the money this is a real value and should be part of anyone's arsenal.

I use a custom tele or washburn hb35>this beast>dano fish n chips>dt-10>music man 212-hd 130>ashdown 4x10 bass cab. Sound is amazing, especially with extra eq. Set treble to 10, bass to 10, mid to zero, gain to full and you're laughing. it's great for don caballero riffage (funnily enough). A very stylised distortion/overdrive hybrid. doesnt growl at all, it's very smooth but with a big bite to it.

solid as a rock

n/a

it's good enough for ian williams & it's good enough for me.

The small knobs aren't the easiest if you need to reach down and tweak them during a gig. If you get a sound you like, though, no big.

For a fairly inexpensive pedal, I've found it to be pretty quiet and quite stable. I've used it with a Marshall Vs100, Blues Junior, and Traynor YCV-50 with my Jazzmaster, Jagmaster, and Teles. It gets some pretty decent sounds, but I'd like to be able to use it to punch up the volume more and use the overdrive and tone settings to add a touch of overdrive and warmth. It just doesn't punch up the volume the way I'd like.

Nice rugged construction ... I don't worry about this thing falling apart. It has space for a second battery .... damn, is that a great idea or what?!

Decent sounding pedal ... just doesn't have an incredible amount of flexibility with the sounds it gets. Stageworthy rugged construction and stability.

great with 3 tone knobs a lot of flexibility . i set it to my taste and forget it. . . control of the mids is always important

I use it with various amplifiers fenders / roland whatever. I think it will as reported sound very different with diff amps, so Daddy-O> Boss CE-3>BossDD-3>BossRV-3> behringer GDI amp sim/driver. Im really happy now after trying a lots of distortion/OD pedals. in combination with the behringer on a clean boogie setting, my strat Rocks on any amp..with a lot of headroom with the volume pot. try it you'll like it. it has a kinda weak drive, but thats why it retains some real guitar tone. with the driver at the end of the chain though its screaming, with a "thwump". i want a crunchy jangle and i get it. other pedals are too metal, or like a ds-1 or rat, too little attack and dynamics for me.

well 2 of the knobs are a little loose, i think maybe if you stomp on the knobs you could damage it...doh
plastic input/output jacks i aint worried

n/a

I play punk/post punk/ grungey rock. its perfect i love a crushing sound but with definition. this box is special i think. in no way fake or prcessed sounding at lower drive levels.It can sound like early zeppelin w0w. I wish i had an awesome tube amp to try it with , but my fx setup with various (crappy) SS house-amps is really hot IMO. been playing 25 years so i get that its about the combination of gear in the chain and amplifier. daddy-o may match your amp or not.. try n buy.
oh its a little noisy cause i play single coil strats.

well reading the reviews here helped me find it, so i wanted to share my sucess. after many sleepless nights wondering what to do with my fx chain. now i can rest... its a solid box -o- Tone!(but not too much..)

it takes a while to get the tone you want out of it but thats only cos its so versatile

im not gonna give it shit for hissing cos its impossible to not have it without a noise gate which only really sound good if your playing really clean distortion metal. the gains pretty crap for anything smooth when turned up anymore then just over halfway, on full it does sound very good for really dirty punk. it does seem best suited to more mild distortion but not quite mild enough for blues in my opinion, depedns what you kinda thing is. the EQ is awesome on this pedal, the treble isnt too harsh when the drive isnt up loads, the bass makes it REALLY full sounding and the mids are proper hollow.

i think its best suited to rythm, based on the deep crunch you can get out of it, ive only tried it with single coil guitars so far but it doesnt really seem like the kind of thing that would suit gibsons and the like, very nice with fenders though and (surprisingly) danelectros

my rythm guitarist uses mine for my surf/punk band and i couldnt ask for a better sound to back tinny reverb heavy lead surf guitar

as everyone else said the amp ytou put it through REALLY makes a difference

the metals solid as fuck itself, mines 2nd hand and really chipped so it looks like its been through some nasty gigging (id presume so anyway it came with velcro on the bottom) my mate managed to break the battery cover though the first time he touched it but i dont think any pedal with that kind of design has one thats particuarly robust. never had a problem with the electrics

never delt with them in any serious way, was a right arse to find the number (its not on the site) but after looking at a review of the 56pro that was linked from their site i managed to find a distrabution number and they were very friendly and helpful

this is easily one of the best overdrives ive ever played on, really really good for punk, surf (dont try using it for lead though), rock and heavier kinda blues. absolute bargin if you find a second hand one. the distortion counterpart (fab tone) is also very nice although you cant change the level of distortion only the "fab" level which is like some sustain or dpeth or something, very nice for metal, heavy rock, grunge or anything under then sun that heavy and dirty

easy

this pedal sounds very very sweet. but just like any overdrive/distortion/fuzz stompbox, there are certain things that you should keep in mind as a general rule of thumb. for instance, i have an overdrive (this one, and i used to have a ts-9 dx turbo tube screamer which was sweet as well), a fuzz (sabine fuzzstortion) and a distortion (boss ds-1) pedal. you have to know first what you desire. as for this daddy-o overdrive, it is very dependent on the gear you have and the style that you play. if you are playing a classic rock style (i.e. tom petty and the heartbreakers, hendrix, the who style) this pedal is up that sort of alley (even though hendrix and townshend both used fuzz boxes, this pedal really covers a broad spectrum.) i'm using a very, very simple setup of either a 1968 Gibson SG Special (w/p-90's) or a 1972 Reissue Fender Telecaster Thinline (w/ '57 classic humbuckers). my amps are all old fender (or fender-style) tube amps, i.e. 1972 Fender Pro Reverb, 1974 Fender Dual Showman (one of the sweetest things i've ever heard) and a 1969 Alamo Paragan bass amp. Each of those amps and guitars are straight away sweet, simple sounding pieces of machinery. in that context this pedal sounds like a tube screamer but with the option of adding more bite (i.e. a proco rat). i've had a tube screamer and loved it, and this is right there with it. so, i said all that to say this, as with most danelectro pedals, if you're using them as they were intended and you have the right gear, this pedal will blow you away and has a pretty sweet price tag (i got it used by trading in an mxr dyna-comp). this is not for metal or punk, it is certainly for those who are wanted a classic overdrive with the option of more bite.

this provides some great tonal options if you want either a boost, an overdrive, or dirty rhythm. i'm pretty sure mike campbell from tom petty and the heartbreakers uses this and that's exactly what it's perfect for. you should definitely try it out with your gear before you make any decisions as it is very gear-dependent. with that said, if you know you want a sweet overdrive, then this is a good, inexpensive way to go. if you want a tube screamer, but would rather pocket an extra fifty dollars, then this is certainly a good call.

Easy to use!
You can dial it in very quick.

Good tone, works well for a solo pedal. Boost the Mid to 3/4, Bass at 1/2, Treble at 1/2, Volume on Full, Drive at 1/2 & you have yourself a nice pedal for solo's Live.
It is a bit noisy, but every distortion/overdrive ever made is noisy.

Sounds good & you can get the tone to cut through.
These are similar to the Marshall Governor pedals.

There isn't much that separates this pedal from any Boutique pedal I've ever owned. Don't waste your money on high $ priced crap.

The pots are plastic. Whatever, I paid $17 for this pedal.

I use it at rehearsal, I have another set-up for live shows.

?
No idea!

These are great pedals for the price, you'll find them on Ebay for about $25 w/shipping. It's nice to have EQ that works. Is it the best overdrive pedal on the planet, hell know. You can waste a bunch of money on a Tubescreamer, Blues Driver or Fulltone pedal, or you can pick up one of these for a solo/boost pedal, beat it to death & not worry about it. Anyone that says they have a Distortion/Overdrive pedal that isn't noisy has their head up their bum. It's the nature of what these pedals do, "Create Noise". The greatest overdrive pedal in ever made is the DOD 250 Preamp (even it is noisy). If this one bites the dust maybe I'll try one of the new Danelectro pedals, they go for about $20 new.
I hate to say it, but they sound good too!

The pedal has 5 controls, and it takes a little tweaking of the mid and high level controls at each gain setting to get the best possible od/distort sound, for example at low gain, you can set the treble quite high and it still sounds nice but when you crank up the gain it sounds like absolute shit with the treble high. On the whole it is ok not too difficult to get a good tone.

Well, like some others have mentioned earlier the bass, mid and treble controls need to be tweaked a lot at each gain setting to get a decent tone. With the gain on max, the treble needs to be near zero. I use this pedal with a standard MIM fender strat with single coil pups, the dano and maybe a couple of other pedals like a delay or a flanger (yucks, there are still some who use it :)!) through a laney lc15 tube amp (wonderful little amp, really)

It is pretty noisy when the gain goes high, this pedal is really a mix between a heavy overdrive and a super distortion, it's neither here nor there. I can't for the life of me get a clean smooth overdrive sound like the boss bd-2 or sd-1. It's best used with the gain below half way and the treble somewhere near 12 o'clock. Anything more and it sounds ugly and noisy, like ripping up metal sheets.

It's a half way decent distort but I'll have to give it a 5 because much of the range is unuseable unless you want screeching noise.

It seems pretty solid, the metal casing is fat and heavy, but I guess they spent all their money on the casing and forgot about everything else. I opened up the pedal to put in a battery and happened to look at the PCB. It intrigued me, so I opened up the whole pedal. The soldering on the PCB seems pretty amateur. There are solder streaks and marks all over the PCB, I've never seen anything as shoddy in a Boss pedal.

The sockets, potentiometers, controls, etc are all cheap plastic and god knows when they will decide to die on me in the middle of an important gig. I'd be much happier if they'd just spent that extra couple of bucks in getting metal connectors and pots. I'd gladly pay $10 more for that, though I'm sure it won't cost that much when these are mass produced.

Hmmm... I don't know. I really wouldn't gig without a backup. It hasn't died on me yet, but it really doesn't inspire confidence like my solid metal boss pedals.

Not used them yet.

I play jazz rock, and a little heavy rock, but this pedal doesn't cut it for the kind of music I play. For jazz rock, the pedal is just too noisy, it doesn't give me the smooth and clean overdrive tones like other real overdrive pedals, and for heavy rock, it is just too harsh at high gain settings. I think I made a mistake in buying this. I guess the only kinds of music it is good for are stuff like ZZ-top,kiss, etc. If this were stolen, I'd be a very happy man. In fact I'm probably going to replace this with two other pedals, a true overdrive and a distort or metal zone.

There are 5 controls so it takes a little bit of tweaking before you get the right tone to suit your guitar, amp and music style. The manual was practically useless, and the website is absolutely useless. It takes a bit of playing around to get familiar with it.

The sound quality is very good with the drive setting between min and 11 o'clock, and if I use a level booster or compressor before the daddy-o, I can get nice tones between min and 10 o'clock.

I have never been able to get a decent sounding distortion or overdrive tone with the gain set high. It sounds buzzy and harsh. It's not a fuzz, it's not an overdrive, it's not a metal unit, it's something like a distortion but with a bit more bite.

You *can* clean up and mellow down the tone a tad if you hook it up after a compressor and send it through a chorus, it doesn't sound so buzzy and harsh.

I am not sure why people have rated this pedal so highly. If I need a mild crunch or bluesy overdrive to rock distortion, the boss bd-2 and sd-1 beat this feller hands down, if I want shred metal or thrash the boss MT-2 is the king.

I've replaced the op-amp (a TL072) with a TLC272 and it sort of mellowed down and cleaned up the tone a tad, and I also replaced the clipping diodes with germaniums which make it sound a little better. Yet, the pedal is only useable with the distortion between min and 10 o'clock, anything higher and it's harsh and buzzy.

Not sure how reliable this is, compared to a boss. The pots are plastic, the input and output jacks are plastic. The body seems much more solid than a boss, but I'm more worried about the plastic components. It's never broken on me, but still, I'd be happier with a backup.

Never called them.

I got this second hand for 25 bux. I'd probably not buy one new, it's a nice pedal to play with for a while, but it lacks versatility. Yes you can drive the gain all the way to max but it is unplayable at those settings. The other pedals I've tried together with this are the boss SD-1, DS-1, BD-2 and the MT-2 metal zone. This is probably a decent first pedal for someone wanting an overdrive on the cheap.

It's plenty easy to get a good sound out of it once you stop thinking that it 'an overdrive' pedal. It isn't contrary to the name that Danelectro gave it. It's kind of in-between an OD and a distortion pedal.

Here's the chain it's run through. Fender USA Strat with prototype Lace Sensors -> Crybaby 535Q -> Daddy-O -> Phase 90 -> Marshall Supervibe -> Boss DD-5 delay -> Fender Hot Rod Deville 4x10.
Leaving the overdrive setting low to try and impart a slightly overdriven tone to your amp won't happen. It just gives you a crappy buzzy tone. BUT... If you crank the OD knob up you get this cool slightly fuzzy distortion. Fiddling with the knobs I could get Steely Dan, Tom Petty (Breakdown, I Need to Know), Clapton (Crossroads), and others just changing the tone knobs on the pedal or changing pickup positions. I really think where Danelectro went wrong was giving this the wrong name. It gave everyone the wrong impression of what the pedal was supposed to do.

Built like a tank. Think Boss only cooler looking. Doesn't look like the 'same thing same place' kinda pedals they put out. If I gigged anymore I would gig without a backup.

Never dealt with the company.

I've been playing off and on for 30 years. Play mostly classic rock, jam band rock, and blues. I love this pedal. You will to if you can get past accepting the pedal for what it is and not what the name would imply.

Ease of use--It isn't as easy as a regular ol' TS9 or Boss DS1, but it's not complicated, either. The eq knobs are sensitive, but if you're not heavy-handed in your tweaking, it won't matter. Good manual (I played with their recommended settings just for fun and as a starting point, but ended up just relying on my ears in the end).

I play guitar/slide guitar/harp (harmonica to all you non-blues guys)/vocals in a Texas Roadhouse band called the SCREAMIN' ARMADILLOS. (Blues+Classic Rock+Outlaw Country=Texas Roadhouse). We play 75% original songs, but will occasionally attack an old favorite of ours. Someone described us as the Fabulous Thunderbirds and ZZ Top going on tour with Waylon Jennings.

Setup:
Harps: Various Lee Oskar and Hohners played through a vintage 1940's Astatic S200 microphone. (I run my harps through my effects.)
Guitars: 62RI Stratocaster, Vintage-styled Tele (converted into an Esquire), G&L F-100, Danelectro DC3.
Effects: 70's MXR Phase 90, Ibanez TS9, Crybaby Wah, Jim Dunlop Jimi Hendrix JH2S Classic Fuzz, Boss DS1, Daddy-O, DOD FX40B EQ, Rocktron Hush; all mounted on a Furman SPB8 pedalboard
Amps: 63RI Fender Vibroverb (Brownface w/2 10" speakers) and/or Line 6 Pod (plugged into the PA system).

I have a variety of overdrives and distortions because I play a large range of music within my band. I'm the fill-in-the-blanks guy who will put the finishing touches on the various songs, so I have to have versitility. I also like to mix-n-match effects for various textures within a song/performance.

The Daddy-O is great by itself or in use with other distortions/overdrives or modulation effects (Wah or Phase 90). I like the "more than an overdrive but not buzzy like a fuzz" grit and grind you can dial into this little box. It can be thick, thin, scooped or pumped on its tone--just start tweakin' 'til you're happy.
When I blend the Daddy-O with the Jimi Hendrix Classic Fuzz, there's a definite Billy Gibbons-like crank and squank, with some of those almost-out-of-control harmonics poppin' up here and there. (I see that as a good thing!)
There can be some SRV in there if you dial it right, but I don't do that--there are too many imitators of that great man; he needs to be left alone.

One thing I have noticed about this pedal is how it reacts very differently with various amps. My metal-head friend used it with his Les Paul/Mesa Boogie setup and it made some very good metal/rhythm tones. I played it through a friend's Hot Rod DeVille and I was not as impressed with the sound, and it sounded VERY different (not bad, just different) in use with another friend's 60-watt Marshall half-stack (I don't know which model), so try it out with your own rig before you judge too quickly.

It's not too noisy, but when if it starts getting hissy I just step on my Rocktron Hush.

I've gigged with this since my wife bought it (7 or 8 years ago?) for our wedding anniversary--never had a problem. I would use it without a backup, but with my rig, that's not a dangerous prospect.

It's built like a brick house. Be careful when you throw it at someone; just ask my first bass player's widow (just kidding).

I bought a second (used) one that was broken, but all that was needed to fix it was to replace the latching capacitor (if you push the on/off button, and it intermittently will or won't turn on, it's most likely that capacitor; this is a common problem with many kinds of pedals--not just the Danelectros. My Ibanez TS9(RI) and Soundtank TS and Phaser pedals all did the same thing). I sold the second one to a friend and he has used it constantly with no problem.

I called Danelectro about something entirely unrelated and they were very helpful; I would assume they would act the same way on all things.

See above for an explanation of my musical style.

I love this pedal.

If it were lost or stolen, I would get another one.

Fairly simple controls, considering the complex effect units available today. Five knobs. One switch.

I found it difficult to find a good, overdriven tube amp sound. The pedal seemd to color the guitars sound considerably, and I couldn't coax a subtle sound from it. It seemed more like a mild distortion than an overdrive.
I use a Strat into a Vox. Looking for a mild overdrive that could push my tone to the edge, I bought this, and it put me off all pedals for about four years (I just used my guitar's volume after that). Generic rock sounding pedal--no real character. (I have since discovered Tube Screamers, and a great, cheap alternative is DigiTech's Bad Monkey overdrive.) However, tone IS subjective, so test one.

The one good thing about these is that they are indestructible. You could destroy a Boss pedal by throwing this at it. Seriously folks, if you like this pedal--and it isn't terrible--I would recommend it for this strength.

I never dealt with Danelectro, but I bought this from Musician's Friend. When I realized that it wasn't going to cut the mustard, they took it back with no questions. I ordered a Snarling Dogs Very TOne Dog, which is like the Gibson Veri-tone circuit on ES-355s, with a boost thrown in. Not an overdrive per se, but yeilds brilliant tones nonetheless.

Not for me, but you might think it's the best (try it if you're interested). Been playing nine years. I own a workhorse strat that's been upgraded to death.

The one thing that stands out in my mind when thinking of the Daddy-O is the range of the EQ. By far it's the widest EQ covering a HUGE range of frequencies which can give you a lot of sonic possibilities, but it can also be frustrating if you've never used anything like it before. Make no mistake, it is worth the time learning how to use, so do it.

My lineup starts with an Ibanez SZ720 going directly into the input of my Trace Elliot SuperTramp Twin (100W 2x12 trans/tube combo). Any effects I use go into the effects loop of the amp, so from the output of the amp it goes to the Daddy-O to a Cry Baby wah wah to a Boss volume pedal and finally to an Alesis MicroVerb before going back into the amp. The amp currently has crap Silver series Celestions, but these will be replaced with Vintage 30s soon.

This is NOT a distortion pedal, you won't get metal tones out of this thing. If you try, it will just sound bad. When thinking of the sound of this pedal, think of a Fender DeVille or Hot Rod sound. It's that bluesy, warm garble and sparkle. You can crank up the overdrive to fuzz but I've never been a big fan of fuzz so I don't do that. As I said, the EQ is fantastic and frankly I don't think a Tube Screamer can hold a candle to this thing. Just because it's old, doesn't mean it's better. This pedal is warm warm warm.

Extremely reliable and well built, like an old Chevy. The knobs are solid and the casing is built like a brick house. The electronics seem simple and dependable.

Never had to deal with them, hasn't pooped out on me yet.

I play blues, rock, and some metal. I've been using the Daddy-O mostly for it's EQ since my amp has great distortion, but horrible EQ properties. This pedal can really add bottom end and great overdrive tones when not using my amp's distortion (tube 12AX7). On top of that I get some really interesting characteristics by layering the overdrive and distortion together. I really do believe that this pedal should be in any serious guitarist's line up. Is the Tube Screamer still a great pedal, yes, but I wouldn't settle for one anymore. Go with the Daddy-O, you won't go wrong.

Easy? It's a pedal, and if it's even if it's your first, the controls are exactly like an amp, so if it's puzzling you're already in trouble. Once you realize it's a distortion pedal and not an "overdrive" as it's billed, you're good to go.

Not all that easy to get great sounds out of, but works as advertised.

I was really taken with this big ole yeller thing at first. magically i dialed in a fuzz-like drive that had that certain awesome buzz i was looking for, and this was after about 20 minutes of playing with it.

Good to go, except it does little else all that mind blowing in my opinion. Good pedal, just much more limted than the 5 knobs would've had me believe. It does not clean up very well, and won't replace your blues driver or screamer. trust me, i tried every possible setting, really wanting to unlock more than just that one (with a little variation available) cool distortion, but no luck my friends. To my ears, it does a cool, unique distort, and that's it.

That one sound I found rocks though, to i'll definitely be keeping it. They're cheap, so buy one of your own and mabe you'll find your own cool sounds too, maybe? I don't know, my friend got a Nobels that sounds a lot better, very underrated and awesome. About the same price, so try both I guess. I like that the daddy O is unique, so if you like that idea go for it. If you're looking for utility, like most players want in an overdrive get a VooDoo Labs or TS or the others.

Or get a Nobels, they're good. I have a bunch of others, so the Daddy O is a welcome and rocking tone for my tool box.

lthe jacks are plastic. everything else is solid though. i actually don't really care, but i bet this would survive a tour.

a couple tours though? i'd have to see the insides, and i'm just not that worried about it.

don't know, don't really care.

It's a lot of fun. Has a tone of it's own, which appeals to me. It can sound pretty terrible on some settings, but some settings go places no other amp or processor I have can get, so I like it.

Lots of balls for 50 bucks, cool and blistering. Waaaay better than the old dods and crap that used to be available. For the price, it ain't perfection, but it'll be a great fit for players who like a good burning tone, like me. I'll give it an 8, fine piece of gear but room for improvement. The unique sound is basically what it's all about, so you'll know if it's for you.

Overdrive is not a complicated affair, no matter what pedal you use. A good overdrive takes care of all the complication for you, producing a good sound without having to over-tweak or program. In that sense, this pedal is great. The three-band EQ is really handy, and the stomp switch is easy to find with your foot. Stomp on, stomp off, Daniel San.

I'm using a Fender Strat with Lace Sensors (Blue/Silver/Gold). This pedal produces a pure, true sound that is clear and colorful. The pedal is very warm, but it sounds best with the OD knob right around 1:00. It's got grit and it's very responsive to the volume knob on your guitar. The three-band EQ allows you to dial in most manners of clear overdrive, which is handy.

This is my first overdrive since my Tube Screamer Turbo, which I got rid of about 7 years ago. This thing is a much more organic, useable pedal than the TST. The TST was incredibly brittle and gave a very nondescript sound to your playing. I can't speak for the TS808, or the Maxon OD808, or the Tube Screamer reissue, but the Tube Screamer Turbo was one of the defining reasons I disliked overdrive. I thought, it my young stupidity, that the TST was expensive and therefore good, and if that's what good sounds like that then "good" overdrive had no place in my chain. And that was my state of mind for the last 7 years.

Fortunately, upon trying the Daddy-O, I've found an overdrive that's warm, colorful, and full of life. It's very expressive, and I know there will be scoffers that balk at my preference of Dano over the Ibanez Tube Screamer Turbo, but I've got to go with my ears on this one.

I play psychedelic music, and I'm a pretty big fan of effects-heavy guitar. The Daddy-O a great, clean alternative to my Big Muff, French Toast, or Maestro Fuzz tone.

I've owned about 13 Dano pedals, and only one crapped out on me (Chicken Salad Vibrato). I guess they're a bit iffy, but the higher-end pedals are made quite a bit better than the Mini Dano's.

*shrugs*

I fell in love with this pedal, but perhaps that's because of my underexposure to Overdrive. Having never played through an OD pedal in literally 7 years, I guess I kind of lost touch with the effect. Upon plugging it in and and strumming a few, I thought to myself "Gee, this doesn't do much for my sound." Then, after fiddling with it for a while, I realized that this was the beauty of a good overdrive. I had been missing this crisp, transparent clarity in my effects, since all my others are thick modulators, synthesizers, or fuzz units. The Daddy-O is a very subtle effect, and I like how it lets your guitar do the talking. For the price I paid for it, I'm extremely happy. Also, this unit is quite replacable, should something go wrong.

I guess the reason I'm most happy with this pedal is because it put me back in touch with a long-gone period of time in my playing. I used to be huge into blues. I loved SRV, Muddy Waters, Eric Clapton, the Three Kings, etc. From there, I found myself averted by Hendrix, which started me on a long, beautiful psychedelic kick that to this day dominates the music I record. This pedal makes me feel like a 17-year-old kid playing along with "Pride and Joy" or "The Thrill is Gone" in his bedroom.

I don't regret my trip into psychedelia, but this pedal was a breath of fresh air.

I've used this pedal in a number of different set ups, it was first bought to provide a dirty channel because my amp overdrive was weak, now i use it in conjunction with other pedals. It has always been easy to get great sounds out of. The controls are straight forward, you can hear the results straight away and the EQ is a really useful feature.

I will however moan at the closeness of the knobs, can't be helped i guess but it is a bit irritating, i'm just glad i don't have fat fingers.

Like i said, i used it by itself at first and it provided a pretty nice sound, if a little "dry" maybe?

Now i used it in conjunction with a boss dual overdrive SD-2 and it sounds awesome. The boss is noisy and raucous and the daddy o quietens it down, fuzzes it up some more and gives it a rich creamy sound which is equally good for power chords, open chords or high squealing notes (think smashing pumpkins sound, but not quite as ball-scrapingly heavy, more shoegazery). Every note is clear.

My set up, by the way:

Fender Musicmaster/Jaguar -> Ibanez DDL delay -> Boss SD-2 Dual Overdrive -> Passive splitter (splits the signal into two paths)
1. Daddy-0
2. Marshall Guv'nor (though i'm looking to replace this with a second daddy-o)
these are both fed into an A-B box and the single output from the box goes into my Marshall JTM-60 Amp. I can then change whether the signal goes through the daddy-o or the guv'nor with the flick of an a-b switch. clever huh? and cheaper than an LS-2.

I've also used it for bass and whilst it can't match a dedicated bass overdrive pedal, it does a damn fine job.

The slight dryness when used by itself means i have to give it 8.

Nothing has ever gone wrong with this pedal, i've had it for nearly a year now and it's always been ace, either with batteries or psu.

The shell is solid, the battery compartment is solid, the button is solid, the knobs seem flimsy but to be honest nothing has gone wrong as yet.

n/a

Eesh! Looking back now, #60 seems a ridiculous price, i must explain that i bought it with credit after returning the godawful metal zone pedal from whence it came.

I'm actually about to trade my marshall guv'nor for a second daddy o, then i can have one at a higher volume and bassier setting for really heavy sections. It works so well with the boss SD-2 that there's no point trying any more pedals (i bought the guv'nor cause i didn't want two daddy-o's and it looked pretty similar, with EQ and all that jazz - it's just not fuzzy enough!). Plus they're so reasonably priced now that i'd be mad not to snap one up.

It's unfair to rave about this pedal too much, as it was only the coming together of SD-2 and Daddy-O that really made my sound complete. Every rig is different, but this pedal is so versatile that I think it can be applied to most things.

5 little knobs and your imagination!

Most versatile overdrive out there. From clean boost to either bassy or midrangy dirt. There are some really nice units like the expensive Klon Centaur that I've tried, but at under 100 dollars, the Daddy-O is a KILLER value. I play bar band rock n' roll with a loud Fender amp and Fender and Gibson guitars, as well as a Maestro fuzz and a Crybaby. This set-up has to be flexible to get a lot of rock tones, and the Daddy-O can do a lot for the price

This is from the first series of Dano FX, which are heavy duty and rugged, not like the 2nd series, which are tiny and plastic and cheap.

Kick Ass!

Well, it's not your typical overdrive pedal. It has five knobs; a Level, a Drive, and a Low, Mid, and High EQ. Knowing that, you've got to know that there is a wide range of tweakability and sounds to be found in this pedal.

It's a little bit difficult at first, but once you get the swing of it, you'll be rockin' and rollin' in no time flat. or sharp. I never noticed that you can use both terms like that and they're both musically adapt. Ha!

This pedal can churn out tones that range from just barely clipping to high-gain crunchy fuzz. In the middle rests a sweet spot; a milky, warm, unadultered warm-sounding overdrive.

The subtle settings (gain from 0-10 o'clock) on this pedal give you a crunchy tube amp tone. As warm as a Twin? Nah, not quite. But it gets you in the territory.

The mid-range settings (gain from 11-2 o'clock) give you the classic Led-Zep/ACDC tones that were so famous. Does it sound just like a Classic Marshall Stack? Nah...but it gets you in the ballpark.

The heavy full-on settings (gain from 3 o'clock and up) keep the straight overdrive character but it boosts itself with a fuzz circuit so you have a very good overdriven fuzztone. It sounds very similar to the gain circuit on a lot of Fender amps these days, mainly the little "Mini Twin". Very good Jimi-tone, I'd say.


I would not recommend this pedal as a booster, however...it colors your tone way too much and it's not transparent like a lot of boosters (SD-1, TS-9, BD-2, etc). It doesn't like to mix well with other distortions either.

It holds its own on my pedalboard pretty well though.

Well, it's about twice the size of a regular Boss pedal, and it is made out of solid metal. The footswitch is el-cheapo, not as bad as the mini's, but still seems really fragile. I've taken it out once before but there's something about it that I just can't rest easy with.

I think it's going to break someday when I least expect it to.

I like to play Alternative/Hard Rock. I like my subtle overdriven tones, but I also like to dink around with fuzzboxes and Mesa/Boogie modelers. I particularly favor the Marshall and Mesa/Boogie Hi-gain tones.

This pedal really didn't fit the bill for me. However it seems like a great pedal for those who really want to rock out and want a subtle overdrive to step on for high-boosted solos.

This pedal would work great for a clean channel overdrive. Let's say you're playing a sweet sounding song on your clean channel with the neck pickup of your ES-335. All of a sudden the break comes and you can step on this bad boy and solo 'till your cows come home.

THAT is what this pedal is made for. And THAT is what this pedal is best at. It's better than the Boss SD-1 and TS-9 for these types of things, in my opinion. The SD-1 and TS-9s are better as boosters. The Daddy-O was designed as an Overdrive pedal for solos, and that's what it does.

It has 3 knobs for treble, mid, bass boosting, 1 knob for the level of distortion, 1 knob for the volume. Very simple. Maybe the knobs are too close, and your fingers won?t enter the chinks easily (not too good for a fast regulation while playing).

A great overdrive for blues men, excellent for Texas blues. . Perfect with single coils. You can get the ?Texas Blues? setting from the user manual? I think it?s great for jamming on some SRV? stuff. I would not suggest it to ?crunchers?; the sound is smooth, fatty, vintage-style. I often enjoy this pedal alone, and it?s enough? can really give the right mood to riff! There?s another great setting in the manual for mellow jazz.

Solid rock.

Dunno.

Good design, warm sound, solid stuff.

Five knobs allow for a wide variety of sounds, but it is hard for me to find a setting I can stick with.

I play a mexican strat through a fender blues junior. The pedal isn't really noisy. Effect is pretty strong, but not quite a tube amp. This pedal sounds much better on my solid-state fender sidekick reverb 25. But on tube amps, at least in my opinion, the pedal comes up a little short, even for its price range.

Seems reliable, I don't go on tour or gig or anything. So I wouldn't know.

Not good for punk or metal. Better for blues, maybe some alternative rock, and even for some country. If it were lost, I'd look towards some more high-end pedals like Fulltone or Analogman or something.

It's hard to NOT get a good sound with this one, I think. One of the most usable distortion/overdrives I've tried.

I've got one pedal board with nothing but overdrive/distortion/fuzz pedals, and half of them are ones I've made myself. The Daddy-O got itself a spot on the main board within 5 minutes of unpacking it. It's capable of a wide range of od/dist flavors, and the 3 band eq is very nice. I find myself using it for medium dirt settings the most with my 335 clone. If I can find another cheap enough on eBay, I'll certainly snag it, too.

Metal, heavy. Don't use it as a hockey puck and it'll live.

No idea - bought it used

Awesome little unit for mild to moderate dirt. Cleans up well with the volume knob. Not as responsive to picking dynamics as my Rangemaster clone, but, that's why I have a whole board of dist. units. Nothing is going to be perfect every time. For blues to classic rock to rockabilly-esque stuff, this is one useful little box.

Regardless of the price, this is the best overall distortion pedal I've ever used. It has a 3 band eq, a volume and a distortion knob, and with that, you can get every distortion sound imaginable, except for some very heavy death metal sounds.

I play several different guitars on stage, mostly with after-market pickups, and mostly humbuckers, and a marshall half-stack. The Daddy-O has no noise, no unwanted feedback. I can easily get classic 70's and 80's metal sounds from this setup, from Boston to Megadeth. It's also easy to get stoner metal sounds, like Fu Manchu and Clutch... surprisingly, not with the knobs on the pedal, but on your guitar. My settings on the pedal are all three eq's on 10, the distortion on 10, and the volume straight up (12 oclock). Then, using the volumes and tone knobs on my guitar, I can get any sound imaginable (saves a lot of bending over on stage). For crunchy, mid-rangy classic metal, I use the bridge pickup and tone and volume knows all the way up. Switch to the neck pickup, and back the volume down halfway, you get the classic BB King blues sound. Neck volume up and tone knob down, you get a nice fuzz that sounds a lot like Fu Manchu. As mentioned, I don't think this would work well if all you play is super-distorted, floor rattling death metal, but for everything else, especially if you play a lot of covers and need a lot of different sounds, nothing beats the Daddy-O.

It's built from cast metal, weighs around 2 pounds, and has a very sticky, textured rubber bottom. The switch is also cast metal. Built like a rock, and stays put on stage. The input and output and power supply jacks are on the front of the pedal, making for much less clutter on stage. The battery fits in the bottom of the pedal. The knobs could be a little better if they'd gone less for style and more for reliability (they're too tall and flimsy, need to be more like the knobs on Boss pedals for more reliability). I actually have two of these... I use one and take the other with me on gigs in case something happens to the first one.

Never had to deal with them.

I play mostly metal, from the 70's through the 90's, along with originals and studio work. I've been playing for over 20 years. I have several distortions and overdrives, none of which I use anymore... a DOD Death Metal, a Boss Overdrive, a Boss Distortion, an MXR distortion, and an original Big Muff... other than the Death Metal, the Daddy-O gets all the sounds the other pedals do. I was just messing around today with some older Judas Priest songs, and dialed in the exact same sound using the Daddy-O, even using a smaller Marshall practice amp. If you buy one distortion, get this one... because it'll cover everything the others do. Though I don't play nu-metal, this pedal does scoop out the mids very nicely for that detuned, artifical sound as well (this setting works well for industrial music, too).

3 Band EQ
Volume
Drive
Easy.

Very nice sound quality once you dial in the correct eq. If the eq is off, it sounds like shizzlenitz. I like to use it for a sort of medium to low, classic rock over drive.

Use with tele/strat
Korg AX-1G
Daddy-O
Boss BF-3 Flanger
Danelectro Tuna Melt Tremolo
EH Delux Electric Mistress
Boss PS-3
Korg Delay
Peavy Amp

Good for tasteful, flavorful overdrive and distortion. Everything from CCR to Nirvana to Jimi to Radhiohead to whatever. A good all around overdrive. It can be used as a sort of pre-amp with the overdrive all the way off and everything else cranked to 10. It makes things bassier, though.

Nice sound quality.

This is a good match for me. I like to use it for rock, blues, surf, new wave, punk, classic rock, or whatever moves me. A nice pedal for milder to medium overdrive sounds. For heavier stuff I prefer fuzz.

I just want to add to my review (a few down the page) and say that, now that I have a power supply, the distortion is much stronger.

Very easy too get the sound you want out of it. With the 5 knobs, you can adjust your tone to exactly how you want it to sound. If your not familiar with how to adjust the equalizers, there are some presets that come in the manual, but if you have the ear you will want to adjust them yourself.

I mainly use my Epiphone Les Paul Standard(2003-4 w/grover tuners) and run it through an ibanez chorus pedal(for clean mainly, nice 12 string sound), the daddy-o, and into either my practice amp or my crate 12". Has an excelent sound if you want to play Led Zeppelin (my favorite band) and with the Les Paul it sounds just like Jimmy Page. You can dial the overdrive down, but I almost always keep it full blast. It can make a nice crunc also. IMHO it sounds kinda funky when used along with my amp distortion. Sounds good through my friends iron maiden Fender also, but not quite as awesome as it does through the LP. I gig with it every week, and sounds great.

"Like a Rock". As long as you have a AC adapter, you can gig all day without a backup.

never needed to deal with them, never will.

I have been playing for 3-4 years, and I own an older Squier Strat(before they were so sucky), an Epi LPS, and a couple other low budget axes(acoustic and bass). This pedal is perfect for the Led Zeppelin sound. Good rhythm sound, and leads sound nice also. Blows my korg ax-1g distortion out of the water. Gets a 9, cause there is probably something better out there.

The manuel with the Daddy-O was very helpful. It is very easy to use.

I have 2 multi-effects units and want to build a pedal board with individual stomp boxs, It is loaded with 5 knobs; yet very affordable,
strongly made,the better the amp the better the response. If through a solid state it "clips" roughly, if through a good tube amp it is more smooth and buttery.

The Daddy-O seems very dependable, I would use it without a backup.

I wish while sustaining a chord and pressing the button it wouldn't "pop". If no sound coming through and pressing it,it is silent switching. I wish it was a little more buttery. The cutting through problem some folks have is solved with the 3 eq knobs, Any more I use high overdrive instead of distortion for a more desireable sound. I like the middle of the fence setting too.

very easy to use, plenty of knobs vol, 3 eq, o drive. they are close together, but who cares, sound is more important.

rig SG riviera 70's and a 150w tube amp I built my self.
Y'know it's pretty hard to be picky about this pedal, I love the sound. it has a nice loose O'drive not too fuzzy and the range is great. can go from a little to full crunch. the sustain is just kick ass, puts my mates boss OD-2 to shame, infact out does it on all fronts.

yup can depend on it, stomp away, it'll never die, just watch the knobs they are a little fragile I think. They dont seem to be secured to the case, they poke through the case from the circuit board inside. but you should treat all of your kit with care. it loses 3 marks for the knobs.

not delt with em

I play Punk/Rockabilly sounds great for what I want. (playing bout 10 years)
yep I'd buy another, I don't know what makes these pedals so cheap they're worth nothing second hand, I'm kinda glad that the world hasn't cought on to how good these things are yet coz I got a total bargain. demo one in a shop then have a look on ebay. this pedal never gets in the way. wish I had a dano spring king, again cheap and kick ass. gave a rating of 9 beacuse 10 is to say something is perfect and cannot be improved apon, this is to my mind impossible for anything (but this pedal comes damn close to the perfect sound for me)

Not overly complicated, even if it does have more knobs than most pedals. The three-band EQ was wonderful, a delightful change from most pedals that just have a "Tone" Knob. I haven't had a problem with the knobs being too close together, but I suppose one might if one had big fingers.

I play my Fender 50's Strat through this, then into my Fender Frontman 25R. This pedal actually runs quieter than the clean channel on my amp, and makes the distortion channel less noisy as well. The overdrive is virtually non-existant until it's at 10 o'clock, unless you're playing full chords. After it hits 12 o'clock, the drive gets stronger, but is still not quite as powerful as it could be.

I mostly use this pedal for a Jimmy Eat World-type of sound, with the gain knobs on both the amp and the pedal at 12 o'clock, mids at full, treble about three-quarters and bass down low. This produces a very crunchy, thick sound very well-suited to rhythm work.

This thing is made of metal, and is without a doubt the sturdiest pedal I've ever seen. If you were to drop this thing down a flight of stairs, it would be none the worse. If I was gigging, I would definately use this without a backup AS LONG AS I HAD A POWER SOURCE.

This pedal consumes batteries like there's no tomorrow; it takes power whenever something is plugged into the input jack, regardless of weither or not it it in use. Since Christmas, when I bought it, I have already replaced the battery four times. Beware.

Never dealt with 'em. Don't see NEEDING to deal with them.

I play mostly alt-punk stuff, and this pedal is well-suited for use as a second guitarist's overdrive. It is NOT, however, very good for leads on its own, and should be used in conjunction with your amp's distortion for lead work.

If this pedal was stolen, I would probably not buy another immediately; I think I would rather invest in something a little more powerful like a VisualSound Jeckyll & Hyde or a Boss Mega Distortion. But I would eventually replace it, because the tone it gets is unlike any other pedal I have ever played.

Slightly more complicated than your typical stomp box, but not rocket science either!

Depends what you put into it and play it through... Garbage in = garbage out. Garbage is a great band, by the way. Anyway, I find it to be shrill and buzzy if I put the treble control past 9-10 o'clock. A good place to start dialing in tone is with the bass and mid at 12 o'clock and the treble all the way down.

Dialed in correctly, this pedal has some cool capabilities that none of my other overdrive-distortion pedals have... And I have quite a few:

Boss SD-1, DS-1, BD-2, Ibanez SM-9, SML, SS10, TS-9, TS-7, H&K Tubeman, and of course the Dano Daddy-O.

Never failed in the few years I've had it!

Picked it up at a pawn shop for $20. Not the holy grail, but not bad either. I rarely use it, but I like to keep it around just in case! If it were lost or stolen, I probably wouldn't buy it again unless I came across it at a pawn shop for $20.

I'm glad it has a three band EQ. Although technically it makes the pedal that little bit more tricky to get your sounds from, it increases the range of tone available. Other than that, my only gripe is the knobs are tightly packed in on the top panel. Pretty easy to use though.

Current rig: Gibson SG Standard -> Boss TU-2 -> Daddy O -> MXR Dist+ -> MXR Dist -> 7 Band EQ -> EH Big Muff USA -> Vox AC30 Normal Channel.

This pedal was a chance buy from eBay, it was only cheap and I didn't really expect too much from it, but I was collecting pedals from one of my favourite artists (Catherine Wheel) at the time. So when I spent a few minutes playing around getting basic sounds, I was impressed.

The key words I would use to describe this pedal are dirty, gritty, raunchy. I'd put it somewhere between the hard rock grit of Van Halen and the classic crunch of AC/DC. Having a 3 band EQ on the pedal is a Godsend, and its useful unlike the ones of my old OD-3 and SD-1, which this replaces.

This pedal is great for those punchy palm-muted riffs, and Metallica-style stuff where you use mutes and full strikes, think 'Enter Sandman' when the heavy guitars kick in - that combination of mutes and strums, this pedal nails that effect great because unlike my other gain boxes, it doesn't compress your tone much.

The tones I use this for are all within the rock genre, classic punk (The Damned, The Clash), more modern punk/pop (Green Day, Weezer), classic rock (AC/DC, Led Zep, Deep Purple) and some hard rock (The Darkness, Van Halen). This isn't a mellow overdrive, this is one that sounds best with anything past 12oclock dialled in on the O. Drive knob.

It loses marks a little for it's lack of versatility - lesser amounts of drive sound really brittle and messy. But I've got other pedals to do that.

I usually run this together with one of the Dist+ pedals to add a little mid boost, tidies the tone up a little. It's no noiser than any similar pedal, probably the favourite gain pedal of all the ones I've tried or owned (DOD Grind, Boss Metal Zone, Boss SD-1, Boss OD-3, MXR Dist+, USA & Russian Big Muff, ProCo Rat2, several multi FX).

Think classic Marshall with a hint more grit. I haven't really gigged this pedal more than once or twice, so I haven't got the ideal tone set at higher volumes, but for jam sessions or home playing it sounds great. If you want smoother overdrive I'd look elsewhere, because that's about the only thing it doesn't sound good for.

Unlike those crappy little mini Danos, this pedal is built pretty well. They've used plastic knobs but they look a little more sturdy than the minis, and the footswitch is very reliable. I've broken the switch on one of my Dist+ pedals before, but this one is still going strong.

Never needed to, pedal was s/h anyway.

I play mostly rock, power pop, punk, hard rock, that sort of thing. I own an SG and that's what its made for, so I'll be sticking with that until I get a more versatile guitar i.e. a Strat or Tele.

This pedal is the one I always come back to, all the controls are responsive and have a good sweep (unlike some Boss ones I've owned). Granted, it's not very versatile but I'd rather have one or two great sounds than a box of okay ones.

I can get a very good Marshall tone from my AC30, while still having pristine cleans when I need them, and it works well as a gain booster for all my other stomps. Great pedal.

It has a few more knobs than your usual pedal, but that means more versatility. I didn't really have problems with the knobs being too close together like others have commented on.

I'm playing with a Danelectro '56 U2 Reissue through a Fab Tone, then Daddy-O, into a Fender Frontman amp. The Fab Tone is off, so that's not really a big issue. It sounds lik ethere's some pretty sweet overdrive in there, but it's covered by a nasty, ugly-sounding fuzz that destroys the sound, no matter how much I fiddle with the knobs. However, played through a different setup in the store I bought it from, it sounded pretty good. I'm thinking it maybe just doesn't like the rest of my gear.

Built like a tank, all that stuff. I really can't see something like this being damaged through physical force alone. If it produced a sound that made me want to, I'd gig with it with no backup, easily.

Haven't dealt with them. Since I bought it from a pawn shop, I doubt very much they'll be of much help.

I play Rock, Punk, and Grunge types of music usually. I was looking for something that would dirty up the sound a bit, but not all-out distort it. In the store, this pedal achieved close to the sound I was aiming for, but in my rig it obviously does not. Because of this baffling (to me) difference in sound, I can't really give it an overall rating. If it were stolen, I'd cry that I didn't get a chance to sell or pawn it, and I'd probably look for something else or build my own pedal to replace it. It seems to be a great value, but exercise caution in making sure it sounds good with your rig.

Very easy to use. Some people complain that the knobs are too close together which I don't understand, its not like you need to alter them in a hurry and all things considered, they're not uncomfortably close together (unless you have enormous fingers, in which case you might have a job playing guitar at all). It has five dials (Treble,Bass,Middle,Volume and Overdrive) which is one more than a standard Danelectro pedal allowing you to mess around until you get the sound you're after. The dials are also quite stiff and so stay in place long after you've set them (unlike the BOSS ones which have a tendecy to move about a bit). The button is nice and big and the casing is perfectly angled for a clean, swift stomp when required. Oh and the red 'on/off' light is nice and big and bright, which is handy.

This pedal does deliver a suprising variety of sounds. I mainly use it for that White Stripes/Kings of Leon vintage 'cruch' distortion but if you dial OD up and Mid down then you can get good grunge/metal tones (and even a decent palm mute out of it). However if you're after full on fuzz or a Metallica style growl you should probably look elsewhere.

Its hard to convey just how unexpectedy heavy this pedal is, it weighs a bloody ton. This is a damn good thing as it is likely to withstand all the stomping you can give it. Also it is very sparing with battery power and the danelctro battery mine came with is still going strong after nearly three months use.

Had no need to deal with them. A slight problem for me was that the warranty (which comes in the box) is only valid in America so if anyting ever does go wrong then it might be a bit more hassle to get it fixed over here in England.

Excellent pedal, far better than the BOSS equivalents (eg. DS1) in sound, reliablilty and ease of use. I would recommend it to anyone unless you really are a bit metal orientated in which case this probably isn't what you're after. I paid just shy of 60 quid for mine so if you want one a bit cheaper, have a look on ebay where they go for about 30-40 quid.

As everyone else has said, the knobs are really close together, so it's kinda difficult to modify your tone settings. However, I only use one set (bass=ten, mid =zero, treble=6) so all I ever adjust is the OD, so it's not much of a problem for me.

I use this pedal with a Gibson Les Paul Studio Lite and a Music Man 212 Seventy Five. I could not possibly be more impressed. With it being an overdrive pedal and all, it doesn't really growl or squeal too well, but it does everything else. With the OD set at 10, I get plenty of distortion to play grunge and industrial, and with my mid set to zero, the sound is very clear and precise. I also play a lot of Zeppelin, and it sounds great for everything from Whole Lotta Love to Achilles Last Stand to Living Love Maid. When I need a crunchier sound for bluesier stuff, I just turn down the OD. I also have a DOD FX-55B Supra Distortion and a BOSS HM-3 Hyper Metal, but I never have any need for them because my Daddy O is so versatile. My roommate has a POD 2.0, and he can't get any sound out of it that's half as good as my Daddy O.

I've had the pedal for six years, and I've used it for lots of gigs and practice sessions with five different bands, and it still works just as well as it did as the day I bought it. I use a transformer so I don't have to worry about the batteries, and by doing this I get a lot more gain out of it and it sounds a lot better than it does with a 9V.

I've never had to contact the company, so I don't know about the customer service.

I've used this pedal when I was playing with blues, jazz, classic rock, and hard rock bands, and it's performed wonderfully in all the genres after a few adjustments of the knob settings. If it were stolen or lost, I'd break down and cry, and then I'd go out and get another--I couldn't imagine playing without it. If I had more money, I'd probably invest in a dedicated distortion pedal, but I'd replace my amp before I replaced my Daddy O. All told, the only music-related purchase I've ever made that was a better move than getting this pedal was buying my Les Paul for $450. But that's another story for another day.

There are a lot of knobs for a pedal, but that doesn't make it difficult to use. There are volume, bass, mid, treble, and distortion.

As soon as I took it out of the box, I set the volume, bass and treble just like I have them on my fab tone. The mid and distortion quickly fell into place for a good sound.

The knobs are close together, but that makes it more difficult to move them by accident. Besides, once you find a sound you like, you don't need to move them anyway.

Setup - Ibanez sz320 w/Seymour Duncan SH-2 and SH-6 pickups, into the Fab Tone, into the Daddy-O, and into my Fender DeVille 4x10.

I love the sound of this pedal. It's not a light distortion, but at the same time its not as in your face as the Fab Tone. It puts out a warm overdriven sound. Many have said that this pedal is thin and does not sound like an overdriven tube amp. That's not the case for me, but maybe that's bc I'm using it with an all tube amp. Some noise at high distortion settings, but that's expected from a stomp box.

Tough metal housing, nice rubber bottom, and just so-so knobs and jacks. Overall its good though.

Never dealt with.

I've been playing rock/emo for almost 7 years and this pedal is a pefect match. If it were stolen, I'd buy another bc they're cheap right now. I still use my Fab Tone, but sometimes you need a softer distortion.

Small knobs in a tight arrangement - not easy to handle - rest ok

Took me a fair bit of time to get it working how I wanted it to. I play an old Echolette M40 and a Custom Shop Strat. Needed sth to tickle the preamptubes and add some crunchy distortion. It sounds kinda nosy at higher drive - so I cranked the volume up - took drive out (about 9 'o clock) took out the mids and added some treble and bass. I am happy with it though I can't call it a versatile stomp box. Not to compare with a Tube Screamer (808 or TS9). But at least it looks vintage.

No problems. tank proved metal. (change the dano battery with a good one!)

Never had problems - never needed customer support - so no comment possible

Playing for over 20 years now. I've been collecting lotsa gears since. The DaddyO is a vintage looking stomp box (that's why i bought it) I wasn't impressed with its sound first but fairly spoken - after dialling the knobs and spending some time with it I found the sound that I want. I play from jazz to heavy almost everything and i use for blues and country style. I think I wouldn't buy it again. But it was a cheap and reasonable spending on a real good looking thing.

The knobs are too small (and I'm not fat-fingered). But... anyway it has knobs so it's easy enough...

I played it with a Gibson Les Paul into a Fender Twin-Amp.

I think it's not for pro's but if you don't have much money and want a quiet good New-Rock-Sound (not rectifier-like!!!) turn the mids out, bass 90%, treble 75% and it's okey for the beginning.

don't know, was just testing it in a shop

???

I play mainly New-Rock like Deftones, Linkin Park, etc. I would say this thing is good for that kind of music but verget it for anything else... it's only a lead sound - not good for rythm-stuff...

five knobs, too small and narrow- even for my little fingers- to make any "on the fly" foot adjustment (if anyone tried a Maestro pedal, you know what I mean).
takes a little tweaking before you find a suitable sound, 'cause the 3 Eq knobs make huge changes whem twiddled.

I have a '94 Strat plugged into a Fender 112 Deluxe: I actually bought this pedal on the internet because it was damn cheap, but I don't know if I'd buy it again. It's actually quite similar to the drive channel of my amp, so it has a lot of attack (advice: if you play rhythms, set the treble knob very, very low, and pump up the mids) while I would mainly need a creamy rhythm sound, to get which I went mad. And still I'm longing for a TS-9 or a Vox V810...
But in the end, the sound quality itself is pretty good. I only give it a 7 just because of my playing style, if I was a lead guitarist w/ bluesy mood it would get a 9: it's beautiful with single coil (my Strat has a SD Little '59 with splitter, bridge position), can get quite harsh and punchy with humbucker (which is good, I hate hard rock and metal: only thing I want are dirty sounds) at high drive setting.

I bought it used and had it for only a couple of months, seems sturdy in its metal case though: I'm only a little concerned about those plastic jack inputs, well we'll see.

Never dealt.

This pedal sounds perfect, and I said perfect, for bluesy leads, but I'm a natural rhythm, so it doesn't totally fit with my style: I mean, it's greatest features are the ones I don't need...
This is what you get for such a low price... Sometimes I'd like to sell it, other I want to keep it: for sure, I'll buy another overdrive... Try it before you buy it by the way, in lead sounds it almost reaches the greatness of TS-9: and for that ridiculous price, could turn out to be a GREAT deal.

Now...errrr...its a distortion pedal with five knobs on it..so plenty of eq.....- fx##k the manual...use your brains and ears and you'll be ok.

i'm tierd of writing my setup down...so i wont...Does it realy matter?
This pedal is quite nice (budget/quality)...It can sound really usable..but in case you need some especific type of distortion i can't help you aboutthat..all i can say is that i own two diferent distortion pedals because they sound DIFERENT from each other..and i also use the distortion of my Mesa amp...sometimes i mix two very carefuly to get the sound i want.
What i liked first about this product was the oportunities of equalization it offered...because i like dialing in often....i found that this pedal can be very interesting if you are an explorer...it screams if you search that...i like it for my phsicadelic flavours..but my advice is to try it with your gear and see what happens..'cause you might like it.

I've use this one plenty of times on gigs...still kicks...but the inputs are to fragile for my taste(plastic i think)...i'm loosing confidence on those two very fast....

I've been playing for 15 years now..
I play experimental rock mixing down several things..so i like to experiment a lot and i try to be careful not to buy unusefull gear at the same time..i'm also on the "keep it simple" side.....i've learned that some time ago ...'cause money doesn't fall from the sky (at least for me) i'm generaly never disapointed about what i buy.
I like this pedal quite a lot for what i do with it ...for the flavours i can come out with because its very equalizable...and cheap..but i doubt anyone would use this one for main distortion..i believe that if that's what you looking for ..forget it...but give it a try ..why not??
i really hate those cheap inputs..

This thing is impossible! There are two many controls to be a simple overdrive (which it isn't). Impossible to get a sound you want.

This pedal can be great for leads but sucks for rythm. It's so nasily, it's like a flat wall of noise. Destroys the tone of guitar and amp (I use an Epiphone Casino and a Rickenbacker 330 thru a Fender Twin Reverb reissue and a vintage blackface Fender Bandmaster). No matter what pedal it is used with, there is no hope for it. This works for leads, not strumming or picking, just leads!!! I'd rather have a Tubescreamer.m It is very good for leads though but otherwise, it sucks!!!

Can depend on it but don't really want to.

n/a

I play hard rock originals and 90's brit rock like Oasis. This pedal has been used in the studio and did not get the sound I wanted. my bands cd was also produced by an idiot though but there is still little that can be done to help it. You can hear it playing rythm and leads on the website: http://willisweb.tripod.com
You can hear the muddiness on the overdrive though it does work well for overdrive (but still, I want both). Keep in my though the recording was better before it was mixed (unbelievably better) but when you're 18, you get ripped off by people who just want to be lazy and do a shit ass job. Been playing for 8 years.

Simple. Lot of variations due to the five knobs. Almost a real EQ. But on the other side you rather have some real sticky fingers.

I'm playing a Epiphone Les Paul standard on a Blazer Peavey Amp. A rookie gear (and actually I am) , and I was searching a kind of "vintage" sound, something a bit more rock than the simple Blazer sound. In fact I play the Daddy-O almost like a pre-ampli, and the result is above my expectations. It will give you a real smooth and warm sound, but it's easy to gain some power, especially on the attack.

Heavy enough to kill someone, I presume. The switch is well protected.

Howewer I think you will have to be carefull with the control panel.

A good price/quality compromise. It's fun and if you are searching some root sound, pretty like a tube amp, the Daddy O is for you.

Furthmore, it's real cool looking !

Straightforward, not rocket science

If you are a blues, classic rock player, this is not the overdrive pedal you want. Ive got a Fender Strat and Marshall VS-30. If you try to play loud, it sucks, I mean it is completely useless. But the trick is that first turn of the volume of the amp all the way, and just rely on the power of the pedal. Obviously, you will get a barely hearable sound but it is a perfect overdriven tube amp sound. This means that you can only use this pedal, in the middle of night, when you want play the blues for only yourself.

Yes no problem

As I mentioned before, this is a PRACTICE PEDAL (maybe it is the first of its kind), DONT play it loud.

I got this pedal when i was a beginner guitarist, it was my first ever pedal. I gotta say that, while it was easy, very easy to use, it was only capable of grunfe tunes. This was great for me, because I'm a grunger, but if there is some consumer who wants a ped for a bluesy overdrive or a poppy, tiny overdrive then this ped isn't for you. However, i've only ever used it on one setting, with full overdrive, volume, bass and treb and no mid, so maybe it's my fault.

I often gigged with it and, even with my Encore strat and sub-standard Laney PA, it sounded nice and meaty. I have since put it through a Ibanez RG170R and was impressed. This is the ideal ped for a kid in a rock band on a budget. If you are rich, then I advise the OD-3 by Boss. I love Boss stompboxes.

It was, in my point of view, nuclear bomb proof. The sturdy metal construction often took several jumps (literaly) a day, but didn't show a mark. The metal knobs did look a bit vulnerable, so i used some degree of care. It never cut out at one gig, and is obviously a ped designed for the punishment I gave it.

Never needed a single service. Pristine.

I'm a grunger, and this ped served me fantastically. I'd recomend the Danelectro Daddy-O to anyone without a shadow of doubt.

Five controls, but all of them straightforward. I don't think the treble control has much range, but the all-important mid works fine.

I use this with a Squier Pro Tone Strat or a Dillion Tele Thinline copy (DTT72). I also have a bunch of effects on my board, including, for overdrive, Boss BD-2 & SD-1, Snarling Dogs Tweed-E Dog, and Vox V830 Distortion Booster. The only effects that might be used together with the Daddy-O are a DynaComp reissue, a Vox Wah (currently out of action with a bad pot), or an Ibanez PH7 or original MXR Phase 90 phaser. These go into a Fender siverface Deluxe Reverb or a Traynor YSR-1.

The D-O gets noisy when the level goes past 12 or the drive past 3 o'clock, but that is to be expected, I guess. My amps are kind of noisy anyway, so I can live with it. It might be worse with the treble turned up, but I turn it down.

With this much eq, it is a pretty versatile box, and at low drive settings can even be used as a preamp/eq--you can get clean sounds by turning the guitar volume down. But while that is all very nice, i really don't need it, and there is nothing special about the sounds you get, which are kind of generic SS overdrive. The low drive sound is no match for the character of TS-type pedals (like my SD-1) with a Fender amp, or for the BD-2 with the Traynor, and I don't personally have any use for scooped overdrive sounds.

There is one sound, however, that absolutely kills: treble & bass all the way down (or close to it), mid all the way up, and drive at 2-3 o'clock, level to taste. Suddenly, my spanky Deluxe Reverb sounds like a goosed JCM 800. Whole chords absolutely kick, with great grind but a lot of articulation for a stompbox, and lead lines are punchy as hell, with a great, smooth, organic quasi-octave effect, using either neck or middle pickup positions. Some tonal variation is possible, too, using the guitar tone and volume controls. The only negative, and it is a small one, is that the fundamental tone of sustained notes kind of drops out, leaving only echoey harmonics, a little sooner than I would like. But this is only an issue on notes held for like 3/4 measure or more, and either a compressor or a little bit of elbow grease in the finger vibrato takes care of the problem. This sound is an "9-1/2", but I'm rating it a little lower because it is otherwise a jack-of-all, master of none kind of box, so I could have done without all the knobs--maybe a 2-3 knob parametric-type mid control would've been better. Also, it is a bit of a tone sucker when off, so either true bypass or better quality buffering should've been there.

I have only had it a week, so I can't say, but my Cool Cat has been around a while with no sign of any problem, and it sure looks solidly made, inside and out. The stompswitch, while not exactly heavy duty, is rather well protected by the collar integrated in the case, so it should be ok. The knobs and pots look (and feel) kind of flimsy, though.

Never contacted them about a pedal, but they did respond to an email about guitar wiring once. I'm bummed that they won't disclose schematics, and getting Dano parts can also be a major headache. Unlike the minis, I don't think these pedals should be treated as disposable by the manufacturer, and I also don't think that being overly protective of the schematic of relatively inexpensive pedals makes much sense.

I play mostly blues/alt-country/folk-rock, and have been playing, on and off, for 30 years. Besides the stuff listed above, I also have Dano Mod 6 and 12 string guitars, a '65 Jaguar, an Epi bass (just for fooling around) and an Epi acoustic. Other amps include a Bassman 50, SF Vibrochamp, Champ 25SE, with 2x12, 4x10 and 1x15 cabs and a Traynor Leslie-type cab. (My gear is cooler than my playing :).) I generally don't much use high-overdrive sounds--a Tube Driver and Ibanez '60s Fuzz mostly gather dust--but this pedal, on the setting above, is irresistable, aggressive but very musical, and it has got me playing more Jayhawks and such-like leads, or even some quasi-Billy Gibbons-ish blues figures. I got it just because I like to fool around with different sounds, but I think this one is a keeper. If I can trace the schematic, I may try to copy it in a smaller pedal, with true bypass (to cut down on the am ount of circuitry AND the tone-sucking)and the eq hardwired the way I like it. Otherwise, I would probably try to replace it if it went south/missing, since they are pretty cheap used now.

Easy to control amount of OD, Volume, and EQ controls. No problems here.

Epiphone Les Paul Standard --> Daddy O --> Fish & Chips EQ --> Vox Cambridge 30 Reverb amplifier. Very good sounding overdrive, I prefer to use this than my Boss DS-1 distortion. What am I talking about, this thing is AMAZING. I love it to death. You can go from beefy punchy overdrive to one that stings more. The greatness is raised exponentially with the EQ.

Looks pretty strong to me, with a metal casing.

Beats the hell outta Boss distortions, and I prefer this pedal over any other fuzz/distortion/overdrive pedal I've tried (Big Muff USA, Boss MD-2, DS-1, MT-2). I think the only thing that can sound better than this is a SIB Varidrive or other tube-powered distortions.

Little bitty knobs placed to close together. The EQ sucks badly on this pedal.

This pedal was given to me from a friend. I can see why. It just does not have a good sound in it. I read most of the previous reviews and find it so suprising that some one would give it a favorable review. It has a very ratty sound. Like some of the other cheap overdrive pedals out there. Muddy, lifeless, un-inspiring, and just plain not good sounding. Again, I just can't believe anyone would like this pedal. Maybe there are someone good ones out there that sound different or something. I tried to give it back to my friend, but he said he didn't want it back, and to just through it away. I did. I would have been to embaressed to give it to someone else, less they think I had actually spent money on the thing.

When I threw it in the garbage can, it broke two bottles and squashed an old banana. I guess it was pretty sturdy.

I thought about calling them to see if I had a lemon or something, but figured they would just say no.

I only kept it about a week. I just couldn't stand to play through it anymore than that. I have been in a rock band for almost thirty years now. I have a Strat, a Tele, and a Les Paul. I play through Fender tube amps. My favorite overdrive pedals are a TS-9 tubescreamer and a Visual Sound Jekle and Hyde. The Daddy-o is just a cheap sounding pedal at it's best. In my opion, it is a very bad buy.

Very easy to use -- I actually like that the knobs are hard to turn, for they stay put once you've got them where you want them.

I had a Marshall JTM-60 that had a cool tone but was unreliable, so I got rid of it. The Daddy-O through my Sovtek MIG50 duplicates the Marshall JTM-60 tone that I liked -- great singing sustain. The pedal's high and can be buzzy if set higher than 9 o'clock. Also, tone knobs are interactive -- changing bass setting makes the highs sound different, for example.

Like most pedals, the Daddy-O is not a perfect match for every amp in existence. While it works well with my Sovtek, it does not work well with my Trace Elliot Velocette either through the Velocette's 10" speaker or an outboard Sonic 1-12" (Celestion G12-70), for example.

I bought mine used, have used it off and on for gigs, its been tossed around and abused a bit -- still works perfectly. Does tend to pick up radio signals in certain areas.

?

Overall, the Daddy-O is a good pedal to have on hand -- especially if you come across it cheaply. If yours doesn't sound good, you probably have the high end set too high, are playing it through an amp that it disagrees with, or yours is defective. Not a must-have pedal, but worth keeping.

As long as you have feet and turn knobs you should be good to go.

I use a squier strat into a homemade princeton champ. It does add a bit of noise but it won't disturb our playing. Barely audible. The effects are absolutely teriffic. You can get a mutitude of highly customized sounds and each setting sounds as good as the last. You can even mimic the overdrive sound from the octavia that hendrix used. It does however take a little punch away from your tone when the amp is off, not much, but I'm a stickler in this regard. the only reason it is not 10 is for this.

Built in pot metal casting. Like a tank.

NA

If you like overdrive, this is a wonderful pedal. You can get an overdrive that suits any type of music because it is so customizable with its 5 knobs. It degrades our sound clean ever so slightly but i can live with it. This pedal could be sold for 70$ and i wouls still buy it. If I lost it i would replace it, bu if you want to spend a little more cash the best overdrive is an ibanez tubescreamer.

Since I got this used, thier was no manual, but come on... it's a distortion box, we've seen this before!

1 point off for placing the knobs so damn close to each other!

I love this thing... Danelectro has always made great sounding pedals (in thier vintage series anyways....dibs out on the mini-effects) and this one is just as good. +5 points

Thiers no noise (aside from that coming from my guitar), and the distortion comes through really well. +2 points

Now this is where I start to take points off... I play a lot of surf stuff, and I use my Fender Red Knob Twin when it comes to playing surf because well...its a reverb amp and thier is simply no competition for true vintage surfy sounds than using a redknob twin. However Reverb + Daddy-O = Instant amp death. It's painful... I don't know why, but it just dosn't sound good. -3 points

My setup consists of a Danelectro Hodad 6 string, Fender Stomp tuner, Boss V-wah, Dunlop Cry-baby, Boss Metal Zone, Danelectro Black Coffee, Danelectro Daddy-O, Boss Blues Driver, Boss Tremelo, Boss Acoustic Sim, Danelectro Cool Cat, Sound Master +4 pre-amp, and then either a Vox AC30TB amp, or a Fender Redknob Twin. Sounds awesome through both amps, and once again, no hiss, except from the lipstick tube pickups... +3 points

Danelectro effects work well together... Use this pedal in line with the Cool Cat and you will be in heaven, I know I am! +3 points

Dibs out on using this pedal with my Epiphone ES-335... sounds like ass. -2 points.

Finally, the pedal is a lil trebel heavy, and dosn't have a lot of bass punch (which is probably why it shouldn't be mixed with lots of reverb.) So I often use it in conjunction with my Boss Blues Driver. It adds a lil more kick to the sound, and since thier essentially the same effect (just that the Daddy-O sounds better) it sounds great. Points remain neutral.

Total points - 8

Danelectro effects are infamous for draining batteries. This is why I bought the power supply. Would I use it at a gig without a backup? Sure, why not. It's a wicked pedal, and I usually have it on all the time anyways. However I still got a backup on stage seeing as how I have that Boss Blues Driver there...

Danelectro have no need to hear from me on problems with thier products, because their so damn good!

I play a large mix of music styles, from Ska, Surf, Punk, Emo, Metal, Alterna-Rock, Blues, Jazz, even electronical experimental stuff. The Daddy-O fits well with it all, thier is rarley a time when I turn it off (same goes for my Cool Cat).

Now I've been playing for about 4 years self taught, but I'm getting pretty damn good, and I know more about effects and guitars than most guys working at music shops... so I usually have a pretty good idea of whats good and whats not...at least for my style of playing. And this pedal suits it period!

I JUST WISH THE KNOBS WERE SPACED FARTHER APART! This is a killer, I can't fit my fingers between the kobs well enough to turn them easily. And I don't got big hands either...

Get a Daddy-O, screw that Boss Blues Driver, this pedal sounds better, has more options for tone, and well... it looks cooler too. Just those damn pot knobs...

Pretty easy, although the nobs are close together and are hard to turn. The manual is very good to me.

I love this overdrive for heavier drive than my blues driver. It sounds great for a Delbert McClinton sound, or I can use then both for a good screaming lead

Never had a major problem. Switching works very easy.

never used it

Very good pedal. It has been stolen and I'm looking to buy another.

it's a distortion box.

my chain is this, Squier Strat/ Dearmond m66 into rogue dst-5, dano daddy-o, rogue scr-5, dod 595a phasor, dod fx747, zoom 505 II with homemade exp pedal, rocktek vibrator, rogue equalizer into fender frontman 15. Is a good basic distortion/overdrive i can get some alternative, grunge rock distortion or some blues overdrive tone, but it doesnt work as a clean boost, because of the 3 eq knobs is a very versatil pedal

i treat my pedals like babys, but it is built like a tank.

i have never dealt with them

i play mostly alternative, modern rock, grunge and other things with with this pedal. If i lost this pedal i wll try other distortions and try to find one cheap. I can get the sounds of Grammatrain, Chevelle, prayer chain, violet burning, plankeye and tourniquet on crawl to china.

Well, what can I say? On or off, its that easy!! Five control knobs, VOLUME, HIGH, MID, BASS, OVERDRIVE. Very easy to use; the volume control is great for adjusting the sound to your preference. Basically this pedal has the same controls as an amp. Just set it up the way you set up your amp.

I have 3 main electric guitars that I use. A 1997 Heritage Cherry Sunburst Epiphone Les Paul, a 2001 Vintage Sunburst Epiphone Sheraton II, and a 1994 Purple Mexican Fender Stratocaster with an all maple neck. I run these guitars into my effects in this order: a Dunlop Fuzz Face Reissue, Dunlop Cry Baby Wah, Danelectro Daddy-O Overdrive, Zoom 505, Dano T-Bone Dist., Dano Pastrami Overdrive, Dano Chicken Salad Vibrato, Dano Tuna Melt Tremolo, Dano Milkshake Chorus, Dano PB&J Delay, Dano BLT Slap Echo. Then they go into a Peavey Rage. I use AC Adaptors for all of my effects, I don't really hear any hum. The Daddy-O seems like it has true bypass. When it is turned off the guitar tone seems unaffected. I only use the Daddy-O mixed with delay, tremolo, echo, vibrato. Chorus with overdrive or distortion doesn't sound very good to me.
This pedal is a little cruchier than the BOSS Super Overdrive.
IF YOU WANT TO PLAY ZEPPLIN, LOOK NO FURTHER. THIS PEDAL ROCKS.!!!

You can bet your life on this pedal! If your scared to walk down a dark alley, bring this with you. I'd rather be bludgeoned with a brick than this thing!

Haven't had to use it yet, but I heard they are very helpful.

I play U2, The Tea Party, Lenny Kravitz, Blue Rodeo, Oasis and any other kick ass band!!!
I've been playing for 6 years, self-taught.
I would definately replace this pedal, it looks cool, its durable, and it sounds great. The only other pedal I would replace it with is a BOSS SD-1 Super Overdrive. But actually, the Danelectro Pastrami Overdrive sounds just as good as the Daddy-O, I shit you not. It just doesn't have as many control knobs.
If youy are looking for an Ibanez TS-9 Tube Screamer sound, buy that product. If you are looking for a BOSS sound buy that product. You have to treat each pedal as its own identity. It's just like comparing bands.

Any good pedal worth its spit should be easy to use, and this is no exception. Just turn the knobs, slam your foot down, and away you go. If you have chubby fingers the knobs might challenge you since they're really close together (there's five -- volume, treble, mid, bass, overdrive). The manual provides some sample settings.

I'm playing a Danelectro U-2 through a Marshall Park amp. It's a cheap combo, but boy what a great sound! Clean is smooth and jazzy. Overdrive is crunchy. But once I figured out how to get the right sounds from the Daddy-O, I just leave the pedal on all the time because even clean through the pedal sounds better than the amp by itself. You really get that nice tube sound. The trick is to play with the volume knobs on your guitar. For example, to get a nice clean sound, keep the guitar volume low, turn up the overdrive just a bit, and then crank the volume on the pedal. Just a great, clean rock sound. Then to get great overdive with awesome sustain turn the overdrive up and the pedal volume accordingly. This pedal put out a nive, hot, rockin' signal. There's lot of variation, if you know how to get it. I love it. Dano rules!

This thing is made out steel, man. It's heavy. It's built to last. Rubber on the bottom so it won't slip. Wicked.

Dano has a great site. The packaging for the pedal is neat-o retro. No complaints in this department.

This is a great pedal. I love it. With the three band EQ there's a wealth of tonal variety, if you know how to access it. Play around. You can get everything from jazz, to classic rock, to blues, to psychotic transistor radio distortion. Rock on!

Well, it's OK. It's not extremely simple, as it is quite tweakable with the three band eq. The manual is actually quite good, but the problem is the sound - see below.

I use it (very rarely) with my Les Paul and Boogie Studio .22, and the only use I have for it is making my mesas overdrive "bite" less, it makes it more of a roar. Useful at some occasion, perhaps. Now, as I use an all tube amp of high quality, I might be too pecky for a product like this, but I don't like the sound of it. It's simply cold and dead. Now, it does tweak quite a bit for a stomp box, which makes it fun if you don't have very high expectations on sound quality.

I'm sure it would hold out for a life of being hopped on.

N/a

If it had better sound quality it would be very nice. I've heard that the Fab tone sounds better, maybe this is true. But for me, nah. I'll try to sell it soon.

It's easy to get a good sound - but only if i use my 1x10 amp, if i use my 2x12 (better quality), it gets all fuzzy on me. It didn't come with a manual, i bought it off the floor from a local store. If you need a manual to operate this pedal though, you are a complete idiot, it is more than easy to use.

I used to use this with a Yamaha 1x10, which it sounded great on, but i recently switched to a behringer 2x12, and now it sounds awful. Dunno why, so i just stopped using it.

Although it sounds bad with my new amp, it is still VERY dependable. I had it for 4 months and never had one problem with it, and thats after jumping on it, dropping it in the middle of a road, and tossing on the ground more than a few times - this is one sturdy piece of metal. I would use it without a backup, but this would be my backup if i had another pedal.

Never dealt with them.

Its not that great, its nothing special. It can produce a variety of tones, from metal to blues, but i still cant figure out why it sounds bad through my bigger amp... its making me angry. If it were stolen, i would tell the guy to keep it.

It's not really hard to use. It's a distortion pedal, after all. I plug the organ in at one side, my mixing board at the other, and there it goes blaring away. The drive control together with the three-band equaliser make it pretty easy to shape the sound. Oh wait -- there's an on/off button, too.

I am not a guitar player. I use this to distort the sound of my Viscount D9e Hammond emulator. With its many settings, I can produce nearly any kind of organ sound, from cutting Deep-Purple-ish distortion down to mellow Uriah Heep drive. It all sounds kind of solid-state, of course. But it's wonderful how many different kinds of overdrive this thing does.

It's made of steel. I don't stomp on it with my feet. I don't break off the knobs, I just turn them. I don't thing anything will break, then.

I never dealt with Dano support.

As a cheap and versatile organ overdrive, it's great. I suppose a H&K Tube Factor or a Reu?enzehn Organ Master Sound would probably sound better, but then, those cost more, too.

don't know too much about it. it was defective right out of the box, though it seemed like it would have been a really good sounding pedal, if it worked.

Here's the deal. This thing was faulty right out of the box. I plugged it in, heard a really sweet overdrive, then i'd hear a static/scratchy sound coming after each chord i'd play. definitely not supposed to be there. other than that, the overdrive seemed to be sweet as hell sounding, but i coudln't really enjoy it, cause the staticy noise it was producing was too distracting. I ended up sending it back and having them send me a Boss Blues Driver. This is the second Danelectro pedal I've had to return in one week's time due to it being defective. It's same to say that I am done with Dano products for good. It's a shame, because sound wise, they seem to be pretty hot.

Defective right out of the box. Sent it back and asked for a Boss Blues Driver as a replacement. I would never trust Dano products for real gigging, they don't even hold up during practices at home.

Didn't deal with Danelectro. Bought this from MusiciansFriend, and they are exchanging it for a Boss Blues Driver. I'll give my review of that when i get it.

Broken when i got it. Read above for details.

Well there is not many space between the 3 tone knobs (bass, middle, treble). The manual gives some nice setting. For the rest it's pretty simple; volume, o'drive and 3 tone knobs. Tha battery can be replaced very easy.

I use a MIJ telecaster (50 's RI) and a Soundcity MK3 head, an old Laney supergroup head (both tube) or a Fender sidekick reverb (SS). Through all amps it sounds really great! It gives a very raw, crunchy overdrive, just the way I like it! I use it mainly for playing 70 's punk (Ramones, The Clash, Sex Pistols etc.), early 80's hardcore (Minor Threat, Black Flag), some rock (great AC/DC sound), alternative and noisy hardcore. It isn't more noisy than otehr overdrive/distortion pedals I own. It sound both great through my solid state amp when I'm playing in my bed room or when I play through my all tube heads in live situations. I have all knobs at 12 o'clock, except the treble (2 o'clock) and middle (full) when playing with my band. I just crank my old Laney and the daddy'o gives it a great warm but raw and dirty overdrive. Only in combination with Marshalls (valvestate's) I didn't really like the sound. To thin and harsh.

I own it for about 4 years and it never had any problems. Our singer jumped on it for several times and nothing happened. Solid steel pedal! Only the knobs feel a little bit weak.

Well for old school punk/hardcore, alternative music, noisy rock it's a great pedal! I also own a boss metal zone, a MXR distortion +, a boss DS-1 and a Turbo Rat. Tha daddy'o is my favorite pedal. I'm in love with that raw, crunchy overdrive sound. To me it sound quite unique, compared to other pedals

You have to spend some time in this area to get a good sound. The Daddy O is versitile in this area but it is hard to get the sound you want. The manual is useless, you will however be able to get clost to just the sound you like.

I use a G&L ASAT, Gibson 335 Studio or a Fender Tele. Most of the time I use the ASAT. I use a Fender Pro Junior or Peavey Brovo both of which are tube amps. I play live and mic the amp into the sound board. Not too noisey untill you crank it all the way up on O Drive. It comes close but just doesn't hit the mark for that true overdrive sound. Still gives you that narrow solid state sound. In a live playing situation this pedal is useless. The Volume knob is just that; you have no control over your overall vollume at the guitar. As you raise the vollume on your guitar all you get is more gain. When trying to do a lead riff when you want to be a little louder it chokes you down untill you can't be heard.

I would not gig with this at all. I am going to sell it and get something that is worthwile. Save your money for somthing good like a Boss BD or Ibenez TS

This is another area that should make you shy away from this piece of junk. I contacted Danelectro several times via email about this problem and they ignored me.

I play weekly in a praise and worship band as well as an oldies rock band. I lean to blusey style guitar riffs. Save your $ and get somthing that is worthwile. If you are playing in a garage band or using this for a studio where you can fiddle with it during play it would be fine. It is however useless for a live performance situation. As is said earlier customer suppord does not exist they will ignore you.

Just about any sound out of this unit is good. However, because it sports five knobs (more than your typical OD/Distortion unit), it can take a bit of tweaking to get the specific sound you're looking for. The manual gives you some great recommended settings, and it's a good idea to try them out first to get a feel for the unit. Then, come up with your own "tweaks" from there. Please note that my "7" rating is not a slam, this is just a bit more complex than your average stomp box.

Great, great, great sound quality. I play a PRS Swamp Ash Special into a Mesa/Boogie DC-5 1x12 combo, and as versatile as the rig is on its own, the Daddy-O adds a whole new dimension. Using these three pieces alone, I'm able to, at the very least, approximate just about any guitar sound, and a few can be nailed dead-on. The Daddy-O's versatility is a major plus. Plugged into a clean tube amp, you can dial in SRV sounds, Page sounds, "classic" metal sounds (in other words, if you're looking for Pantera tones, choose the Daddy-O's chainsaw-like sibling, the Fab Tone, otherwise this one will get the job done), bluesy overdrive, boosted clean, and just about anything short of the afformention Pantera sound. Prior to buying the Boogie/PRS rig, I played a Les Paul Studio and a Fender Strat standard into a Fender Super 210. Again, great versatility and plenty of high-quality sounds, though the unit is obviously noisier with the Strat in front of it (the more you turn the unit up, the more it amplifies the natural hum). A Strat through just about any distortion or overdrive will have the same effect, so I can't know Dano for that one. My only complaint about the sound of the unit is that I just didn't care for it in front of a Marshall. I played it through a friend's 50 watt half-stack, and I just don't think the unit worked as well with a Marshall sound as a Fender or Boogie tone. This is, I stress, the ONLY reason I didn't give the sound a "10", and it may just be my ears. Another player may have a different opinion.

Reliabilty? This is an absolutely true story: I was driving home from a jam, my Les Paul and Super 210 in the back of my car. My two Dano pedals, a Daddy-O and a Fab Tone, were in the back of the amp. At a four-way intersection, I got broadsided by a drunk driver. I was lucky to get out relatively unscathed, but my Les Paul broke into four pieces and my Fender amp ended up in a field about seventy feet away, broken into more pieces than I care to count. My car was a wreck. Now, about those pedals.....they left the car with the amp, but somehow fell out and hit a stone wall. I know they hit the wall because, above the sidewalk I found them on, were two paint marks- one red, one tan. These paint marks were shaped just like the two chips in my Danos, so they obviously hit the wall, and hard. Three knobs were missing from the Daddy-O, but I found them the next day. The Fab Tone looked pretty beat up, too. I skeptically plugged them into an amp at my local guitar store a couple of days later, expecting them to be dead. Boy was I wrong!!!! The both survived hitting a stone wall at high speed with little more then some chipped paint! These pedals are nearly indestructible. They're right back in my rig, working as good as ever, and I now have a nifty story to tell.

I've never had to deal with Dano for customer support, but they responded the next day when I e-mailed them to tell them about the flying pedals incident. I imagine it's top-notch, but I can't really comment.

The best pedal I own, hands down. I've been playing for about ten years, and played in a sixties/seventies rock cover band that this unit was invaluable for. I also played in an original band that plays a blend of '90s alternative and jam rock. The versatility of this unit makes it a great creative tool. Again, unless you're playing REALLY heavy music, this unit will work with any style. If I ever lost this pedal, I'd replace it in a heartbeat. There is simply no substitute in its price range. Some distortions and overdrives have a couple of "sweet spots", but this is the only <$100 unit I've ever played that has a nearly infinite number.

Bought it 2-3 years ago. Still sounds great, one of the best and most flexible OD's available. Big disappointment with the input jack. The jacks are plastic bodied, PCB mounted, and so flimsy that my OD pedal has now become a great AM radio receiver. I know its not the cable, does the same thing regardless which cable/connector is used. So disappointed, I had to replace it with a BOSS Super Overdrive. I actually like the Daddy-O tone better, but juct can't depend on it. Nothing worse than when your solo turns into the news or weather report, especially really loud through the PA.

The manual has very helpful "starter" settings which illustrate the variety of sounds you can get from this pedal. If you buy it used, be sure to get the manual. Becasue it has 5 different knobs, it might take you a while to figure out combinations without the ones in the manual.

I'm a basement player with a Crate amp (which I want to upgrade) and a Gibson Townshend Limited Edition SG. I have a Boss BD-2 Blues Driver and and DS-1 Distortion Pedal. The Daddy O has more distortion and less overdrive then the Blues Driver, and less distorion than the DS-1. If I had only one, I would chose the Daddy O, but for straight blues ala Albert King, the Blues Driver is superior. Some of the sounds from the Daddy O seem artificial - not something a guitar or amp would produce. Overall a lot of fun to play with.

Seems to be well-built. I would use it on a gig without a backup if I could get a gig.

Have not had a problem yet

I play blues, blues-rock and rock. It's not useful for straight blues, but for other styles it is good. I would definitely buy it again. It produces a wide variety of sounds, more than my other pedals. I would recommend it to anyone on a budget who can afford only one pedal.

5 dials- vol., bass, mid, treble, over-drive. Once you get used to the sound of each tone control, it's very straight forward. EQ is very useable, with a nice range and voicing. Manual comes with a few suggested settings, but most of these I find to be of little use. (Are they ever?)

Oh, how I love this pedal...

...Japanese 60s reissue strat -> Daddy-O -> Laney LC15R, all tube combo, miked for most gigs through the PA. I set the pedal to give me the sound of the amp when cranked, and from time to time for a heavier hard rock type distortion. But basically the pedal is mostly a volume boost for solos, setting the volume close to max and increasing the gain for the required level boost. I'm playing mostly rock-based with a heavy dose of blues and to a lesser extent, jazz, punk, ska, funk and folk . The sounds I want cover are similar to SRV, Steve Lukather, and Robert Cray and I can do that with this pedal and the Laney amp.

Basic setting is as follows, with gain on the amp set to 4/10, the Daddy-O is VOLUME 4-5 O'clock, BASS 3 O'clock, MID 12 O'clock, TREBLE 1-2 O'clock, and GAIN 10 O'clock.

For the heavier distortion I crank the gain on the amp to 5-6, and re-set the pedal with VOLUME 10 O'clock, MID 11 O'cock, GAIN at MAX. (Bass and Treble as before).

I have also recorded DI'd with the pedal using a Pro tools Sans Amp plug in for amp simulation, and it still sounds good. I have also used it as a preamp for a mandolin, and it wasn't bad at all!

The pedal is beautifully designed internally and the switch is practically silent. Even better, the jacks seem to be buffered and don't destroy speakers if cables are accidentally unplugged when your amp/PA is cranked! The only time I have problems with hiss or noise is venues with poor earth wiring.

My previous set up used a Boss BD-2 blues driver and Ibanez MS-10 metal charger. I was planning to get the Daddy-O in any case but as luck would have it, the Daddy-O was a birthday present delivered the same day the other two were stolen! I have no wish to replace the other two, but I am thinking of adding a Danelectro Fab Tone for the heavier sounds. I have tried it, putting the Fab Tone between the guitar and the Daddy-O and its sounds great.

To my ears, it's the best sounding pedal I have ever used, barr none.

Built like a tank, never gives problems, battery seems to last a very long time. I have played more than 50 gigs within 5 months and never had any problem that wasn't fixed by changing the battery.

If the price was lower (Europe always gets screwed) I'd go the whole 10, but it's still good value. For me, it does what I need, sounds great through my rig, and has undoubtedly won me extra gigs. Reliability and Tone in one package. A pro tool for the pros, you can't ask more than that.

I've been playing for 14 years, and this pedal is one of the high points. It is indispensable and will replaced immediately if lost or stolen.

I found this pedal very easy to get a good sound of. I play pop/rock, a bit of classic rock and some modern power pop. This pedal is awesome if you want to be able to make your chords sound dirty, yet clear. Individual controls for treble, mid, and bass are very helpful in shaping the sound, and the suggested settingsin the manual are very good. But then again, getting the right sound out of it is a matter of taste.

I use an Epiphone Les Paul Standard through a Fender Automatic GT. The pedal has great tone, and it is immaculately clean when you put the gain on the lowest setting.

This thing is big, and encased in metal. I think it will hold out for a pretty long time.

Never dealt with Danelectro, then again I have never had any problems with the pedal.

If you're into playing stuff like The Beatles and Matthew Sweet and Gigolo Aunts and stuff like that, you will absolutely love this pedal. Although it can get on the heavy side, sort of, if the gain is all the way up, do not get his pedal trying to get a metal sound out of it, cuz then you'll review it and sound like all those other idiots who buy this pedal and then complain cuz it doesn't sound heavy enough. Make sure this is the sound you want, cuz it really is a good one.

lots of knobs, can really tweak the sound to whatever you want. the manual had some suggested settings that i didn't care for, i just like playin' around with it.

ok, first i had a small little crate practise amp and it sounded great through that. then i got a line 6 spider and i can't explain it, but it sounded like crap. i've played it through some fender tube amps and it sounds even better. so i sold it after a while cause i didn't plan on getting a different amp. it did sound great but not with the line6, can't explain it, but thats the way it was for me.

thats one heavy pedal! didn't have any problems with wiring or whatever, but i didn't have it too long or played any gigs with it.

i play a lot of stuff. blues, classic rock, modern rock, punk, ska and whatever else i'm into. i could get nice blues sounds as well as classic rock sounds. kinda lacked in real distortion, but thats why its called a overdrive pedal, not a distortion pedal. i don't know if anyone else thought it sounded bad through a line6 spider, but it did to me.

5 plastic knobs to turn, its pretty easy to use. Versatile EQ functions.

It always sounded muddy through my old Holmes 210 amp and a Gibson Les Paul... which I isn't very suprising, but a BD-2 sounded good in it. However, the pedal sounded good with my Peavey Classic 50 and a Nashville Telecaster. Try before you buy to see if you like the tone. Definitely not a heavy sound ... Doug Martsch of Built to Spill uses one pretty exclusively.

Reliability is poor. Sure the casing is heavy and solid, but once you open it up you find out that the soldering was done by monkeys ... it really is the worst soldering I've ever seen in my life. The reason I opened it up is because it gradually faded on me. At first I would activate the pedal and then have to turn up all the knobs and strum the guitar as hard as I could to get it to start up. Now it does nothing. I figure its the soldering, but dont really have the time or patience to resolder the 15 or so connections that were done poorly. I got a Cool Cat as well that had problems with the output jack ... its crap dressed up in a sturdy case. Go ahead, open one up and you'll see.

Emailed Danelectro and got no response. Called and was told nothing could be done. I didn't expect more, so its no big deal, but they should build a decent product to begin with.

comes with a manual.... with some recommended settings for various sounds... i pretty much turn every knob all the way up and rock out!

i run this pedal thru my FX loop, which gives me a cool sound...overdriven, but still 'clean' sounding.... think springsteen's 'glory days' type sound... which personally i love.... and i play indie/emo type rock.... and used with my amps distortion for a boost during lead/solos, really sounds great.... it also works well with my wah pedal..... a really great box, IMO

the knobs feel a bit fragile, but the thing is heavier than a brick shithouse,... you could really injure someone with it!

never dealt with danelectro, but heard they are great

i really like this pedal.... it's a different kind of sound for the type of music i play...but it fits me and i would recommend it to anyone

Good EQ abilities. You should be able to dial in whatever your little heart desires in terms of overdrive. This is not a distortion and should not be confused with such. 3 band eq, overdrive, volume. Simple, eh?

As I said before, you should be able to get any sound you want out of this pedal. Very versatile. The drive portion goes from slight, bluesy to hard rock.

Here's the rub. I really just started using this regularly over the last coupla years. I started having intermittent problems with the output jack so I took the unit apart and took a look at the jack. It's soldered directly to the board (of course. Aren't they all these days?) but I can see that the positive pin is getting hung up on a piece of plastic on the jack casing. No big deal. I just pulled the pin a little further out.

About a week later the same thing starts. I ask the bass player, who's more of an electronics guys than me, to take a look at it which he does at home. He calls me later and says the whole jack disintegrated when he tried to pull the pin back!!! So he hard solders a patch cable to the board and that's where I am now. And it's still giving me intermittent problems. I've heard others since then complain about cold solder joints and other electronics-related issues. Be forewarned!!!!

It was past warranty so what do you do?

The unit sounds awesome but watch out for reliability issues. I also have a Fab Tone which has given me minor problems so watch out. I'm going to get a Line 6 DM-4 so these guys will be the backups, but even then, I'm not so sure.

Piece of cake. 5 knobs, Volume, high, mid, low, drive. The thing comes with a little book with all the best preset settings! Big button to click on and off. What more is there to say.

This pedal is an overdrive. It does it's job superbly. Don't expect a heavy metal sound out of this pedal, it is not it's job! Has nice warm tubey tones. Made good work of warming up my sterile solidstate Peavey Bandit 112 (non-transtube)! Great blues sounds. Also great as a booster for my gruntier distortion pedal, to click on and off for lead breaks! When I needed more oomph. stomp the Daddy-O and yeahahh!

Made of steele, rock solid! The parts that you stomp seem indestructable. The adjustment knobs seem adequate too.

They have a nice website, with "real" email addresses, which is better than the likes of Zoom/Samsontech.

Does its job. Lives up to expectations. Value for money. However, I did end up selling it (due to needing the cash), so it's not indispencable.

This is a great pedal. It's great for hollow mids, or high treble leads. it can be turned low for a bit of OD when you strum a full chord. great all around. I gave my old DOD distortion to my other guitarist becuase I didn't need it. This is great all around. The knobs are close, but good for keeping the unit smaller. They aren't too hard to use, either.

I have a couple of guitars I use, including an old Squier Stratocaster. Not the affinity strats. It amplifies buzz from single coils, but the will happen with almost any effect without a noise gate. I also use a bently voyager-thing with a carvin humbucker in the bridge. The effects can sound like crap if you mess up the eq, but you just have to find what you like. If you know what you're doing, you can get a beautiful sound. I use it with an old polytone with almost few options for control. Just vol, treb, bass, bright/dark switch. I try not to emulate other artists too much, but this is a great pedal if you want specific sounds. you don't need a seperate EQ unless you're really into that.

This thing is so solid, I can jump on the switch, and it works great. the case is built like a steel brick. I would definitely use it on a gig, and it's really good on the battery, even when I use the cheap ones. I always try and have another battery for backup though.

Never had to deal with them. That seems good to me.

I play everything from folk, to surf, to metal/hardcore, and just about anything in between. been playing for about 2 years. If it were stolen or lost, I would definitely buy another. it's good, heavy, won't move when set somewhere and stomped on. I want to put a blue LED in there instead of the red one. It is great for what I like to do. the vintage styling is great. The guy who had it burn out a power adaptor might have been using one too power ful, or not enough. It's 300mA max. I might reccomend a 200 or 250 mA power source.The guy who insulted all of us who like it, I'd like to share something. It's fine that you don't like it. It's all personal preference. But don't insult others for liking it.

Easy enough to use. Manage your eq, volume, and od level and learn how to push a button on a pedal.

When I first bought this thing I was playing guitar. Believe it or not, I am now using it my keyboard setup in the band I joined recently. With the guitar it was freaking awesome. Definitely the best feature (as millions have said) is the THREE eq knobs instead of 2. This gives you the ultimate sound shaping abilities that most od or distortion pedals can't even touch. I don't remember it making that much noise with my guitar, but it makes lots of noise on the keyboards when on. None whatsoever when off, so who cares?

It's worked perfectly since I got it, with no problems. It's freaking heavy metal, and I'm talking about it physical description, not the sound.

I love this thing. It was perfect for what I wanted for a guitar sound (Metallica, Tool-esque type), and just as good for keyboard for adding as much od as i want and shaping the sound with great eq.

Very easy

I'm 47 years old, and have ben playing for ~5 years now. I usually play a Fender Am Std Tele into the Daddy-O and then into a Fennder 65 DRRI, but I occaisionally also use a Yamaha strat knock-off (with Texas Specials) and/or a Crate VC 2012 tube amp.

I'm not all that well-versed in distrortion and/or overdive, but I like this pedal. I play blues, and this thing fattens up the tone very nicely. I can't compare it to more expensive pedals because I've never used any of them. I bought this becasue of the good reviews it got and the low price. I've been very satisfied with it. I'll give it a 9 because 10 just seems impossible.

Built like a tank. My 13 YO is also a guitar player and he borrows this thing and takes it to his practices. It takes a lot of abuse with no problem.

No experience here. Don't expect any either because the pedal is so well built.

Great value. I love it for blues ala SRV. It might seem blasphemous, but I think I can even get pretty close to BB King with this thing too (as close as one CAN get with a Tele).

Typical stompbox format...couple of knobs and a footswitch. Doesn't get any simpler. I've noticed many users have been very critical of the knobs being too close together and being difficult to turn. I have had no problems using the knobs on this thing. My fingers are far from being toothpicks, but it's really not as bad as a lot of the reviews make it seem. You would have to have pretty fat fingers to have that much trouble working this thing. Getting a good sound requires a little of playing around...but it won't waste much of your time.

Now to give you an idea of how this thing works into my rig...it goes like this... Fender Deluxe Jazz Bass V -----> Dano Daddy O -----> SansAmp Bass Driver DI -----> SWR Bass 350 Amp -----> SWR Workingman's 4x10 Cab.

Yes...that's right...I use this pedal for a bass, not a guitar. I've used the Boss Bass Overdrive and a Boss Metal Zone before I chose this thing. This kicks the shit out of both of them. My reason for choosing this pedal over the other two was 1) The Bass OD doesn't have a mid control and 2) The Metal Zone was just too crunchy for bass. I found the Daddy O to be just right for my needs. It didn't shred the crap out of my sound like the MZ and didn't fall short like the Bass OD. I keep my controls set like this...Bass and Treb knobs are both turned all the way up...Mid set at 3 o'clock...Drive set at about 11 o'clock. Adjust the Level to your rig I guess...but mine is at around 11 o'clock. This...combined with my SansAmp (which I never turn off) gives me a phat overdrive tone that still cuts very nicely...especially when you play very hard on the strings. Oh yeah...not an ounce of noise out of this thing either.

I think you could drop this from a 50 story building and still use it. Built like a fuckin tank!!!!! People say Boss pedals are the most durable pedals on the market? I'm not so sure about that. I think this comes damn close, if not better to the durability of a Boss stompbox. The pedal is HEAVY and sure looks like it can take one hell of a beating.

No need to deal with Dano yet.

For the money I spent on this pedal...worth every goddam penny!!! Great for guitar or bass if you ask me. I actually heard this on a guiatr first and I liked the tone of it. So I plugged in my bass and loved it. Excellent pedal for the money. And if I must say...far better than some of the more expensive ones too.

Dialing in a good sound is easy enough. The controls are well voiced and complement each other - bass is bassy, mids are middy and highs are high (unlike with e.g. Ibanez Tube King overdrive I had but sold, where there was no bass, no mids and spiky highs). The knobs rotate toughly and are quite small, but that makes it harder to mess with your settings in an unwanted way. I got it used with a manual but you should always listen to the sound.

I run this along with Laney LC15, Marshall Jackhammer, Dano Pepperoni Phaser, and Guyatone VT-2 Tremeolo, using mostly HB-equipped axes. The sound is perfectly variable, more on the Fenderish side of the sound (no Marshall stack grind). In my band (8 or 9-piece klezmer/folk punk outfit), though, the distortion texture of this baby often gets drowned amidst the din of the others. I use it for overdriven rhythms, adding just a touch of smoothness to the natural tube grit of my Laney. Anyway, the sound quality also depends on your preferences, and this one delivers what I wanted, so I rate it 10.

OK, here's the trouble. With an AC adapter, it works fine. With a battery, it sometimes won't turn on or off, no matter how hard or soft I push the footswitch. The battery must be a totally new, fresh unit or else it won't work reliably. I bought an adapter to solve this so I'll see more on this later. I got it used and fairly cheap - maybe the original owner got pissed off at the fsw quirks.

No experience

As I said, I use it in my klezmer/folk punk band for crunchy rhythms that don't have to be solo-loud. For solos, the Jackhammer is the winner. Been playing for 13+ years, been in like 7 bands... see my Gibson Hawk or Les Paul Studio postings. If i lost it, I'd probably try something else, just for fun. I love the color, the rugged enclosure, the controls, and the sound character. I hate the footswitch and hope my new adaptor will solve this bummer. I think it sounds better with SC pickups - it's more dynamic with them (I hate too much compression). I didn't compare it to anything - I read about it in GP in 1997 and finally tried it in 2000. My favorite feature is the mid control - mids are very important to me and being able to crank them is an important feature. I give it 8 because of the footswitch failure.

I got this pedal two years ago and then sold it six months later to get something else (which I probably sold too--I went through a phase like that). Ever since then I've been missing it, so I got it again, this time off of E-bay.

Easy. I don't know, maybe I just have small fingers, but the knobs aren't that hard to turn. I got a good sound instantly, and a better one by playing with the (3) eq knobs. There is also a volume knob and an overdrive knob. No manual with mine, and I power it with my Dunlop Juicebox.

Most people seem to love this box, but some have pretty funny ideas about it. One guy said:

Anyone who says this thing sounds like an overdrive knows NOTHING...A very raunchy, stomp box sounding heavy metal distortion pedal.

... And another guy said:

This is not a distorion pedal it is an overdrive, so when you use it on a clean setting and hit the button you wont get big distortion.

... Then there was this other guy with hostility issues who went off about how much this pedal sucks and how everybody here are tonedeaf idiots except him. Rigggghhhht.

Anyway, the Daddy-O IS an overdrive. If you turn the gain down to zero, it's completely clean (in this way you can use it as a cool, mellowing EQ pedal--just crank the volume). Distortion pedals don't go completely clean like that. On the other hand, it will give you distortion too if you crank it all the way up. Pretty big distortion, actually. Not metal so much, like that guy said, but kind of a Radiohead, Bends-era "Just" kind of sound. Also think Modest Mouse and Built To Spill. Indy rockers, prepare to soil yourselves. Put it somewhere in between and you can get various sweet-sounding overdrives. Yes, you can in fact get GREAT blues tones with this (unless you can't play with soul, in which case you won't get great blues tones with anything). Also great for Tom Petty-style rock. In fact, if you want to hear the Daddy-O in action, check out Echo by Tom Petty. He uses it there, and on tour. I guess that hostility guy thinks Tom Petty is tonedeaf too. ;)

I love it set with the OD at 11:00, the bass and treb at noon and the mid slightly lower. A warm but trebly just beginning to break up, tubish sound. I've tried this with tube and solid state amps, and it sounds great with either. But, anything's better with a (good) tube amp.

I've had to play around a lot with my setup (before I got this pedal)to get a good tone. I use a Korg 411fx multi unit as a compressor and a three band eq/gain (I also use its other fx for recording vocals). I put the low, mid, and treb at noon and the gain all the way down on the Korg. Then on my amp I put the low and mid at noon and the treb all the way down, switch on the bright, put the presence to 2:00, and presto, finally a good sound out of my Peavey Bandit (wish I had an expensive Fender or Vox tube amp, pero no tengo mucho dinero). It borders on tube, but you really can't emulate tubes.

Right. So, the Daddy-O sounds great. My set up sounds really nice to begin with, so that helps. But, even on crappier amps I've tried in stores, this overdrive sounds beautiful. It's rock n' roll. It's rockabilly. It's blues. It's indy rock. It's punk rock (especially old school Clash stuff). It's jazz if you use it on clean mode (total mellow jazz sound with a Fender guitar--wow!). If I had to describe it with one word, I'd call it "sweet." Leaning towards trebly when not clean, but in sweet way, you know? That's especially good in a band or recording setting, because tones that are too round or too bassy end up getting swallowed whole and make your recordings sonically uncomfortable to listen to.

Oh yeah, here is my complete setup, as if you care:

FENDER TELECASTER/OLD SQUIER II STRAT W/LACE PICKUPS ALA BILLY CORGAN:
Boss Volume
Korg Toneworks 411fx
MXR Blue Box
Danelectro Daddy-O
Electro-Harmonix Big Muff (modified by Sustain Punch)
Danelectro Cool Cat Chorus
Danelectro Tuna Melt Tremolo
Boss PS-3 Pitch Shifter/Echo/Detune/Whammy w/exp pedal
Electro Harmonix Delux Electric Mistress
Korg Toneworks 301dl delay
PEAVEY BANDIT

Yeah, I know I need a nice tube amp (and intervention on my effects habit). But I've coaxed a good sound out of what I have, and I'm satisfied with my setup until I can afford not to be. As for the Daddy-O, it's never leaving my pedal board again, even if I can afford all the boutique overdrives in the world. Pbthththth!!!

Well, I've had my Cool Cat for almost four years with a single problem or even hint of a problem. I think that at least the big Danelectro effects (and probably the mini ones too) are extremely reliable.

I play all styles of music except the following: adult contemporary, teen dance pop, and (shudder) Christian contemporary. Oh yeah, and butt rock. Everything else is fair game. The Daddy-O is good for Rock n' Roll, Blues, Rockabilly, Surf, Punk, Poprock, New Wave (though not as essential as flanger, chorus, echo and some eyeliner), Indy Rock, Country, Classic Rock, Jazz (on clean setting) Experimental Rock, and I don't know what else. It also sounds great in tandem with other overdrives, distortions, and fuzz boxes. Really interesting, unusual sounds with a fuzz box, by the way.

This is one of the few boxes I own without any real drawbacks. No negatives to this thing. It's not even noisy. There is nothing I'd change about it at all, not even the knob configuration. This is the only one of my effects that I've given a perfect 10 in all categories. It's just the sound I hear in my head when I think of overdrive.

Beautiful.

I found this really easy to use, it's pretty self-explanatory, a level knob, an overdrive knob and bass, treble and mid controls (which are a really nice feature).

I agree with the guy who says this sounds like crap through a tube amp, I tried it for a while through an old peavy 2x12 combo and it sounded really bad giving a raspy, mushy sound. I've since been playing it through a peavy solid state bass amp (of all things...) and it sounds great. I tweak it out with lots of treble and it gives a great sound for 60's garage rock & 70's punk stuff. I have a few other distortion pedals and a weird old fuzz pedal and this is by far my favorite. One strange problem I've had is that sometimes when I kick it on it seems louder than it should or less loud than it should, I don't know what could account for this but using new batteries helps.

I've used this for several gigs and had no real problems, I definitely recommend using fresh batteries or a power supply. I have a pastrami overdrive that I use along with this (kicking the pastrami on on top of the daddy-o gives a good, mean johnny thunders sound for lead stuff). The pastrami is a good, similar sounding pedal that makes a good, cheap backup if you need it.

never contacted them.

I've found this to be the best all around pedal for the kind of music I play. I play mostly 60's garage punk and 70's punk type stuff and it's really the only thing I've found that gives me the sound I like. I've also found it to be good for playing raw distorted blues or you can also get a good, less distorted bluesy sound. I sometimes tweak it out for a more bass heavy sound and you can get good, heavier/fuzzier blue cheer/mudhoney tones also.

Hard to get at all the knobs and It is hard to step on and it Makes your amp sound like shit.

The overdrive produced at low rates is ok. It gives a decent sound. But when the overdrive is cranked it breaks up your signal too much and sounds like crap.

You can't depend on it too well. It fried one of my adaptors.

Never dealt with Dano.

Good for personal use...on small amps to get them "heard".
Not to be used with pro gear.

Just put a battery and plug it. Maybe this is the best thing of the most stomp box units. As other DO owners say, knows are too much close and it's hard to touch one without touching the others. Fortunately they are difficult to turn accidentally (not like my new Big Muff) It's is easy to make it sound, but you have to play some time with it to achieve a very goodsound. Footswicht is just ok

At the begging I was surpised, because all the sounds I got were extremely heavy. All the ranges over 2/3 of position of the gaing know bring you to almost metal sounds, but too treble... After I discovered that turining down treble knowb and playing with bass and middles (with 50% or 70% of the gain) you can find very nice overdrive and crunchy sounds. One specially anoying detail: searching a fatter sound i pulled up bass knob 100%. That makes your guitar sound crappy, because it "eats" anll the treble ranges. Put bass at 80% and you will sound even fatter, but with a brighter sound. It can sound great, but you have to work.. ; )

I'd rather metal jacks, buttons and switch, but mine It's ok by now.
I like specially the metal case, it seems to be indestructible

I haven't need it by now

I play power pop music, and I right now i use it eventually to get rithmic tones. I dont want to sell it bt now, but If it was stolen I would replace it with a Ibanez box (the green one), maybe...
Anyway, it sounds very good, and itlooks so cool on the stage...

Anyone who says this thing sounds like an overdrive knows NOTHING. this thing is a Boss DS-1 with 3 tone controls and slightly more gain. Period. Not an overdrive, despite the name. A very raunchy, stomp box sounding heavy metal distortion pedal. People in my band begged me to get rid of it because it sounded so cheese metal. Good if you're in a garage band and want to sound like it.

I called them up because I couldn't figure out how to use it right after i finally learned how to tie my shoes.

Okay for making a lot of racket.

You'll getting a good sound immidately. The manual are okay. There are five knobs, the three of them are the EQ-section. This is a fine detail , because you can control the mid's.

The overdrive are fine. It will make your guitar a lot louder, but only more distorted, if you wan't it to do it. So you can use the DO-1 as a high gain-unit for soloing.
The DO-1 can also be used as a preamp for your electro-acoustic guitar. I'm doing this with pleasure with my Yamaha AEX500N-guitar. The DO-1 will make your electro-acoustic guitar sound more acoustic, when amplified (the overdrive should be turned down and the volume up on the unit). It's a little bit hard to explain - try it - and you will hear!

I depend on it.

First, I wanted a overdrive unit for my Les Paul. The Boss-stomps are all to much. A completely digital, boring mess. Then I heard this DO-1. Then I took it home, and I played the soloing work with it. Then I tried it with my AEX500N - and now the DO-1 only serve as a preamp for this guitar. That's the happy story of my DO-1.

Overall, the Daddy O was very easy to use--step on, step off. I didn't need the manual, considering that all you have to do is plug in the guitar, and then the amp, then you're ready to go! But, as everything, there is one fault. The buttons are tremendously close together, as I'm sure everyone else has said also, but, literally, they are about two centimeters apart from each other. I guess this was Danelectro's way of keeping the pedal as small as possible, though it is quite a large one, at that.

It hardly took any time getting a nice, crunchy tone out of it, but it certainly isn't for everyone. The tone is more for metal freaks, like me. I use a PRS Dragon, running through an Ibanez CF-7 Chorus/Flanger pedal(which also kicks ass), connected to a Boss vintage phaser, into a Fuzzface pedal, into an original Crybaby wah pedal, plugged into a Mesa/Boogie head connected to a full stack of Marshall 1960 cabs. Though this is all high quality gear, I added the Daddy O in place of my old Tubescreamer(not enough oomph), and immediately loved the tone. Rich, and heavy, just the way I like it. Just in case you're interested, I play Black Sabbath, Marilyn Manson, Van Halen, and Motley Crue music, among others.

Built like a tank. Though it's never broken on me, I always carry a backup(DOD FX50B--F**ckin Awesome!), just because I'm a compulsive freak.

Never dealt with them, never needed to.

Fantastic pedal. If stolen, I would be happy that I've let someone else experience the splendor that is Daddy O, and gladly shell out the full price for a new one the same day.

Has nobs you turn them.

Anyone who complains about the distoin is an idiot. This is not a distorion pedal it is an overdrive, so when you use it on a clean setting and hit the button you wont get big distortion. Being that this is a overdrive, when you use a tube amp with the amp naturally distorting then hit the button when set right it sounds great. It adds sustain a little some extra grit and nice harmonics. If you own a transistor amp and want distortion/overdrive stay away it works best with tube amps. Remember it just overdrives the signal not distor. I use tis pedal when soloing only, all othe times it is turned off. The ratting is based on using a tube amp.

never had a problem

Never needed them, it is dependable. See above.

I use this on solos only.

How's this for easy- I tried one of their settings-"rock lead", and I haven't adjusted it since.

I'm using a '68 reissue strat into a crybaby,daddy-o,cool cat,& a DD3, into the clean channel of my Peavey Ranger 212. My single coils produce a bit of noise but that's no biggie. I've tried it with a Heritage H150CM and the daddy-o was quiet, but that's humbuckers for ya. In comparison with the overdrive on my amp, the daddy-o wins. I've recorded & played out with this setup and I would not change it for anything. Once you find "the sound" you stick with it. This thing has got balls, even with my single coils. The amp has a lot to do with it too. I have the resonance cranked on the amp, so that kicks up all the low end you could ask for. My setup is simple as hell & sounds perfect for my needs.

It's built like a tank. It'll break your foot. No backup needed, just batteries or a 9 volt adapter.

No need.

I've been playing for 15 years, and this pedal still amazes me. It cleans up nice when your roll the volume back on the guitar too. I play rock. Anybody remember that style? I've owned a Fab Tone(too heavy,shitty note definition),tube screamer(not enough gain),& various DOD junk. My Daddy-O is the best I've found so far. Hmmmm....how's that Soldono GTO?