Danelectro DW-1 Dan-O-Wah

The different settings is not that easy o access in a live situation, and it's hard to figure out what differs them. On the other hand I always seem to find a sound that's suitable...

Big chance that you accidentaly hit the wierd distortion-button while turning the wah on. This really cranks the volume up and is a hazard for your and your audience ears...

Sounds amazingly good! Much, much better that the Cry Babies and any other wahs I've tried. Usually I use a 93 standard strat, Mad Professor Sky Blue Overdrive and the Dan'o'Wah in a Mesa Boogie Mark II Combo. I found that putting the overdive first in the chain gives a great, raw, "psychedelic" sound that sounds great! It sound however great also with a clean sound.
This is the only wah I've tried that always sound good and it's easy to control the tone.

The distortin function isn't useful live, since it's very inpredictible (sound volume etc).

This wah has a will of its own. Sometimes it works, sometimes it freaks out. Too much plastic on an item that you're supposed to step on for hours at a time...
It's a pitty that Danelectro builds low quality products concerning realiebility when thay often sound great!

At the moment I only got one wah, so I have to gig without backup, but my plan is to buy as many of these that they will last a lifetime :)

Don't know.

When using wah I mostly play rock, blues, zydeco, country and similar stuff. Works great for this!
I've been playing for about 20 years and have a stash of effects, but this is my only wah.

As mentioned before, I'm gonna buy as many of this pedals as possible. This is the only wah I ever will n??ed!

I've played differsent Cry Babies, Morley's and for a while I owned an Ibanez Weeping Demon. This one kicks them all!

The poor realiebility and the wierd and too easily accesed distortion are compensated for by the great sound, the originality and the cool design!

I love this pedal for making crazy over the top Sonic Youth type noise and experimentation. This is a lot more than just a Wah - and It takes a good few minutes to figure it out - but all the switches are clearly labeled on the bottom and once you figure it out it makes alot of sense. I like to set up each of the channels with a different sound altogether and switch back and forth. This things makes a hell of a creative tool if you are into deep sonic experimentation and noise rock.

It sounds all ****** up and out of control - which I think is great. The fuzz (note: it's a fuzz not a distortion) is way extreme and when you add the octave it gives that total voltage starved silicon transistor tone that sounds like a shredded speaker - I love it!

the little plastic toothed wah control arm was broken on mine so I got it very cheap - then I took it apart and rigged it yself - works fine now. It has a metal bottom plate and molded upper body - not a tank but it should hold up if you don't physicall stand on the petal with your body weight. The tap switches feel a little iffy - I wouldn't recommend picking it up and throwing it like you can with a Dunlop or Vox - but I treat my pedals pretty well so it should last.

I don't think I've ever called a company about any pedal - and I have about 20 of them - most of mine are from the 70's and 80's - when they break it's usually just a simple input jack or switch that needs to be replaced and I do that myself.

This is a totally unique Wah pedal - I have three wahs in all, a Dunlop 535 and a regular GCB-95 - but I really like the sick tones you can get out of this - if you like Thurston Moore or Greg Ghin or Glenn Branca you will dig this pedal - it'll give you a real nice wal of sonic chaos and it even semi-oscillates a bit all on its own - add a tape or digitaldelay and a decent tube amp and you'll be able to roll off sheets of blistering ear splitting brain candy.

Its pretty easy - one pedal click for wah on. Then a top button for left side (60's) or right side (70's) then you have 3 seperate EQ choices for each sound + an octave effect -Buttons on each side of the pedal.
& the EQ settings are great for getting those mid pedal position tones -alah Mick R.(during his bowie days etc..)
In addition there is a second top button that turns on/off a fuzz-distortion effect.

A 10 here would be a magical wah pedal that does all clasic + vocal + Synth sounds & every thing in beetween.
But short of that this pedal Kicks Major *** !! Trust me - it will get ya every dunlop/vox like wah tone you could ever want & a lot more.
& The octave effect is nice a usable as well. In addition the pedal is adjustable (via alen wrench) for how tight or loose you like it !
NOW ON TO THE FUZZ -Which because some reviewers dont like the sound of , they proceed to pan the entire pedal & tell you its crap ? LOOK ITS A BONUS TONE ! IF YA DONT LIKE IT, DON'T USE IT ! !
I HAVE PERSONALLY MODED MINE TO BE FULLY ADJUSTABLE (BTW-A SIMPLE MOD) But what I think they where going for was an over the top snarly 60/70 ragged Fuzz Tone - Sort of like Zappa kicked on during the Live at the Fillmore show/album. & I Love it -For a change of pace while recording or for a solo But Not for your main Overdrive sound -Its not a TS tone ! And The main thing a mod does is allows for variation instead of the full on cranked fuzz ( Its a very over the top Fuzz !)
This also is now a sweet tone with the octave left on.

I purchased mine used (about 4 months ago) & can see that the Battery wires will need a quick hit with the Solder Iron to make them more solid, But otherwise it seems good
The bottom (The Hot Rod Car) is all solid metal but the top pedal is plastic. This could easily be replaced with a more solid top via a broken ebay wah with a similar size /shape.
Obviously I hope it lasts a long time but these types of wahs can be fixed a lot quicker than a Morley type anyway & for the current price of these used on feebay $35-$65) its a damn steal !

Never Dealt with them.

Look - If you prefer the classic wah tones of Page/Hendrix/SRV/Cream/Mick R. etc.To the more (In My Opinion) sterile dull tones of the Morley snap back wah pedals. & you don't have $2 or $300+ to spend on some boutique wah (which is a joke anyway) This thing will give you dozens of really nice wah tones both clean & dirty + the aformentioned fuzz & octave tones along with smooth & fully adjustable pedal action. AND WHAT I HAVE LEFT OUT SO FAR IS THE FACT THAT THIS PEDAL LOOKS BAD ***ED & BETTER THAT ANY OTHER PEDAL YOU WILL OWN (MINE IS THE LONG CANDY RED CAR) THE WAH LIGHTS ARE THE CARS TAILS & THE INPUTS ARE THE HEADS. GREEN IS WAH & RED IS OFF & THE WHOLE THING SITS SECURLY ON 4 BLACK WALL TIRES !!!! HOW SWEET IS THAT.

Btw - I have now played this thing thru a Frenzel 40W custom , A Peavey Transformer & a custom 18w class A job & it sounds great with all 3. So go find one for under $50-60 on ebay , then get this pedal ASAP It a solid wah pedal, with a ton of nice tones...

It show some difficult for many guitar player.

It is a great quality of sound for wah, but i don't like the fuzz.

I don't depend on it.

For any type of music it is optimal, there is a Wah for distorsion and for clean.

It's an oddball, for sure. There are three voices each of "60s" and "70s" sounds, which to me sound like just moving the notch frequency of the wah. There's on/off for the octave effect on each side, that only works with the fuzz on. The fuzz is set WAY too loud and has no controls... use it if ya wanna get freaky, but most of the time, you'll just find the wah setting you like and then it's as simple as a Crybaby.

One weird thing is that when you power it up, it turns on sort of randomly... fuzz may be on or off, octave may be on or off, and wah may be on or off, 60s or 70s. Strange.

The wah effect is surprisingly good, if you can stop thinking in terms of either the classic Cream/Hendrix wah sound, or that dreadful cheap Crybaby that doesn't sound like Hendrix either. It doesn't kill tone when bypassed (although I'm sure it's not true bypass), and the sweep range is good and useful. Noise is managable.

The fuzz and octave sounds are harsh, baby, harsh. Which may be a Good Thing for you, or maybe not.

I wouldn't count on it to last forever, but it hasn't broke yet. I don't know whether it uses a pot (wears out) or a lamp (burns out) for control.

I can't imagine it can be repaired, and warranty is long gone.

Actually, I totally love this pedal, and it's been my main wah for some years now. Yeah, it's cheap and cheesy, but the sound just keeps me with it. Don't sneer at it... it may well be a classic in a couple of decades.

Looking at the reviews here you'd think this was a horrible pedal, quite the contrary from my experiences though. The sound quality is great. Depending on where you have this pedal at in your effects line, it produces very unique wah sounds that can only be achieved with this wah. It's not the crybaby, so don't complain that it isn't the crybaby. The manual is pretty straightforward, you have over 16 different ways of using this wah (plus distortion, plus octave effects - how could you go wrong?).

This is the most unique wah pedal i've ever used. Don't be turned off by the danelectro name, this is a very nice pedal. I love the 70's funk it produces (with a nice ghost octave thrown in the mix). I send it through my vintage MusicMan 212-HD. I use many different effects, but at the moment my favorites are the DOD FX-25B envelope filter, the Marshall Supervibe, the Marshall Guv'Nor+ and then the dan-o-wah. I usually place the dan-o-wah last so that I have more of a subtle effect out of it. The only thing that could turn people off from this pedal are people who don't know how to use it. Spend some time with it, get to know it, and then try it out. If you want a crybaby sound, go buy a crybaby. My musical influences are Radiohead, TOOL, Pink Floyd, The Verve, The Stone Roses, Led Zeppelin, My Bloody Valentine, and Blur. This wah pedal is perfect for those bands. If you want Pantera, again, go get a crybaby. This is for those with more Psychadelic tastes.

I depend on it almost constantly. I have gigged without backups plenty of time. After owning this for 7 years, and gigging steadily (and practi cing nearly 5 out of every 7 days) this pedal has had NO problems. I don't know what the other reviewers did to their pedals, but mine has had no problems. I take good care of my stuff though, perhaps they don't?

never dealt with them. If I had too, i'd just buy another one instead of trying to get it fixed anyways. You can find them for about 1/4th of the price I paid for it new.

If you're into cookie cutter sounds and want to be someone else, go ahead and snap up their crybaby's and play the rockstar. If you want to tread your own path with a brilliantly underrated wah pedal, then look no further than the dan-o-wah.

Pretty simple to use although you cant tell what settings its on until your on stage great fun.

Using to with an epi explorer and varying amps, wahs are acceptable distortion is painfull to listen to the only good thing about the sound of this thing is when using and buggered battery the distortion is delayed about a second creating some pretty amusing effects with the wahs.

NO NO NO NO this thing is a joke the plastic is weaker than lego mine snapped where pedal meats the base and is unfixable.
well i cant use it so im not about to depend on it.

never delt with them.

worked ok for a while just dont touch the fuzz, wahs arent bad most wahs can be acheived.
Should be made of metal.
Save up and buy the real thing this thing is a toy buy a vox or a cry baby it will be cheaper in the long run.

It's easy to use. Three buttons on each side for different tones.

Sounds pretty good. Keep in mind it's a little different than the competition though. It has some sick built-in distortion, but if you don't keep it under control you can get painful highs. One crazy thing about it though, that I don't believe you can find in other pedals - you can have a 70's funk wah setting with an additional lower octave distortion. It's different, weird, but cool also.

Yeah, I would use it on a gig without a backup. I have faith in it.

99 bucks because I got it when it came out as a gift. I think it looks pretty cool. It's shaped like an old car, and doesn't have bad looks. If you're looking for a stranger, different sound in your wah, it might lie here. If you're looking for a plain Wah pedal, move right along to the Dunlop Original Crybaby.

Maybe not that easy to use. Though the pattern of knobs at the sides of the pedal is symmetrical, it makes sense for the Wah settings only. You get two banks of pre-sets for "60ies" amd "70ies" WahWah-Sounds to choose from, but two identical buttons for fuzzed and octaved effect on both sides as well. These don`t differ in function, so only one would be sufficient.
Different Wahs can be chosen by pushing the buttons as a preset on either side. A bigger control button at the front of the pedal then switches back and forth between the two main presets (60ies/70ies-style). Another switch left of it is for the fuzz, both are adequately sized and quite easy to hit while playing.
Unfortunately the preset-buttons do not stay down after being pressed, so optically one cannot tell which Wah-Wah-Style has been set.
The whole device looks like a toy Cadillac car, maybe this makes things even worse ...

There are six different center frequencies for the Wah.
All of them sound good and are really quite different, ranging from slight and trebly (so called "Funk"-style) to dark and growling, which is quite effective with distorted guitar sound.
I use it with a Laney 50 watts Head cranked up and an overdrive pedal (ShredMaster). Especially when I play with more distortion gain, the Wah tends to be noisy, so that I can really hear my foot stepping and working on it - it is also microphonic and picks up radio waves frequently.
The fuzz tone maybe is meant to be a joke, for noone will honestly use it as a basic effect. It sounds very harsh and piercing, has no controls to adjust volume and gain and has been set up far too loud.

Wah-pedals must not be made of plastic, in my opinion, but this one is ! So I don?'t expect it to be reliable.
I always take a backup with me on stage.

I have never contacted the customer support - the pedal is still working.

A good sounding Wah, built in an ugly plastic case looking like a toy car. Additional ultra-fuzz without controls and an ear-splitting octavider distortion. I have a lot of fun with it experimenting in my room - i came quite close to Jimi`s lead guitar in "Purple Haze", for that's what the octafuzz sounds like (although it's so damned too loud). But honestly I think I should have bought a solid Wah made of metal with only one good sound.

Pedalzinho de Wah-wah f?cil de usar. Tudo bem, n?o t?o f?cil assim. Pra quem est? acostumado aos pedais e Wah-wah que existem no mercado, este at? que ? um pouquinho complicado. Neste pedal n?o basta pisar e tocar, h? que se configurar conforme o gosto. Tem 6 varia??es, cada uma com op??o de oitavador e uma distor??o. Multiplicando tudo, considerando o pedal ligado ou by pass, d? pra tirar uns 48 sons diferentes. Tem que fu?ar e escolher o melhor. O manual ? muito bom e ajuda muito na hora de configurar. Ningu?m merece ficar virando e desvirando o pedal pra entender os bot?es.

Eu uso uma Ibanez Artcore AS-73, junto com o Dan-o-Wah e mais um Ibanez Tube Screamer TS-808 e um Boss Chorus Ensemble CE-5. Ligo as crian?as em um Fender Blues Jr. N?o percebo nenhum som que n?o seja proposital. A distor??o do Dan-o-wah ? sofr?vel, mas eu tenho a minha pr?pria "f?brica" de overdrive, n?o preciso de mais nada. Quanto ao wah-wah, considero que a rela??o custo-benef?cio ? a melhor do mercado. Tudo bem que um Dunlop Cry Baby pode at? ser melhor, Um VOX tem um som incr?vel, os Morley s?o ?pticos, mas olha o pre?o!!! Eu acho o som do Danelectro bem honesto e razo?vel. Quer saber quem usa profissionalmente: Big Joe Manfra...

Custo-benef?cio m?ximo por um pedal honesto.