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.

This is a pretty self-explaintory unit - it's a wah pedal with six presets and a distortion with overdrive. Eight buttons. Pick one and play. The buttons are on the side and a little hard to change on the fly, but frankly I can't think of an occasion where I will want to change the settings in the middle of a song. Lights on the back make it easy to see what mode you are in.

Yamaha AES820 guitar (stock setup); JoeMeek VC6Q compressor/EQ; MesaBoogie amp; homemade preamp, distortion, octave divider, phaseshifter; Psychoflange. Sounds quiet, esp compared to the noise-floor of a Cry Baby. It gets noisier with the power supply I notice, but that could be another piece of gear in the same power strip messing with it - I didn't really check too closely 'cause I use batteries mostly.

The effects sound great - don't buy this expecting it to sound like a Vox or a Horsie - if you want that sound buy the real thing and stop whining. Judge this on its own merits and it's a terrific pedal with good sounds. Yeah, the distortion is WAY over the top, but again, if you want a Big Muff, buy one. Danelectro has always specialized in really extreme effects (psychoflange anyone?) and if you look at it like a new tool, not like a copy of something else, you'll be really happy.

It's pretty solid even though it's plastic. I'm not sure what other reviewers of this pedal do on gigs, but it's tough enough for anything I put my equipment through (progressive metal). It's been fine so far.

Never had to deal with them.

I like things that make interesting sounds - progressive metal is the name of the game here. I really have no interest in copying anyone else's sound, so this is my kind of unit. Ignore the punters who have been slagging this kit - they obviously wouldn't know a good creative tool if it bit them in the ass. If you judge this pedal for what it can do (not what you wish it would do), it's pretty terrific. Yes, the distortion is super saturated, but it has some great posibilities. I spent two hours wailing away on this pedal in octave distortion mode with an E-Bow creating the coolest sounds I've made in years.

EAsy to use; lots of buttons to play with. Don't have a manuel, bought it used.

Fender Strat Deluxe; 92 Tele American Standard; Gibson ES 355"the dot" Newburgh Steinberger; amps: Fender DeLuxe RVRI; Roland Jazz Chorus 120(made in Japan); old Peavy 4x10 Classic (no effects loop); Fender Blues Jr. Dan O Wah has too short a sweep; the octave effect is OK for single line leads in high register; the distortion is controllable if you back off on the volume of your guitar.

It is used and it works; I would use it without a back up.

Neo-classical, fork, country, rock, RnB, contemporary Christian, jazz, pop.

The selector buttons are to small, the side buttons are unreachable, the actual pedal is easy to get to.

i use a 1979 Gibson SG Standard> DW-1> Behringer V-Amp 2> Mid-70's Music Man 212 HD Amp.
The wah sounds ok for the price, the "distortion" is not really what the name implies, but a "bacon & pop rocks in a frying pan" simulator. It also has an "octave" effect that only works in "distortion" mode. It isn't an actual octave effect, it just makes that crappy "distortion" harder. And don't use the wah and the "distortion" at the same time because #1 it sounds like absolute crap, and #2 It doubles your volume, confusing and frightening those around you. But the wah is fine for $20.

Hasn't broken yet.

never used it.

I play rock of all kinds (except drop-d nu-metal, especially prog-rock. If it were stolen, I would sit in my room and wait for the theif to bring it back. The thing looks cool, and I would give the wah a 7 out of 10. I hate the pathetic, donkey-like excuse for distortion, and the "octave". I don't see how it got the Guitar Player Editor's Pick Award. I think it's half-good, half-bad, plus it looks cool.

The distortion, bank and on/off buttons are too small. The side buttons are out of the way on both sides, and you can't really tell what you're selecting without flipping it upside-down. There's also a lot of grinding in the pedal action.

Sometimes it's decent, but my Dano-Wah spends more time picking up AM radio signal than it does wahing. I've tried different brands of batteries, wall warts and other power sources, and the Dano pretty well sucks with them all. The distortion sounds like a swarm of drunken bees.

The Dano-Wah is like a box of chocolates - you never know what you're gonna get. Some days it will perform acceptably, other days it sounds like I have a live Mexican folk band in my cabinet.

I no longer use it for gigs. I borrow a friend's Vox instead, thank you very much.

Imagine a Web site with no contact information. Sounds strange, doesn't it? Not in Dano-World, apparently. I have no way to contact them and ask for some helpful tips in dealing with the fecal performance of this wah pedal. Actually, I take that back - it's an insult to feces everywhere.

Theoretically, a good wah pedal should be a great thing for me. I've been playing heavy metal and hard rock for abotu 15 years; my current set-up is a pair of Seymor Duncan-equipped Charvels through either a Laney AOR 100 or Tube Works head and a Celestion-loaded cabinet.

However, I would definitely prefer a barium enema to another Dano-Wank. When it comes to wahs, I'll stick with Vox, Morley or Dunlop.

If it were stolen or lost, I'd get a good laugh out of the thief foolish enough to abscond with it.

WAH footpedal is very easy to use. Would like an on/off switch thats a little taller and firmer so it's obvious you're pushing it down.
Distortion button hard to hit without having to slam the pedal forward and i usually accidentally turn the wah off.
Side buttons very hard to change on the fly. Set and forget.

If it were just a wah, I'd give it a 10. Since they have more features, I'm lowering the rating.

Guitars: Epi Casino, Epi Dot, and Strat. Amps: Roland MicroCube run into computer for recording and mixing.
I have no use for the distortion. I just get mud or squeels from it. I haven't really been able to hear the octave setting over the mud or noise.
The WAH however is what I'm going to use this thing for and I think it's great.

Dunno yet. Just bought it a couple of days ago.

II'l be using this for Frampton/Hendrix type of stuff.

Its a wah pedal with six different wah sounds and built in distortion. How hard can it be ?

It looks like a Cadillac. I use it wit a either a gibson les paul or a Strat thru a 130 watt Crate g130cxl 2 x 12 combo amp. Its not noisy at all. One of the 6 wah sounds is xlnt. Actually way better than a crybaby or a jimi hendrix wah. The other 5 wah sounds are kinda crappy. But the one that sounds good, sounds really good and if you just set it on that wah setting, its great. The built in distortion is over the top. It sounds like a metal zone pedal on steroids. Its actually kinda cool if you only kick it during a solo & maybe just use it once in a while (for maybe 20-30 seconds at a time) because it really creates a big wave of noise. I really like the 1 (of 6) wah sound this thing makes. Never run a wah pedal thru your effects loop. For best results run it in line between the amp and the guitar.

I've owned it over 6 months now and so far so good.
No problems whatsover. The housing is plastic so dont be too rough with it and it should be just fine. I use it to play live gigs and I think it sounds really good. Its reliable.

I play everything from reggae, blues, rock and heavy metal.
I've been playing 25 years and have owned numerous wah pedals including a crybaby, a jimi hendrix wah, a morley bad horsie 2
and I like this better than all of those. I dont understand why most people dont really like it that much. I think it sounds great.
I would buy another but they dont make em anymore. I dont like the placements of the buttons which kick the distortion on and to change the wah sounds. They are very close to the top edge of the wah pedal and if your not carefule its ez to kick on those buttons accidentally. It takes a little getting used to. I like this pedal alot. One Great wah sound. It sounds xlnt on either clean or with a heavy overdrive. The other 5 wah sounds are kinda wimpy.

Many buttons but a comprehensive manual, it's quite ok

It's a great idead as far as features goes but it was made by danelectro which usually does entry level stuff so the sound quality ain't the best. The distortion and octave are horrible and some presets don't sound much different. The sweep seems way too toyish and it doesn't insire much confidence (the caddy look doesn't help either). Though you can find some good sounds in it if you just look for a wah, and that's what i was looking for. The sound was good both on direct and Fx loop. If only the had done only two presets and less bells and whistles maybe the price would have been even better

doesn't inspire much, too much plastic and frail feeling pedal

never tried

Good entry level wah, but Dano could have removed all those weird stuff like octave and distortion that sound horrible and get in the way lowering so the price. As for those features...if only some other brands would have done the same, i'm sure dunlop would have made the ultimate wah. Dano is best for simple stuff

It's easy to step on the switches on top of the pedal when switching wah on/off - and you need to make sure the right buttons on the side are pressed in before you start playing.

Much better than a Dunlop Cry Baby - the middle wah button on the LHS is my favourite. The Dunlop I tried did not have enough depth to its 'Q' or enough treble on full wah.
The distortion is not suitable for general use, but as an occasional 'DESTROY!' option it is fun.

I have gigged for 15 months solid with mine and it's had its share of beer and fag ash, been stepped on by the audience and accidentally picked up by the singer's mic stand and dropped - no problems at all.

The first one I had was noisy - there was some dirt in the pot. The shop changed it straight away.

I play in a pub band, doing covers of recent rock chart hits - this pedal has done everything I need reliably, although I wish the buttons on top were recessed and labelled.

Easy enough to use unless you want to alter the settings on the side while playing. I don't want to change any of the setting during a gig. I don't tend to alter them anyway so for me the pedal is easy to use. The distortion on/off is a bit small and difficult to operate though.

my guitar - Gibson ES 335. Amp Marshall JCM 900 and Marshall 4x12 cab.
I love this pedal, what I specially like about it is the distortion. Might not be to everyones taste though, it's harsh, but that's what I want.
Playing it without distortion sounds good too, there are a lot of different settings on the side that alter the sound, it's not going to sound like your classic Vox wah pedal, but I didn't expect it to, if that's the sound you want, buy one.
Another thing I really like, (and again I can see that this would be a big negative for most people) is the massive jump in volume level when the pedals distortion is activated, it hits you hard and makes your ears bleed!!

I've used it live and would use it again, it's my only wah and I'd be lost without that awesome distortion.

Never had to call them

I've been playing for 14 years. The stuff my band plays is very loud - sort of Sonic Youth / My Bloody Valentine / Spiritualized. When the distorted wah kicks in it's so nasty it sounds like a chain saw, just the kind of thing I want for our sound. I can imagine the distortion is way too over the top for someone looking for a Hendrix type of thing. If you're looking for a real noisy, nasty, violent sound this is perfect. If I lost it I would get another one without a doubt.

It's not the easiest pedal to use as its very easy to get the buttons on the side mixed up. Definitely not a pedal I'd use for a live performance. For live work, better to use something that is very simple to use.

Overall I disagree with all those people that say it sucks. Perhaps they are either sound snobs or newbies that haven't spent alot of time with different effects. But to be fair, I'm fairly open minded when it comes to effects and I enjoy having different effects for different styles of music.
I've played through many different wah pedals over the years (my favorite was the DeArmond Thunderbolt Wah/Fuzz pedal) and in comparison this pedal I think ranks just as an average wah pedal. The sweep of the pedal is not as long as I prefer (although the sweep of most wah pedals suck). But I can still get a fairly wide variety of decent wah sounds out of it that work well in the studio. The octave effect while not the best, is still very useful for getting odd sounds for recordings and for doing some funky sounding leads with. The fuzz sound on it, is not the best, but I think for recording purposes it is still quite usable if you like super-distored Big Muff style fuzz sounds. However you do not get as rich of a sound as the Big Muff. In other words you don't get quite all the wierd harmonics, feedback and random cool sounds that you get with the Big Muff. But when I tried recording with it, I got a fairly ballsy sound with its overdrive by micing my half stack with it and double tracking the guitar part (manually recording the rhythm guitar part twice) and panning them about 20% left and right.

Well mine hasn't broke yet, but the quality of its workmanship and materials definitely does NOT inspire confidence. Switches and buttons are plastic and feel very loose while the whole thing is made of cheap low-quality plastic that feels like it would crack if it was really stomped on.
But I'm crossing my fingers and hoping that the switches themselves don't give out on me anytime soon.
I wish they made a heavy duty version of this pedal. I'd pay $20 more if they made it a little more sturdy with heavy duty switches and a steel case/pedal.

Haven't needed it. Although I had to return a Danelectro phaser pedal before twice after none of the ones I bought. That's when I ended up forking over a few more bucks for the Wah pedal.

I forgot how much I paid for this pedal but I remember that it was relatively cheap so I can't complain. If I can make a few good recordings of some songs with it, then I'll be a happy camper. :)

well this thing IS UNUSABLE live...they put these dumbass small buttons on the side, and all this crap and expects you to use these live.. I had very bad experiences with danelectro but their products are extremely fun to smash and see their guts all over the pavement..

one guy hit it on the nail BUUUUUZZZZZZZZZZZZ HISSSSSSSSSSSSSSS (raido turns on) WTF!!!! how in the hell am i supposed to use this piece of crap with out the radio turning on???!!! i think that this was the worst christmas present ever... BUY A VOX or a crybaby.. this thing is unusable live or in the studio..so beware. btw...i have two amps... a fender princeton chorus and an avt 50 half stack...what the hell, my fender princeton chorus' distortion sounds better than this? tisk tisk..thats really low... my avt just kicks danelectro's @$$

hahahahah i smashed this with all my other cheap @$$ danelectro pedals... I hate these things

hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahah!!!!!! they were drunk, and smokin weed when they made this thing

bottom line is, stay away from this company/pedal. it will make your crappy equipment sound good. and that scares me... it makes me appreciate my fender princeton chorus's distortion..don't let that happen to you. The pedal turns on this freakin weird country and western radio station and it doesn't work out with punk..so i smashed it... my musical style is the misfits, bad religion, nofx, lagwagon, millencolin...ect and i got this as a present that i didn't ask for.. i've been playing for 10 years and my band gigs alot. so smashed into smitherines...goodbye..wait, no..just bye..wait..good riddence

It's a wah. Up. Down. It's a wah. Except . . . the switch to engage/disengage the wah is so touchy that I found myself hitting it when just trying to sweep the wah. And I don't have a lead foot. Normally I think the switches on wahs require too much pressure.

This thing sucks. It has no useable sound unless you want to save yourself the time and trouble of making a patch labeled "CRAP" on your multi-effects unit.

Cheap plastic. Would not even think about playing live with it.

Never dealt with Dano.

I was fortunate enough to be able to sell this right after I bought it. I wanted to like this pedal. I love Dano and have a ton of their wacky crap, but this, this . . . atrocity shall not soon be forgotten. Dano, did anyone actually test this thing before you shipped it? I feel so, so bad for anyone who paid the original retail on this.
Worst. Pedal. Ever.

Its a wah pedal, works like any other basicaly. However, changing wah presets with the tiny little, closely spaced buttons can be difficult to do standing with your feet. Mabey some yoga lessons might make it easy someday........

I've played this wah through my Fender Hotrod Deluxe 2/12 and my peavey classic 30. The wah effects, regardless of preset used, is just plain terrible. If you decide to used it with any form of overdrive or distortion, it only gets worse. The pedal also has a built in distortion and octave effect. The distortion by itself is possibly the worse I've ever heard. With the octave effect engaged, which only works as part of the distortion effect, the sound is very unique in a noisy disturbing kinda way. I've come to realize after buying this pedal that drugs do indeed impair my judgement to a dangerous point. As a result, I now don't do drugs anymore. Yes, its that bad.

I expect this pedal will last forever. Because I don't intend in ever using it. And cannot get anyone to trade me anything more than mabey to packs of guitar strings for it.

I don't expect to be contacting them. For the reasons said above. Thus, I'll give a -middle of the road rating.

I have to be honest about my opinion here. And folks this is mine.

The buttons and all are pretty straightforward but my feet are too stinkin big to use the thing live! I ALWAYS step on the distortion when I go to hit the wah. Other than that, you just push a button and get a sound. No knobs or anything...simple but not laid out very well. I have tape ALL OVER THIS THING so that I can keep the sound I want. I tried to disconnect the distortion but, no dice there!

Running X2N-equipped USA strat into Dan-o-wah, assorted dist and fuzzboxes, a couple modulation devices, a digital delay or two, to a 5150 half stack. One of the 6 wah sounds I really like. A great "porn-wah" sound! The rest are OK at best. The distortion is COMPLETELY UNUSABLE LIVE! When coupled with the wah, however, I can get a cool ring-modulator type effect that is only good in my bedroom. I use this ring-modulator on one of our songs: go to http://www.brotherlush.com and go on the "music" page choose the song "Revolution". I use this pseudo ring-modulator in the second verse.

It's all plastic and, as I always miss the switch, I tend to hit it hard. It hasn't broken yet but I think it will if I gigged with it still.

Well, for 26 bones, I can't complain. I have a wah for use in my studio and that's it! If you have small feet, don't mind, taping up your effects, and can get a closeout buy like me, I recommend it! Otherwise, save for a vox or whatever.

You don?t have to be a rocket Scientist to operate this thing, Quite basic the manual is written in plan English tells you how,what,when.. etc. So as far as "ease of use goes" no hidden tricks here...

Using this with a JCM 2000 (TSL 100) Head and MC1960A Cab - With Gibson SG & Cort G290.

Okay, This is where this product simply crashes and burns! It is fine when played with clean but as soon as you kick in the wah. "BUZZZZZZ HUMMMMMMMMMMMMMM BUZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ" Pretty much shouting out "TURN ME OFF!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!" Then if you are brave enough to attempt to kick in distortion after that.... You get hit with the nastiest sounding "distortion/fuzz" CRAP! you will ever hear! Overly Load! WAY WAY WAY too much Gain! Just Plan NASTY!

So i thought to Combat this i would simply use Amp Distortion leave the Wah on Clean and should i need to use Distorted wah then i will simply kick in Distortion and bobs your uncle (As you do with any normal wah pedal) Well sounds good in theory.. However in practice! "BUZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ HUMMMMMMMMMMMM BUZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ HUMMMMMMMMM" Absolutely HORRIBLE way too noisy!

IN SHORT SOUND QUALITY = BLOODY TERRIBLE!!!

Well Its made out of some hard core plastic so it looks solid enough.. Although I would if it was made out of a steal this would bestow a bit more confidence in this product (Until of course you try use it!).. But hmm I think with frequent use it will evenly die! I can just see it happening... That?s if you are game enough to use it frequently in the 1st place.

For the price I paid for this pedal I was expecting something a HELL of allot better! Do your self a favor people DONT BUY THIS! Keep well away from it! Save an extra 50 bucks and get a CRY BABY! This pedal SUCKS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Far too complex for the design layout...manual is confusing.....just a lousy design

To be fair, i did find a wah or two that were decent sounding, but honestly, there just isn't enough variation between the 6 presets to be able to call each one unique...the so called distortion is absolutely, hands down the worst sound i've ever heard...the octave feature, if it's really there, doesn't do anything

I tried this peadl on approval, and i do not approve...i fibnally pullled it in the middle of a song when the crap-stortion went on by itself and WOULD NOT TURN OFF!!!

The dude that resurrected danelectro poured lots of money into it, came out with some good stuff, some terrible stuff, and then self-destructed...probably too much partytime...the IS NO customer support...you're on your own

I've been playing for 33 years...i am still a compulsive gear hound, even though i'm trying to reform...ordinarily, i can find a way to use just about anything, and i'm usually fairly generous in my comments...that said, i will say this about this pedal....and i mean this, really and truly...i thank God that i tried it before i paid for it...i literally wouldn't have it if it were given to me

Somewhat complicated, and impossible to use on-the-fly during a show... if you don't have shoes with a narrow point, changing among the wahs and the octave on/off switch is virtually impossible. But at home or in the studio, easy as pie.

It's noiseless when passive, and the wahs are unbelievable. The best, by far, I've ever heard. After trying Dunlop, Morley, VOX, etc. etc. etc., this one has 6 unique sounds. the first 60s and the 3rd 70s are the best, with wide sweeps and presence. The second 60s is very smooth, the second 70s sounds just like the wah-intro to Three's Company...
EXCELLENT sound quality on the wahs, which is what it's meant for.
The distortion is adequate. It's not designed for hardcore great distortion sounds - stay with your Marshall - but it does an alright job. The octave effect is almost useless unless you're trying to find a really different sound for an intro or solo or something. Using the wah with the distortion or distortion+octave = NOT a good idea. Sounds terrible... Just use the wah with your amp's distortion and you'll be fine.

It's plasticky...and I wouldn't throw it around much, no... but if you let it sit in one place, it'll do jusssssst fine.

Wah sounds = fantastic. Distortion = ok. Octavizer = ehhh.

Pretty easy to get a good sound if you keep it simple. I'm basically only using the bottom 60's button, since that sounds best to me.

I've used the Dan-O-Wah with my Epiphone Demon through a Peavy KB-160 amp and a Zoom 505II pedal. Even though the wah pedal has a bunch of other options (distortion and 70's wah sounds)I'm basically just using that one 60's setting, since that is the sound I want. The unit is very quiet and has a good wah sweep, very funky sounding.

Only used it for two gigs so far, but I'm pretty light on my feet (not bad for a guy who weighs 250 pounds), so I expect it to last for a while. Sure, I'd use it without a backup. This is the first wah-wah pedal I've owned since I sold my Foxx wah-volume pedal back in 1977 and I've done OK without one till now.

Sent them an email (see below) but no answer yet.

I play oldies in a 5-piece band and classic rock covers in a trio. The Dan-O-Wah is a fun effect if used sparingly. I've been playing since Woodstock (the first one). If I lost this pedal, I'd probably get another one as long as it was only $30. I really like the cheesy car design. I'm thinking of painting some flames on mine. I dislike the distortion, which is so loud as to be unusable during a gig. I emailed Danelecto to see if there were any kind of mod that could be done to lower the distortion volume, but they haven't answered me yet.
Anybody know of any way to do this?

It's a mixed bag here, big pluses and big minuses. The LED indicators are really handy. The side buttons stink. Pedal sweep is good. Distortion and channel switches at the end ot pedal sweep are a good way to accidentally murder your eardrums. Overall, okay. Lots of stuff crammed into very little space. I think it would have been better to just have two wah sounds rather than six, and use that space for some knobs to control things.

Better than you'd expect! Frankly, the wah sounds are WAY better than the common Crybaby and Morley pedals. No, they don't beat a Teese or Fulltone boutique pedal, but they're nothing to be ashamed of. The 60s and 70s channels give you the two main voices of wah, although the variations in those channels are too subtle to matter. It doesn't load down my signal even when bypassed - say THAT about a Crybaby!

The distortion and octave effects are a separate subject. Here's my take... taken as fuzz rather than distortion, the "distortion" is pretty good, really. It's useful for a number of things. While it seems subjectively much louder than the clean signal, it's not really (so sayeth the peak/clip meters on my Lexicon Vortex downstream, anyway). Distorted sounds seem naturally louder to our ears than clean sounds - that's just physics, and i have the same problem with all my other heavy distortion devices too. Now, it WOULD be nice if Danelectro provided a couple of knobs to actually CONTROL the distortion, so it was subjectively more reasonable. But hey, it works, and it doesn't suck nearly as much as some expensive dedicated pedals i've tried.

The octave effect is not really different from the Octavia that Jimi used... some people seem to expect a harmonizer, but an octave distortion is much more subtle than that. If it isn't working for you, try switching to the neck pickup, rolling off the tone control, and playing only the high strings above the 12th fret. Then you'll get how it works (if your guitar is a single bridge humbucker with no tone control, it sucks to be you). Listen to the lead in "Purple Haze" to hear how it's supposed to sound. So it works fine. Whether or not it's a useful effect for you depends on what you're playing and how willing you are to adapt your picking to the needs of the effect.

Oh, my setup... Gibson Blueshawk, Trace-Elliot Velocette tube amp, a ProCo Rat II for my main heavy distortion, Prescription Electronics Germ for clean buffering and overdrive, and various downstream swirly echoing things. The Danelectro plays well with others.

Haven't owned it long enough to form an opinion, but the cheap plastic housing is questionable. Fine for playing in the basement and the occasional gig. I'd expect professionals to spend more than $30 on a wah pedal!

I play jazzy, psychedelic weirdness. I want everything to sound warm and lively, and it works really well for that. And hell, it was thirty bucks! I use a lot of effects, but i'm VERY picky about them, and they have to meet high standards for sound quality and usefulness. It's not the greatest pedal i own, but hey, it's better than my Crybaby was!

It's not too hard to get a good sound out of this, but it's REALLY easy to get bad sounds. (I'll get to that later.) It has 2 switches on top, 1 under the pedal, and 4 push buttons on each side. You get 3 "60's" wah sounds(full-range), 3 "70's" sounds (trebly), distortion, and an octave-up effect. You can mix and match them to get dozens of sounds (good, bad, and ugly).

Like most wahs I've owned, I had to adjust the pot a little. Out of the box, it was too trebly and noisy in the toe-down position. The wah on/off switch was noisy. So, I opened the bottom, pulled back the notched strip that turns the pot, and turned the pot back a little. Now it sounds MUCH better and quieter. I'm not subtracting any points for this, because I've had to do it on Crybaby and Maestro wahs, too.

I'm subtracting a couple of points for lack of control over the distortion. The lack of a level control really burns me. I'm also knocking off a couple of points for the placement of the push buttons on the sides. It's hard to hit them with your foot.

I'm using this with a Fender Strat and a Lab Series L7 amp. It's not noisy now that I adjusted it (see above).

Like I said above, you can get some nice sounds out of this pedal. The middle 60's setting is good for Hendrix type stuff. The first 70's sound is bright and funky. The distortion is okay- IF you don't plan on switching between clean and dirty sounds. If you do, you'll find that the volume difference makes it unusable. When you kick on the distortion, you're suddenly 5 or 6 times louder.

This brings me to the bad sounds. For some unknown reason, the wah is placed after the distortion in the circuit. Ugh. Also, the octave effect adds way too much high end and thins out the low end. The octave only works when the distortion is on. Combine the distortion and octave with one of the 70's wahs, and presto- instant crap.

I'm only using the wah effects. I've given up on the rest. I put a Tube Works OD after this pedal and it sounds good.

I'm giving it a 5 because it's such a mixed bag.

People complain about Danelectro's plastic pedals. But I've had a couple of their mini effects for two years and they haven't broken yet. The push button switches on this pedal worry me though.

I don't use a wah at gigs, but I use a Dano Tuna Melt all the time at gigs without a backup.

Don't know. Never dealt with them.

I think Danelectro tried to put too many features into this thing, and not enough thought went into sound quality. An output level for the distortion would improve it greatly. So would putting the wah before the distortion.

But for $30, it's a good deal. I'd be upset if I paid more for it.

There's a lot going on here for a wah pedal, but I'd say
that they did a pretty good job of arranging the controls
without resorting to an enlarged footprint for the housing.

I find myself forever confusing the "bank select" and
"distortion" buttons, but that's my fault. Besides,
even guessing, I have a 50/50 shot.

The LED's are a big help in keeping you informed about
which features are running at any given time.

My ancient Foxx Fuzz/Wah/Volume had approximately the same
feature set, but used a rotary knob to change wah settings,
and had side-mounted pots for controlling the distortion.
It was completely impossible to change settings on-the-fly.

The side-mounted in/out switches on the Dano can be
engaged with a careful poke of the toe (at least the
outermost ones can) so I guess the Dano's slightly more
workable. You're better off doing a "set and forget"
between songs, though.

Given the way the "octave" sounds, I'd rather they'd
scrapped it entirely, and used the extra space to spread
out the buttons controlling the wah settings. I
wouldn't encourage anyone to use their feet on these
light-duty switch buttons anyway -- except when it's
absolutely necessary.

Overall, though, a decent layout for a fairly complex pedal,
and a better manual than what you get with most boxes.

Depending on what guitar and amp settings I'm using,
all of the wah's are at least useable. A couple become
very harsh with single-coil pickups. I like the '60's
selections for lead, and the '70's settings for rhythm.
Since the Foxx went to heaven in 1983, I haven't used a
wah until I picked up an inexpensive Morley (pretty good)
and a Carvin (avoid that dog -- see my review.) I'm not
an expert, and I use effects sparingly, but for a $29
impulse item, I have to say that the Dano sounds pretty
good.

On the other hand:

The distortion is of limited usefulness. It reminds me
of a re-issue Fuzz Face (which is not a good thing from
where I stand.) No dynamics, ultra-cruddy, one size
fits all. I choose to ignore it. I suspect that some
will use it occasionally, but I can't imagine anyone using
it as their main fuzz. It's not hurting anyone to have
it available, though. For a kid on a budget, it's a
nice extra.

But: Add the "octave" and you will be summoning dogs.
I'd say that with the octave engaged, this fuzz sounds
like the Dano Grilled Cheese Distortion -- unbearably
harsh, and unmusical. Like a Fender Twin on full treble,
with the bright switch engaged, and a fuzz with the
distortion all the way up, gain almost all the way
down. Thin, brittle, ugly. Again, though, it's easy enough
to just leave it off.

The side switches are typically dano-crappy. It's
a good thing that they're hard to engage with the
feet, 'coz they're not built to last. Use your fingers
to push them in, then keep your fingers crossed that they
don't fail. Hopefully, it'll be the Octave switches
which crap out first, in the OFF position, so they don't
engage by accident.

More problematic is the fact that the (what is it called,
a treadle?) -- anyway, the part of the wah that rocks up
and down to create the "wah" frequency sweep -- rocks
slightly side-to-side as well, which it ain't supposed
to do. This $29 Guitar Center blowout may be from a batch
of second-quality units, but if they all do this, then I'd
say that basic build quality may be questionable. We'll
see down the road.

The rest of the unit seems to be built decently enough
for a budget item.

I'm guessing that a couple of the switches will end
up breaking, but that the basic unit will remain sound.
I'll pass on an actual rating, since I don't use the
pedal very demandingly.

No idea.

Not bad. I might be more critical if I'd paid the standard
$79 or however much, but it's a downright steal at $29.
Instant, versatile wah fun, for however long it lasts. A
lot cheaper that a Dunlop 535, and I'm leery of Dunlop
in general anyway after a couple of bad experiences. Dano
stuff is cheap and fun; I don't get attached to
any of it. Besides, cheap and flimsy as it all looks, I
can't honestly say I've had a problem with any Dano
product. I like my Dan-O-Wah.

Easy to used I guess but some of the buttons don't really seem to change the sound that much.

Pretty Noisy. The Distortion is pretty nasty. Most importantly there is no bypass switch like there is on a cry-baby, which makes it kinda worthless to use in an amp setup where you only use it for a few songs.

It seems ok but thats not part of my issue with it.

Not Sure. Just bought it. I might take it back to the store if I poses a problem with my live amp setup.

My main concern is the issue with it having no bypass switch. I'm not sure I care for the over all sweep, with there being a dead spot towards the middle of the footpedal.

Its pretty easy peadl to get to grips with.. You dont have to be a rocket sientist...

The clean sounds are great!! But as soon a you kick in the distortion!!!! All hell break lose.. its a shocking loud distortion with no way to control it... It would not be so bad if there was a knob.. The distortion is NASTY!

Its made of plastic.. but seem sterdy enough....

I would gig with it..

Hav enot had to use

To be honest i dont like this pedal.. i wish i keep't saving enough to get a cry baby.. but oh well..

TRY IT BEFORE YOU BUY IT!!

Pretty easy to use. No problems. Can't edit patches. Manual? Do you need a manual? Read the labels on the switches/jacks and it's done quite logically, nothing unusual, I think. I don't give it a 10 because it needs a volume/gain control for when you kick in the distortion, which is mega dirty and loud. This is it's major drawback, but most wahs don't come with distortion, so I still rated it a nine because it's an innovative wah.

Setup I'm using with the Dan-O-wah: I have about 15 electric, acoustic/electric, classical/electric guitars, all Korean at this point -- to me, there's nothing magic about USA labor, all you Rocky holdovers. I get good sound with piezo pickup or single coil or hum pickups through the Dan-O-wah.

{Now, please skip down a few paragraphs if you don't want to hear a tirade about how much I think that the big name USA guitar distributors are price gouging poor musicians at this time...and here is especially a word to the USA labor Nazis, from someone born in the USA. Korea currently makes some great, playable guitars that are superior in craftsmanship, in some cases, to USA-made guitars, if you will please, try to put away the USA legends for a while, at least long enough to compare the neck joints and binding inlays, fret work, etc. between comparably-featured Korean and USA guitars.
I've owned a lot of guitars in 25 years of playing and I am a tiny dealer who now even imports Korean guitars. I compare them with USA guitars often. In fact, I call the Korean luthiers directly at probably the same factory as Ibanez and Epiphone or at least with the same national components, but I specify beautiful, deluxe stuff, and still sell them for less than $500. For instance, I specify nicer frets, tuning keys, etc., gold hardware, quilting, etc. The big USA distributors could specify deluxe features and give you awesome guitars with just a phone call, for $500 or less, but they won't, at least, not yet. Maybe when they lose still more market share...trying to sell expensive instruments to poor musicians for short term profit margins, while the Koreans, who already have the world's largest guitar factory (Samick), continue to encroach...not a wise market strategy, unless you only want to sell to collectors who make their money not playing music; and you'll only do it for a generation more or so, until the word gets out that the mystique is fluff and bygone legend; and the schmooze factor of buying prestige namebrands instead of objectively looking at the product.
Moreover, the deceitful thing is, allegedly USA-made guitars have lots of Korean components put in them, and some USA workers put some USA man hours into them, just enough so they can call them USA or made in USA by legal loophole. Call Fender or Gibson some time and ask them. If you get an honest phone consultant, he or she may tell you, at risk to the job. The big execs definitely don't want the complete truth to be known. Trade secrets at our expense, or more accurately, trade deceits at our expense.

Anyway, my money doesn't care where some parents delivered their baby. In a world market, you also help Americans when they get a lot of bang for their buck. Importers create American jobs, too, it's true. And with the money I save, not buying substandard, overpriced guitars, or effects, or whatever, I can help or even start my own USA company (ies) that beat(s )the world in other areas. Who knows, maybe even a new USA guitar maker will rise from the lethargy of ashes, and make a great guitar for cheaper than the Koreans. Wisdom is what makes a country great, not unbalanced loyalty, in my opinion, but there is a balance. I don't want to kick USA manufacturers when they are down...look at Chrysler, for example. They're back because of some timely mercy in the 1980s, and longterm, innovative wisdom. I also don't say to trade dollars for nukes, as in say, for example, I wouldn't recommend buying from Afghanistan right now, and I avoid buying from China as much as reasonably possible for that very nuclear reason; ditto North Viet Nam/North Korea. But South Korea is a friendly democracy with an exemplary culture in many ways.

Anyway, for all the blind American loyalists, probably me too in some unintentioanl areas, I promise you that the USA has its state department and foreign policy agendas that are less than 100 percent "for the good of the people," bu

It's fine. Yes, I would use it without a backup. I give it a 9 just because it's not studio quiet, like every other wah I've ever played.

I've dealt with them several times in trying to find some very recently discontinued Dan Electro guitars, and they were poor on several occasions, at helping me find a retailer that still had some new old stock. I've also talked to them about making some nice quality stuff. They seemed horribly ivory-tower and had a seeming business philosophy that was unaffected by the workaday musician...with the exception of Rock Klauser, who was personable, and helpful, and helped me to find a Guitar/Mandolin, for which I had searched for about two to three years, calling every where, including Dan Electro over a span of about two years, several times. Rock was professional and conscientious, in my estimate. Other Dan Electro management personnel seemed to be unable to care less. I also had the same experience when trying to locate a different color pickguard for my Mod 7. High rolling condescension was all I seemed to get, at least in my experience. I give a 10 to Mr. Klauser and a 1 to everyone else, so a 2 overall.

Style mentioned above,lots of diversity is required to do it. I've been playing studio and live about 25 years. Other gear is mentioned above when I talk about the setup I use in-line with the Dan-O-wah. Yeah, a wah, and particularly this wah, is good for almost any kind of music, except Vivaldi or muzak or something, maybe, but who knows...Bach-wah? I would maybe get another one, but maybe not, only because the general market keeps making better and better electric/electronic toys for less and less, with more and more features. I love the versatility of this wah, and if I didn't get another one, it would certainly NOT be because of ANYTHING that I regretted about buying this wah. I am glad to have bought this and think that the value is superb. I love the automobile design, cool cruiser style. I love the little red lights that light up. I love the range of tone from the pedal and the immense psychadelic and harmonic textures. I hate the lack of gain/volume for when you switch to the drive channel, but this can be overcome by setting a digital patch to compensate...we should not have to do that. They should build a gain/volume into the pedal. In general, though, it definitely very much helps me to make music. Anything else to share? Yeah, get one. I don't know why the other reviewers had problems. The thing won an editor's pick award in 2000, I think, from Guitar Player magaizine. They don't give those away. This is a superior product compared to the other wahs that were out only two years ago. Of course, with the lightning speed of the electronics age, it may be soon superceded, but I think that it's one of Danelectro's really decent effects pedals, and I can't say that about some of them.

Can it be hard to use any pedal?

I have a Fender guitar & a shitty amp, but I usually play direct to my mixer. When I use dan-o-wah, I run my signal trough compressor distortion & multiFX units and then the dan o wah's distortion isn't that bad. It just ads fuzz & some warmth to the sound.

Wah sounds are pretty good. Wouldn't say it's the best wah sound on earth but it's good enough and you can alter it a bit. AND the distortion is not supposed to be "normal" distortion, it's just an extra "special" effect just like the octaver included.

Yes I can depend on it.

Don't know.

I've playd guitar for about 10 years & keyboards about 15. I play mainly keyboards, but now and then guitar too. Rock, pop, 70's funk, jazzy stuff, electronica. Overall good wah pedal & looks great.

The diagram is screwed up, even though the pedal is easy to figure out. People who try to use this as if it were a morley or dunlop screwed themselvesd out of keeping a very good pedal.

Be careful not to kick in the distortion while using the wah unless you mean to , otherwise one would think it was a crappy pedal. The wah sounds are incredible once I got used to the treadle and settings choices. One guy put it perfectly from shaft to porn music to voodoo child. The only complaint is the octaver which if I can get to it will hot rod on my own. It's very faint. Its a very quiet pedal for switching. I would say for bassist it is one great pedal. I can see why guitar players might hate it if they are not very experienced. My guitar player now uses his VOX as backup only. The one setting uses for him is great for the Steve Vai tribute stuff. The distortion is great for bass annoying for guitar. I can also get a great psuedo talk box tone out of it.

I've never had a problem with Danoelectro gear and use it live 20 times a month in everything from grind core to country and jazz. Never needed to worry . My morley has let me down several time and is now just a volume pedal.

never had to use them

I've been playing everything from country to jazz to classical and death metal for almost 15 years. It is a good match for damn near every style I play. I use this through a hughes and kettner bass rig, swr henry 8x8 cabinet, digitech 2101, coolcat,morley volume-distortion-wah,zoom bass multieffects unit,fabtone,shiftdaddy,and bbe msonic maximizer. my guitars are 2 musicman 5's one strung to high c the other to low b, a status empathy 4 string, a hohner 6 string b bass strung to high F and a hodad bass 4. I would hunt the rat bastard down, disembowel him and screw his pooch if some one stole the dan o wah!the octave feature definitely is the weakest thing about the pedal, otherwise it would be a 10. I give it a 9 for value, price and usefulness. The people that hated it probably spent less than a day with this or are inexperienced with wah pedals

Incomprehensable thats all Ive got to say. They have this giant manual that makes no scence

Ahhhh it sounds like poohhpooh. The wah is lame, has a horrible sweep that distorts on at the toe when it's clean. And the distortion sound kinda like fingers being scratched on a blackboard, it squeals like a pig in a slaghter house. I tryed it out on my freinds guitar and amp befor I brought it home. We torned down the volume to 1 on his amp, turned off the volume on his guitat and it still fed back.

Its in a plastic chassis. How reliable do you think it will be? I did''nt wait to find out. I took it back within a day of buying

Well I never neaded to use this but I was pleased to find out that the Guitar shop I bought it from exchanged it for it's full value. THats good customer service

I guess in genral you get what you pay for. Canadian money is like make beilive money so I shouldent expect much for 115. Still It is not worth that. I would pay money to get rid of it. The only good thing about it is it's cool car shaped chassis ((made out of plastic). Some dano stuff like there mini pedles are kinda funky and genaraly sound half decent for a novelty, but this was a big dissapointment. Don't lett it's cutness fool you, it sounds like a car crashing into garbage cans.

let's see, 8 of those little buttons on the side and two on top plus the actual wah control, abit over the top. you'd have to be a bloody tap dancer to use this pedal, and the diagram on the back was pretty confusing being the wrong way round....and the suggested settings were ridiculous they merely told you what you already knew by pressing the buttons.

well i have a rubbish guitar, squier strat and a fender frontman reverb 15 watt ss amp, with the distortion on this pedal makes the most hideous noise ever, the hiss is unbearable at any volume, the wahs are too fake sounding, they don't give any depth nor any realism too the sound. but by far the worst thing about this pedal is the fact that with the distortion on and the wah open it picks up radio stations, sure this may be great at times when your bored and want to listen to something but when your playing it does tend to get a little, wait no VERY annoying.

im not sure about this, ive had this only for a week and nothings gone wrong with it (except the fact its utter rubbish), but the main body of the pedal is metal however the part on which you place your foot is plastic so it's life may be limited especially when under heavy use

don't know, all i know is the company warranty isn't valid in the uk

hmm lets put this simply, this pedal utterly pathetic in fact after using it for about one week im going tomorrow to the shop and returning it possibly to buy a crybaby for less money, whatever you do please please do not buy this pedal, and if you already have it i pray for you.
IT'S UTTER RUBBISH

Very easy. if you cant work out 10 buttons + a pedal than u r thick.
The manual was just what setting it sugests for different sounds.

I use a vintage sg h/h with a Marshal g50rcd. The distortion is terrible. i just use the distortion on my amp. The effects are not too great + i wish i had tried a few other wahs out because i got this as a present.
Im not that into songs with CrAzY effects, i would rather have good music on a clean channel. This pedal humms even on clean sound. The diferent styles are not that different either.

It has quite a good feel to it. ive had it over half a year + there hasnt been any problems.

N/A

This isnt perfect for the style of music i play. Its easy to use looks good + feels good to play but is let down by the differnt sounds.
It would be good if it had an on/off switcch because i can never be arsed to pull out leads etc.

very easy to use, comes with manual but i never used it cause its simple pedal.

i use a affinity squier strat and a fender 25r amp. all the wahs are great and work well and are not noisy, the distortion thru my 25r amp ( or any other half decent or good amp ) is horrible, its got real good fuzz on the squier amp that came with my guitar but on any other amp its way to loud and fuzzy. i like its wahs tho altho it is no good for bass wah.

seems fairly durable, id gig without a backup cause im too poor to have a backup and i never use wah in songs i write.

ive deal with dano support before and they were great

its great for the types of wah i play ( hendrix type stuff ). ive been playin guitar for about a year but have been involved with music for about 6-7 years. if it were stolen id hunt down the s.o.b. and kill him/her, then id buy a new one, or i might consider a dunlop q-wah that has that extra switch so you can get tons of different tones

Okay, nothing very complicated. I thought the button arrangements are akward tho.

I use several Dano pedals (coolcat, tuner, danecho), so I am not a danelectro basher. I was really disappointed with this pedal. The Wah functions are useable(although why you need six of them is beyond me). The octave function, however, didn't seem to work at all. The distortion was HORRIBLE (WAY TOO much gain/volume). In fact it was so bad, I figured it must be defective, so I sent it back, and they sent me a brand new one. Everything sounded exactly the same. So, in the end, the only useable part of the pedal is the 6 wah functions. But, that's overkill. I dug my Crybaby back out of the closet, and retired the dano-wah, it is going to ebay (although I feel a little guilty about pawning this off on anybody, even though it is basically brand new).

Danelectro generally makes pretty solid stuff (although I have returned a couple of pedals).

TEN plus. Everytime I've had a problem/returned anything to them, they've sent me a new replacement, it doesn't get any better than that!

Blues/Classic (60s/70s)rock. I was pretty much unimpressed with the wah functions, and hated the distortion and WEAK octave function. I wanted to like it, but I don't. If it was stolen, I wouldn't care, and certainly wouldn't buy another one.

Brilliant pedal took me about 2 minutes to set up only problem was the diagram on the back eing the wrong way round. Manual you don't really need.

Out of the 6 different wahs I only use 2, the 1st on each side these give me a full tone on oen side and a cool more trebly wah on the other sounds great. The octave switches seem to do very little. Te distortion on its own is terribel for normal use and lowers the volume but it can be put to interesting use in certain situation. The distortion and wah works well in songs like Ash - Lose Control and can give you the noise at the end of the best song ever written, Feeder - Just A Day..just make sure you use the wah 1 on the right hand side. I can get several Feeder sounds works well for Turn (I made a very cool wah version using this pedal), Just A Day bridge, Nurofen, High, Cement etc. Works well with pretty much anything I play actually. Only real problem is that the louder the amp goes the less you seem to be able to hear the disortion not sure if thats jsut my amp though, probably is.

Actually yes. I orignally thought I wouldn't be able to, but it is actually quite sturdy. I would use without backup.

Havent dealt with

Works brilliantly with all my rock, punk, funk and metal needs. I love everythin abotu this pedal. I tried this and a crybaby in the shop and the dano-wah absolutely beat the cry-baby's ass. Seriously this pedal gets a lot of bad press, this in turn means that people who buy it try to see flaws in it however I've stopeed trying, there aren;t any for my needs. I've had people who heard me play it sed thats cool i want one, then read reviews and sed 'Oh thats shit, it's not even as good as the crybaby.' It might not be for soem people's needs I suppose but I personalyl find the cry-baby incredibly boring and crappy...Try this before you dismiss it. This definately helps me a lot.

Just plug in and play. I was impressed with the lack of extra wires and stuff that you usually get with the novelty-style items. However, the diagram underneath the pedal has the input/output jacks round the wrong way. But that wasnt too bad and easy enough to work out and fix.

I'm using a squier strat and a crate vintage valve amp. It gives off a bit too much static without the octave distortion on. But that isnt too much of a problem. Also, there is a massive increase in volume when you put wah on with distortion. But when all said and done (and the battery is charged) it gives great wah.

A lot of people have said the dan-o-wah isn't as sturdy as a cry-baby but i cant agree with that. The dan-o-wah is sturdy enough and i dont know how people could break them, unless they were actually smashing their guitars on stage and it got in the way...
i wouldnt back it up live...

n/a

ive got to go i have no time to do this one!

I think that this was fairly easy to use...

I have two opinions on this pedal. I give the distortion a 10. It has a great crunch for your metal rythm. But for the wah...tisk,tisk...The sound with the wah was the worst I ever heard. It sounded fine when I got it, but now all I hear is static and an annoying radio. I did buy the zero hum but it didn't take care of the problem. Trust me, try a cry baby, they are built like a tank and they sound great.

Oh by the way... The octive switch doesn't even work. All it does is give you a high pitched, twangy sound. Just awlful

ARE YOU KIDDING!!!!!!??????

I have never dealt with a worse company. I emailed them like last month and I still haven't got a reply yet.

The only thing I bought this pedal for is cause of the distortion and nothing else. This wah wah pedal should have been a distortion pedal instead. What a P.O.S!!!

First, let me begin by pointing out that I am NOT one of Danelectro's universal detractors. Dano may not produce the most robust, stage-worthy equipment in the world, but they do make some fun effects that are reasonably priced. The Dan-O-Wah, unfortunately, has some serious flaws. While it seems like a flexible unit, the multitude of push-buttons (four on each side and two on the top) and lights make this unit anything but simple. No, you don't have to be a rocket scientist to figure this one out but you won't be making selections on the fly either. More is not always better as the Dan-O-Wah proves. Besides, what's up with the cheesy styling???

If you could live with the multitude of buttons, lights, and the cheese factor, here's where it all falls apart for the Dan-O-Wah. I owned this unit for less than four hours and that was too long. I ran the unit straight into a Marshall valvestate VS65R using a Fender Hot Rodded American Series Fat Strat Texas Special. The two octavers are weak enough not to even merit comment. Of the six wah effects, four are tinny and poorly balanced and two are muddy. Overall, the sound is extremely disappointing ... harsh would be a kind description. The built in distortion effect is completely unusable with a GREAT deal of noise and far, far, far too much gain. I returned the unit for a simple Vox wah pedal and the difference is night and day. Do yourself a favor and pass on this one.

As I stated above, I didn't own this unit long but I can't believe an all-plastic unit with its multitude of buttons would hold up well to regular use. Has a definite "toy" feel.

No experience with Danelectro's support.

I've been around music most of my life but would classify myself as an intermediate player with respect to the guitar. My interests range from Blues and Jazz to Rock and Pop but I can't see anywhere the Dan-O-Wah would fit. If you're in the market for a Wah unit there seem to be several excellent ones out there in the $70 - $100 range ... the Dan-O-Wah is not one of them. If you're still curious I encourage you to sit down in your favorite music store and compare it side by side to some of the older standards (Vox, Dunlop). I think you'll be glad you did.

It takes a while in order to get used to it (where to plug in, which buttons do what, etc) but fortunately, there's the back "tail-lights" which turn on when the input jack has something in it (thus, if you get it backwards, you can instantly know if you're paying attention). The side buttons are easy to bash. Also, sometimes when turning off the wah, I've hit the "distortion" (fuzz, really) as well. It doesn't help anything that the diagram on the back is as shown from the top.

Chain: el Degas strat clone with humbucker bridge -> wah -> Yamaha distortion -> amp
With this setup, sometimes with lots of attack, I get a bit of distortion happening, but I'm not sure of the source.
The pedal itself has six wah sounds, two of which sound nearly identical. The fuzz is really fuzzy, but for some things its better to use that than my distortion. *Never* turn the wah on while using the distortion - at toe position the distortion gain is through the roof. (I wish there were a control for it) The octave is more an octave "shift" thing where it cuts out essentially all the bass, but only when fuzz is used.

It is made out of plastic, so that's a bit scary, but I would gig with it (I've used it at my church before, playing "Heart of the Matter" by Don Henley) but don't be overly rough with it.

Never had to deal with them.

A good wah (6 really) with some rudimentary fuzz/octave shift fuzz added in. Can sound as good as a crybaby or a morley. Good value - 6 for the price of 2. Mostly retro-ish wah sounds, but sounds good patched into my distortion. The distortion on the wah is wired dist-wah, so it has a different sound to it, but there needs to be a volume select as there is only one volume level for the fuzz, no matter what you have on your guitar (read: really really loud).

a no brainer, intuitive controls.

60's sounds are happening, but does not hold a candle to my Teese RMC-PW. The fuzz/octave thing sounds like diarrhea...just dreadful. Also this thing looks ridiculous as well.

I would not even think of taking this on stage...period. The plastic does not inspire confidence. I'm giving it to my nephew.

Dano is a good company, they promptly replaced a defective pedal for me in the past.

Dano, make a professional for adults.This gimmicky stuff does not flush with some people.

this thing is easy to use, after you figure out the diagram on the bottom of the box is backwords. but it really is easy to use

ok if you have any question why i give this a 1, play this wah (which goes for $79) go play a crybaby which is the same price and listen to the difference. horrible horrible sound.

yeah i love it when the whole thing is made out of plastic

seriously screw all the different wah's just get a good wah you like dont try to cover all your angles with buying this. it really is this bad

Using this pedal is quite easy, the only problem with setting it up is from time to time I get the input and output mixed up but thats no big deal. The little buttons on the side get a bit annoying and every time I go to use it I feel as if its going to break. Obviusly the cast iron cry baby dosen't ever feel this way but never the less if you just skim over the manual or look at the diagram on the bottom youll figure it out quite easily. Plus I just cant get over the look and features on it. All and all for a little over $80 its a good deal.

First off I'd like to say that I have only been playing guitar for about a year and a half. So I guess you could say i'm still a beginer. Therefore when I went to look for wah pedals I wasn't looking for studio quality sound, I was just looking for something to play around with with as many features as possible. I love the fuzz box sound but I wish you could control the level of distortion. The octaving is cool but a little bit weak. Like I said i'm just a begginer and right now im using my 15 watt peavey rage 158 with this. One thing I like to do is switch on the built in distortion on my amp then play with the clean wah wah sound. It gives me alot more control that way. It has a good hendrix sound and with the 70's controls you can realy make it sound like 70's porn music, which is kind of fun to play around with.

'

This is mostly for me just a fun pedal to play around with. The other day one of my friends came over and walked in on me in an afro wig and a high color plaid shirt with a leather jacket over one shoulder playing a porno kind of riff.(bow wow woka woka) so thats the kind of things I do with it. My favorite thing definetly about It is its styling I can honestly say I have never seen a pedal that had light up tail lights and looked like a car thats whats cool. I normaly stick to the clasic rock like skynard, AC/DC(It's fun to play Back In Black with wah) , Van Halen that kind of stuff but I play songs from just about every genre. I also own the Zoom 505 II which is prety good. If it got broke or stolen first I'd find the guy that did it and kick his ass then, yeah I'd buy a new one.I dont realy know how good or bad this pedal would be for the advanced player and I realy dont care. Right now in this stage of my guitar playing carreer its suits me pretty well!

Relatively easy. The "instructions" on the back of the pedal are backwards for the jacks. The switches on the side can be kicked and you may end up with the octaver "on" when you don't want it, and I don't.

There are two patches on there that I use on a regular basis. One of them is very much Voodoo Chile with some extra bass. The other one is a middy version of "Shaft"--very clicky but fatter than trebly. The other options may have their applications, but I don't use them. I don't use the distortion, either. It sucks. Too much fuzz, don't even think to turn on the wah with it. The octaver is pretty weak as well.

For the tones that I use, they have great sweep ranges. In mid sweep, they let me really vary my tone and while it's hard to lock in on one setting, I just rock the sucker.

The wah switches are a little sensitive, and the bank and fuzz switches can be turned on a little too easily. It is sturdy, though, and since I run a 9V adaptor, I don't worry about batteries.

Great pedal overall, except for the useless settings. I'd get another one if it were stolen but it won't ever replace a Crybaby.

I could have learned to live with the fussy array of buttons and switches (there are 10 not including the wah-treadle itself) had I not returned the pedal for a refund today. My minor complaint in this category is that I had to pay a LOT of attention to where my feet were going and remember which control does what, then carefully make sure I didn't bump the wrong buttons, which are very sensitive and sticking out all over the unit. At my tavern skill level, I concentrate more on what my hands are doing than hoping that the sole of my shoe hits the left button positioned cleverly one inch from the right one - out beyond the toe-end of the rocker pedal. The rocking wah part of the pedal was plastic, but had a good Dunlop/Vox feel to it, so no complaints there. Since I don't burn, smash, kick, barf or stomp on my gear, I think resonable care would allow it to last awhile. But nitpicky controls were not the flaws that made me return it...

I offer no numerical rating here since I both loved and hated the sounds this pedal made. Variety of equipment used: Strat, Tele & Les Paul plugged into various tube combos at 8, 20 & 50 watts. The three "60's wah" choices were positively juicy, emulating many pleasing sounds from that general era (Jimi, JJ Cale, Carlos, et al). The "70's" tones were thin, disco-flavored, and not satisfying to me. But that is more about musical taste than function. I was anxious to add some Hendrixy octave/fuzz flavors to my simple signal chain (guitar, wah, mild OD, and screamer) but was disappointed to find that Octave only engages WITH Distortion. This would be no problem if the built-in Dan-0-Distortion did not automatically double my volume and absolutely trash the tone, even with everything else on full-clean. It is just WAY too much, and might only serve in my classic rock/blues world to add fury to the final power chord of a really rowdy number here and there. Then there's the squawking and overdrive noise while my sneaker clumsily smacks every button on the pedal until the feedback stops. I suppose I could quickly adjust other things (like the volume of my guitar) to help a buzzy, overblown fuzz blend in with my other pedals. But that, to me, sort of defeats the purpose of pre-balanced multi-effects that I can simply tap in and out with a casual foot as I need them.

As "just a wah" I wouldn't hesitate to gig with it since I take reasonable care not to bash my gear, especially if it's plastic. Would I need my trusty cast iron Dunlop Cry Baby as a backup? Probably not, but I'd keep it nearby anyway.

No experience or comment in this block.

I really wanted this pedal to work for me, but it does nothing better than what I get from a custom modded Cry Baby I've used for decades. If I read next year that Danelectro has separated Octave from Distortion, or at least put a knob on the drive level, I will rush out and buy this pedal again - finicky controls and all. And I will buy another red one! Tone always comes before looks, and this one does make some killer wah sounds, but I also love any pedal that looks like a vintage V-8 fire truck with chrome side headers. R&D guys, do some Dan-O-Tweaking on this awkward prototype and I'll gladly give it another whirl.

Not hard to use, although they could've marked the input and output on the top. They're on the same side as nearly every other pedal besides the Russian made Bug Muff, so I guess it's no big deal.
Also you need to remeber which settings you like on the side switched because they get bumped and changed constantly.

I like the tone. On the 60's side it's more throaty than a Vox, way more than a Cry Baby.
The distortion would be a lot better with a level control.
I think they made a mistake calling it distortion. It's more of a fuzz tone. It's actually kinda cool sounding once you except that.
I can actually get a pretty good Ain't Superstitious Jeff Beck tone using the Dan-O-Wah with my Les Paul through my EL34 equipped 1966 Vibrolux Reverb!

The pot and switches are specific to this pedal. Not very servicable. I've had a Cry Baby and still own a Vox Wah. With heavy use, a switch or pot will eventually need to be replaced. I think by then the pivot for the pedal will be shot, so I suppose these pedals are disposable.

Mine was $80 at the GC and came with my choice of Dano min pedal. Not a bad deal.
If it was lost or stolen I would not replace it.

I don't know why folks had so much trouble figuring out the scheme of this pedal. I had it figured out in 5 minutes without the manual or the diagram on the bottom. It's really not too hard. I will admit that if I were wearing boots the distortion on/off switch and the bank A/B switch would be a little hard to work, but I think that most people will find one sound they really like and then just use the distortion/octave for color tones.

This is a great sounding pedal for the price. If you don't like the fuzz (although I did) or the octave (ditto) then the wah itself is quite nice. I owned a Vox reissue wah and thought that was the best overall wah that I had played. Then in a fit of madness and during a time when I was simplifying my rig I sold it. Since then I've been looking for a cool, yet quirky wah. This fills the bill. The Vox is still a little better than the Dan-O-Wah, but I liked the idea of having a cool looking pedal that had the fuzz/volume option.

The case seems a little light-duty, but I play in mostly Rock, oldies, and country bands and so there will be no pogoing or crowd surfing at one of my shows.

I've never dealt with the company. I have the little Dano compressor and never had any problems with it.

As I said, I play mostly rock/blues/country/folk so I can't see whether I'll have problems with the pedal. I can't wait till I can step on the fuzz/octave/wah combination the next time I play "All along the Watchtower at our local bar!

The only thing I'd change about this pedal would be to move the footswitches to a more ergonomic place, and to give the user knobs to control distortion amount and octave amount.

I was very surprised by how good this Dano wah sounds. I expected it to be poor to decent, but it's actually the best sounding current production wah I've tried. Much better sounding and more akin to the classic '60s wahs than the Vox and Dunlop reissues. You'll have to spend hundreds on a high-end Teese or Fulltone wah to do better than the basic tone of this Dano wah. I own several vintage Vox wahs (memo to you younger Harmony Centralites: "vintage wah" means a 60s Vox with a Fasel inductor, not an 80s Dunlop Crybaby, OK? Just because you're 20 doesn't mean that a wah that's older than you is "vintage"!), and a Teese, and I'd put this Dano up against any of them when it comes to nailing the classic 60s wah sound. Someone voiced this thing very carefully using modern circuity to mimic the old style wahs. And the fuzz and octavia circuits are also dead-on clones of the 60s style effects -- very good job in these depts. as well. Again, I was shocked when I first plugged this in. BUT, having said all that, the Dano has ONE FATAL FLAW...

Made of plastic -- seemingly sturdy plastic, but plastic nonetheless. Obviously Dano targeted home jammers with this wah, not road dogs. But if you're careful with your pedals and don't toss them around too much, it may survive heavy gigging.

...and the ONE FATAL FLAW is that Dano wired the fuzz/octavia circuit BEFORE the wah instead of AFTER! Hendrix had his guitar plugged into his wah and THEN his fuzz and octavia. So did Clapton, and every other 60s guitar god. Guitar - wah - fuzz/octave sounds like the classic 60s records, but guitar - fuzz/octave - wah sounds horribly cheezy and dated, like the solo in the Isleys' "Who's That Lady" and a host of other 70s songs (and 80s -- Prince also lacked common sense when it came to wah/fuzz order). If you want to sound like every bar band dumbass wah-pumping his way through the SRV version of Voodoo Chile on an Ibanez Steve Vai guitar into a Crate solid-state amp, then the Dano wah will give you that sound because every such dumbass has his guitar plugged into a fuzz and then a wah. But if you want the Hendrix/Cream/Beck/Zep sound, forget it unless you turn off the fuzz and just use a good 60s style fuzz AFTER the Dano wah like I do. It's such a pity, because if Dano wired the wah with the fuzz/octavia circuit AFTER the wah, they'd have a world beater. As it is, you're better off ignoring what would otherwise be a really excellent fuzz/octavia circuit, and just using wah part of the pedal.

WELL... This pedal is pretty straight-forward once you figure it out and the whole overall idea is pretty good. HOWEVER.... the actual finished product leaves a little to be desired. Switching between banks is the most awkward task of this pedal. It's a GREAT idea, but in order to pull it off, you have to pretty much stomp down so far that you turn off the wah in the process and have to step on the bank switch, then stomp on the wah again to turn it back on! What's up with that? Same goes for the distortion switch.

I ran this with (by the way, I've returned this pedal...)a number of Boss pedals with a Les Paul thru an '81 Marshall JCM800. I have a Dunlop CryBaby, but wanted to try the Danelectro because of it's features (bank switch, 60's, 70's setting, octave distortion..etc) but it just didn't even come close to the Crybaby. The tone of the Dan-O is very shrill and seems to have very little low-end at all. The distortion is completely unusable, very, very noisy! The octave is only accessible thru the distortion, which means that it's pretty much out of the question, too. The 6 different wah sound are so subtle in difference, that I couldn't decide what to use! All in all, my total experience with this thing just made me appreciate my Dunlop Crybaby SO MUCH MORE!!! Like I said, I've returned the Danelectro...

It seemed to work just fine and was pretty reliable, however, being made of plastic like it is, I didn't see it lasting two years! The footpedal area actually moved side-to-side right out of the box! The switches are ok, but I think they would be useless in a matter of time also. To tell you the truth, I was amazed how cheaply made this thing is made for something you're supposed to step on to use!! I was afraid I was gonna break it! I've NEVER felt that way about the Dunlop... I could park my car on it and not break a sweat over it.

Don't know about the company support, didn't own it long enough.

I play mostly metal, but I like to stray into other areas alot. I play some classic rock, also. This pedal just seemed like too many bells and whistles, but not enough sheer guts to back it up. Like I said before, it was a GREAT idea for a new product, that's what sucked me into buying it. I just wouldn't have released this thing without a few more tweeks to the mechanics and tone. Maybe the next generation Dan-O-Wah will be better.
Nice try, but try again.

the sound quality is decent a 7
its good but the distortion on the wah has no master control good manual explains differnt functions

decent better than any other wah pedals

yes yes i only own 1 wah pedal

the customer support was very helpful when a warrenty question came up

it came with a battery a cable and an adapter so it was a great deal it has 6 differnt wahs and an octavce feature and a distortion feature

A manual is included, but the diagrams are too involved for what should just be a simple wah-wah pedal.

The wah-wah sounds are excellent, but the fuzz-octaver really sucks the bag.

I bought mine 2 days ago and have since used it at a soundcheck and a gig. Other than the crappy-highend limitations of the fuzz, this is a good wah. The difference between the 60's side and 70's side is a nice variation. I will have to give my old standby-the original crybaby--- a higher mark, though... the dano looks like a cool lowrider car, but the dunlop is an absolute tank!

no dealings, yet...

the gig was r&b gospel, with solos that called for rock styles and sounds. The wah was great for the funk, but the fuzz was crap at the soundcheck, so I took my old fuzzface along for the gig... this pedal is not as cool as it looks. As a wah alone, it would be exceptional...

There is a diagram on the bottom of the pedal,but I found it confusing it seems backwards and it took 3 eople to try and figuire this stupid thing out. I eventually said forget it and found out which one was in and which one was out. I'd give it low rating due to the diagram.

I am truly sorry, most Dan pedals sound ok to great( the delay being great). This pedal sucks big time. It's very high endy and when I switched the buttons on the side it made no difference or very little.It's a very harsh pedal and when you kick in the fuzz (awful )

It's made of plastic,every thing on this pedal looks and feels CHEAP-I am sure if you play out it would break with no effort.

I have owned Morely's, Dunlops, Vox,s etc.. This is the worst wah ever

This one's pretty straight forward and easy to use. Although, with all the switches(10 total)for the two Wah banks, etc., it make take a while to remember where and what everything is.
I must say that I really don't like the position of the distortion on/off switch and Wah bank selector. They are both toward the front of the pedal, just in front of the Wah foot controller. They are a decent size, but there position is such that the foot controller has to be pressed foward all the way before you have access to them. To me this just seems a little awkward. I would have preferred to have those foot switches located at the rear of the pedal, closest to the operator.

The set-ups I use most are mainly Epiphone/Gibsons(all with high output humbuckers) or Strats(all with stock single-coils) through either a Laney 30 watt tube combo(GC-30?) or a Fender Hot Rod Deville 2-12(which has been modified slightly). I have every one of Dano's "large" pedals(I like all of them), and a variety of other efx and overdrives. The Dan-O-Wah sounds pretty good with almost every possible configuration that I have tried. I have only had the pedal for just over a week, but I have used it every day for about four to six hours/day. Overall, it sounds great with tube amps. I cannot detect any noise associated with this pedal, except when the distortion or octave distortion is selected. Even then, the noise is still almost non-existent. Muting the strings cuts the noise level significantly. The Wah sounds by themselves are very clean and pure. They are very good recreations of the classic Crybaby, Vox, and Morley sounds, without much variance, though. You can get your favorite Jimi/Stevie Wah sounds on one bank, and some real "spacey"(distorted)Morley sounds on the other bank.

Since I've only had the pedal for just over a week, it wouldn't be fair for me to comment on reliability. What I can say is that after about 50 hours of use, it still works!
The only piece of equipment that ever gets backed up at my gigs is the guitar. I prefer to leave everything else to chance(that's when I am most creative).
The casing does worry me. Unlike the rest of Dano's "large" pedal collection, this one seems to use mostly plastic for its housing material. A pedal this pretty deserves to travel in style. If you want to use it at a gig, put it in its own carrying case to avoid a fender-bender.

I e-mailed Danelectro about a week ago to ask their support team a tech. question. I have yet to receive an answer. That is the extent of my dealings with them. I have never had to get any of my Dano fx pedals repaired.

I play mostly guitar-oriented rock, drawing from every conceivable musical influence. I've been playing off-and-on for about fifteen years. I also own a couple of solid-state rigs, but rarely use them(they are good practice rigs). As of now, I definitely would replace this pedal if it were lost or stolen. It does have its niche, though. It is not for everyone, especially not a true purist(find yourself a tube-driven Wah!). It looks too much like a toy. If my son ever got his hands on it, he would surely add it to his Hot Wheels collection! I happen to like it. It is what it is and it does its job well. Another fine pedal from the boys at Danelectro(and I hate their guitars!). I only wish it had a true bypass to put my weary soul at ease.

Now this is a great deal, a very slick wah pedal with lots of preset buttons to vary the tone range, 2 buttons to switch between 2 wah settings, a fuzztone and octave function, and great looks.

Good tones, low noise, good pedal action, pretty heavy-duty case. A lot better than a whole slew of other wah pedals out now, including the vintage ones. Kicks butt on the Morley (old and new - the new Morley pedals create a ton of noise when you press the switches), and it is a keeper. I'm using with a stock Strat and various tube amps. Distortion/fuzz is passable but not adjustable - you won't use it much but the wah tones are quite good but don't expect radical shifts in tone. All the presets are rather subtle variations on a theme.

Appears to be pretty good but I would expect with overuse the push buttons might fail or get noisy, as all the switching appears to be mechanical rather than electronic.

??? I haven't contacted Danelectro.

All of the promo pictures show adjustable wheels on either side of the pedal to adjust the tones HOWEVER all of the dealers have the pedals without the wheels. When I inquired of Guitar Center (where I bought the pedal new) how come they gave me the non-wheel model, they checked with Danelectro (supposedly) and told me that the wheel model had been discontinued and all that was available was the non-wheel model. Now I wanted the pedal with the adjustable wheels so I've been checking around on Ebay and elsewhere and no vendor seems to have the wheels model. If you know of anyone that does, please email me at peter_silberg@email.com.