Customer Reviews

Danelectro DJ-15 Chicken Salad Vibrato Mini Effects Pedal

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I wish I had known the truth about this pedal before spending $150.00 on a different uni-vibe clone that crapped out on me anyway. This pedal is not a "vibrato", but a uni-vibe imitator that sounds quite good. People are buying these up, re-housing them in metal enclosures with psychedelic paint jobs, and voila! You have what seems like a boutique pedal. If you're looking to explore the uni-vibe sound, but don't want to pay through the nose for the "real thing" or a boutique clone, GET ONE OF THESE! And don't sweat the plastic housing - they're fine as long as you treat them fairly.

I got this used for $22 because I wanted to do the Univibe mod to it. When I played it before the mod, I was surprised at how good it sounded. I ended up doing the mod anyway, and it sounds gorgeous -- creamy and watery, good clean, or with overdrive or distortion. Don't be fooled when you see reviews that say it's good for the price. That's true of the whole package (cheap, visually unappealing housing), but not the sound. The sound is _great_ for the price. If this were housed in a sturdy Hammond 1590 enclosure (or even a boss style enclosure), I would gladly have paid $20-$30 more than I did (used).

The takeaway is that the get-what-you-pay-for drawback is in the enclosure, not the sound. If I were to start playing out again, this sound would be worth rehousing in a sturdier enclosure and using regularly.

This little guy blew me away. It is the photo cell Uni-vibe circuit in a cheap box. It is a bit fragile looking with knobs that look like they would shear off, but Dano has a little plastic guard now that protects the knobs, so that's not so much an issue. I have a real '70 era red Fuzz Face and a re-issue Vox wah I plug into a mid-eighties JCM 800(vertical input)50 watt 4010 combo. My band played a gig last summer and we pulled out Hendrix's "Hear My Train a Commin'". I had the Marshall preamp full up and the master on six or seven. Stepped on this pedal while doing a one handed hammer on to intro the song and the other bands guitar players all came over to me to see what was making that sound. Hit the Fuzz Face on the solo's and I had Jimi's sound nailed. There are more expensive versions of this circuit that are probably made tougher, but, this is so cheap, all you have to do is take care of it. The only "problem" with this is you NEED to power it with a power supply of some sort. The old circuit draws a lot of power so a battery will last an hour at most. That is not a fault in the pedal, but just a fact of life involving the circuit componets. Just get it. If you upgrade to a better made one, you can give this to your little brother or something.

Sounds pretty good and was very inexpensive. It definitely gives you a taste of the univibe sound for a fraction of the cost. Caution though, it does seem to be power hungry and can go through a nine volt battery fairly quickly. When the battery gets low (which happens gradually), you lose the intensity of the vibe sound, almost to the point where it sounds like it isn't doing much of anything. Run it from an ac adapter and problem solved. This is the same way my brother's vintage voodoo labs microvibe behaves so I suspect the circuits are similar. The microvibe is better sounding, but for the money the chicken salad is great. Received the product quickly, packaged well, and included a plastic protective shroud for keeping the knobs from getting damaged. A great buy.

This is a pretty cool pedal for the price. I'm not all that big on vibrato, but I did the cost free and easy mods and its far more useable.

I was very disappointed with the sound of this unit. The "vibe" effect (it's actually a Univibe-type effect, not true vibrato) sounded very "fake" to me (not at all like the Cool Cat Vibe from the same company). There was a noticeable volume drop when the effect was engaged, and I also heard some noise in my signal chain when the effect was not engaged. Combined with the (known) cheap construction, that made this pedal a big disappointment.

Based on YouTube videos, I'm going to give the Cool Cat Vibe a try... it seems to have a much more realistic Univibe sound (and apparently uses the same optical technology as the original Univibe): Danelectro CV1 Cool Cat Vibe Pedal