Customer Reviews

Danelectro DJ-3C BLT Echo Mini Effects Pedal

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

 

 

Danelectro products range from exceedingly cool (and cost effective), to laughably cheesy (useless at any price). For those smitten by the rock sounds and vibes of yesteryear (like myself), Dano has perfectly captured the retro/vintage/kitsch corner of the gadget market.

The BLT unquestionably falls into the 'exceedingly cool' category. It is definitely a one trick pony, but 29 bucks buys one fun trick. The BLT replicates to perfection the nearly omnipresent slap-back echo of the 50's used by Scotty Moore, Duane Eddy, et al. The BLT doesn't have much in the way of latitude (let's say it nicks surf and rockabilly and leave it at that), is not programmable (who cares), and is probably a little less than durable. I guess if one wants to crunch a pedal under an engineer boot, Boss might be the way to go. But Boss can't keep up w/ this little gem.

The BLT is very quiet. The bypass doesn't color the stock sound whatsoever. With the tiny mix nob at about 4:30, and the slapback nob at 11:00, I get a perfect "Rebel 'rouser" sound from neck position on my Tele. I play through a Silvertone 1484 head, and employ the freaky 'verb and excellent tremolo for the finishing touches. I don't need a 3K Gretch or Gib to get down to business. The sound has that certain distant tin can/transistor radio thing, and the slap-back is simply the bomb.

Unless a person is extremely interested in exploring the possibilties of Echoplex-type knock-offs, 30 bucks will buy all the Sun Studios stink they'll ever need.

Go, kat, go.

Judging by its small size, plastic construction, and cheesy 50's retro design, you would think this is a toy. It ain't. Danelectro products do range in quality from awesome to downright pathetic. This little box is definitely the former. If you're a rockabilly guitar player and are on a limited budget, then you NEED this. This is pure Sun Studios/Scotty Moore slapback echo."Gene Vincent cruisin' in a '49 Merc with Bettie Page next to him" stuff. VERY VERY retro and cool. However, with the repeat and mix knobs maxed out you can get some really cool, spacy,psychedelic/60's horror movie soundtrack stuff going on.Not a setting you'd wanna use all the time, but it could have some uses and it's fun to mess around with. However, my only beef with this is the construction. It hasn't failed on me yet, but you don't wanna go stomping like a caveman with your size twelve Doc Martins on this thing, because it's definitely gonna break. Act like a sane human with this thing. Also, the knobs are really tiny. The mix knob on mine broke off. I got it back in, but it still falls out occasionally and I gotta get down on my hands and knees and hunt for it.And also, if you're gonna gig with this, use it in a pedalboard or with an adaptor, because this thing eats batteries quick, and when the battery does die, you'll hear a loud repeating "SKRREEEE SKRREEE SKREEEEEE!!" Not good in the middle of a gig! But still, for the money, this thing is EXCELLENT, and if you gig a lot or tour you can get these cheap enough that you can easily afford a box full of these to have backups when one goes down. I almost never play without it switched on.However, if you're wanting to sound like the Edge, get a proper delay pedal, like the Danelectro Dan-Echo. This thing is a SLAPBACK ECHO. That's all it does, and it does it's one job very well. Overall, excellent value for the money.

....you'll like this pedal! If you turn the 2 knobs full up, you'll get the woo-woo-woo.... sound that he made famous.
But,play around with the settings & you'll get a nice mix of effect & natural tone. WELL worth the meager price. I just wished it wasn't made of cheap plastic & you could add a pedal to it that could manipulate the tomes it makes. Its inconvenient to have to turn the knobs while you play.
All in all,its a very good pedal.

For the first 30 years of being a "professional musician," I eschewed any little toys. I mean, I play BASS, for Heaven's sake! But in 2004, some good friends gave me "pornography to a guitarist," a bright red Tele-cousic...and 6 months later, after I was FINALLY able to get over the "standing in front of a mirror with the thing, copping good 'Keef' poses" problem. And I thought, "well, hey...I don't have anything but my little el-cheapo/Taco 'Squirer' amp and my truly-decent-but-still-the-same-size, Peavy amp to run this thing thru." So I asked the local music purveyor about a phase-shifter and a reverb pedal. As it turned out (and to my good fortune), he didn't have my request; but he DID have a Dano "Phaser" and a Dano Reverb pedal. I purchased the two...and I have been an unmitigated Danelectro Mini-Effects Pedal FREAK ever since. I was even able to procure a couple of the little blue five-pedal-carrying-case/stomp box things before Dano evidentally quit making them. So now I have an effects case thing for both my bass and my guitar. And for the bass, instead of the reverb and tremelo pedals, I just purchased the "BLT Echo" pedal. No, nothing will make one sound like Bill Black at Sun Studio in 1955...but this little darling comes damn close. You can twiddle the knobs on the thing to make yourself sound like, um, "Heartbreak Hotel," or, um, like you're playing in an ornately-tiled bathroom shower stall or something. As I said, I bought the reverb pedal to make my Tele-coustic sound halfway decent coming thru rwo ******-rigged 12" speaker bass amps. But when you play a BASS thru the "BLT..." well, depending on how "good" you are, you can closely...VERY CLOSELY "approximate" Bill Black/Stanley Clarke/Bill Wyman/Duck Dunn/even Jaco depending, of course, on your own talent. I haughtily disdained pedals of any sort as mere "toys" up until 2004. Now, thanks to my Buddy @ the local musical accouterment store, PLUS my prized new Hartke Kickback 12 bass amp. I would not DREAM of playing anywhere without either.

I bought a reproduction of a Valco tube amp of the 50s from Vintage47. True to the reproduction, there was no reverb on the amp. This box was a cheap way to add it. The only downside are the little silver knobs which pop off easily, but I just set them where I wanted them (not a real wide range of sound offered up by the knobs anyway)and held them in place with a piece of electric tape. The result -- a very nice reverb/echo effect on my vintage repro tube amp which I use primarily for lap steel. If you don't need something heavy duty to stomp on, and don't want to put out a lot of money, this is a nice solution to get some cool 50s reverb/echo into your tone.

I watched a guitar training video of Jimmy Dillon who was talking about his set-up in which he uses a Danelectro Slapback Echo unit. However, trying to find that particular unit to purchase myself was a bit like hunting for the proverbial needle. I did find this unit and sent for it hoping it would be similar. Try as I might, and I have spent hours doing just that, I cannot get anywhere near the results that Jimmy Dillon suggests and can only surmise that there are far less similarities between the two than can be judged without trying it first. That is my advice to anyone else thinking of buying this echo FX box; find some way to try before you buy.