Danelectro DJ-14 Fish & Chips 7-Band EQ

The Danelectro Fish and Chips pedal is a 7 band EQ pedal with an overall volume slider. The pedal has 7 sliders that can cut or boost that frequency by 15dB. The bands available are 100, 200, 400, 800 1.6k, 3.2k, and 6.4k. The pedal can be powered by 9 volt batter or external AC adapter. The pedal is very small when compared to a Boss sized pedal. A mono input and a mono output are available.

UTILIZATION

This pedal is another pedal from the Dano Food series. Like all the other pedals from this series, it is a pedal that is made of plastic. This worried me at first glance but after owning a few pedals from this series I haven’t thought about it since. It is a very reliable pedal and I’ve never heard of any one crushing the shell of the pedal or footswitches breaking. People have lost the tips off the sliders, but that’s no big deal and can be remedied with a little glue. For a plastic pedal these little guys can take a beating. It’s a very straightforward layout and the sliders seem sturdy and hold your settings well.

SOUND QUALITY

The Fish and Chips really lets you shape the tone of your gear. It lets you craft your sound to the exact frequencies you hear in your head. I love low powered tube amps, but once you get down to 10 to 15 watters, they really start cutting back on features. A lot of micro amps cut back on the EQ sections, and that’s where an EQ pedal really comes in handy to make these amps useful. It is also good in the loop of larger amps to help shape the overall tone. The pedal makes a great solo boost because you can not only adjust the overall volume of the solo using the volume slider, you can also boost the frequencies that really let your guitar cut through a dense mix and stand out like a solo should. This pedal does have a buffered output and there may be a little bit of high end loss, but it’s very slight. This pedal is no where near as noisy as the GE-7 from Boss. I much prefer the Danelectro version.

OVERALL OPINION

Overall this is a pretty good EQ pedal, and a great one at this price. It does do a great job of shaping your tone and allowing you to boost your volume or certain frequencies. The MXR offerings are very nice EQ pedals, and I use one now, but my Danelectro has lasted for years and I had no real complaints with it other than opting for something different. The Boss GE-7 that I had previously been using was bumped for the Fish and Chips because the Danelectro is a much quieter operating pedal, at least in my different rigs. For 30 US dollars, there isn’t much else in it’s marketplace, and it’s probably because a company would need to do a lot of research to figure out a way to make a better EQ pedal for the price. Great tweakability on the cheap.

Danelectro is a company known for making cheap garbage guitars since the 50s. They also make cheap pedals and unlike their guitars their pedals are usable. The Fish & Chips EQ is a pretty basic EQ but it does everything it says it should. It is based on a Boss EQ pedal. It has 7 bands of adjustment with a boost level. This pedal shows that you dont have to pay 100+ dollars for just a little EQ pedal.

UTILIZATION

There is no free lunch. The low cost of this pedal comes at a price. The pedal is no where near sturdy feeling. If you step on it too hard it feels like it may break. The chassis is made out of plastic so that should tell you. This is not really a pedal you should be stomping on and off all night. This is a set it and forget it pedal or something you put in your rack. The sliders are nice and have an indentation in the middle so you can tell when you are 50/50.

SOUND QUALITY

The money they saved on the chassis went into the tone of this pedal. It sounds really good. It is a lot quieter than EQ models costing twice as much. With the boost feature you can use it as a clean boost or boost up a certain section of yoru sound. Dialing in some high mids can really make your sound cut through if you are in a thick mix or running a thick gain setting on your amp. Dialing in some lows can really add some meat to a strat or teles sound.

OVERALL OPINION

This pedal shows not everything in your pedal board has to be super boutique and rare. This pedal is like 20 bucks and gets the job done as good as any other 7 band EQ will and you can use it as a clean boost. If you are looking for a nice cheap EQ to fill out your pedal board with this is a good option.

The Danelectro Fish & Chips EQ is aimed at taking on the Boss GE-7. It features 7 bands of EQs with a +/- 15dB boost on each frequency. There's also an output slider which helps bring the level to exactly where you need it. Like most of these kinds of Danelectro pedals, it's a budget pedal. You can tell that by just stomping on it. That said, given its price, it's somewhat understandable.

UTILIZATION

The Danelectro pedal feels cheap with its small plastic housing. However, with years of gigging, it's always been one of the more reliable pedals I've had on my board. I've jumped on the thing without any issues before, so the plastic is actually quite strong. The sliders have a nice center detent, and they have just the right amount of resistance when moving them.

SOUND QUALITY

The sound is where this thing really excels. It totally blows the Boss out of the water in terms of overall tone and noise. The noise ratio on this is crazy low. I'm surprised a surface mount board built by penny pinchers were able to be so good. Danelectro really outdid themselves with this in terms of the overall tone. I can't harp on that enough. It can do more than just tone shaping, too. If you run it out front, you can simulate an overdrive pedal. It works great for slamming amps into overdrive goodness. Definitely try it in both the loop and out front.

OVERALL OPINION

If you're looking for an EQ pedal, I really recommend checking this out. It's a fraction of the Boss GE-7, but it sounds way better. It's very transparent, and the noise level is quite low. Given its price, it's almost a sin not to have one at least somewhere in your pedal collection. I just wish the housing was a bit sturdier. Even though I never broke it, a metal enclosure would help bring peace of mind.

This is an equalizer. It can also function as a volume booster, which is great. I believe it is a digital effect. It cannot be edited via computer. It is a floor pedal,so it's not rackable. It has input and output as well as connector for 9v/dc power supply.

UTILIZATION

The general configuration is your standard 7-band equalizer. I don't know anything about equalizers and setting them for specific applications. This is where the manual/instructions came in. I made it easy to tweak the slider controls and get various tones from the unit. There are 3 sample presets: barb-eq for blues or 70's rock, scooped for metal, and curly Q for God knows what?

SOUND QUALITY

This unit provides top notch equalization for under $35. When you stomp on it and engage it's effect, it is almost like you just engaged a sonic maximizer. It makes your tone jump to life and just improves its presence that much more. It also works great as a volume booster for solos. Just slide the level to over 1/2 all the way to full, then stomp on it when you're solo begins! There's nothing I really don't like about the tones from this thing. (Aside from perhaps the "Curly Q" setting, which I'm still not sure what it's for.)

OVERALL OPINION

I have been using this unit since the beginning of this year. I think it is an essential part of your pedal chain, and even though I could survive without it, I'd rather not go without it. It just improves your tone and presence so much more. I've looked at so many distortion pedals as a volume boost, when all I had to do was look at this and I've got not only a volume booster, but a clean volume booster as well. I looked at the boss eq, but it was too expensive for me. I looked at dod and digitech, and they were too cheap looking. With this unit, I get the perfect blend of quality sound and construction as well as great monetary value. Until I can afford a good rack unit equalizer, this will do the trick just fine.