HISTORY:

Danelectro oozes USA musical history although this pedal has very little connection with the original Danelectro other than in name because since Danelectro's formation in the late 1940s, the company has undergone quite a number of organisational, ownership and product line changes and when this pedal was released in the late 90's, the name Danelectro was owned by Evets Corporation. This is one of their effect pedal offerings and it does a pretty good job and thankfully it has a much better build than the little FAB series plastic pedals!

The whole purpose in life of this pedal is to give the musician access to those old analog tape sounds and effects ... and more! I don't recall any tape based effects units that could provide 1.5 seconds delay ...

While not limited to, musicians who work in the ambient, post rock, rockabilly or shoegaze genre's could find this pedal's capabilities to be extremely interesting.

Basically it is a simulator of the old reel tape delays and while not quite like the "real thing" it does a pretty good job. You can create warm, atmospheric, analog tape delay "sounds" packed into a nice tough solid METAL case (although pretty large for a pedal of this type) and it is easy to manage. Suitable for both live stage work or in the studio, we always had this one in the studios - it has never seen a live gig in it's life!

I am a techie by trade (or was until I retired) so I am also going to describe what I found inside and my thoughts that came to mind .... let's describe this box of tricks

DANELECTRO - Reel Echo

Magnetic Tape Delay Simulator

Released to the market in the late 1990's, I think we purchased this one around 2004

Effects provided:

Authentic (but simulated, there is no mag tape inside!) analog tape delay experience

Delay is variable up to 1.5 seconds

Multi-track layering is possible using the SOS (Sound On Sound) stomp switch (left side)

Tape warble control (to simulate "natural" pitch variance)

Taken by themselves, these effects are nothing too startling but when the musician begins to mix and play around a bit, some very interesting effects can be achieved.

Housed is a strong (steel not Aluminium) stylish two part case (top section and lower section) which is coloured primarily a surf Green colour topside and Brown underside.

Being steel, this is quite heavy at 1.4Kg but at least it doesn't move all over the floor when the stomps are used

Probably more important is the size, this is no midget pedal, the dimensions are:

236mm wide x 164mm front to back x 51mm height (including the rubber feet)

INSIDE THE BOX

My technical background drives me to investigate the inside of any electronic equipment, to see how it was engineered and the general construction standards.

This unit is firstly very easy to "open up", just remove the four feet screws on the underside plus 2 further screws on the rear. The two steel case sections now nicely separate to reveal the main board plus another board which is really just for the stomp switches and RED leds.

Technology used is SMD and the active devices are:

4x TL072C (Dual JFET Op amp)

HCF4053 (Analog multiplexer/demultiplexer)

3x HC373 (Octal digital latches)

HC137 (Decoder/Demultiplexer)

2x IS61C256L-12TL1 (256K SRAM)

06DDLDT (unable to identify the function - custom?)

88AK03M (unable to identify the function - custom?)

ATTINY2313-20SU (8 bit uController, this is the brains of the unit)

PCM3500E (unable to identify the function - custom?)

What does all that mean? This has some analog Op amps (TL072C's) but the rest are basically digital beasties. While most are not difficult to obtain (if replacement was ever required) I could not identify 3 of them and the uController has 2K bytes of flash so you cannot replace that without having the software required for flashing.

All this seems to be a moot point because I have not seen or heard of anyone having issues with the main board, it is usually the external stuff that wears out, such as the jacks, the slider or the stomp switches.

I checked the quiescent current drawn and it is only 50mA, so even running on the small 9V battery will be fine for many hours.

Note that, in common with many pedals, the unit is only powered ON when a jack plug is inserted into the INPUT jack.

You can alternately power this pedal from a 9V plugpack, just make sure the centre pin is negative and that the DC provided is "clean" and not noisy.

The case mounted jacks are all wired to the mainboard, not directly to the PCB - I cannot tell the brand of fully enclosed jacks used (this is important being that the ports are used to "talk" to the outside world) but they look in great shape and of a good build quality.

The knobs are "real men" meaning they are solid Aluminium, not those el-cheapo plastic knobs painted in a metallic colour, all knobs are secured to the control shaft using hex grub screws.

The labelling on the case looks to be screen printed onto the metal, there is a plastic facia used in the well area (where the two large knobs are with a graphic of some tape between them)

If ever work was required on this unit, it's a snap to get access to most areas - the most likely components to fail over time would be the stompers, the jacks and perhaps the delay time slider pot - all are easy to access.

BRIEF NOTES ABOUT WHAT YOU CAN DO WITH THIS UNIT AND SOME COMMENTS:

The large Aluminium knob on the left is your mix control, the mix between clean and echo signals (wet and dry). The large Aluminium knob on the right is the feedback-repeat or control knob, call it what you will. The length of delay is controlled by the 100mm throw slider pot.

Nothing special so far but wait there's more ...

There is a Lo-Fi control, which cuts the high end successively on each repeat. Another control is the Warble switch, intended to simulate the sound of a stretched magnetic tape.

Over on the other side, opposite the Warble switch, is another switch to select either a solid state type of sound or tube sound, it just alters to overall filtering of the sound output.

Perhaps one of the most interesting functions available is the SOS stomp switch. Think of an old analog loop recorder ... this provides the possibilities of recording a loop, playing it on infinite repeat and then if the SOS switch is used, you can play live over this loop.

This pedal was only used within our premises, in the studios and never on stage. Quite frankly it's a big phat one to have on stage and some of the effects were more suited to studio work in any case.

I have checked the pedal operation and all is well with the world ... all controls working and the TEMPO indicator flashes at different frequencies, depending upon the slider position (delay time)

If I was to make any negative comment, it is that dicky little battery cover underneath. It is the only piece of plastic on the unit and it is a "click fit" cover - this type of cover is so easy to lose so the new owner needs to be careful about this.

I strongly recommended that anyone who has not experienced one of these pedals at least take a good hard look around online - LOTS of positive comments and also some negatives (nothing is perfect!). Read and absorb, sift through the dribble and then decide for yourself if this is just what you need for a "new sound"

Here is a 5 minute video that may be helpful as well ...