Any thoughts on the Dano Rocky Road?

[Brad]

I picked one up ( like new ) a few weeks ago for $15.00. I have not had the time to even plug it in yet, but for the $$, I could not pass it up. I've read and heard conflicting reviews on these things. Problems with the gain etc. Anyone know how the mod for bringing it to unity gain works? What about the sound? Is it usefull? Thanks!

[Silverface]

If you look in the Harmony Central site reviews, the details for the mod are in one of them.

Now for my take.

1) Without the mod the thing is awful. The gain boost is not only dumb, but noisy. Nobody seems to know what Dano was thinking when they made the thing with an automatic gain boost. It's abysmal.

2) After the mod it has unity gain. The mod does require really good precision soldering skills, BTW. If you aren't good, don't even think about it.

3) With unity gain it sounds like a variable speed chorus pedal. And a somewhat bland chorus to boot IMO. The ramping function (which changes speeds slowly like a Leslie) is the only attraction...but the buttons are so close together (and darned hard to engage) given the small size of the thing it's tough to operate with normal-size human feet.

For fifteen bucks it could be fun to fool with, but honestly I'd not pay a dime more than that for one.

As always, ymmv....

[rickyralph]

just useless,what was i thinkin?59.99 + tax = 5 minutes of wonder then days of regret. oh well its not the first bad choice i made. tuna melt 39.99 now that ones useable. rickyralph

[hippietim]

Silverface is part right :) Without the mod, the gain is lame. The knobs are too tiny (like all Dano mini pedals).

The mod is not hard though. I'm not particularly gifted with a soldering iron but I did it in a few minutes. Just take your time and be careful taking the thing apart. Also, make sure you DON'T do the mod that some folks suggest that is to slop a gob of solder over R44. Do the mod on this page:

http://home.attbi.com/~adamsjohn/rocky_road.htm

It is completely reversible and quite simple.

I have come to acquire a large number of pedals over the last several months and can honestly say this is a unique and interesting pedal that has found a home with me. It sounds quite nice after the mod. It is very lush and smooth. The distortion isn't very usable (so if you break a knob, don't worry - you only need one anyhow). The ramp feature is kind of cool too.

I wish I got one for $15 - you did well - I paid 40 bucks for mine! Now you just need about 10-20 minutes with a small screw driver and a soldering iron and you will have a very cool pedal.

Hey rickyralph, did you try the mod? It makes a big difference.

[Brad]

Thanks for the link for the mod Tim. I was gonna try the glob-o-solder. Now, I'll do this one. looks like a piece of cake. Visual always works better for me than written instruction! Reading about how to do the mod made it seem more difficult than it is. See ya!

[aussie_bat]

Originally Posted by hippietim

Silverface is part right :) Without the mod, the gain is lame. The knobs are too tiny (like all Dano mini pedals).

The mod is not hard though. I'm not particularly gifted with a soldering iron but I did it in a few minutes. Just take your time and be careful taking the thing apart. Also, make sure you DON'T do the mod that some folks suggest that is to slop a gob of solder over R44. Do the mod on this page:

http://home.attbi.com/~adamsjohn/rocky_road.htm

It is completely reversible and quite simple.

I have come to acquire a large number of pedals over the last several months and can honestly say this is a unique and interesting pedal that has found a home with me. It sounds quite nice after the mod. It is very lush and smooth. The distortion isn't very usable (so if you break a knob, don't worry - you only need one anyhow). The ramp feature is kind of cool too.

I wish I got one for $15 - you did well - I paid 40 bucks for mine! Now you just need about 10-20 minutes with a small screw driver and a soldering iron and you will have a very cool pedal.

Hey rickyralph, did you try the mod? It makes a big difference.

[B]Hi,

Does anyone have a copy of the RR mod info 'adamsjohn' link above is dead for me - all the forums link to it and I'm desparate to fix the RR boot issue?

Thanks in advance!!![/B]

[ruger9]

Bumpimg... might be picking one up, and want to make sure I do the CORRECT mod... not the "solder glop" mod. Can anybody give details or a link to the RIGHT mod?

[zombiwoof]

Originally Posted by ruger9

Bumpimg... might be picking one up, and want to make sure I do the CORRECT mod... not the "solder glop" mod. Can anybody give details or a link to the RIGHT mod?

I think in the Harmony Central reviews there is a link to the mod, it involves a wire jumper between two points on the back of the board. Really simple.
Danelectro introduced a Cool Cat version of the pedal at NAMM a couple of years ago, they even had one there, but as of yet it hasn't come out. I don't know what happened to it:

http://www.effectsdatabase.com/model...ro/coolcat/cs1

Al

[ruger9]

HC reviews does not describe the mod, except very vaguely... the link everyone provided to the actual mod info is a 404 (page no longer exists.)

[zombiwoof]

Originally Posted by ruger9

HC reviews does not describe the mod, except very vaguely... the link everyone provided to the actual mod info is a 404 (page no longer exists.)

I did a net search to find the mod, and you're right, the whole web page that contained the mod is gone. I think I printed it out at some point, but have no idea where I put the printout. Too bad, it's really easy. I need to find it again to do the mod to my pedal, too.

Al

[ruger9]

Here's the most useful I found... FWIW, a modder in this thread found what he thinks is a BETTER mod than the "replace R44 with a jumper", which I think is what the original mod was. Not sure which mod I'm going to do yet... have to decide when I hear the pedal if it would be worth any more than a simple mod...

http://freestompboxes.org/viewtopic.php?f=11&t=2020

Be sure to read to the END of that thread... the guy who did it tried several different mods, and the last post he tells what he thought the best of the mods were. My RR probably won't be here until thurs, so I won't be able to mod it until this weekend...

Having owned an Option5, Line6, Rotosim, & Rotosphere, it should be interesting what I think of the modded RR...

[ruger9]

Tell you what, I just modded a Danelectro Rocky Road...

...and it's darned good. It's supposedly simulating a vibrotone, not a leslie (vibrotone has no horn?), anyway...

UNmodded, the thing, as widely reported, has too much volume jump, too much gain, too much treble, and too much hiss.

MODDED... this stupid little $40 pedal kicks butt. Seriously. It would never beat my (now sold) beloved Rotosphere in a shootout, but I'll tell you what... 1 resistor and 1 capacitor later, and this little box has me NO LONGER GASSING for a "stop gap" leslie pedal (something that sound good before I drop money on a Lex or another Rotosphere.) And as much as I use the effect, I'm in no hurry to upgrade. It now has unity volume with the gain control at zero, and no added drive with the drive at zero. I have the drive up at about 9:00, just to add a little.

Seriously- I've owned a bunch of 'em (see above), and the MODDED Rocky Road is actually a fave. It's too small, and probably no good for live use because the footswitches are too close together, but the TONE is there. I prefer it to the Behringer, Line6, and even DLS Rotosim (when switching speeds I also had to change a couple controls...too much tweaking).

If anyone is interested, do the mod on this page... the LAST POST (and the picture before it)... the poster did several things to the pedal, and decided what the simplest & best sounding mod was... 1 cap, 1 resistor, in series with a wire (so no trying to solder resistors on the PCB that are the size of poppy seeds.) I'm THOROUGHLY impressed.

http://freestompboxes.org/viewtopic....e7100&start=20

Pic of the SIMPLE mod:

[Fearnot]

I'm fond of my Rocky Road, but would like to find someone to do the gain mod sometime since I have no faith in my soldering ability. Or maybe the larger Cool Cat version of the pedal will finally appear. Not holding my breath for either.

[ruger9]

You could do it. The only place you solder onto the board is where to solder the cap to ground. Everything else is soldered in the middle of the blue wire, so there's little danger of overheating anything. It's super easy, and it's a DIFFERENT pedal when it's done.