Good use of a diminished chord?

I was wondering if anyone has an example of a good progression using a diminished chord, every time I try to throw one in it sounds like crap, but there must be a good lead to it, other examples on the net I have tried, like I ii VII* I and I iii VII* I, it still has too much dissonance for me...any ideas?

a little progression that i used in a song is Em, D, C#dim. i think it sounds pretty good. someone will probably go into it with a bunch of theory that i wont understand, but i say just play around, you can also check the "Chord Progression" tool on this site to find out what diminished chords would be in that key

This site has a ton of common chord progressions, many of which have some very tasteful uses of dim or dim7 chords. Check it out:

http://www.angelfire.com/fl4/moneychords/lesson.html

I for one have found this site to be really useful when I'm stuck in a writing rut.

Afro

dim7's I find are easier to use... especially in jazzier progressions

Em and Eb diminished 7th sound good as arpeggios when you play them all over the neck and invert them and stuff. yngwie does it for a classical sound. i like to use augmented and diminished 7th arpeggios to get a wierd cool sound.

diminished chords are really good as passing tones due to them being built on the leading tone. So to use them don't think diatonically, but that's far from all they can due try using a diminished triad(the vii of the scale) as a sub for a dominant chord(V of the scale). so a B diminished triad for a G7. 3rd inversions are best for this too.

Afro Raven:

Thanks for the link for the above site. I just spent an hour or so on it and find it really useful. The topics I clicked on gave a good mix of theory and practical examples. I was able to come back to this site and get even more out of the great tools available (like Chord progressions).