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 | Download Example 1 Clean/Dirty |
| Download Example 2 Shred |
Meet It
The STD1 is Atomic’s baseline model: a basswood Strat-style body and a bolt-on maple neck and fingerboard with a 25.5” scale length. The simple design houses a single Seymour Duncan JB humbucker and comes standard with a Gotoh hardtail bridge and Hipshot tuners. The model reviewed came in a blindingly bright canary yellow urethane finish with all black hardware, and it may very well be the lightest guitar I’ve ever played. It also shares a standard feature with all Atomic guitars, the Atomic Direct Mount Pickup System, which bolts the pickup right to the body using a clever mounting system that really increases both sustain and harmonic resonance. The appointments are simple and to the point, and everything is built by hand (no CNC) by Tim Mulqueeny and Harry Howard in their two-man, Peoria, AZ shop, just outside Phoenix.
Touch It
Did I mention this guitar is light? I’ve played some featherweight guitars that fell flat tonally, but that is not the case with the STD1. Not only will it save you a trip to the chiropractor after a long night, it’s sonically well balanced, with plenty of snap and pop as well as a solid bottom end. You can see why basswood remains popular—not only is it affordable, it’s toneful stuff.
The hand-carved neck is neither too slim nor too chunky, and the ease of play (the action is low without being ridiculous) make it a highly addictive guitar. The Tung oil finish seals the neck just enough to protect it, yet retains the feel of an unfinished raw wood neck. This once again adds to the fun factor. While the unfinished feel might not appeal to all players, I found it to be a welcome detail, and something that would form itself to my touch over time.
Over the course of the review I developed an organic connection with the guitar. I think the fun is built into its DNA; it’s constructed by hand from start to finish by people who live to build guitars. You can feel the care that was taken in each step, and some of the imperfections add to its appeal. Small details, like the black painted pickup cavity ever-soslightly showing a masking line between it and the yellow body paint reminds you that this was made by a person, not some factory cranking out product in the thousands. It’s charming—it brought me back to the days when saving up for a guitar was exciting, and the anticipation of what it would turn out like kept me up at night. Since all of the guitars are built by hand, they’re all going to be slightly different. Sure, Atomic has templates to work with, but the small details in the finishing and sanding of the necks are going to make each guitar feel like a custom instrument. In fact there’s no way around it; each guitar is unique from the next.
Plug It In
Plugging in the STD1 was a great experience. All of the acoustic properties of the guitar translated well into the variety of amps I tried it through. Because it’s a simple design, with just a volume knob and nothing to get between it and the amp, its personality shines through. The guitar easily spit out aggressive lead lines with plenty of chime through a Lee Jackson modified Marshall Superlead, and was able to chunk out 80s metal riffs with focus and conviction. Through an AC30 the sparkle of the basswood/maple team pronounced itself and commanded attention with incredible detail. On a silverface Fender it was a virtual chameleon, letting the amp shine while retaining a personality of its own. I found after playing the STD1 for a while that even one of my favorite mahogany-bodied/maple-neck shredder guitars seemed a bit off balance tonally, showing more of a darker and duller tone that left me a bit, er… flat. The perfectly dressed 6105 frets and nice, thick maple cap fingerboard ensured there wasn’t a single dead spot to be found on the neck, and the perfectly cut nut let the open strings ring out naturally without buzzing or tuning issues. While this particular model came with a reverse headstock, Atomic offers it in a standard configuration as well, for players who prefer the conventional tuners-on-top style.
The Final Mojo
Maybe it’s the 325 days of sunshine a year in Phoenix that makes this guitar such a bright prospect, or maybe it’s the fact that Tim and Harry at Atomic Guitar Works have figured out a magic formula. Either way, they offer all of us the opportunity to own a genuine American, hand-made electric guitar of fantastic quality for an MSRP of $895 (with a gig bag). And if you want more options, like an additional pickup, different hardware or wood choices (they offer gorgeous tops and finishes), they’re ready to take it to the next level and beyond. For me, the Atomic STD1 proves that in this day and age you don’t have to break the bank to get a killer guitar from an American company, and that’s refreshing. There’s your economic stimulus package!
Buy if...
you want a quality hand-built, American made rock machine for under a grand.
Skip if...
you need more features than a single humbucker, stop tail and volume control.
Rating...
MSRP $895 - Atomic Guitar Works - atomicguitarworks.com |
Vox’s Valvenergy Tone Sculptor
I spent a day workshopping ideas in my studio using just the Vox Valvenergy Smooth Impact compressor and Tone Sculptor EQ, and a dash of amp tremolo and reverb to taste. In the process, I produced more arresting sounds than I had heard from my guitars in many days. There were radical direct-to-desk-style Jimmy Page/Beatles distortion tones, sun-sized, cosmic electric 12-string, Bakersfield twang that could burn through crude, and many other sweet and nasty colors. Most decent EQ and compressor combinations can achieve variations on all those themes. But the Smooth Impact and Tone Sculptor also reveal interesting personalities in unexpected places.
The individuality and energy in the Vox Valvenergy pedals is attributable, in part, to the Nutube vacuum tube used in the circuit. Though it looks little like a vacuum tube as most guitarists know them, the thin, wafer-like Nutube is, in fact, a real vacuum tube like those used in fluorescent displays. Fluorescent display tubes have limitations. A maximum operating voltage of around 40 volts means they aren’t useful for bigger power tube applications like a 6L6, which has an operating voltage of about 400 volts. But it can work quite well as a preamp tube in concert with an op amp power section, which is how the Nutube is used in the new Valvenergy pedals, as well as older Vox products like the Vox MV50 and Superbeetle amps.
Valvenergy Tone Sculptor
When you think about “cinematic” effects, you likely imagine big reverb or modulation sounds that create a vivid picture and feeling of space or motion. But narrow, hyper-focused EQ profiles can evoke very different and equally powerful images. Radical EQ settings can add aggression, claustrophobic intimacy, and stark, explosive dark-and-light contrasts more evocative of Hitchcock’s Psycho than Ridley Scott’s Blade Runner.
Any of these moods can be summoned from the Valvenergy Tone Sculptor. Six sliders cut or boost 10 dB frequency bands spanning 100 Hz to 5.6 kHz. A seventh slider cuts or boosts the master output by 12 dB. This platter of options might not sound like much. But you can use these seven controls together to very specific ends.
“Radical EQ settings can add aggression, near-claustrophobic intimacy, and stark, explosive dark-and-light contrasts.”
For example, bumping the high-midrange and the master output produces narrow cocked-wah-like filter sounds with enough push to produce extra amp overdrive—effectively turning the Tone Sculptor into a buzzy, almost fuzz-like filter effect. But unlike a wah, you can carefully scoop high end or add a spoonful of bass to blunt harsh frequencies or give the tone a bit more weight. You can also broaden the palette of an amp/guitar pairing. I matched a particularly trebly Jazzmaster bridge pickup with a very hot and toppy Vox AC15-flavored amp for this test—a recipe that can be spiky on the best days. But with the Tone Sculptor in the line, I could utilize the same sharp, fuzzy, and filtered Mick Ronson wah tones while shaving some of the most piercing frequencies.
EQ pedals exist on many points along the cost spectrum. And at $219, the Tone Sculptor lives on the high side of the affordable range. Does it offer something less expensive models can’t deliver? Well, for one thing, I found it relatively quiet, which is nice whether you’re shaping toppy high-contrast effects or performing more surgical adjustments. And the sliders feel nuanced and nicely tapered rather than like a dull axe with a few basic frequency notches. But in many situations I also liked the color imparted by the circuit—generated, presumably, by the Nutube. “Color,” in audio terms, is a broad and subjective thing, and one should not necessarily expect the warm, tube-y glow of a vintage tube Pultec. Still, the Tone Sculptor has many forgiving, flattering qualities—typical of studio EQs—that enable fine tuning and experimentation with more radical and creative applications of the effect.
Valvenergy Smooth Impact
As with the Tone Sculptor, the Smooth Impact’s use of Nutube engenders certain expectations. It’s easy to surmise that because Smooth Impact has a vacuum tube in the circuit that it will behave like a little Teletronix LA-2A leveling amplifier. That’s a big ask for a $219 stompbox. On the other hand, the Smooth Impact exhibits some appealing characteristics of studio tube compression. At lower compression levels, it works well as a thickening agent—adding mass without much additional noise. And at higher compression levels it can sound snappy, crisp, and tight without feeling like you’ve bled every trace of overtone from your signal.
The Smooth Impact’s controls aren’t totally atypical. But because it lacks some familiar features like variable attack and release, yet is more complicated than a 1-knob DynaComp, you have to trust your ear to navigate interactions among the controls. The most unfamiliar of these is the 3-way vintage/natural/sag toggle. The first two are defined by preset attack and release settings: Vintage is slow attack and long release, and natural is the opposite. The sag mode’s compression is more like what you get from tube saturation, and it’s useful for adding thickness and complexity to a thin amp tone at modest compression levels.
Though the vintage and natural modes certainly have a different feel, they don’t always sound worlds apart. And like the sag mode, the thing they have in common is the way they enrich lifeless amp output at low to medium compression, with a bit of grind from the tube gain and a little extra makeup gain from the output. At the most aggressive settings, the tube gain can get a little crispy. And really crushing the compression can flatline your tone without adding much in the way of extra sustain. These are limitations common to many compressors with similar features. But unless I was chasing very ultra-snappy Prince and Nile Rodgers fast-funk caricatures, I enjoyed the Smooth Impact most in its in-between ranges, where mass, mild, harmonious drive, and low noise showcase the pedal’s sometimes studio-like personality.
Boss’ firstWaza Tube Amp Expander, built with an integrated power amp that enables boosted signal as well as attenuated sounds, was and remains the OX’s main competition. Both products have copious merits but, at $1,299 (Boss) and $1,499 (Universal Audio), each is expensive. And while both units are relatively compact, they aren’t gear most folks casually toss in a backpack on the way out the door. The new Waza Tube Expander Core, however, just might be. And though it sacrifices some refinements for smaller size, its much-more accessible price and strong, streamlined fundamental capabilities make it a load-box alternative that could sway skeptics.
Micro Manager
The TAE Core is around 7 1/2" wide, just over 7 " long, and fewer than 4 " tall, including the rubber feet. That’s about half the width of an original TAE or OX. The practical upside of this size reduction is obvious and will probably compel a lot of players to use the unit in situations in which they’d leave a full-size TAE at home. The streamlined design is another source of comfort. With just five knobs on its face, the TAE Core has fewer controls and is easier to use than many stompboxes. In fact, the most complicated part of integrating the TAE Core to your rig might be downloading the necessary drivers and related apps.
Connectivity is straightforward, though there are some limitations. You can use TAE Core wirelessly with an iOS or Windows tablet or smartphone, as long as you have the BT-DUAL adaptor (which is not included and sets you back around 40 bucks). However, while desktop computers recognize the TAE Core as a Bluetooth-enabled device, you cannot use the unit wirelessly with those machines. Instead, you have to connect the TAE Core via USB. In a perfectly ordered world, that’s not a big problem. But if you use the TAE Core in a small studio—where one less cable is one less headache—or you prefer to interface with the TAE Core app on a desktop where you can toggle fast and easily between large, multi-track sessions and the app, the inability to work wirelessly on a desktop can be a distraction. The upside is that the TAE Core app itself is, functionally and visually, almost identical in mobile and desktop versions, enabling you to select and drag and drop virtual microphones into position, add delay, reverb, compression, and EQ effects, choose various cabinets with different speaker configurations and sizes, and introduce new rigs and impulse responses to a tone recipe in a flash. And though the TAE Core app lacks some of the photorealistic panache and configuration options in the OX app, the TAE Core’s app is just as intuitive.Less Is More
One nice thing about the TAE Core’s more approachable $699 price is that you don’t have to feel too bad on nights that you “underutilize” the unit and employ it as an attenuator alone. In this role, the TAE Core excels. Even significantly attenuated sounds retain the color and essence of the source tone. Like any attenuator-type device, you will sacrifice touch sensitivity and dynamics at a certain volume level, yielding a sense of disconnection between fingers, gut, guitar, and amp. But if you’re tracking “big” sounds in a small space, you can generate massive-sounding ones without interfacing with an amp modeler and flat-response monitors, which is a joy in my book. And again, there’s the TAE Core’s ability to “expand” as well as attenuate, which means you can use the TAE Core’s 30-watt onboard power amp to amplify the signal from, say, a 5-watt Fender Champion 600 with a 6" speaker, route it to a 2x12, 4x12, or virtual equivalent in the app, and leave your bandmate with the Twin Reverb and bad attitude utterly perplexed.
The Verdict
Opting for the simpler, thriftier TAE Core requires a few sacrifices. Power users that grew accustomed to the original TAE’s super-tunable “resonance-Z” and “presence-Z” controls, which aped signal-chain impedance relationships with sharp precision, will have to make do with the simpler but still very effective stack and combo options and the “air feel level” spatial ambience control.The DC power jack is less robust. It features only MIDI-in rather than MIDI-in/-through/-out jacks, and, significantly, 70 watts less power in the onboard power amp. But from my perspective, the Core is no less “professional” in terms of what it can achieve on a stage or in a studio of any size. Its more modest feature set and dimensions are, in my estimation, utility enhancements as much as limitations. If greater power and MIDI connectivity are essentials, then the extra 600 bones for the original TAE will be worth the price. For many of us, though, the mix of value, operational efficiencies, and the less-encumbered path to sound creation built into the TAE Core will represent a welcome sweet spot that makes dabbling in this very useful technology an appealing, practical proposition.
