Yes—and it'll also rattle windows with surprisingly full-sounding low end! The PG Trace Elliot Elf Combo review.
Very lightweight and portable. Simple but effective EQ. Size defying sound.
Light in hand, but not so much in price. No onboard effects.
$599
Trace Elliot Elf Combo
traceelliot.com
Recorded direct into Focusrite Scarlett 2i4 interface into GarageBand.
Clip 1: Schecter Banshee, picked. EQ flat with slight bass boost
Clip 2: Ashdown Saint, fingerstyle. Bass at 2 o'clock, mid at 11 o'clock, treble at 1 o'clock
Like it's standalone-amp cousin, this 200-watt combo houses controls for gain (with signal-level LED), a 3-band EQ, tone, and volume—all located topside along with 1/4" jacks for the input and headphone/line out. Around back lives an XLR out (with ground lift) and an additional speaker output. When I powered up the Elf with the EQ set flat, the mid-leaning amp filled up my high-ceiling room with an articulate and rich modern bass sound that made the old windows shake. After I bumped up both the bass and treble to 1 o'clock-ish and took a pinch from the mids, I got to a warmer, yet still punchy, tone I called home. The Elf has a deceiving amount of headroom for its featherweight build and can get loud. It also pushed an external 2x12 cabinet with ease and makes for a convenient silent practice and recording tool. (I appreciate the speaker on/off switch.) If you're after onboard effects, look elsewhere, but if a straight-ahead amp you can easily carry with one hand from bedroom practice to gigs to studio work and in between appeals, this combo may have some Elfin magic for you.
Test Gear: Schecter Banshee, Ashdown Saint, Orange OBC212, Focusrite Scarlett 2i4
This era-authentic pairing—Gibson and Sunn—blends humbucking output with 40 watts of EL34 amp power and a pair of 12" speakers.
Cue metal music for this two-pickup 1962 Gibson EB-6 bass—one of just 68 in existence.
Gibson introduced its first electric bass guitar in 1953 and initially named it, aptly enough, Electric Bass, although it's better known today as the EB-1. It was followed by various EB models over the next several years, including the semi-hollow EB-2 in 1958 and the double-cutaway solidbody EB-0 in 1959. By the end of 1959, a semi-hollow 6-string bass debuted and was named the EB-6. Poor sales caused Gibson to replace it with a solid SG-style body version in late 1961 that retained the EB-6 name. The company catalog touted: “A new and exciting treat for bass players. A 6-string electric bass which gives a full octave lower guitar tuning on a regular bass scale length."
The new solidbody EB-6 started with a single pickup, as on the previous model, but soon added a second humbucker. (Only a small number of single-pickup models were produced.) The 1963 Gibson catalog described the instrument's features: “ New extra-thin custom-contoured double-cutaway body design. Slim, fast, low-action neck joins body at the 17th fret. One-piece mahogany neck, adjustable truss rod, rosewood fingerboard, pearl dot inlays. Combination bridge and tailpiece adjustable horizontally and vertically. Two powerful humbucking pickups. New nickel-plated string damper. Hand brace mounted on pickguard. Heavy-duty machine heads with metal buttons." As luck would have it, inadequate sales also caused the solidbody EB-6 to be discontinued by 1966 (but, according to the Gibson Shipment Totals book, two stragglers shipped in 1967). Only about 68 of these basses were manufactured, and Wes Montgomery and the Cars' Ben Orr are among the model's notable users.
The bar-style combination bridge allows horizontal and vertical adjustment and includes a mute before the bar.
The 1962 EB-6 pictured has the features typical of the two-pickup edition. These include a cherry red contoured SG-shaped solid mahogany body, a 30 1/2"-scale 1-piece mahogany neck joining the body between the 17th and 18th fret, a 20-fret rosewood fretboard with dot inlays, and two standard guitar humbuckers. On this example, the neck pickup is still a PAF. The nickel-plated parts include large-button Kluson tuners, a bar bridge/tailpiece, a metal hand rest between the pickups, and a string mute. The original price was $325. The current value for one in excellent all-original condition is $7,500.
The neck humbucker in this guitar is a vintage PAF. The original solidbody EB-6 had just one pickup, in the neck slot, like its semi-hollow ancestors.
The amp behind the bass is a 1967 Sunn Solarus combo. Two EL34 tubes push 40 watts of power through two 12" speakers. It has bright and normal channels with controls for treble, bass, and contour along with knobs for the vibrato and reverb. The current value for the amp is $750.
Note the classic early Gibson headstock profile as well as the nickel-plated large profile Kluson tuners.
Sources for this article include Gibson Electrics: The Classic Years by A.R. Duchossoir, Gibson Guitars: Ted McCarty's Golden Era—1948- 1966 by Gil Hembree, and Gibson Shipment Totals: 1937-1979 by Larry Meiners.
The PG DSM Noisemaker Sub Atomic review.
Recorded direct with a Yamaha BBP34 using PreSonus FireStudio and PreSonus Studio One 3.
Clip 1: Master at 9 o’clock, blend at noon, dry gain at 2 o’clock, tone at 2 o’clock, drive voice in middle position (mid bump), and SUB LPF at 1 Khz
Clip 2: Master at 9 o’clock, blend at 100 percent wet, dry gain at 2 o’clock, tone at 9 o’clock, drive voice in left position (flat), and SUB LPF at 100 Hz
RatingsPros:Sharp, modern tone options. Cons: Sharp, modern tone options—if that’s not your thing. The knobs were a touch loose-feeling. Street: $159 DSM Noisemaker Sub Atomic X-Over CMOS Bass Drive dsmnoisemaker.com |
Tones: Ease of Use: Build/Design: Value: |
In the most basic of setups, I need a few things to get by: a tuner, a compressor, and maybe a chorus pedal. After that, I might get to have some real fun by adding more colorful stomps. It’s especially enjoyable when we bassists get to use distortion or overdrive. Some dirt pedals try to keep everyone happy, but what if we are leaning toward a darker place and need something special? For the bass-playing population that lives a little closer to the edge, DSM Noisemaker has offered the Sub Atomic X-Over CMOS Bass Drive.
Red Skies at Night
The Sub Atomic pops out of its cloth bag (Save it for plectrums!) with one of the smallest footprints and the most control options per square inch I have seen on a pedal. I like a small pedal, as long as it does what it is supposed to do. And there is a lot of ground to cover within this little guy, so let’s get started.
First, the top half of the pedal has four dials that illuminate an ominous red when the pedal is engaged. I really like this feature over a simple indicator light, because it leaves no question whatsoever as to the operation mode. The four pots are tone, master, drive gain, and blend, which are pretty self-explanatory. There are also two mini toggles—one a sub-low-pass filter and the other for drive voicing—that are nestled between the dials, which provide some additional EQ options. These are most likely controls you won’t change on the fly that often, since they are really tightly packed into this tiny pedal.
Freq Out
I plugged the Sub Atomic directly into my DAW using a passive Yamaha BBP34, and grabbed a set of Victor headphones to get a sense of the nuances and all the tone options of the pedal. I started with everything at about noon, except the master, which found its home at 10 o’clock to match my volume when the pedal wasn’t engaged, and left the mini toggles flat. I was greeted with a Michael Anthony OD bass vibe reminiscent of the intro from “Running with the Devil.” It’s a great place to start for dirty tone, and the blend setting really helped maintain the bass’ integrity.
Keeping the controls where they were, I moved the mini toggles between their three different frequency settings, and the pedal opened up a bit (or closed off, depending on how you look at it). The low-pass frequency switch moved the bottom around enough to give me a super-modern Swedish-metal tone with weight and bite.
The drive-voicing toggle is useful as well, for it gives the mix-cutting ability we need when we dive into overdriven bass tones. I found it useful when used with the blend control sparingly, keeping just enough dirt while distinctly maintaining the low-end.
Moving around with different settings on the Sub Atomic, I found that the tones border on the higher side of the frequency spectrum overall, giving a lot of buzzy in the fuzzy. There are a lot of variables within the pedal, so finding your voice and pairing it with your amp and bass may take some doing. The pedal’s controls can be dimed, but shouldthey be? For my taste, it was a bit extreme on the high-end with the tone maxed, but everything in the universe has a place, right?
Diming the tone and drive gain, and moving the drive-voicing mini toggle to the mid-bump position got me into some guitar-player tone territory. Try this setting at home with some chords and it can certainly open things up for you musically.
The Verdict
The Sub Atomic is a very focused and specialized distortion pedal that can add some zest to a modern pedalboard. If you want a cutting drive pedal in your life, it may be a place to start. Tube lovers beware: The tones here are not the warmest, but we can all branch out and try some new fuzz cocktails every now and then.