The Elements, favorite settings, post them here!

[Muse FTW]

Holy shit.

[sylnau]

:lol: You're like Strongbad if he ate poutine!

[mynar7]

Very important question:

How much gain can you get out of the elements? I've had an itch for some serious metal lately with lots of palm-muting and I want to know if the elements will scratch it.

[sylnau]

Very important question:

How much gain can you get out of the elements? I've had an itch for some serious metal lately with lots of palm-muting and I want to know if the elements will scratch it.

Answer:
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fmDW894ZJ40[/youtube]

[mynar7]

Is that with the gain dimed?

[sylnau]

Is that with the gain dimed?

I don't think it's dimed.
Ryan... what is the setting in that video?

[sylnau]

In this setting, it sound similar to my PCfx Fuzzy Lady with the switch down... I'm impress with the versatility of the Elements.

Elements_Fuzz_Setting.jpg (26.11 KiB) Viewed 11854 times

Ryan, you are a genius.

[Ryan]

Sorry for my lateness here gents!

Lee, the Elements gain is right at half in that Slayer video and in my high gain demo, although you add gain when you crank up the midrange for that Slayer tone. Turning up the gain knob past that doesn't change the sound much, just a bit more saturation and compression since it's already pretty much as distorted as it can get.

I did some sample settings too although I don't have an awesome video for them like Syl does:

[sylnau]

Sorry for my lateness here gents!

Lee, the Elements gain is right at half in that Slayer video and in my high gain demo, although you add gain when you crank up the midrange for that Slayer tone. Turning up the gain knob past that doesn't change the sound much, just a bit more saturation and compression since it's already pretty much as distorted as it can get.

I did some sample settings too although I don't have an awesome video for them like Syl does:

Nice!!! Can't wait to try those... (I'm out of town and won't be home until saturday).
I really like my last setup... it's really fuzz like (see pic above ^ kind of muff like without the metallic sounding of a muff).

[StopReferencing]

I'm sure this is a personal preference, but IMO, the vast majority of Elements settings sound better at 18v. There's kind of a pinched quality to the gain decay at 9v that (usually) didn't work all that well for me, especially at more traditionally br00tal settings.

Having said that, I think my favorite setting was gain up, asymmetrical clipping, bass up all the way, mids dialed to taste, treble at noon, mid-freq up. At 9v. Fucking ragged.

[sylnau]

I'm sure this is a personal preference, but IMO, the vast majority of Elements settings sound better at 18v. There's kind of a pinched quality to the gain decay at 9v that (usually) didn't work all that well for me, especially at more traditionally br00tal settings.

Having said that, I think my favorite setting was gain up, asymmetrical clipping, bass up all the way, mids dialed to taste, treble at noon, mid-freq up. At 9v. Fucking ragged.

I only tried it at 9v.
Is there a way to get 18v with a PP2+ (I just got the PP2+)?

[StopReferencing]

You need a voltage-doubling y-cable, but yes.

[Holy Schnikes]

I prefer 18V on this one as well, sounds incredible. Less compression, more wide open, natural feel and sound. Regardless of voltage, I feel there's more than enough gain on tap. High gain settings at 9V had too much sizzle with my setup though.

I'll get back with settings now that I'm through comparing voltage. Pretty huge array of options with this pedal and quite the variety of awesome sounds.

[Kayzer]

...off to customs pick up my elements, tremolessence and a VMSD... SCHWING!

[Ryan]

I'm sure this is a personal preference, but IMO, the vast majority of Elements settings sound better at 18v. There's kind of a pinched quality to the gain decay at 9v that (usually) didn't work all that well for me, especially at more traditionally br00tal settings.

Having said that, I think my favorite setting was gain up, asymmetrical clipping, bass up all the way, mids dialed to taste, treble at noon, mid-freq up. At 9v. Fucking ragged.

Thanks for the review and I don't think you're wrong. When you mention the pinched quality to the decay, do you mean in a certain clipping position or just in general? 'Cause I think the lower clipping position (with lots of gain and bass) can make for a pinched/choked/strangled kind of sound and I wonder if that's what you mean to. But I also think the high gain stage is running a little hot.. a little too close to unstable which makes it kind of start and stop oscillating at high gain/high bass settings and it affects the decay.

You know, gents, there's a lot of ways to tune a distortion pedal... a lot of paths to wander... this week we were contacted by a new retailer who wants to do a top notch demo of the Elements and it's got me to thinking that maybe I wandered a bit far down the left hand path.

The Elements is set up to run a little hot... it makes for cool tones in some situations but allows for not cool noises in other situations. The clipping diode settings were chosen to have 3 very different sounds but maybe one of those settings is too easy to make weird/not-loveable-by-all sounds.

I've become anxious about this new retailer and their new demo vid and I've spent the last few days pondering small changes to the Elements to make it play nicer. Basically just to make it so it's not so easy to get a weird/not loveable sound.

I've lowered the gain in the high gain stage a little bit, enough to to take away a bit of saturation, a bit of background noise. I've changed the lower position diode arrangement to never be able to make a choked/pinched/strangled sound. Neither are huge changes, they just sort of sweeten the pedal up a bit so it gets along nicer. Depending on how you use the pedal you might not hear these changes, my changes are mainly audible in the last half of the gain knob in the high gain mode and the lower position diode setting. I'll of course change anybody's over if they'd like, maybe wait until the video is out and you can see if you hear any differences.

This is kinda reminiscent of my 2009 Cosmichorus adventure, I definitely went down a wrong path with that first v2 version. This isn't as extreme as that was, but it's made me realize that I design and test and use pedals in a very specific way and when a bunch of people use a new pedal they use it in different ways that teaches me a bunch of stuff about the pedal that probably will require some changes.

Here's a question I have too for you guys.. bright switches on amps? The Elements in high gain sounds awful with amps that have a 'bright' switch on. 2/3 of my amps don't have that option, and my main design and testing and building amp doesn't have a bright switch either, so it's not a sound that I design for. Do lots of you guys use amps with bright switches? Do you expect distortion pedals to sound good with the amp's bright switch on? Do most distortion pedals sound good with the amp's bright switch on?

Flippin huge post, sorry!