Hi guys...new poster. Elements content!

[jonesy64]

Hi all, New poster here.....Mark from sunny England.

I have read through just about every topic on here and I gotta say that Ryan's open and friendly nature is great to read and has made me very pleased with myself for having just purchased The Elements pedal.

Anyways, as I said I have a 'gears' finish The Elements on the way over from the excellent Prymaxe and dropped in to find out more about this stunning sounding pedal. I was actually looking into clean boosters with a decent EQ and stumbled across The Cleanness but of course found that it had been retired and reborn as part of The Elements.

I am in a Rock covers band that plays stuff like Black Sabbath/Ozzy, Deep Purple, AC/DC, Judas Priest, Thin Lizzy and even into Megadeth and Metallica territory.
I have a Dr. Z Remedy head into a Marshall 4x12 cab and a fat strat. At the moment I play with the Remedy wide open (with an airbrake!!) for a true overdriven tone.
I expect I will need to reign it in a bit though for The Elements to really shine?

This is almost as an afterthought to buying the pedal….I hope I can find settings that will cover the whole of our set with a minimal amount of switching so it can be my swiss army knife pedal

I am thinking of setting the amp to that light overdriven AC/DC tone and let the Elements take over for the heavier Sabbath/Deep Purple stuff, the more metally (is that a real word!) Priest, Whitesnake and of course I know it will do Megadeth/Metallica.

What do you guys think, is it reasonable to expect The Elements could cover this ground with a few quick changes to the settings?
Does it prefer a completely clean amp or as mentioned could I use a slightly overdriven tone as its platform?

I also wanted to mention that I already own a Dr. Scientist Mini RRR with the On The Air finish. I actually had it on pre-order from Tonefactor the moment the finish got announced. I never use reverb but as soon as I saw the On The Air finish I had to have one. Reminds me of retro sc-fi Jetsons kind of thing. It is my favourite design of any pedal by a country mile.

I would be most grateful to hear anyone’s thoughts on how I propose to use The Elements and I am looking forward to acquiring more Dr Scientist gear in the not too distant future…..already got my eye on the blems updates and of course I would be a fool not to use the birthday discount this coming August ha ha! (Are both schemes still running?)

Thanks guys, Mark.

[terminalvertigo]

The proguitarshop demos and a few others show you their settings for the elements, so that's a start.

I am sure you should be able to cover any of the tones you listed.

There is also a .pdf guide floating around on here with a good explanation of how each switch works.

You will prob have to get it in house to be sure, but i find its got a pretty wide range of tonez

I also have the gears finish elements, and i love it.

[allicio]

Welcome along!
Makes a change for it actually to be sunny over hear doesn't it!!
I think it will cover all the ground you've mentioned easily. i bought it thinking ill use it as a low gain clean boost Ala the cleaness but once i flipped the high gain switch it got left there! Its phenomenal how versatile it is. problem is it makes me wish my Anderson has a flloyd rose!
I ended up getting a second hand cleaness and using the elements for high gain
by the way i always run my amp clean as i find i like to use pedals for gain as i have more control. so for you running a slightly overdrive amp it will add the extra you need easily.

[sylnau]

Yeah, it will cover those sound.
Ryan's Woofer Wailer Square setting would be great for the hard rock type of sound.

viewtopic.php?f=146&t=18617&start=15#p286887

[Ryan]

Welcome to the forum, Mark, and thanks for picking up an Elements! Thanks for picking up a mini-R too and I'm glad you dig that finish, I get the same vibe from that finish and I love it too.

The Elements can sound dramatically different with just a few knob turns (experiment lots with the mids, with extreme boosting and cutting at the different frequencies, that's where huge tonal variations live) and you're probably gonna have to get familiar with it a bit.. it has a learning curve but I do think it's intuitive and makes sense once you get what you're controlling.

So lots of experimentation and yes, I do think you'll be able to cop the tones you're hoping for. As for the amp gain situation, that's tough to say... I'd experiment even more with that! *smile* I wouldn't say the pedal prefers a clean amp but that is how I designed it and how I use it and with a clean amp you can cover a ton of different tones. You can even use the Elements to bring down your amp gain if you want, just keep the gain and volume on the Elements low and you'll de-gain your amp.

I think distortion sounds awesome into an amp that's cooking but I'd just suggest to maybe not have your amp cooking too much, as then you might get too much compression and noise from feeding in more gain. I like your idea of having the amp overdriven but then using the Elements to cover all the different gain territories.

When you get your pedal come on back and we'll go through settings! Thanks again!

[jonesy64]

It's here!...and looking very smart....even the girlfriend likes it. Well, if I'm honest she convinced me to buy the gears one. I was going to order the black finish!!

I will get some time over the weekend to try out all the user settings posted and of course experiment to find my own

Really cant wait to try this one out, more so than any pedal in ages.

Thanks to everyone who dropped in to read my post.

Mark

[sylnau]

Come back and tell us what you think.

[jonesy64]

quick update!

Kids get in the way and I forgot about decorating the front room...sooooo not so much time as I would have liked using the Elements!

Quick thoughts are that I definitely like it. the Cleanness setting is exactly that, its brilliant and the perfect starting point for tweaking the settings. I am using the low gain much more than high gain so far. I find the high gain very fizzy but this is going through a 10W practice amp so not really fair to judge the pedal until I can get it it through my Remedy head.

I quite easily dialled in an identical tone to a TS type pedal (low gain) and what I really like is with this same setting I can change the character almost instantly with toggle changes which is kind of what I was hoping could be achieved.

Not sure about the use of the MIX knob. Other than off or wide open I dont understand a use for it.....thats not a criticism, just me not understanding the benefit yet.

I think I am onto a winner though...I want to explore the high gain settings more and if I can hit that sweet spot where I can switch between between low and high gain, leave the clipping open and switch between no bass cut and some bass cut I think I will be able to cover everything from AC/DC - Sabbath - Metallica.....and Buzzcocks YES!!

See you later, Mark

[jonesy64]

Well what a difference a couple hours on my own makes....

Hi-Gain with clipping is where its at!

I'm really liking this:-

Hi-Gain. Clipping UP, Bass MIDDLE, Mids MIDDLE
Gain 12 - 1 o'clock
Volume above 12
Mix full on
Bass 10-11 o'clock
Mids 10-11 o'clock
Treble 12-1 o'clock

Think either of the clipping options work well...not much of a noticeable difference through the practice amp.

Got a practice on Tuesday night when I can play LOUD!

[allicio]

Told you!

[Teej212]

when i read this thread title i was really hoping that Ryan was now selling Dr. Scientist posters. rats.

[jonesy64]

Sorry to dissapoint.

Allicio, yeah you got it spot on

[sylnau]

I'm glad you like it... I'll try your setting.

[goroth]

Has anyone tried The Elements with a decent solid state amp? All of the demos I've heard have been with tooobz but I'm a fan of solid state, at least at the moment I am. I'd be predominantly playing the high gain side of things. Not sure if this should have been a new thread or not (I'm also new).

[Ryan]

Greigy, you can make a new thread or use this thread, whatever you want! There's no rules here, man!

That's a good question about the solid stateness... I don't really know, I'm sorry. I have an old Music Man amp that has a solid state front end with tube power section and I think the Elements sounds awesome on it.

I think how good a distortion pedal sounds with any amp depends a lot on eqing and speakers... and if you generally think distortion/fuzz sounds cool with your amp then I'll betcha you'll think the same with the Elements.

What kind of amp are you using? Maybe someone around here has experience with it?