When you see the control knobs and toggle switches on The Elements Overdrive pedal from Dr. Scientist, you might be immediately overwhelmed, scared, frightened and perhaps cry a little, but not to worry: this monster IS tamable, and you’re going to have a great time doing so. Don’t let the 6 Control Knobs and 4 Different Toggle Switches haunt you in your dreams…
Right off the bat, you’ll notice that 3 of the Control knobs are Bass, Mid and Treble: a full-on EQ section, which is essential, in mu opinion, for a pedal of this magnitude. Having the luxury to control each aspect of the EQ means setting the output tones to match perfectly with any combination of pickups, amps and other effects you want to stack with The Elements. Color me impressed right away. The Gain, Volume and Mix knobs are almost expected to be there, because how else would you get any sound? But seriously, those controls are present in most OD’s, and they work perfectly here, too.
Now we get to the meat and potatoes of this pedal: The Toggles. The Gain toggle allows you to go from a nice, smooth, warm mild-to-medium overdriven sound to a higher-gain sound, bordering on fuzzy, gooey distortion, a great place to start when you’re first testing this pedal out, just to see the range this switch provides. The Clip toggle provides 3 sections of clipping diodes: LED, none and Asymmetrical, which works with both Germanium and LED diodes, all of which provide slightly different sonic capabilities when used in conjunction with the rest of the controls. A Bass Cut switch also serves up 3 different selections: you’ve got Medium, None and Heavy Input Bass Cuts to choose from here, cutting out as much or as little of the bass as you see fit. One more 3-way toggle finishes this pedal off: Mid Frequency. Set this in one of three places to control how many Hz are controlled by the Mid EQ knob (400Hz, 1200Hz and 800Hz, from top to bottom), again making specific adjustments to the overall tone of this pedal possible.
This pedal was a blast to just sit down with and turn knobs and flip switches for a few hours. There’s really not a bad tone to be found coming out of The Elements, as is the case for Dr. Scientist pedals in general, and this guy has range, depth, boost, distortion and more, all at your disposal quickly and efficiently (once you figure out how all the controls works for you and your setup, of course). Ryan and Company over at Dr. Scientist continue to put out some amazing products, don’t forget to go see ’em!
Specs:
Operation:Mono input, mono output
Power Requirements:9VDC @ 50mA, 18VDC @ 100mA
Input/Output Impedance:500kΩ/1kΩ
Bypass:True bypass using soft touch switch and relay
Knobs:
Bass:+/-15dB peaking filter centered at 100Hz
Midrange:+/-15dB peaking filter, centre frequency chosen by Mid Freq toggle
Treble:+/-15dB peaking filter centered at 3kHz
Gain: Op-amp based, range from less than unity to very high saturation
Vol:Passive resistance to ground
Mix:Dry at 0, wet at full
Switches:
Gain:Lower position is low gain mode (less than unity to medium overdrive), Upper position is high gain mode (medium overdrive to heavy saturation
Clip:Upper position is LED clipping diodes (2V threshold), Middle position is no clipping diodes, Lower position is asymmetrical clipping with Germanium diode and LED (.3V + 3V threshold)
Bass:Upper position is medium input bass cut, Middle position is no input bass cut, Lower position is heavy input bass cut
Mid Freq:Upper position sets midrange knob to 400Hz, Middle position is 1200Hz, Lower position is 800Hz
Submitted by Mike B, Website
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