Kapo_Polenton
Well-known member
The Atomic sounds good! I say leave the top end but put it on a switch. It might need a switch or two for more options. How would the atomic handle pushing a JCM800 into more gainz?
Favorite VH brown sound in a pedal solutions?
- Thread starter mentoneman
- Start date
mentoneman
Well-known member
i have not tried that one but had the BE-OD.
mentoneman
Well-known member
i need to try cranking up the peacemaker into the zone with my rockcrusher and hit that with the Atomic.
griff10672
Well-known member
first dance with the Atomic Punk overdrive!
as a standalone hard rock box in front of my clean peacemaker, i can compare it to the following:
View attachment 307512
in this context,
-the Atomic has more available gain than the Brownie, the Lion, and the Arc Furnace (which is more tube screamer/SRV)
but less than the DS-1 and Plexi Crunch(PC)
-it makes the DS-1 sound like an AM radio and is closest tonally to the Brownie, but squishier/saggier and gainier thus easier to solo with
-as a stand alone dirt box in front of a clean marshall amp as seen in the vid i prefer it over the Lion and Brownie. very reminiscent of the Plexitone with the spitty top end and as expected, chewier mids which come by rolling off the tone control.
-the Plexi Crunch can get heavier and more saturated so i can play with easier legato comfort using it as a solo box, and i can roll off my gtr vol and achieve a more useable clean.
however the vh inspired rhythm crunch TONE isn’t as true as the Atomic.
-Damp is a cool feature. i have made it a practice to use a compressor in front of my dirt boxes forever, to hit my OD of choice harder with a particularly compatible color, and introduce a controllable sag into the equation. this lightens the load off the OD box considerably. not sure exactly how Damp is working but i think it’s doing a similar thing and would be awesome to have an optimized circuit like i described built in.
i briefly swapped out the Lion to try the Atomic in my rack rig’s VH tone position, hitting the front of my Eggie IE4 /ch 3 channel set fairly dirty. in that respect nothing beats the surgical VH tweaking i get with the Lion.
cons (in this context
-i can’t take the tone control much past 35-40% before it starts getting too bright. i wouldn’t mind the current 50% straight up position being the 100% cranked level in a revision, allowing more fine tuning between those values.
-the same with the level control. thing gets LOUD FAST past 40-50%.
-when very briefly attempting to use the Atomic in front of an already overdriven channel (my rack preamps or mesa mark III/rhythm 2 channel) it had more hiss than the other pedals. but it did sound and feel cool with the mesa ch 2 aside from that!
next experiment will be hitting the front of the Atomic with some comps and boosts!
Hey man !! Thanks for the review !!
mentoneman
Well-known member
nicely voiced pedal with the plexi chomp in the mids and some tasty sweet spots on the dials.
when using any OD into a clean amp, which has been my long standing preferred pedalboard method live, i’ve always relied on boosting it with another pedal (comp or boost) to push the feel into the solo realm, if the pedal itself didn’t have a second built in boost mode.
i use the Cali 76 Stacked comp to hit the Arc Furnace for SRV blues tones,
and the Hermida Dual Boost -> Ethos Overdrive for a fat Dumble meets Boogie lead sound.
it’ll be fun to find what pairs well with the Atomic Punk to get me there! my friend has the newer Source Audio EQ/boost which might be very cool!
mentoneman
Well-known member
@griff10672 Atomic Punk update!
After plugging into the hi sens input and turning up the Peacemaker treble volume a fair bit to involve the power section like so:
i had to throttle the volume with the Rockcrusher at -20db, dial down the power dampening on the Peacemaker way back, and manage the pedal volume as the master room volume, but then the Punk came alive!
i *really* prefer the tone of this pedal with the Peacemaker staring to push into the red zone.
The difference was radical.
with this plexi style of amp, set this way, the feel of the pedal really got ultra explosive and greasy and the AP outshined all of my other pedals when transitioning from rhythms to leads.
(but i still think the Lion is the perfect fit for taking my egnater preamp into VH land))
for giggles i added a nux sculpture compressor in front of the AP for a test drive. it got a bit too noisy so there may be better less noisy boost/comp options but it was still fun to mess with!
After plugging into the hi sens input and turning up the Peacemaker treble volume a fair bit to involve the power section like so:
i had to throttle the volume with the Rockcrusher at -20db, dial down the power dampening on the Peacemaker way back, and manage the pedal volume as the master room volume, but then the Punk came alive!
i *really* prefer the tone of this pedal with the Peacemaker staring to push into the red zone.
The difference was radical.
with this plexi style of amp, set this way, the feel of the pedal really got ultra explosive and greasy and the AP outshined all of my other pedals when transitioning from rhythms to leads.
(but i still think the Lion is the perfect fit for taking my egnater preamp into VH land))
for giggles i added a nux sculpture compressor in front of the AP for a test drive. it got a bit too noisy so there may be better less noisy boost/comp options but it was still fun to mess with!
Last edited:
griff10672
Well-known member
very cool !!! you got that thing sounding SWEET !!
mentoneman
Well-known member
you did a great job designing that pedal.
i’ve not even gone the extra steps of dialing in a w/d and getting crazy with the proper delay sound, etc. i just stuck a dd-2 behind it and bingo!
i’ve played a TON of pedals into the Peacemaker over the years. the ones i remember:
tonebone classic
barber direct drive
xotic bb preamp and ac booster plus
hermida distortion/zendrive/zendrive 2/dual boost
timmy
ts-9 w/analogman silver mod
bad monkey
carl martin plexitone (stock and vertex mod)
bogner burnley and xtc blue
cmatmods brownie
friedman BE-OD
UA Lion 68
regarding the search for VH in a box, which was the point of this thread, the Atomic Punk is the best i’ve heard and played so far.
griff10672
Well-known member
Thanks !!!!
hammered
Well-known member
Sounds killer , the playing is great also
mentoneman
Well-known member
mahalo!
i really started to feel comfortable with the Peacemaker wound up some.
honestly it’s making me want to try a variac now!