Soundstorm
Well-known member
After years of searching, I’ve finally found one of these. If you’re not familiar, Elan Memran had a shop in LA in the 80s and would do these high gain mods for guys in the area. Usually add a couple gain stages, pull boost on the bass knob, and a noisegate circuit (knob on the back). Wiring inside was notoriously messy. They weren’t really on the map until Dino Cazares used them on the early Fear Factory albums, and by that time the shop had closed and iirc the guy moved back to Israel. So there are very few of them out there.
If you’re plugged into the left input, it’s the normal low input 800 circuit. If you’re in the high input with the extra knob on the right pushed in, it’s a stock 800 circuit. Pull out that knob and you get the extra gain stages, plus all three gain knobs are active. It took a couple days of playing around with it, but now I have it dialed in and it’s one of the meanest sounding amps I’ve owned. You can dial up quite a bit of gain (like sludgy death metal levels), but still retain that tight percussive Demanufacture palm mute. I’m using an EMG loaded ESP baritone, so I still use a Dirty Tree pedal to keep the low end clean.
Overall very happy with this amp. Has anyone else played one of these?
Q: I’m using a Suhr Reactive Load for silent recording, and have found I like the master best around 12 o’clock. I’m worried a bit about keeping it cranked like this for hours all the time because of its age and rarity. Should I be? Or should I just dial in a good tone at a lower overall volume? I know it’ll eat through tubes faster, but I’m more worried about the trannies and other components. Also, any recommendations for a rugged pair of EL-34’s that sound great with the 2204?
Last edited:
