Finally got a Brain

a willingham

a willingham

Electromatic
Nov 30, 2016
58
Tennessee
I had some Guitar Center gift cards laying around and wound up snagging a used Atomic Brain online. It is a small box, gold sparkle. Haven't had a chance to mess with it much, I briefly plugged it in during my lunch break, but it honestly wasn't what I was expecting. This isn't to say it is a bad pedal, I completely get why people use it as an always on pedal, and that may be how I use it as well because it improves my clean sound significantly. I guess I was expecting it to yield more dirt.

I am running a modded 5420 (TV Jones Setzers, Compton, bone nut, etc) into a Fender PRRI FSR with a 12" Cannibis Rex. I did have to make adjustments to my tone knobs on the amp as I had been running the treble on about 7.5 and bass on 5.5 and brought those down to 6.5 and 4.5 respectively. Volume typically stays on 4-4.5.

I'm going to keep messing with it, but if anyone has any tips on how to get the best out of it I would appreciate it. Maybe I had it hyped up in my mind that it was going to be instant Setzer grit, but so far I haven't found it.
 
wildeman

wildeman

I Bleed Orange
May 10, 2015
16,376
norcal
Its not an OD but if your playing with some volume and you hit the Abby switch it'll get you some grind, it also works well in line with a OD. I have two Atomic's, i think you'll love it once you spend some time with it. Ive got a El Pesco on order now, can't wait!
 
a willingham

a willingham

Electromatic
Nov 30, 2016
58
Tennessee
I think you're correct. Gonna play with it a bit tonight. I just found the manual on Tavo's site, gonna give that a good read. Just to be sure, I SHOULD put my OD pedals AFTER the Brain correct?
 
J Bird

J Bird

Synchromatic
Dec 2, 2016
757
Enumclaw
I had od's after the Brain for a long time, works great like that.

Currently, I leave Normal on all the time, right around three o'clock. I turn the amp volume down to about half what I'd have it at going straight in. Never mind what the amp sounds like without the Brain on, just leave it on. It should be comparable volume wise, but richer than what the amp sounds like going straight into the amp like before you got the Brain.

This method did require that I put drives before the Brain.
 
a willingham

a willingham

Electromatic
Nov 30, 2016
58
Tennessee
thunder58 said:
Perhaps a conversation with @TV the Wired Turtle could help . There his pedals ( I have the El Pescadoro .....WOW ! is all I can say )
here's his link also ........
https://www.thenocturnebrain.com
Click to expand...

Yeah I knew Tavo was the creator. I’ve creeped here long enough lol. Just got done playing some more, and this is how I’m running it currently. Guitar>Fulldrive 2>OCD>Brain>Analog Chorus>Carbon Copy. I definitely prefer it this way. Turning the amp up to around 5 with the Brain set to about 2:00 is awesome. Loud, but awesome. The fulldrive seems to pair well with it, the ocd I don’t know that I like with it, maybe some more tweaking in order.
 
stevo

stevo

Friend of Fred
May 1, 2012
7,313
Atlanta
a willingham said:
I think you're correct. Gonna play with it a bit tonight. I just found the manual on Tavo's site, gonna give that a good read. Just to be sure, I SHOULD put my OD pedals AFTER the Brain correct?
Click to expand...

That's generally a good position for it. It's main function is to push the front end of an amp, so that's what you're doing when you put your overdrives after it - pushing that overdrive a bit. But there are no rules. Try it the other way around!
 
stevo

stevo

Friend of Fred
May 1, 2012
7,313
Atlanta
a willingham said:
Yeah I knew Tavo was the creator. I’ve creeped here long enough lol. Just got done playing some more, and this is how I’m running it currently. Guitar>Fulldrive 2>OCD>Brain>Analog Chorus>Carbon Copy. I definitely prefer it this way. Turning the amp up to around 5 with the Brain set to about 2:00 is awesome. Loud, but awesome. The fulldrive seems to pair well with it, the ocd I don’t know that I like with it, maybe some more tweaking in order.
Click to expand...

That is totally backwards! You know the rules say you can't get a good sound out of that!
 
Cryin_Caleb_Aaron

Cryin_Caleb_Aaron

Friend of Fred
Gold Supporting Member
Aug 15, 2018
7,700
Auburn, Maine
I run my ODs, Boosts, and Fuzzes before my brain. I have 2 Mystery Brains for 2 different pedalboards and they're last in the chain on both.
Personally, I like the preamp volume just a tad over unity gain, bass cut at zero, and abby always on. I've been using it like that for a few years now.
But that is after a LOT of experimentation, trial, and error.
You'll find your sweet spot.
 
Srellim1

Srellim1

Synchromatic
Feb 6, 2016
619
Los Angeles
calebaaron666 said:
I run my ODs, Boosts, and Fuzzes before my brain. I have 2 Mystery Brains for 2 different pedalboards and they're last in the chain on both.
Personally, I like the preamp volume just a tad over unity gain, bass cut at zero, and abby always on. I've been using it like that for a few years now.
But that is after a LOT of experimentation, trial, and error.
You'll find your sweet spot.
Click to expand...
This!
 
TV the Wired Turtle

TV the Wired Turtle

Gretschified
Double Platinum Member
Jul 25, 2009
14,729
Sandy Eggo
a willingham said:
I had some Guitar Center gift cards laying around and wound up snagging a used Atomic Brain online. It is a small box, gold sparkle. Haven't had a chance to mess with it much, I briefly plugged it in during my lunch break, but it honestly wasn't what I was expecting. This isn't to say it is a bad pedal, I completely get why people use it as an always on pedal, and that may be how I use it as well because it improves my clean sound significantly. I guess I was expecting it to yield more dirt.

I am running a modded 5420 (TV Jones Setzers, Compton, bone nut, etc) into a Fender PRRI FSR with a 12" Cannibis Rex. I did have to make adjustments to my tone knobs on the amp as I had been running the treble on about 7.5 and bass on 5.5 and brought those down to 6.5 and 4.5 respectively. Volume typically stays on 4-4.5.

I'm going to keep messing with it, but if anyone has any tips on how to get the best out of it I would appreciate it. Maybe I had it hyped up in my mind that it was going to be instant Setzer grit, but so far I haven't found it.
Click to expand...

Hi, The Brain preamp is the preamp from the RE-301 space echo that Brian Setzer uses, but the "grit" you hear from Setzer is not an overdrive, rather its from the preamp pushing the Blonde bassman's normal channel into clipping along w the vintage 30 speakers to garner that response in a fairly loud manner. The Re301 space echo's preamp is a 70s full range preamp and has no clipping circuit in it, and the Atomic Brain is a replication of that vintage preamp.
For smaller guitar combo tube amps, I'd suggest turning the Atomic Brain's bass contour all the way back to 11 oclock, put the pedals "abby mode" on and then adjust the volume/gain knob on the right to push your amp. I find that bringing the guitar amps bass level down significantly works better so that the speaker gets pushed in the mids more. If you want more low end, then begin turning up the bass contour on the Atomic Brain. When its dimed to the right, that is the full EQ of the RE-301 space echo, as it has no EQ of its own in the preamp. A side note. I did design the DC fluid drive pedal to sit after the Brain preamp, and it "does that Setzer thing" at any volume, but the Fluid drive is a transparent overdrive unlike the clean nature of the Brain preamp / space echo preamp. hope that helps a bit in dialing in your sound, tv
 
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