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Trace Elliot GP12 SMX


jimbartlett

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My P Bass with Antiquity pickups has the gain on 10 (no red peak, just yellow OK). The J Bass with standard pickups has the gain on 8/9.

I must say, it did feel like I was doing something wrong when I first used the amp but soon came to realise exactly the statement above about getting the correct amount of gain into the amp to allow it to sing.

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13 hours ago, jimbartlett said:

My P Bass with Antiquity pickups has the gain on 10 (no red peak, just yellow OK). The J Bass with standard pickups has the gain on 8/9.

I must say, it did feel like I was doing something wrong when I first used the amp but soon came to realise exactly the statement above about getting the correct amount of gain into the amp to allow it to sing.

same for me, I use a P bass and just whack the gain up to 10, the warning light doesn't come on, whenever someone borrows my amp they always turn it down, and the one at the rehearsal studio is never on 10 when I get there, they're obviously not using their ears or the warning lights

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I think the secret is that this gain control circuit doe not have a liner frequency response. As VR1 is increased the amount of negative feedback, reducing gain. C1 means that the treble will drop off faster than the bass with the effect that the sound will be less 'lively' at lower gains. No component values and I'm not familiar with the details but that's what I think is going down! I would be interested what someone with more knowledge of audio amp design has to say:

image.png

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  • 2 years later...
9 hours ago, Curly27 said:

My GP12SMX now i have to have gain on full to be usesble, any ideas whats wrong. Cheers

Do you get gain lights but the amp is quieter?

 

Or do you fail to get the red light to go off with heavy playing?

 

Tube or SS or both?

 

Could even be a dud cable or pickup or your bass preamp or battery.

 

In these cases it helps to report all the troubleshooting you already did so we can get to 'busted amp' legitimately. Half the time it is something else.

 

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I love the old Trace Elliot amps, before first Marshall and the Peavey bought them.

 

Regret selling my GP7SM, it was an amazing sounding amp, and now these seems to gettting rare and pricier (like most every other used musical equipment though) on the used market.

 

Liked it even better than the Ampeg B-15S tube amp, that I one own, but also was stupid enough to sell.

 

Have been pondering on getting one of the newer Peavey Trace Elliot Transit B preamps that are supposed to actually recreate the tone of the original old Trace Elliots really well as far as I gathered.

Edited by Baloney Balderdash
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Marshall never bought Trace Elliot.  First buyers were Kaman in '92, who were in fact the USA distributors for TE at the time. Gibson were the next owners in '98, then Peavey '05

Edited by fleabag
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