Advice on Trace Elliot sound

[Minininjarob]

Hi all, I have the opportunity to try out this combo - Trace Elliot GP7 SM combo amp and extension cab. I don’t know much about amps - this is my first one - but a friend is selling it and I can try it out first. Condition wise it will be perfect as I know he really looks after stuff 100%. 
 

Are they reliable? Easy to fix? As far as sound goes I like the punk sound but want to try and play a bit of everything so I’m not wedded to anything in particular. 
 

Any experience of this one?

 

I have to say it looks flipping awesome. 

[King Tut]

They’re versatile amps and yes, easy to fix for an amp tech. I’ve had a few Trace heads and they’ve all been much louder than their wattage would suggest. I’ve heard good things about those slotted cabs too and it looks in lovely condition!

[Lozz196]

They’re amazingly powerful and sound great, heavy little beasties though.

[Downunderwonder]

The combo was designed with more of a hifi set of sensibilities. It looks like it has a 10" speaker so if you turn it up too far it will get quite punk, before you break it.

 

To give it the respect it deserves you should find its limits without the extension cab. Then when the extension is added it will just get a helluva lot louder. So long as you don't crank on it any harder the combo will survive.

 

I think it would be loud enough for my punk band but maybe not for your punk band.

 

Wear ear plugs or you will go deaf.

 

The 1513 is a sweet little cab so worth grabbing this rig for both its parts individually at the very least.

[3below]

Played (dabbled lol) guitar in a musical many, many years ago, the bass player used the same combo.  As a bass player I was well impressed with what the combo delivered from a small package.  @Downunderwonder has sound advice about avoiding hearing damage.

[Minininjarob]

12 hours ago, 3below said:

Played (dabbled lol) guitar in a musical many, many years ago, the bass player used the same combo.  As a bass player I was well impressed with what the combo delivered from a small package.  @Downunderwonder has sound advice about avoiding hearing damage.

A close friend of mine is a sound engineer and he said when he went through Uni his teachers drilled into him that his ears needed to be protected from day one so even as a student he had custom in-ears made, it’s rare I see him not wearing some sort of ear protection!! 
I will certainly be wearing some form of ear protection as soon as I get a bigger amp than the little practice one I have now. 

[jonnybass]

It’s a trace Blx 150. Supposed to be 150 watts. It’s a 10” speaker set back behind the baffle. I had a previous version blx80 when they came out. A bit of a muffled version of the trace sound but some really punch in it. Good amp. 

[Franticsmurf]

Coincidentally, I played through one of these last night at a festival gig. It was provided as part of the backline. Just the combo, no extension cab. Our line up was 2 guitars, bass, drums 2 ukes, a banjo and a trumpet - but we're not particularly loud and the drummer has good volume awareness. It gave me a lovely sound on stage. After the brief soundcheck, the input and output knobs were set to about 3 o'clock and 4 o'clock respectively. I only had a minute or so to set the graphic, so I cut the 50hz back and set the level at about 2 o'clock. After the first song I cut the 500hz a little to try and take care of some muddiness but left it alone after that. Our regular sound man was in the audience and he was happy with the sound I was getting out front. 

 

The previous band had an electric upright bass going through it with plenty of body and tone. The following band (I only heard a few of their songs) had a nice tight sound. 

[Minininjarob]

Well I’m going to give it a try, thanks for the help. 
 

Are TE Amos generally decent quality?

[VTypeV4]

It's been a while since I've owned a 7-band Trace but the SM pre-amp is pretty useable, just don't get sucked into putting a 'smily face' on the graphic! The pre-shapes are quite handy for a change in core tone but personally, I find them both a bit too harsh and boomy without help from the graphic so I use it to EQ a bit of the '80s out. 😀 

 

My advice with these (and the twelve band series) is to know your frequencies - set the EQ flat, switch the pre-shapes out and set the amp for a low to moderate volume then play fully boosting (be careful!) and fully cutting each band returning to the zero point before moving to the next slider - listen carefully. Do the same again but with the pre-shapes switched in this time - see what works for you and what doesn't. Be careful with the 50Hz slider as this will eat power and increase driver displacement costing you potential headroom and percieved volume.  

 

The setup pictured should be pretty loud and sound great - the 1153 cab is a great sounding single-fifteen. The BLX combo with the ten-inch driver will play reasonably loudly without complaint plus that HF component will give a bit of 'zing' too. It won't be Ampeg 8x10 loud plus I doubt it'd compete with 100w Marshalls and multiple 4x12s on eleven but, still, it should be eneough for most situations.

 

As stated previously, build quality is generally good with tidy wiring and chunky components, decent wood-work and well finished upholstery. Most techs will happily repair them if they do fail as they're reasonably traditional and straight forward inside. The cost of them being oldskool is of course they're pretty heavy by today's standards.

 

Hope that helps. 😀

[Minininjarob]

On 18/10/2022 at 01:49, VTypeV4 said:

It's been a while since I've owned a 7-band Trace but the SM pre-amp is pretty useable, just don't get sucked into putting a 'smily face' on the graphic! The pre-shapes are quite handy for a change in core tone but personally, I find them both a bit too harsh and boomy without help from the graphic so I use it to EQ a bit of the '80s out. 😀 

 

My advice with these (and the twelve band series) is to know your frequencies - set the EQ flat, switch the pre-shapes out and set the amp for a low to moderate volume then play fully boosting (be careful!) and fully cutting each band returning to the zero point before moving to the next slider - listen carefully. Do the same again but with the pre-shapes switched in this time - see what works for you and what doesn't. Be careful with the 50Hz slider as this will eat power and increase driver displacement costing you potential headroom and percieved volume.  

 

The setup pictured should be pretty loud and sound great - the 1153 cab is a great sounding single-fifteen. The BLX combo with the ten-inch driver will play reasonably loudly without complaint plus that HF component will give a bit of 'zing' too. It won't be Ampeg 8x10 loud plus I doubt it'd compete with 100w Marshalls and multiple 4x12s on eleven but, still, it should be eneough for most situations.

 

As stated previously, build quality is generally good with tidy wiring and chunky components, decent wood-work and well finished upholstery. Most techs will happily repair them if they do fail as they're reasonably traditional and straight forward inside. The cost of them being oldskool is of course they're pretty heavy by today's standards.

 

Hope that helps. 😀

I couldn’t have hoped for a better response, thanks so much for the detailed advice. 
I don’t think I’ll be moving it around too much to start with so if the sound is ok for me I reckon I’ll go for it if the price is right. 
I’ve been pretty underwhelmed at the combo amps I’ve been looking at in the shops under £300 so if this is pretty cheap then it’ll be well worth it I think. 

[VTypeV4]

Good luck, hope it works out for you. 😀

[TheGreek]

I'm a BIG Trace Fan, currently own at least 6 I believe, and for the money they can't be beat.

 

I maintain that amps didn't get better, they just got lighter. I'd be surprised if the Trace Elliot doesn't give you the sound you're after.

[garyt]

Regarding the reliability - I had an old Trace for years.  Cosmetically it was absolutely knackered due to the beating it had been through, but it still sounded perfect, and never fkd up … apart from one replacement jack socket which was caused by impact anyhow.  I’m slightly ashamed by how badly I treated it, but I was young and that beast saw some action, and as far as I’m aware amps don’t have feelings.  Built like a tank. 
I sold it for £100 in the end because it was just too heavy, but I swear after the nuclear holocaust, the cockroaches will still be able to fire up old 80s-90s Trace amps and Boss pedals.