Geeaaar

[Alexicus543]

Hey, My Marshall jvm410h broke while i was touring and im planning on getting me a new amp. I have been thinking of the ENGL POWERBALL and the FIREBALL which one of them sounds most brutal and accurate or should i just keep going with a Marshall jvm410h?
Anyways i want you to know that it's because of you i play guitar and since i started you have been my biggest inspiration and you still are! Thanks for bringing real music to the world

 

[Mr.Sister]

Both great amps. If you wanna sound "brutal" I would definitely prefer an Engl and not a Marshall.

 

[da.benson8r]

An ENGL will give you a more modern, cutting tone. Great for complex metal. Marshall has the vintage metal vibe (as you probably know, seeing as you owned one). I say it depends on the style - if it's really heavy chugging stuff or really technical, I agree with Mr. Sister that the ENGL would be better.

 

[Alexicus543]

Thanks! I tried out the Fireball yesterday and it sounds great! Great for the type of sound that Brodrick uses in his Chaos Theory vids, and it got a great clean channel aswell. Its a really simple amp too.

 

[Mack Addy]

Forget the Marshall, forget the ENGL....Go Hughes & Kettner!! Try either the Trilogy or the Warp X. They have so much low end (especially the Warp X) you'll crap yourself!

 

[Mr.Sister]

Forget the Marshall, forget the ENGL....Go Hughes & Kettner!! Try either the Trilogy or the Warp X. They have so much low end (especially the Warp X) you'll crap yourself!

Can you say anything about the Switchblade? I think they would be great for live situations, since their so easy to handle, but I never really tested one. I just saw Jeff Waters demonstrating one last year and that sounded great (Of course, it's Jeff Waters), but I don't know anything about it's versatility, since Jeff is basicaly a gain-all-the-way guy.

 

[Mack Addy]

Sorry for the long delay in response, but here it goes:

The Switchblade is absolutely incredible! It's basically four amps with settings that are 100% customizable and recallable via midi WITH built-in effects. It's one of the most widely used H&K's in the industry (the other being the Triamp MKII). Record with it, play live with it, tour with it..it will be cherished.

Only slight downside I noticed years ago when I used to sell them - the midi foot controller it came with usually had a really crappy quality cable that was hard-wired into the controller and would often fail. This was back in '06-07. I'm sure it's been fixed by now. Regardless, there are two things one can do in the event their included foot controller cable dies:

1. De-solder the cable from the footswitch and replace it with a 5-pin midi jack and wire the jack up to the foot controller. Then you can use whatever cable you like in whatever length you desire.
2. Use a different midi foot controller (which I do anyway). Have the included controller around as a backup.

The Coreblade (which Jeff Waters uses nowadays) is basically a pure metalhead's Switchblade with a few extra bells and whistles like built-in noise gate, Tube Safety Control and the option to save and re-load all of your saved presets on to a USB flash drive.

 

[Mr.Sister]

Thx alot for the reply. It really helps me, since I'm thinking about buying a new amp lately.

 

[Mack Addy]

You lucky bastard, you live in Germany - home of Hughes & Kettner! What part do you live in? They're in St. Wendel. I'm sure finding an H&K dealer there would be like finding a hooker in Amsterdam.

 

[Mr.Sister]

I live in Thuringia (lies directly in the center of Germany), far away from St. Wendel, but, yeah, I have to drive less than an hour to the next h&k dealer, even less with a train

And Engl's here, too.

 

[Mack Addy]

Engl's are cool too. From what little I've messed around with them, they seem to have TONS of low end. My favorite Engl that I've come across has still been the Blackmore signature head. Lots of low end, but still really tight kind of like an H&K.

 

[Chris_Broderick]

I would say ENGL all the way!!!! better built and better tone. They all sound awesome, just figure out the one with the features you need (midi, channels, etc...) and go for that one.

Take care, Chris.

 

[Mack Addy]

Chris is an ENGL man (Powerball, correct?), I'm an H&K man (Trilogy). I'd love to have an ultimate amp showdown with him sometime. Which German amp will reign supreme? I bet that would be interesting.

 

[Chris_Broderick]

Chris is an ENGL man (Powerball, correct?), I'm an H&K man (Trilogy). I'd love to have an ultimate amp showdown with him sometime. Which German amp will reign supreme? I bet that would be interesting.

Both great amps, though I must admit that I haven't tried the recent HK stuff.
Chris.

 

[Mr.Sister]

Well, the best lead sound I ever heard came through a H&K Coreblade (Candlemass btw). But for rhythm I would prefer an Engl... God... questions. questions, questions

 

[monkeycawk]

TEH POWERBALL IS BETTER SINCE MOAR KNOBS!

Seriously though, the Fireball is great for metal and has decent cleans, but the Powerball is very versatile.

You should also give the Savage a try if you're coming off a Marshall. It sounds a lot like a VERY angry Marshall, IMO.

 

[Kohlrabihaus]

maybe Chris is interested in this:
I play the PB as well, but what always disturbed me was, that is was not a real four channel amp (clean/ crunch as well as hi/ lo gain channels share a gain knob). so when my amp had to be taken care of (it fell from the speaker and broke the tubes) I took the opportunity to have it modified! I had the amp builder change the second master volume into a new gain knob for the high gain channel.
so I have low gain for rhythm (at 12 o'clock) and the new super gain channel for solo. the funny thing is the new gain channel has an awesome tone not only for leads... I would like to have the very tone for the rhythm as well, as it sounds just awesome!!! very creamy smooth with super definition and I'd say with lesser high mids (I guess 800 hertz..?)... it has tons of gain so I would have to ride it at 9 or 10 o'clock to have not too much distortion for the rhythm! on 3 the sustain is very long, nice feedbacks and at 5 o'clock (what would be maximum) it is almost like a sustainer! I am planing to give the amp away to that amp guy to do another mod, as soon as money allows it! I am so happy with the new sound!

 

[MarkusAzrael]

marshall, zoom fx musatine sign, Dean vhmt. Go kill them bear