TheAmpFactory "Studio Mosters + Devils now released

    Quote from Robman

    I bought the Spitfire last night and wasn't mad about it ......UNTIL I changed the cab and now it sounds great !!!!! was a bit wooly before I did I think ( IMHO )


    What cab did you choose? I'm still not very fond of the Spitfire, whereas I really like the the Friedman.

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    first name: Guenter / family name: Haas / www.guenterhaas.de

    Want a little extra fun for STEREO use only...was messing with the LeadBass20.


    Try this..


    Add "Space" effect in the X slot, put it about -4.5


    Then add "Air Chorus" in the Mod slot at its default settings.. this gives width.


    Add some nice slap back delay (mild) for beef.


    And verb to taste!


    get a really BIG sound!.. and good fun too! :)

    Studio Monsters initial review:


    Guitars used were my EBMM JPM-6 with CL/LF pickups and Ibanez RGA-8 with D-Activators. Bridge pickup rhythms. Bridge and Neck position leads. Threw pretty much all kinds of metal playing at it. Prog, djent, thrash - chunks, chords, riffs, leads.


    This is really incredible work. I didn't mess much with the Retro or Ritchie Blackmore profiles yet, and I only played the lead channels for the others. So Fireball, Powerball, Ironball, Invader, and Savage. I'm less familiar with the Ironball, and spent the least time with it; so I'm not gonna talk about that one yet. Note, that doesn't mean I didn't like it - I definitely liked it a lot but wanted to focus on the others.


    Each amp has the same cabinet/speakers throughout. All of these use V30 customs or V30's, except for the Savage which uses c90's. What's changing is I'm guessing amp settings but more obviously the mic(s) used (and their mix if multiple). Each amp has a lot of variety, and at least one of the profiles should sit well in any mix, with some mild EQ'ing. Some of the profiles I didn't care for on first glance, but with some EQ tweaking they'd be more in my ballpark. But I don't think I heard any that I felt were unusable or complete throw-aways. None of the profiles were created with real-life boosts in the signal chain, AFAIK. This is raw amp. If you want a boost you have to add them. Some profiles have reverb on them, but its rather mild (think 10% mix). Each amp may have 1-2 "solo" profiles that have space, chorus, delay, and higher reverb applied; but I don't think the actual profiles are really different from the raw ones. For some it's a quicker path from raw to wet solo lead tone, but I'd prefer to dial those effects in myself.


    While all of these amps have the distinct ENGL distortion sound (the word "buzzy" is probably the best description), you can easily hear that each of these amps has its own thing going on. I have never played any of these actual amps, so I figure the best thing I can do is describe the impression each amp gave me, and if it's accurate in your mind, I guess Andy did a great job. I can also compare them to other profiles I have. FWIW, I have played various sims of some of the amps (LE456 which is a Powerball sim and Pod HD Fball) and other KPA profiles of some of these.


    The Powerball distortion is IMO the least aggressive (but still very aggressive compared to a Marshall). It gave my favorite leads - can be very smooth and sweet, but with a lot of action as the notes sustain, and the pick attack really comes through - very expressive, even with the heavy distortion. At the same time, it is also great for rhythms. The distortion is rough and distinct and is great for complex chords as well as power chords. Despite the huge impact of the distortion, the tone is tight and clear. It's similar to the "Clarity" control on amp profiles, but sounds a bit more natural/real IMO. This is where it shines. It can definitely get a great metal tone, but it's not quite as tight and saturated as the super thrashy or djent stuff. The only downside I had was that a simple Tube Screamer boost didn't get quite the effect I wanted. It sounds "too boosted", where it starts getting kind of fake sounding. If I played with EQ instead of a Screamer, I could definitely get where I wanted, but why bother because...


    ...the Invader freaking destroys for rhythms. This is probably my new favorite amp/profiles. The distortion is more saturated and harmonic-rich compared to all the other ENGL's in this pack. This means mutes come out not only thick but also cutting. Chords and single notes sound great too. The distortion is rough, but not as rough as the other amps in this pack. It's also super tight. Putting a TS in front didn't behave as expected - I thought this amp already sounded a little boosted compared to the Powerball, so I figured a boost would make it sound even more "overly boosted" and "fake" than the Powerball boosted. But instead, the overall character of the distortion doesn't change it all. It just gets even tighter, more aggressive, and more focused. AFAIK, this was Misha's rig for the Periphery I tone, and it absolutely nails it here. It's super aggressive, but it never gets too nasty. Leads are good, not great, though. There's a lot of transient noise to the attack for my guitars. Neck pickups sounded good, but still could hear some of that nasty attack. The bridge pickup might be a bit too bright to get the kind of tone I want. a -6db cut at 5kHZ in fron the amp definitely helped in this regard, but I'd prefer one of the other amps for leads.


    The Fireball is somewhere in between these. Great low end chunk. Given the awesomeness of the above two for their different uses, I don't know where I'd use this. Maybe a little looser than the others. Kind of an ENGL take on a boosted Marshall maybe. Anyway, I really liked leads on this one. Sweet like the Powerball but maybe a little fatter. What I like about the Powerball better is being able to go from leads to rhythm and eveything stays tight, whereas this is a little looser going to the rhythms. Need to spend more time on this one.


    The Savage sounded kind of like the Powerball but a bit less rough. This one had the c90 speakers, so there's a clearly different thing going on tone-wise. Most of the lead profiles also had lower gain. I usually turned it up, so I could compare it more closely to the others. I need to spend more time on this one - I also want to try it with the Powerball/Invader cab profiles to see where the real differences lie. But the main thing to me was that the Savage sounded much smoother than the others. It's a great tone, but it's kind of less ENGL-y to me. Which begs the question if something else does it better, like a 5150 or 5150 III.


    Overall, this is a must-buy pack for the metal player who wants lots of options. Or if you like the ENGL tone. If you don't like that ENGL buzz, stay away - it's here in spades. But I can only think of a handful of Invader, Savage, and Powerball profiles outside of this pack. Some of them are really good, particularly JEVO's Savage ones. But you get a lot more variety here, all of it high quality.


    I have Armin's Ritchie Blackmore pack, so I'll do a direct comparison for those.


    Clips coming soon, hopefully tonight.

    I've been playing with the new Engl pack all weekend but feel I still need to spend a lot more time on them.


    Overall, I love them. Great tones with minimal tweaking. I can't say which amp I like most. I like them all. One problem is that while auditioning a profile I'll get stuck jamming on it so it took a lot of time to go through them all- and I stuck strictly to the "lead" profiles since my primary use for these will be high-gain metal.


    I found that I preferred to add a boost to most of these. They certainly didn't need a boost for gain (there's gain aplenty!) but I liked using a boost to tighten the low end just a bit before hitting the amp. Also seemed to add a bit of aggressiveness in the upper mids. I used the green scream with drive at 0, tone at -1.5, and level at 1.5 and liked the results. When using a boost, I often decrease the gain a bit on the amp.


    I'm thinking that for my purposes (direct recording) it would be useful to drop the mids on the amps just a touch (no more than -1). Seemed like doing this helped the sound to fit better when I was jamming along with a full mix.


    That's really the only tweaks I'm doing at this point. Love these profiles. Looking forward to doing mixtests with them soon. I've found that I can judge guitar tones better when I dual-track them with bass/drums and listen back later on.

    Quote from Gary_W

    I bought the Dirty Shirley and the Redplate tonight.


    The redplate seems promising but hasn't had a fair try out yet due to the dirty Shirley being outstanding. And I've only really tried it with one guitar so far!


    Many thanks. May grab another one or two of these......

    Yes, the Dirty Shirley is unbelievable, everybody who likes Plexis and old Marshalls should try it. :thumbup:


    One question to the users of the Engl-pack: are the profiles just for metalheads or also useful for guys like me, who grew up in the 70's? (favourite players: Jimmy Page, Jimi Hendrix, Jeff Beck ect.)

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    first name: Guenter / family name: Haas / www.guenterhaas.de

    Quote from guenterhaas

    Yes, the Dirty Shirley is unbelievable, everybody who likes Plexis and old Marshalls should try it. :thumbup:


    One question to the users of the Engl-pack: are the profiles just for metalheads or also useful for guys like me, who grew up in the 70's? (favourite players: Jimmy Page, Jimi Hendrix, Jeff Beck ect.)


    I think the Engl pack is one of the most versatile he has done. Definitely much more in there than just high gain profiles (though those are awesome). I think the Engl might be my favorite all-around set of all of them.

    meambobbo


    wow thats some write up, appreciate your time!


    Feck, guenterhaas


    Whilst the ENGL pack was designed for metal in mind, it can still produce some good rock tones, though some adjustments to perhaps the definition parem might be needed, not sure, I needed to for my strat. (Why you play ENGL with a strat I hear you cry...) - trust me, Im weird, and I like strats! : )


    One thing I will add to this.. - Whilst Im not a metal player, so I cant do all that fancy chugga chugga stuff.. but what _really_ impressed me with the ENGL amps is the lead tones you can obtain. - They feel "fast" to play if that makes sense. they have a good sense of clarity to them that I like. (for fast moving fret work).


    Try the 2 attached free samples (orignal post) - and see if you like those first.


    Thanks guys.

    Here's a clip of a few of the ENGL profiles through my 8 string (but I'm mostly playing like a 7 in drop Ab):
    http://soundcloud.com/meambobbo/taf-engl-demo


    I didn't edit the profiles at all. I only added a gate for the raw profiles, then towards the end, I went back through them all with a Green Scream with default settings (100% tone, no drive or volume boost) EDIT: I forgot I also enabled an EQ when I engaged the Green Scream - I made a slight boost around 400 HZ and a larger cut around 5000 HZ. This prevents the tone from getting too nasty. Note that the Savage profiles came from Andy with less gain than the others, which is why they sound cleaner.


    I am using the first Lead channel profile for each amp here, except in the middle, where I play through all the Invader Lead profiles to give you an idea of the variety you'll find for each amp - pretty sure the main thing changing here is the mic.


    Sorry for the sloppy playing and repetitive garbage djent riffage - just wanted to throw something out real quick.

    Andy, I was also surprised by the quality of the leads from the ENGL's. However, I really like Misha's lead tone from Periphery I, which is an Invader (I think). Also, I think Per from Scary Symmetry used an ENGL for most of their albums, and he's got a sweet lead tone. And my favorite band ever, Haken, uses a Powerball for leads (I think, he also mentions uses an Axe FX Standard for leads...).


    You can really hear it on the bends. It occasionally comes out in my clip, but the playing is pretty awful. The Invader can get a bit nasty on leads (for my guitars), but all the others are very sweet.