For more gear reviews and videos check out guitarworld.com In this video Guitar World's gear editor Paul Riario demonstrates the features of the Engl Powerball head.
@KissMeImPunk It had a lot of the mids scooped out and quite a ballsy sounding low end,and a more sparkly high end when u rolled the bass off about half way
Especially with active EMGs sustain gets close to infinite. That's cheating :P He should've used passive pickups instead and then showcase the sustain XD
@PuppetGovernmentLV im not disagreeing with the fact that it would be better to have someone different for each specific channel. like a really good rock guitarist can do the crunch part and so on. but paul is good for what he does. And i doubt guitar world would want death metal in their reviews sense they are trying to reach the widest possible audience. BTW looked at one of the video links you posted for that guy with the engl and he is AMAZING awesome video thanks for sharing!
@Guitarfreak5253 y does this matter dude all kinds of bands use different heads i kno soft bands that use this and theres less gain for not-so-heavy genres i mean regardless of what he's trying to "make out of it" he's doing his job amplifier companies try to make more versatile merchandise so youre basically saying the amp is a sectioned off boring head look up scale the summit both metal and soft things they use all the modes and channels
I dont own this particular ENGL but my engl sounds fine at room volume, sure it will sound better at band volume, but you should definatly be able to keep it managable for room volume. I dont practice real loud because of the noise ordinance, but you should be ok with the power ball, and if it is still to loud and you have the money buy an attenuater, tone and volume, win win. Also, dont sacrifice your amp preference because of its volume, get the amp that sounds the best.
well was ina car wreck and gor insurance money.. so i got a good aize check... XD but anyways, so would it be too loud for a bedroom amp aswell? cause i do gig. but i dont want meh house coming down XD tried a DSL 100 marshall and it people said i needed to get somthing less the size cause i could only turn the volume to atleast 2-3.. and i got a very bad tone, i want tone at 2-5 volume.. anyone help me please.
It depends, are you in a serious band and do you have 2k to drop on an amp head? Because if you are a serious musician and youve got the cash this thing rocks, but if you arent sure if your going to stick with guitar and you just need somthing to practice with,Then it will probably be a waste of money if your gonna sell it anyway. I always found it difficult to make 2k as a 15 year old.
If you like it and have the money buy what you want. Also, If guitar is somthing you are thinking about sticking with, then buying high end gear isnt stupid. If you hate guitar and you are lets say, 12 and your parents are making you take lessons, Then yes, It would be dumb to buy an ENGL. But if you like it then wright the check bro, I take that back, wright two checks, ill send you my address when you buy me one =D lol
The years won't matter. My opinion is to get something if u are able to say what difference it has from your previous gear. In 2 years you can be very good at guitar (well enough good) and most of all you can study your tone/sound. That's what matter most concerning the gear. The knowledge of the sound. You should study a bit more to be sure if the engl is what you want. Offcourse it's a great head/amp but shouldn't get unless you decide what tone you want:)
I agree on the name part - plenty of options in this world as always. However, I do believe that musical taste is 100% opinion based and if they want a very a high-gain saturated sound for what they want to play, then why not find and buy an amp that does just that? I think there can be too much, assumedly like you, but I'm not gonna' tell X player that he can't buy an amp until he shares my views. Diversity is the way to go, not convergence.
Personally, i think i can make my Engl powerball sound much cooler than this. So just try out every possible EQ most suitable for the style you play. If you want to add sound effects, do it through the FX loop on the back, just next too the noise gate. It is not all effects you can use through the normal input As a minimum, i think you should get a 2x12 cab for this monster. This is some of the experience i have had with my Engl Powerball
I just bought a previously owned in MINT condition ENGL Screamer 50 Head. WOW!!!! I have been playing my Mesa Boogie QUAD preamp, and the Mesa 2:90 Power amp for over 3 years.When I heard how well the 4 modes on this ENGL Screamer sound, and more importantly feels when playing, I put the Boogie up on E-Bay. I am not looking back. Yes, the ENGL Kicks some serious Ass, and is sooo transparent, and Tight that I cannot believe how I managed for so long. The Boogie was just old school, but still OK.
the dual rec doesn't cut through the mix and doesn't have as great as a midrange as the powerball. that being said, a mark IV could hold its own to the powerball ANY day of the week. the cleans on the mark would kill the powerball's, but the powerball will always have clarity in notes even if the gain is at 11. the mark will start to fizz (but come on, what idiot runs the gains on ten anyways?). i love my mark IV so much, but would like a powerball also. could you imagine those together? oh baby
A lot of people i know dont like the powerball. For me, i especially hate the clean channel. It sounds like a high gain channel with less gain and some fake warmth, was amazed cuz of the price tag... All the amps I got are way better. It had maybe 1 nice high gain sound, a brutal one but still industrial. And emg, imo u cant find it nice, u can only find it tight, it doesnt got any character just a tight metal sound. Emg sa can do some nice sound with gain, but clean its again too sterile.
When I play metal, i also want clean sounds for in between. And a metalhead doesnt need to have high output pickups. I play metal with a seymour duncan parallel axis and a dimarzio air norton. And i get a very tight sound and still nice cleans. I want good cleans and good high gain sounds from an amp, and the clean of this amp isnt too bad. High outpup pups can do metal greatly, better than any active pup imho and otherwise blackouts own emg.
waiiiiiiiiiiiiittttt i dont understand this: does it matter what amp i buy if i have my tone coming through a line 6 pod x3 live because cant you make any tone from it pretty much so you dont need to worry about the amps tone? like i have my guitar plugged into a line 6 pod x3 live and and then an amp... i just need to make the perfect tone on the pod x3, not worry about the amp?
@PuppetGovernmentLV engl is the best low punchy end,cheaper then the old mesa and if you dial you're gain back you aslo can get super sweet leads out of it,or if you have a more basse cabinet then you can keep the gain and play heavy and clean leads.i think engl will sounds awesome with t75 or greenbacks.
Why this man has to talk so much, play the same sh*^ts all the time while we ALL (i bet even those who hired him) can see he doesn't know how to play guitar, test items like amp's, signature (or not) guitars, pedals and everything, and still having his job anyway! Thumbs up to those who want him out of guitar world!
@locoboxspaceship what he meant was the "sustain " of the amp , how long the amp can sustain or hold a note . nothing to do with the feedback . listen to how long the amp holds that note well , you ll get what he's trying to say . dont trash the poor fella , after all , without him , we wouldnt be here listening to the review in the first place : )
@rohanclassic I'm sorry but I'd rather not. ENGL is much too precious to smash on a snobby teenager. You need to hit him with appropriate aged gear. Like a Line 6. With the gain knob turned up all the way and the mid knob missing because mids are myths for snobby rich kids. With that in mind, feel free to smash away.
For all of you who think this is a bad amp from this video, seriously? you're gonna base your opinion off of this douche playing guitar? go out and try one for yourself, you'll fall in love with it, you can't decide about an amp over the internet and if you think you can, then you don't deserve to own one of these amps so go back to your line six
this amp eat all :p.man this is a great amp i have one 2,you defnitly need a booster pedal or something like it,so you can turn down rhe pressence a bit.the powerball is one heck of a beast maybe even to beasty.when you dial it to fully metal,more pressence it may sound a bit to thrashy.a few pedals in front of it make this a monster amp.
perhaps, but MOST test vids are not mic'd OR DI. and they sound like shit or nothing special. i just think its funny when ppl listen to an expensive test amp vid and theyre completely hypnotized by the brand or the price and say "THAT SOUNDS SICK!" when in reality it sounds like shit because of the natural warping of the sound you get with cameras.
I would say keep the money and play a little more. This way you can develop your sense of sound. And try to play different things. This will help. Offcourse it;s not a waste of money hell no:P But you would appreciate your buy even more if you let a bit more time to pass:D And you will be more proud of it offcourse:P Regards and good luck with your search:)
:) I dont like the cleans of the amp. It does a good Tool like sound, gritty metal. Like Diezel but i would choose a diezel any day over this one. I love punch in my sound, thats why i choose brunetti, no amp i tried gives the pressure this amp does, you should try it seriously :) A lot better than my marshall dsl50 a lot better, my superbass i awesome also.
@rainbowchickenfish people give a crap about clean because some of us don't want to spend big bucks on an amp that can only do high gain. I, for one, look for that almost breaking up sound in an amp. If that bluesy clean sounds good, the amp will surely sound amazing, crisp and detailed even at high gain. Don't be so ignorant next time, ok? some might not like it
@1978djd actually, the powerballs responds extremely well to the personality of the guitar thats plugged in.. here, and ESP with EMG pickups will only make it sound metal.. hit it with a LP or a tele, and you'll see its extremely versatile. Actually its overkill with single coils :)
@sfh113 not if youve got a pod. but if you play an amp like this, youll understand why the pod is shit! ive stopped using effects, except for maybe a good chorus pedal or flange for some VH, because ive got a good amp, and its not that great when compared to this or some of the marshalls!
@Pallietime Well from experience, this amp is definitely not a midsy amp like the 5150/6505. And the way they "fixed" it on the Powerball II was adding a new Mid Boost function with it's own Mid Boost knob. But really, cutting through should never be a problem if you EQ your amp properly!
@MrNarcoleptik too much just wrecks the sound man. im sure u know that but ive learned to admire controlled gain at certain levels. i think this is a perfect amount of gain. too much and it sounds like a flowing pixelated river. im sure the guys from slayer would bode well with this amp
Damn... The price sure rises on your side of the pond. In UK the JVM is about 1000-1200 euros, which is something like 1500USD. The powerball is 1350euros on some online retailers. Then again, a Mesa dual rec costs about 2500 euros and the mark V is right up around 3K (+3K in USD)
@falarious123 sustain is when the guitar and gain make a note longer, when the amp volume is high and the guitar is close, this causes feedback and keeps vibrating the string.... try "sustaining" a note with low volume, THATS real sustain, has nothin to do with feedback....
@xD0NKEYx did i say it's become synonymous with chugs? or did i say it's become synonymous with djent TONE? seriously, lrn2read also, you criticize narrow minded musicians, and then try and generalize all "chugging" as bad? lrn2logic
@ralexi25 I think you'll find that it's the guitar itself that holds the great sustain. He's playing an Esp Eclipse so obviously the thick mahoghany body is holding the note for longer, i can get that sustain out of a Line 6 so it's not the amp lol
@SinisterManiac The Savage is more versatile. The Powerball is pure METAL! I have the Savage 120 and the SE head, I play them through a Vader 4x12 cab. I'm actually considering selling the Savage, because the SE has it all. LOL! - Wulf
evidently an esp with active pickups (emg are satans work( doesn't do this fantastic amp justice. why not buy a grown ups guitar like a vigier or a suhr for similiar money and get 100000000000000000000000000000 times the quality and tone.
GUYS I JUST GOT IT TODAY!!! This is what I can call an AMP! THE BEST FUCKING AMP IN THE FUCKING WORLD! Metal? No fuckin' problem. Rock? Haha, sure. Blues? hell yeah. FUNK? Done. :) BUY THE FUCKING AMP! Don't even try to compare it with 6505 +!
yea umm mesas arent everything and neither is distortion. when you learn to like an amp that sounds good not just because of the name and that you learn that strumming chords doesnt require a saturating amount of distortion you can buy an amp
The Fireball is awesome and several hundred dollars cheaper. It is basically channels 1 and 4 on the Powerball. I had one and loved it but I upgraded to the Powerball for more versatility. For straight metal tone the Fireball owns.
The problem is that I cannot try 'em out. :S Cuz' my dealer hasn't got any of these two amps and he said that he will order only one for me. So that's a big problem :) Nope man, my band has almost all songs in standard. Couple of them are in D.
Idk if its the way Paul EQs the amps, or the mic, but GuitarWorld amp reviews are always ruined by shitty tone. I don't get it, I mean if you're gonna review an amp for people who wanna buy the amp, you should at least make it sound good.
you will not need another noisegate, its great! if you dial it right, if you turn all the way up, its horrible, but if you have it around 11 o'clock its perfect. You'll figure it out if you're planning to buy one.
@Ghoppdude Metal has no tone? hI think it's just because you don't like metal because metal have so many different possibilities for great tone! Its really hard to get the right ton even more than in rock or more bluesy stuff!
is their a place you can go to test and play amps like engl, krank, and mesa boogie, because i cant seem to find them at guitar center or sam ash. and i dont want to order one offline without first testing it
It appears the the "open" setting is a little better for rhythm playing whereas the "focused" setting is a little better for lead playing. I wonder if the amp comes with a footswitch for those two settings...
sorry to inform u but my rig sounds way better than this and doesn't hiss at all and i get the exact same controlled feedback and sustain and pinch harmonics that this amp just showed, and i don't even use active pickups
haha putting vibrato on a rung out strings "increases" its sustain, the same as feed back? haha no. if you want true sustain strum an open string and dont touch the guitar. and all amps get feedback, its not sustain.
they do don't they. ppl w/o the knowledge of tone use the ol' "my opinion" card. lol!!!!! hey, if shit brown is your tone of choice be proud!!!! ha ha ...and be prepared to defend it cuz IT DOES SUK
@Feileiks that.. is so dumb.. think about your argument.. you say marshall is overpriced, and only sounds "ok". Engl is like $1000 more, and sounds better. this makes makes marshall overpriced how?
@PuppetGovernmentLV Well yea, if you want to hear how everything on an amp sounds for metal, death metal would be the best genre to do it in. Yea they should get 2 a clean one and a dirty one.
Paul, Powerball to the Bugera 333XL as far as Clean, Blues and High Gain. Price not being a factor, which is a more versatile amp? I haven't seen you do a video on the 333Xl just the 6260 or 6262 I think.
@GoodOldDeathMetal dude... metal core and death core aren’t genres... it’s all heavy metal.. different tunings and more intricate drums doesn’t change the genre... don’t talk shit mate ... and calm down
@AstralOpeth i'm pretty sure they are micing the amps when they do the tests, so we hear the sound as it would sound on a record, but ofc, even if it is mic'ed and all, it still sounds different live.
yes i did, but it started hissing when he went into the 2nd mode of the clean channell, now on the other hand i don't know how much he had mixed in the gate he was talking about, that may help
no i'm simply saying if you get a bit more money together, you can get a really special guitar, and i was saying that i don't like emg's. a guitar like this won't do an amp like that justice.
Played this amp recently, it was pretty cool. But I expected more. You really need to crank it to get the most out of it, and that's not really possible in a guitar store, your house and even most studios.
The thing is I cannot play them both. Only one, for which I will deicide. And I'll buy the powerball, because I'm sure that it will give me, what I need, and I'm not so sure with the peavey 6505 +.
i have a powerball bought used..and led lights behind valves have lost its red colour...so now i have clear lights... :( can someone help me saying how can i re-colour my beloved head's red lights???
Nah, the sustain you're hearing in this video has more to do with the power and volume of the head, not so much the EMG pickups, it comes into play a small amount, but not nearly as much as you'd think.
actually, IF you look at the prices the ENGL costs more than the JVM because the footswitch which is sold separately is 230 bucks....so 2000 plus 230 is 2230 whereas the JVM is 2200....figure it out. =]
@PrsFenderJackson1980 ..considering it's an ENGL ..you can count on a lot of active players using it anyway. If it were a fender combo amp or something, that'd be a little different.
@Pallietime I didn't find that problem. That's only if you scoop your mids. So to solve it, just pump your mids lol. Without mids, you won't really cut through at all anyway.
@DioMarti try a matcing engl cab, but i've never played an engl head with a different cab so i cnt really say much but they sound pretty awsome, but like the head they are a bit pricey.
for the people complaining about a mesa/boogie review..they only review new products. the last new product from mesa i believe may have been the express amps, which they did demo.
@falarious123 i gues you are just not that into guitar playing like i am... look for harmonics, there is a reason why they appear and same thing counts for feedback:) all physics;)
@hopefilleddream no reverb issues, more of a "playin with knobs" issue for me:) when playin 2 seconds every1 knows how the setting sounds like, unlike a solo of 30 seconds....
lol, okay so what you're saying is that you want some shredding? That shit is great but kinda sucks when you're trying to get an idea of what an amp sounds like.
@rainbowkchickenfish so you're basically saying that the small group that wants to hear the clean don't matter? Just skip the part where he plays clean if it's such à
@PuppetGovernmentLV ok. he plays riffs that are metal enough so that you know it is an amp for that style of music. he is great player that can demonstrate tone very well.
this the first time i have heard of this brand of amp, its looks and sounds great, any1 no any significant differences from this to say a triple rectifier mesa boogi?
mate for a bedroom amp you want 50 watts and lower with the volume nob on 1 and a half i sugest getting an alright $230 that will get you there until you need more push
sure it costs more, but it's still overpriced. you could get better tone out of a 6505+ or even a dual rectifier whereas the engl actually sounds like it should cost $2000.
that took FOREVER to explain the front panel paul!.. But i liked the different things you can do and the gain on this head. TOTALLY spinal tap-esq with the sustain, hahahah
@falarious123 has nothing to do with vibrato;) pure feedback which CAUSES a harmonic (feedback = harmonic) pure physics... speaker--> string --> speaker --> string etcetc..
To be fair, what you're hearing on "Blackend" is multiple guitar layers in each channel creating a THICK guitar sound. Metallica uses mostly Mesa Dual Rectifiers, though.
what's the built in noise gate like? is it enough to really choke notes on that high gain channel when you want to? or do you need an additional noise gate?
I know this is kinda of topic, but I LOVE the lick starting at 08:23!! Also, I have this amp and it's way superior to the Dual Rectifier. In my opinion of course.
@PuppetGovernmentLV do you not know what metal is or something? the low gain with the open on is metal. it may not be death metal but it is definitely metal.
Could you take out 2 tubes to make it 50 watts? just to be able to play in a smaller rehearsal room? Or does this amp have decent volume breakup at lower levels?
