Can i get darkness tone out of my ENGL?

Y

Young Angus

Kometose Tonologist
I really want the darkness tone, and i still have a bit of faith left in my ENGL rig because it is pretty mega chunky so i rekon with some tweaking i would be able to at least get close to that heavy darkness tone....but i need your help ;)

For those who dont know already (which cant be many of you) i own an ENGL savage 120 with a matching ENGL 4x12 loaded with celestion vintage 30s. And the savage 120 head is a 120watt all valve head with 2xkt88's (or 6550's) and 1x12ax7 as the power tubes (i think thats right anyway).

I was thinking maybe with a distortion pedal in front of it or something, cos isnt that what the darkness guy actually does. And im talking about the darkness lead tone here, like the first and last solo tone on the song "i believe in a thing called love".

So what do you rekon?
 
Sorry man, but I reckon if you want Darkness tone, you NEED a Marshall with an SD-1 or some overdrive pedal.

You bought a metal amp, ENGL is great for hardcore stuff, I'm just not sure you'll nail those types of tones.
 
Wouldn't you rather look for YOUR tone instead? Might be a much more fun quest.
What's the deal with copying someone else's tones anyway?
Half of America is trying to get EVH's tone and at the same time complaining about ho many bands nowadays sound the same...

But bakc to the topic, I suppose you need a wall of marshalls and all the other stuff the Darkness have in their rig. Amps are always a big factor in someone's sound.
 
I heard once that richie blackmore, who is not a metal head by any stretch of the imagination, used a savage 120 with a vintage 30 quad and got some great "richie blackmore" type tones out of it.

Not that his tone is the same as a darkness tone, but he certainly has some kind of classic tones happening.

There must be a way! Not to exactly nail the darkness tone, but to get something that sounds pretty classic and thick, while being a little heavier than your standard marshall tone.
 
I definitely dont want to emulate someones tone, i know thats what it sounded like but if i wanted that id have just bought a marshall instead.

I want something like the darkness tone, but im not trying to copy. I just know that my tastes head more towards the darkness tone that what im currently getting out of my amp. But the guitar that im using could also be playing a factor, its not exactly the fattest thing out.
 
Young Angus, not sure if this would work, but set your amp to a very light overdrive and simply add something like a TubeScreamer to it to smoothen out the tone... that may work for you.

EL34s typically deliver the tone, so I don't know if the ENGL will have what you need, but if you tweak you may find it. Atleast you have a better understanding of what you want now ; )
 
Young Angus, I went to the ENGL site and looked over the manual and specs on that amp. I'm not exactly sure how they are squeezing 120 watts out of 2 6550s but more power to them.

That is an amp with a fairly high learning curve and the 4 voice/channel thing looks alot like what the Rectos have going on. With the extra bright and contour switches and the EQing of that amp you have alot to learn.

It appears to be a cascading type preamp and it should have enough gain to pretty much rip your head off once you learn how to dial it in properly. If you run a pedal into the lower gain voices you will get more of a vintage grind (think pushed Marshall) and the gained voices with an OD should be insane.

It may take you awhile to figure out how to get 100% out of that amp all the time but if you sell it before you figure it out you'll regret it later. That amp has ALOT of knobs on it, so get spinning. I'm guessing that you have already assumed you know what the "right" settings are and you are letting the knobs and not the tone dictate what is going on.

That amp should be a screamer, right out of the box.

610_newww.jpg
 
Yes,

Yes,

IMO, Robert is right on. You definitely have to lower the gain and boost up the volume to get a nice "barely crunchy" sound, then kick it with an overdrive pedal of some sort. That would be my suggestion of course never having played one! I would imagine they would have a channel for "classic" gain or something like that. Try gain at 12:00 or less and volume up to 3:00 or something like that.
 
Boss SD-1 and Ibanez Tube Screamer seem to be two of the most used over the years. Boss Blues Driver or MXR micro amp are a few other not too expensive one's. Seems like most of the Marshall guys use the SD-1 though.
 
Honestly dude, with all the knobs on the face of that thing, I think if you play around long enough you'll be able to coax very similar tones without shelling out any cash for a pedal.
 
Ken said:
Honestly dude, with all the knobs on the face of that thing, I think if you play around long enough you'll be able to coax very similar tones without shelling out any cash for a pedal.
Click to expand...

I dunno, its no doubt a highly versatile amp, but it doesnt have el34's which could play a big part in whether or not it can get that smoother older heavy crunch thing happening.

But im a relative amature at this kind of thing and dont really know what the different tubes sound like and what they do, but i know that this amp has a relatively modern tone about it.

I still dont know if there is something wrong with one of the channels, one of the channels sounds really weird and just plain un-usable. Channel 3 it is, and its supposed to be a heavier channel, but it doesnt let any notes ring out and it sounds as if its almost cutting the notes off. The thing is i had it looked at by someone who is supposed to know his stuff and he said there is nothing wrong with it, but i dont see how any amp is supposed to sound like what it does on channel 3, it just sounds plain $hit!

???
 
It only takes 2 resistors to change many amps over to el34s from 6550s but seeing as they are claiming 120 watts from a pair of 6550s, I'm not sure how they are running those tubes. My JCM 800 used to have 4 6550s and put out 100 watts. I didn't think you could coax 60 watts from a single 6550.

If the 3rd channel sounds that bad, you need to take it to someone else for evaluation. Depending on how the preamp is set up the third channel may have it's own secondary 12ax7 to raise that channels gain or it may use the second half of the one of the preamp tubes for that and a new 12ax7 may straighten you out. There were 6 in that amp if I remember correctly. One to drive the 6550s, an inverter tube and 4 others in the signal path somehow though one may be used in the loop.

I'd start checking the preamp tubes.
 
I know one of the 12ax7's is a part of the power amp. And if it makes any difference to how much power they could coax out of the power section i think the power tubes, according to the manual anyway, are kt88's. Which if i remember correctly from a while ago (and my memory isnt that good so sorry if im full of it) are a higher end 6550 or something like that which may be capable of more than the standard.

Did jcm800s have 6550's? I thought they were an el34 amp?
 
hmmmm i just looked on the ENGL site and it said that the smaller tubes were ecc83's. Are these just a type of 12ax7 tubes or something different?
 
Hey i just found out that the marshall zak wylde signiature head comes with four 6550 tubes, which are the same as my tubes, and zak gets amazing tone! Hes is one of my all time favourite heavy tones!

Although his and i think other jcm800's have four 6550's and are 100 watts. While my savage has only two 6550's and claims 120watts. What gives there? Could it have something to do with the ENGL 6550 tubes being kt88's? If i dont get a response in this thread ill start another one.
 
Another thing you should do if you havent is, if you turn all the knobs to their extremes and then adjust from their, write down settings that you think sound what you want, do tat a few times an different sequences then after a few times try and combine a few of the settings and see what happens...
 
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