All Things ENGL!
- Thread starter la szum
- Start date
Yes it does. I'm learning these controls, but the volume spike when I press the Clean/Lead button is very noticable. It's a bit better on the "red" channel.
The thing sounds astonishing with the Master Vols, well, everything, at 12 o'clock. But it also astonishes the neighbors and local wildlife.
I'm trying that, as well as lowering the Masters and running those higher - which seems to work better. The Lead Volume and Presence controls also kick in when I hit the Clean/Lead button, as well the Shape and Bright buttons.
Low channel volume, I can run the red channel Master a bit higher as long as I don't press the Lead button - but the tones aren't what I want. That needs cranking the thing.
The Vox Copperhead drive is my salvation atm. But it's early days still and I have many pedals to try.
I like it, but it is a bit of a beast for home use.
Very much so!You invited the Dragon into your home willingly----now you just need to figure out how to live with it peacefully.
It may sound like complaints - my bad - but I'm really enjoying this amp and what it is teaching me (or what I am learning) about tone and my playing.
I can always go the Fireball 25 on the Lead channel and rock my socks off whenever the mood hits. I'm also working out how to stereo the AE50 with the Bad Cat Black Cat - and/or Orange Terrors or even the Fireball 25. And I can mix that lot up with various drive pedals before I start on delay and modulation.
The Vox Copperhead was meant to go with or emulate Marshalls, like their Mystic Edge is based on an AC30. I could only find the Copperhead available. It's the pick of my bunch so far, but yet to trial the AmpTweaker, Spaceman etc. And that's just drives. Fuzz has yet to be included! Sputnik III or Spooky Tooth or Jimi Fuzz Face or ... Hell, I haven't ever tried a Timmy or RAT. Or SD-1.
My tonal exploration is just beginning. I apologize if it is coming across as griping. This is exactly what I bought this amp for!
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Nah, man. I am stoked for you.
You know you need to get familar with the amp, and a lot of the learning is on you,
and not the amp's fault. That is a very refreshing perspective for this old coot to see
on the Internet.
Too many fail to put in the required time to get familiar to new terrain and get a feel for the
lay of the land, and instead expect handjobs and craft made sandwiches from their new gear
right out of the box.
You know you need to get familar with the amp, and a lot of the learning is on you,
and not the amp's fault. That is a very refreshing perspective for this old coot to see
on the Internet.
Too many fail to put in the required time to get familiar to new terrain and get a feel for the
lay of the land, and instead expect handjobs and craft made sandwiches from their new gear
right out of the box.
laxu
Rock Star
- Messages
- 6,156
I think you need to determine what it is that gives you the tone you like.I'm trying that, as well as lowering the Masters and running those higher - which seems to work better. The Lead Volume and Presence controls also kick in when I hit the Clean/Lead button, as well the Shape and Bright buttons.
Low channel volume, I can run the red channel Master a bit higher as long as I don't press the Lead button - but the tones aren't what I want. That needs cranking the thing.
The Vox Copperhead drive is my salvation atm. But it's early days still and I have many pedals to try.
I like it, but it is a bit of a beast for home use.
Often at home volumes it's literally just "it's louder, so it sounds better to my ears". That "sounds great" and "sounds just alright" zone can be a very small difference in volume and can depend on how the volume controls work.
On my BluGuitar there doesn't seem to be a "step" where the amp suddenly gets quite a bit louder and better sounding, whereas my Mesa Mark V:90 definitely does that. The Bogner Goldfinger did this too.
Master high vs channel low and vice versa shouldn't make anything but a marginal difference for tone, it just determines where in the circuit you are attenuating the preamp - before or after the fx loop. I'd just use the channel volumes to balance the channels and master for final volume level.
The manual says that turning the fx loop balance control up will reduce volume a bit, so even with nothing connected you could try if the parallel loop can act as further volume reduction controls.
This might be desirable for non-master volume amps to get around bright cap harshness, or master volume amps that don't have a ton of preamp gain so getting some extra from the phase inverter and poweramp helps.
Most high gain, 50+ watt amps would be ungodly loud like that, running at their max clean output with maybe a bit of poweramp compression creeping in. There's generally no benefit to doing that as you have tons of gain on tap anyway. Anything between 1-5/10, depending on the amp, would sound pretty much the same and what changes is how you perceive the volume and how the speakers get pushed.
So don't feel you are giving up anything if you need to run MV at 1-2, as long as it sounds good to you.
AFKAEjay(retired)
Roadie
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To my ears, every mesa I tried, didn’t sound pleasing at conversation levels.
My (non tech) hypothese:
It has nothing to do with tubes or speakers cooking, but everything with the mess circuits needing the preamp pots a bit open (also the mv) before the preamp does what it is designed to do. Reason why I believe this to be true: When I attenuate the level in the efx loop a bit, allowing channel/mv to open a bit more without volumes going crazy, the amp sounds a lot better at low volume to my ears. Volume pedal, digital unit with a volume knob…whatever…maybe worth trying on your Mark.
laxu
Rock Star
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Yeah that's how I expect it works as well. I remember the Bogner Goldfinger had a CTS pot on its OD master volume and in my experience those pots can literally have a section on the low end of the range where it does not change in resistance at all. The Bogner OD channel had to be turned to about 9 o'clock for that "step" where it comes really alive. So I just considered that my "minimum great" volume level, or used the fx loop return level as a global master if I needed to be below that.
The alternative I suppose could be that 0 -> 0.1 gets fairly loud like on some amps. Victory Kraken Mk1 was 100 dB @ 1m with the MV on 1 which is ridiculous. Friedman BE50 Deluxe got really loud pretty quickly too from what I remember. The Bogner at least had a more gradual clean headroom range where it didn't even start distorting the poweramp until about 6-7/10.
I really wish amp manufacturers took the time to design their stuff to be consistent for volume control. I've been totally spoiled with the BluGuitar where its channel master or OD master can be just set to whatever you need and there's never any abrupt jumps whether you want to play at whisper volumes or cranked.
Fryette Power Station's "low/high level" switch is a really practical way to do it as well where you get better control over low volumes, or better control over high volumes.
AFKAEjay(retired)
Roadie
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- 286
Idnk, maybe it’s not the pots…but simply components/ filters needing a certain amount of signal, maybe even to mitigate the effect of variation in values of components.
TheTrueZoltan!
Shredder
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- 2,041
Yep, when I had that amp I liked it most with the MV around 4. But keep in mind that the channel volume affects power amp saturation, too.
One thing I found quite important with the Artist Edition was to adjust the BIAS to 70% to make the amp sound a little bit... well... warmer overall.
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What's this Mesa Chatter up in here???? 
The 37,000 Mesa Threads on here not enough???!!
Funny.
So, I setup another Power Amp Emulation in the Fractal that is
focused on the Powerball. Now I have 2 Presets to use with the
E530. One Savage based and one Powerball based. I am using the
exact same Dyna Cabs/Speaker Settings. There's a difference.
Both sound great! So much fun for me.
Big thanks to all the help offered to help me get here. I feel like
this has been a massive leap for me in getting a sound in my head
into the world I live in. Gracias!
The 37,000 Mesa Threads on here not enough???!!
Funny.
So, I setup another Power Amp Emulation in the Fractal that is
focused on the Powerball. Now I have 2 Presets to use with the
E530. One Savage based and one Powerball based. I am using the
exact same Dyna Cabs/Speaker Settings. There's a difference.
Both sound great! So much fun for me.
Big thanks to all the help offered to help me get here. I feel like
this has been a massive leap for me in getting a sound in my head
into the world I live in. Gracias!
Last edited:
JiveTurkey
Goatlord
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Mikael Dez
Roadie
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EOengineer
Shredder
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- 2,148
I bet a triaxis into those power amp sims would sound pretty good.What's this Mesa Chatter up in here????
The 37,000 Mesa Threads on here not enough???!!
I'll certainly try this out - I must have missed that.
Thanks for the great advice. I have owned and played it for about 10 hours all told now, and am learning how to use it, and is my first amp above 25 watts (Fireball 25 with built in attenuation), so it's all new to me.
I can find good tones easily, and did so as soon as I plugged in. I just need to tame the dragon, so to speak, so the neighbors aren't upset.
I also have a bunch of amps to try stereo with it and about 80 pedals to try. I've just got an EQD Dispatch Master in the Loop atm, but about to drop in a Strymon Volante, then the Timeline, then the Meris gear... In front, I'm still yet to try the Timmy, RAT, AmpTweakers, Spaceman's, Basic Audio Fuzz boxes... I have yet to try an SD-1 with it. I think like the Copperhead over the Pantheon because of the Nu-tube.
But what I did yesterday was stereo my Bad Cat Black Cat with my Vox AC10 for some chimey goodness the AE50 can't really do, unless I get a Vox-in-a-box like the Vox Mystic Edge.
I'm a tone chaser. Now I "need" a Fender Reverb of some kind (Red Snakeskin Blues Junior looks incredible!) - and an ENGL Founders Edition 100 and 2 4x12's. But I need to clear out the back room to put the 4x12's in. And all the Vox Valvenergy pedals I can find. Maybe 2 stacks and 2 100w amps...
Loving the Artist Edition 50, still loving the Fireball 25 - and all my other gear too. And I will be for years just with what I have now, all while having uncotrollable GAS that bursts on occasion and I have to clean up my mess.
One day I may make it sound as it should!
Cheers all!
- Messages
- 16,092
I'm a tone chaser. Now I "need" a Fender Reverb of some kind (Red Snakeskin Blues Junior looks incredible!) - and an ENGL Founders Edition 100 and 2 4x12's. But I need to clear out the back room to put the 4x12's in. And all the Vox Valvenergy pedals I can find. Maybe 2 stacks and 2 100w amps...
Loving the Artist Edition 50, still loving the Fireball 25 - and all my other gear too. And I will be for years just with what I have now, all while having uncotrollable GAS that bursts on occasion and I have to clean up my mess.
One day I may make it sound as it should!
Cheers all!
I feel like you have become the Dragon!
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- 16,092
I bet a triaxis into those power amp sims would sound pretty good.
I think @TSJMajesty had one, or still has one?
![[Nathan]](/data/avatars/m/0/613.jpg?1726885163){kind=avatar}
[Nathan]
Roadie
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- 511
What's everyone's end game ENGL? I've got the OG Fireball 60 and have a feeling I'll be side/upgrading it to something else. I would have thought the Savage 120 or Powerball II would be the logical options but I see things like the Invader and other models. Not sure if there's a logical "Just get this one" kind of amp of theirs.