Rack Preamp Suggestion?

[Shask]

My bandmate has one. It weights 15kg by itself and has like 11 tubes

He has the 2:90 and I have the TriAxis, but neither of us wants to sell our half so there we stand

Oh, I wouldn't want to move the thing, lol. It just seems to have this magical property that it makes anything through it sound great.

I have a Triple Recto with 14 tubes in it, so thats not new, lol.

 

[Emperoff]

Oh, I wouldn't want to move the thing, lol. It just seems to have this magical property that it makes anything through it sound great.

I have a Triple Recto with 14 tubes in it, so thats not new, lol.

I have the theory that the day my bandmate (who is a cheap bastard) has to retube the 2:90, he will just sell it. Hopefully to me

 

[Shask]

I have the theory that the day my bandmate (who is a cheap bastard) has to retube the 2:90, he will just sell it. Hopefully to me

It was around $400 when I retubed my Triple Recto, so I know the 2:90 would hurt, lol. I think that and the excessive size and volume is why I don't grab something like this. I could. But, I wonder if I should. lol.

I have gotten more into playing stereo lately, so something like this definitely seems attractive for that.

 

[HeHasTheJazzHands]

I feel like modern guitar rigs are lacking in VFD or backlit LCD screens.

 

[odibrom]

It was around $400 when I retubed my Triple Recto, so I know the 2:90 would hurt, lol. I think that and the excessive size and volume is why I don't grab something like this. I could. But, I wonder if I should. lol.

I have gotten more into playing stereo lately, so something like this definitely seems attractive for that.

You can always grab a 2:fifty, it's not the same thing obviously, but it isn't much far way...

 

[Emperoff]

You can always grab a 2:fifty, it's not the same thing obviously, but it isn't much far way...

The cool thing about the 2:90 is that it has different modes that can be accessed with switching setups (modern, deep, etc). These were meant to be used with the TriAxis (which I suspect not many people know it can remote switch other gear).

 

[Shask]

You can always grab a 2:fifty, it's not the same thing obviously, but it isn't much far way...

A lot of people say the 50:50 has undersized transformers, so it doesn't sound as huge as the 2:90. And the 2:90 has the modes mentioned above, which is like a fixed resonance control.

 

[StevenC]

I feel like modern guitar rigs are lacking in VFD or backlit LCD screens.

We need some poweramps with LCD screen.

 

[Shask]

We need some poweramps with LCD screen.

 

[HeHasTheJazzHands]

We need some poweramps with LCD screen.

I remember when I first started to get into modelers the main reason I wanted this Crown XLS back in the day was just because of the screen.

Well that and they were cheap.

 

[Mortargag]

Have you looked at the Kartakou Beastbox (Engl E530) or any of the Myasnikov offerings? I’ve never owned either but both brands seem to be well liked.

I find myself wandering over to the Myasnikov site pretty frequently. Would love to try out a few of them.

 

[Schweick]

ADA MP-1

I sold mine during a financial bad spell, and have regretted doing so ever since.

 

[chopeth85]

I have had Kartakou Colossus, Engl E570 and, at this moment, the way to go for me is Myasnikov. I have the superlead ( SLO Lead ), the MTL ( Wizard MTL ) and a VH4 3rd and 4th channels preamps and for me are amazing, but you need a good tube poweramp of course.

 

[Necky379]

Cool seeing some MP-1 love in 2022

 

[fantom]

Maybe it's a matter of taste. I only play humbuckers for this stuff. I just don't like the lead channel at all, don't know what to tell you. Playing it and switching between channels, or switching between the 580 lead channel and a different amp, I go "ew, I don't like this" to "ahhh, that's better".

Try lowering the volume knob on your guitar. The high gain mode was designed for medium output pickups before the "make everything 18k dcr" trend. There is no pad. IIRC the schematic for the 580 and most Engl amps also doesn't have a grid stopper. So any high frequency noise due to a hot signal probably gets pushed by the V1. In hi gain mode, I tend to run it around 50% gain with the guitar volume around 80-90%.

Also, the hi/lo gain button changes the frequency of some of the knobs. The amp has plenty of gain for metal on the lo gain setting. So maybe just try that?

I thought this E580 was Engl's response to Mesa's Triaxis, meaning it receives Continuous Control MIDI messages, or at least that's what I remember from reading its manual but I may be confusing shit around. Can you confirm or correct this idea?

The 580 only accepts a volume cc message for the master volume. Everything else needs to be done with patch changes with obvious audio dropout.

There was a bespoke remote from engl that was written for like windows 95 and requires a serial port. If you have those readily available, you can control all the knobs over serial with your computer.


FWIW, I have a Hagen, GP3, and Rectifier. I have been able to jam through many other amps using the same cabinet. The 580 is by far the go-to amp. If it ever breaks, I will buy a Savage 2 or 570.

As for the GP3. I'm not a big fan of it. If you like the Fryette dryness, maybe it is fine. To me it just sounds thin, low gain, and like the EQ is wrong. I shouldn't need to enable the multi and EQ to make it sound reasonable.

 

[odibrom]

(...)
The 580 only accepts a volume cc message for the master volume. Everything else needs to be done with patch changes with obvious audio dropout.

There was a bespoke remote from engl that was written for like windows 95 and requires a serial port. If you have those readily available, you can control all the knobs over serial with your computer.
(...)

Thanks for clarifying that. Personally, I'm a Triaxis V2 user and I love it. I love to be able to get a lot of different sounds out of one patch/program, just by assigning the DRIVE and GAIN parameters to expression pedals, I'll go from clean to mean with everything in between. I can change completely the tone and feel of it while I'm playing. All numeric parameters can be assigned to expression pedals so each patch is a huge array of tones. Combining that with at least 5 tones from my least flexible guitar (all others are 21 tones at least with some up to 100s) and I'll just use one program most of the times.