Marshall JMP-1 and ENGL E530

[FSU_Seminoles]

i ran the powerball through a marshall 1960 fullstack. with the blackmore i used several cabs ranging from a mesa recto cab to a hiwatt cab.

and still harsh on most of those cabs ?

[Fragle]

harsh is not really the most fitting term. thin and glassy would be more precise imho.
one point might be that i don't use a lot of gain live, and the engl just didn't cope with that. i found that turning up the gain (i usually had it around 1:00 on my blackmore, channel 4) gave me some of the low volume thickness back, but then i'd have too much gain going on. i guess ENGL amps are perfect for players that rely on lotsa preamp gain even at high volume. if you're used to the feel of a good marshall, forget it.

[FSU_Seminoles]

harsh is not really the most fitting term. thin and glassy would be more precise imho.
one point might be that i don't use a lot of gain live, and the engl just didn't cope with that. i found that turning up the gain (i usually had it around 1:00 on my blackmore, channel 4) gave me some of the low volume thickness back, but then i'd have too much gain going on. i guess ENGL amps are perfect for players that rely on lotsa preamp gain even at high volume. if you're used to the feel of a good marshall, forget it.

I love Hetfield's tone during the Seattle show on the Live shit DVD. I think he's using a Mark IIC+ for that show, and during Master when he plays the riff alone, that's the kind of tone I'm after.

[pagemalicious]

Ok, i've been looking around a bit more and i've been looking at the Mesa Studio Preamp. How are these things? i've seen reviews about how the lead sound on them is amazing (like John Petrucci's) which is fine because i love his lead tone. How is it for rhythm? I don't need a ton of gain as i've been using the Mesa Mark IV with my Ibanez Universe with an EMG 707 to record my bands newest CD and the tone was amazing, i'm trying to recreate that tone in a way.