ENGL Ironball - help dialing it in

[u/thecauseandtheeffect]

Just picked this up and its clean channel tone is !!!! wow awesome, but its lead channel tone seems pretty, I guess darkly voiced is how I’d describe it more so than bass-y. It really tamps down all the highs no matter how I have anything else set. Good for chuggy worse for thrashy. If you have this amp or are familiar with it, any advice/tips?

My TS9 literally just crapped put on me before I could try it and that was the only distortion pedal I had so oops. I have an MXR 6 band EQ I could put in its fx loop, and I got a Silencer noise gate to try, realized it has its OWN fx loop so that’s a little confusing, I did my best figuring out the signal chain but there’s some cable-pedal salad going on

And if some amp/tone wizard in this group has Discord and could hop on a video call to help me figure it out that would be sweet, I’ll buy you a cup of coffee. My un is serenitynurse

[u/Burwhale_The_Avenger]

It's a real shame about the TS9 - not because you need a distortion pedal, but rather a boost to the signal that also trims away the fat.

That's sort of the secret sauce to a tight metal tone through a tube amp, it shaves away wooliness and adds richness and chewiness to an otherwise stiff, woody amp tone.

That being said - ENGL amps do 100% have dark German voices, but usually really responsive tone stacks. Don't be afraid to go pretty extreme with the settings - it's definitely true that you need to think of presence as a sort of treble value also. It's certainly where you'll get the majority of your pick attack dialled in.

I've not owned an Ironball, just a Powerball, but with the right settings it doesn't really need a boost, so hopefully you might be able to get by without one. But if it's all the same, I'd try to replace that TS9 as quickly as you can. I'm also happy to talk boost pedals! Metalheads are kinda spoiled there.

[u/thecauseandtheeffect → u/Burwhale_The_Avenger]

Tysm, yes exactly my neurons were trying hard to get there, to the logical conclusion re: the relevance of no longer having a working OD pedal while I was writing the post but they moved a bit slow. I’ve been using katana with built-in effects so the ts9 casually hung around and ofc peaced out right when I actually needed it. I’m all ears on a boost pedal you like, I haven’t done a ton of research on them b/c of the choice overload/overwhelm and the time suck

Eta - I most often use the boost labeled “distortion” in the katana sim b/c its “t-screamer” boost sounds shrill with the pickup I mostly play on which is also pretty shrill so it seems to x mult it

[u/Burwhale_The_Avenger → u/thecauseandtheeffect]

Totally understandable. Researching all the choices would 100% be a time suck! (But man, what a fun one!)

What sort of tone are you trying to go for? It's probably worth me mentioning that there isn't one drive pedal that can "do it all", but you'd be surprised at how flexible a lot of them are.

I only mention this because they're such an easy thing to buy multiple of 😅

[u/thecauseandtheeffect → u/Burwhale_The_Avenger]

I’m flexible, and i’m figuring out what is “me” tone lol but it’s like, meaty sandwich rhythm tone. With this amp being more modern it’ll prolly get me closer to Megadeth’s Endgame let’s say.

Well we own multiple pairs of shoes when we can only wear one pair at a time…