So, surprisingly the last month was one where I managed by accident to aquire two pieces of gear that have almost brought my search
for my ultimate rig to an end: a proper high gain tube amp and a Gibson.
The amp is an ENGL Savage 60 and the younger brother to the 120 Watt variant. It's not being built anymore and this one probably hasn't seen an amp tech for a few years, hence the 150 bucks I paid for it. The Gibson is a 2010 Les Paul Studio and she's definitely not a beauty but damn she sounds great and plays even better.
On to the reviews:
ENGL Savage 60
This one was a decision that took me a while to make, a friend of mine who previously sold me his old ENGL 412 cab after he found his ultimate tone solution in the AxeFX had this thing lying around, collecting dust. One day I remembered this and called him up, asking if I could borrow it for a while and if he was willing to sell it in case I liked the amp. He was positive but warned me that the head had some quirks. So I took it home and fired it up.
After about 5 minutes warm up time the weirdness started: I got popping noises coming out of the speakers, they even got so loud that it scared the living hell out of me and I had to turn the thing off in fear it might damage my speakers. After some further launching attempts I figured out that neither turning the master volume nor the respective preamp volume controls down helped to reduce the volume of the noise, but eventually after two minutes it went away and the amp worked just fine. Some further tests confirmed that gently tapping the headshell helped the problem to go away so there seems to be a slack joint or a tube related problem. I messaged Toe-Knee and phoned my local amp tech and got told that if the amp was sounding good the output and power trannies were in working condition and therefore the worst case scenario wasn't going to happen. Also the original EL34 tubes seem to have been swapped for Sovtek 6L6GCs.
Anyhow, since I really dig the tones that come out of this little bar-steward I decided to snag it.
The Sound:
I never really was an ENGL guy, but probably more so because the only head I ever tried was the Powerball which didn't leave any lasting impression on me plus it was years ago. After some further investigation that seems to be due to the fact that the Powerball is as compressed and modern as it gets and the Savage is not.
The older I get the more I seem to be gravitating toward open and midrangey sounding tones and altough I still dig playing the 5150 range, wether it's a Peavey or an EVH head, I don't miss it.
The cleans on this thing obviously aren't what it was made for, but they are a lot better than anything a 6505 can give you plus they really work great with pedals. Due to the shared EQ you have to compensate on the sound but it still sounds amazing for clean passages and I'd be very confident to play a whole set with this amp covering all areas. But I won't be wasting your time on the least interessting channel here, on to where the meat and potatoes are:
The lead channel: I was really surprised about how tight this thing is. Like this is the first amp I played where adding a Tubescreamer in front isn't necessary. I still do it to keep the gain controls on the head low in order to cut some noise but holy molly you can go just straight plug and play and unleash riffing heaven. The midrange bite is very Marshall-like and the feel is very open, I'm sure it's not as "dry" as a VHT/Fryette but the dynamics and the touch response are in there. Paired with the Painkiller in my Dinky this thing just chews your face off. You feel like you can assault people with sonic mayhem just by digging in. Very unique and nothing I ever experienced in a tube amp before. I'm very intrigued to try the Savage 120 to see how they compare.
For now I'm very happy and I'm gonna do a follow up thread as soon as I get it back from the tech. Not sure if I'll let him put in EL34s again since that might diminish the low end thump (of which the amp doesn't have much) further and accentuate the mids even more. Story for another day.
2010 Les Paul Gibson Studio
My first Gibson ever. What can I say? My previous experience with playing my friends Gibbos or trying em out in shops has taught me to be very cautious with them and moreso to never fully trust a brand name. Just because it glitters it doesn't have to be gold and especially with Gibsons you either get a decent one or a total lemon.
So this random guy calls me up telling me he's interessted in the ENGL Cab (the one the guy who sold me the Savage had sold me before) and and the Ibanez RG350 I put up online for sale. He tells me he has no cash to offer but a Gibson Les Paul he would trade. I was rather excited considering the fact that I'm a big Gary Moore and Guns n' Roses fan and always wanted to own a proper LP, so eventually I tell him to swing by. He walks in, opens up the case and pulls out this totally thrashed LP in satin ebony handing it over. I get
somewhat suspicious but am thinking what the hell, I'll just try it out and see how it feels. First few seconds and I was in love.
It wasn't even plugged in yet, but the neck profile, the frets and especially the loudness and the sustain without any amp where
enough to make me like it. The EMGs he put in it certainly aren't what I'm looking for in a LP but I can tell when a guitar sounds
good and this one certainly will be even better once it gets the BKP treatment.
Now I'm kinda still pulling a thoughtfull face to hide my excitement, the guy looks at me and offers me 150 bucks in addition to the guitar along the original Gibson USA case and a leather strap. Needles to say I was very happy to let the Indonesian Ibanez and the V60 Particleboard cab go.
Now she's really not a beauty but I like guitars with a certain "character", there are even people who pay top dollar for aged guitars and I'm gonna swap out the hardware and the pickups for all gold, she's gonna be perfect. Been thinking either Mules or a Rebel Yell/VHII combo.
Sorry for the wall of text, time for some pics, cheers!
