A few words from the designer on your ENGL Sovereign Amp's sounds
and settings as well as some practical tips:
A great deal of effort went into tuning this tremendously versatile combo amp; I
devoted particularly painstaking attention to the details: The Clean and Crunch
channels are matched so that their Gain ranges overlap somewhat; the same goes for
and
and the two Gain levels Lo and Hi. This is intentional, and serves very
sensible sound-sculpting purposes. For instance, higher Gain settings (in the 1-to-5
o'clock range, depending on pickups) push the Clean channel into moderate
overdrive. This means you can use this channel for ultra clean chord work, jazz-style
comping and clucking chicken-picked lead lines. And courtesy of that typical tube
overdrive, it means the same channel is great grittier riffs and leads, with the amount
of dirt hinging upon how hard you attack the strings. If you add the guitar's volume
knob to the sonic equation, you get a vast spectrum of fine tonal distinctions in just this
one channel. The same goes for the Crunch channel: Its spectrum ranges from clean
(when Gain is set no higher than about 10 o'clock, depending on pickup) to fat, wooly,
and warm tube overdrive at higher Gain settings. High-output pickups such as
humbuckers will even serve up enough oomph for punchy leads. Though these
application areas overlap somewhat, the Crunch and Clean channels are voiced
differently. When used in combination with high-output pickups, I recommend that
you roll off the bottom-end a touch to forestall low-end mud.
main channel 1 (
and
) voicing controls respond differently than those of
main channel 2. In consequence, I suggest that you start by dialing in settings between
12 and 3 o'clock, tweaking each to taste and comparing the differences. Again, I opted
for passive tone controls, which puts each knob's control range at about 10 dB.
All these options harbor vast and musically meaningful sonic potential. I'm confident
that the Gain knobs, tone controls and sound-shaping buttons will let you conjure all
the sounds you have in mind and that you'll discover a world of tones while you're
tweaking.
In addition, I made a point of tuning the two Lead channels to respond slightly
differently:
response is a bit more aggressive, faster and more precise it all but
lunges when you attack strings.
, on the other hand, is not quite as testy. Its
response is not as rabid, and with an extra sprinkling of low end added to the sonic
recipe, it also delivers warmer tone. What's more, Lead II channel mids in the 500 to
1000 Hz range are boosted to focus and tighten up the tone. This makes it perfect
solos that cuts through the din.
demands rather precise technique, while the
more forgiving
is easier to handle.
gives you two more voicing
options for each of the two Lead channels -
(moderate Gain level) and
(ultra high Gain shred). What's more, you can even tweak each Lead sound
individually using the dedicated Gain and Volume knob. This brings a bunch of benefits
to you, including greater freedom and precision in fine-tuning the various Lead tones.
The two Soft Lead variants (
+
,
, +
) run the gamut of
crunch tones from light (with the Gain knob set no higher than 11 o'clock) to heavy
crunch (with the Gain knob somewhere between 10 and 1 o'clock), with tonal
properties differing quite markedly from Crunch channel sounds. These modes even
let you dial in relatively lean clean sounds. So if clean is your thing and your music
Lead I
Lead II
Clean
Crunch
Lead I's
Lead II
Lead II
Lead I
Gain Lo/Hi
Soft Lead
Heavy
Lead
Lead I Lo Gain Lead II
Lo Gain
On the Subject of Sounds and Settings
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