Anybody here actually use Krank amps?

  • Thread starter Thread starter scottcrud
  • Start date Start date
ive played a few kranks through some celestion 75's and it wasnt "terrible" sounding, but not good sounding either - i couldnt take more than 20 minutes on one with knob turning to get a decent tone. i consider a SLO good sounding, to be honest neither have enough gain for what i like - its why i bought a 5150 - owned the same amplifier for 6 years now, never turned back.

I never got the chance to open the krank up on the volume to see if things improved but its not anything i would make time for even today; just nothing i saw there to work with.

& Teleblaster, play what sounds good to you, not what everyone thinks about your gear ;)

Not to turn this into a "anyone dislike krank" topic, but theres another large reason i refuse to own anything made by them as well. The dude who started krank worked beside John Suhr when John had just left Fender to start his own company - he took with him copies of a few ideas John had done and they had made together to start Krank - Thats alot of bullshit for someone to pull IMHO - not fair to John and not fair to the customers - one of the reasons why the amplifiers stay so simple minded and nothing complex.

There are tons of posts in the forum of rig-talk where John has supported this himself and its been mentioned in more detail. What you like is what you like, but theres alot of stigma attached to them that i refuse to deal with. same with cameron :lol: :LOL:
 
Krank amps totally suck balls.


Actually never played one, just trying to blend in :lol: :LOL:
 
Actually, Cliff had planned on there being a Krank sim in the Axe-FX II, but the modeling process proved to be too dangerous:















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Also just trying to blend in. :D
 
It is not that Krank amps sound bad, it is just most other amps sound way way better......


I also am just blending in, and giving crap. Every amp is good to the player that likes it. I dislike some of the business practices I have heard about, but know there are two sides to a story. So they have a side as well, just not sure they would want to tell it. :lol: :LOL:
 
Well, I do know a bit about their history. This is the first time I ever heard that Tony Dow (Tony Krank - stage name) stole amp designs from John Suhr!!
Tony was a local Marshall modder. There were a couple one off amps early. The Revolution One was a rebuilt Sovtek Mig design. They used the chassis and transformers and Tony had his own board designs printed. They bought the Migs and gutted them until Sovtek stopped producing them, then they contracted out the chassis and transformers as well.
Tony Dow know longer works for Krank amps. He does not own the name, the designs, nor does he have an ownership stake or royalties or anything. He sold out early on and stayed on as an employee of the company.
Allan Chadwick no longer works for Krank and Krank is no longer producing his designs.
 
rottingcorpse":23zs455b said:
define "use"....

i "use" my krankenstein + when i want to show how much better the randall X2 is at getting dimes tone.

i "use" my krankenstein + as a loaner amp to my friends as a joke.

i "use" my krankenstein + as a door stop. (i have more, but you get my point.)

i bought it from a friend who won it in a contest, and he never played it. brand new, still had plastic on the knobs. he really needed money to go into a recording studio. got it for a steal thinking "how bad could it be?"
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You also mentioned to me that you USE the amp as a Sex partner......
oooooooops.....sorry man.....I forgot I was not supposed to mention that tidbit. :D
 
I always thought if they paired the clean chan from the Krankenstein and the gain chan from the Rev, they'd have a pretty good amp. I'm not a fan personally, but played through enough of them to make a fair judgement. My friend had some sort of endorsement deal through them and swore by them. He just about shit his pants when he heard my Ultra Lead though, which will always be a great memory.

I think the Rev had enough gain. Wasn't super heavy. For hard rock it has enough gain...no OD necessary. As for the Krankenstein, I was really disappointed with the gain channel. Even tried different cab combinations. Nothing sounded nearly worth the price tag. The clean however was really good. Could coax some Fender tones out of it, which was cool.

Like any amp though, there's always someone out there who can make it work for them and sound great. Hell, one of my buddies plays through a Metalhead and his tone is crushing! He's owned Mesa's, 5150's, Randalls, XXX, JSX, and a slew of other amps, and he always goes back to the MH. He sounds at his best through that, along with his BBE and whatever FX rack he uses.
 
When I bought my recto years ago I demoed a Rev 1 against it and wasn't very impressed.
I've heard plenty of good recordings of Kranks, but in person the Mesa just did everything better. (for me)
 
I've had both a Krankenstein and a modded rev1, Both were probably near the bottom of te many amps I've owned/played.

The Krankenstein had good cleans but the dirty channel was awful. It sounded like I could hear the clean bleeding through, and I also played another that sounded the same so it wasn't the amp. Plus it was hard to get a edgy metal tone without some extremely high frequencies coming out. I actually used to sweat if I sat in front it due to the sharp highs making my ears feel like they were going to bleed.

The Rev1 was ok, but the gain was lackluster and there was no real edge to it. For being mostly labeled as metal amps I was pretty disappointed. There was also something bad going on in the highs that could not be dialed out. The original owner told me about it but I figured I could dial it out with an eq or something. Wrong....

I actually felt bad for the guy I sold it to, then I saw it on CL like 2 days later :lol: :LOL:
 
I had a REV 1 for a while and preferred my Soldano at the time. A couple months a go a buddy came over with a REV 1+ and it is a totally different amp imo. Does metal much better. Wouldn't mind adding one to the stable someday.

I did not get to try it in a band situation but compared to the rest of my heard it sounded great. :rock:
 
I love 'em. I've had several Rev1 amps, but I think the Chadwick is a much better amp for nearly everything than the original Rev1. I now have a Rev+ that is just great. Just enough improvements over the original to make it a great amp.
 
Motorpud":h2q105pa said:
The Krankenstein had good cleans but the dirty channel was awful. It sounded like I could hear the clean bleeding through, and I also played another that sounded the same so it wasn't the amp. Plus it was hard to get a edgy metal tone without some extremely high frequencies coming out. I actually used to sweat if I sat in front it due to the sharp highs making my ears feel like they were going to bleed.
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this is EXACTLY how i would describe my krankenstein plus. thanks motorpud.

never had to dial so much high end OUT of an amp. and i loves me some treble, after years of loud amps and jet engines. i really like any amp that has a sweep/shape/parametric midrange, but it only seemed to give me more variations of ugly sound. not a simple amp to just plug into and go to town on. everything else in my amp room killed it, but that's just my opinion.

i even tried running the amptweeker tight metal pedal though the clean channel, same icepick high end. gonna try it into the loop return next to see if it gets better.

i am about 2 more trips home from either dumping it cheap or spending the $300 to get jerry to mod it. would really like to keep it for the dimebag collection of crap i have, but i have seriously been thinking about dumping 3-4 heads and a couple of guitars to score some new amps.
 
Lasse Lammert":2xsip2rg said:
I'm digging mine quite a bit

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I liked mine too Lasse, I thought it was a great recording amp. It kind of surprises me how many people strongly hate it, but beyond just personal taste, I do think there were a couple settings that could kill the sound for anyone. The Master needed to be cranked up beyond 2:00, and the sweep had a very small range where it was useful IMO. I think it would have been more useful to have it hardwired with a couple settings between 9:00-11:00, as that control could make the amp sound downright pitiful.
 
i have the chadwick series 2. it's a great amp. i've only played a krankenstein at a sam ash a few years ago and i thought it sounded alright, very fizzy gain channel. i guess it'd be great for death metal bands since that's what alot of krank players are. but the chadwick is a totally different beast. it's definentley got a jcm800 sound to it and the clean on it is fantastic. it cuts well in the mix and is very loud for a 50 watt
 
Erock":1lpsf3vj said:
Lasse Lammert":1lpsf3vj said:
I'm digging mine quite a bit

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The Master needed to be cranked up beyond 2:00, and the sweep had a very small range where it was useful IMO. I think it would have been more useful to have it hardwired with a couple settings between 9:00-11:00, as that control could make the amp sound downright pitiful.
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That exactly how it is too. I had to have the master set at least to 2-4 o'clock before it sounded ok. With the master that high combined with the ungodly amounts of treble it was just unplayable for me, even just for practice. I prefer more of a liquid lead channel and the rev1 (especially the Krankenstein though) was just stale sounding and dry as hell. I could've lived with that though, it's the highs that really killed it for me, and I use more highs and presence than most. I just couldn't get a happy medium with it and the high end is always there no matter what.

Oh yeah I agree about the sweep knob too, what an awful control. It had barely any usable range and your ability to find that spot makes or breaks the amp. It kind of reminded me of a para eq too, every time I turned a knob it was like I had to turn all the other knobs to compensate.

I'm done talking about it, this is bringing back horrible memories. :cry:
 
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