Driftwood Purple Nightmare....What a disappointment

  • Thread starter Thread starter Bad.Seed
  • Start date Start date
Dino 939 said:
There he is!!!!,
Y’all can keep you ENGL junk, I’ll take
the Pro-cabs, those are dope AF.
Jeez..are the engineers/designers retired
K-Mart guys?
Like a giant confusing plastic alarm clock.
Compression?-that’ll learn you.

-All that plastic and the Euro-voicing,
really gets to you at some point doesn’t it?-
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lol. My problem with the Savage is most of the buttons switches were useless to me. Basically with all it had going on, it had one tone/setting I liked and that didn’t compete with the EVH
 
mhenson42 said:
lol. My problem with the Savage is most of the buttons switches were useless to me. Basically with all it had going on, it had one tone/setting I liked and that didn’t compete with the EVH
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While I haven't played the Savage MKII yet, I had similar experiences with the SE EL34. Certain switched were like "Why the F is this a switchable function?! Option B sounds horrid."
None of that shit on my Invader or Savage MKI. Maybe you need to A/B an older Savage to the EVH.
My 50W 6L6 EVH sounds awesome in blue channel (after retubing), but red channel has this plasticky honk that you can't dial out. The upside compared to my Savage 60 is that the EVH can sound thicker and 'wetter' for a lack of a better term. The Savage is more raw and dry. But while it's very middy (I keep the mids below 10 'o clock at all times and often have the depth boost engaged!) it doesn't have that plasticky nasal 'honk' that EVH has. I've gigged with both amps, no problem whatsover cutting through including overcoming an obnoxiously loud drummer.
 
GJgo said:
I've been pretty lucky not falling into the "cool kid gear of the week" trap, but there have been a couple times.. The biggest disappointment I ever had was the Splawn Nitro. I decided to sell it about 3 1/2 minutes after plugging into it.
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I loved the splawn Nitro. I had one and the QR at the same time but sold the QR. To this day probably in the top 5 tones I've had. I used a Friedman Buxom boost with it and it was damn near perfect. But those amps vary depending on year and were picky on speakers
 
mhenson42 said:
lol. My problem with the Savage is most of the buttons switches were useless to me. Basically with all it had going on, it had one tone/setting I liked and that didn’t compete with the EVH
Click to expand...
I get it fr . I just like that one tone for brutal death metal
 
Stopping back in here as I see this baby went 4 pages, unexpectedly. Haha

I totally get that some amps just aren't going to gel with certain people. I basically just wanted to see if others had a similar experience with the Driftwood. Seems like some have, some haven't. I made a bunch of Quad Cortex captures with the amp as I'm selling packs of the amps that come through my possession these days. IMO, the captures are much more enjoyable than the actual amp, but I did doctor the pre EQ using a 6 band EQ pedal on the way in to taylor the bass response to be much more balanced. Worked on the captures, not on the amp in the room.

I guess joining the conversation of amps that were a huge dissapointment to me:
- Diezel VH4s - Stiff but not tight, bloated mids, crunchy gain structure. People thought I would love it because I love the stiff nature of the Splawn Quick Rod, but the Splawn is actually tight, while the VH4S was not.
- Friedman JJ100 - No Balls, thick and dark but no real weight to the tone. Very refined, stripped of all the Marshall raw midrange
- Engl Powerball I - Agreed with everything said in this thread. Super scooped, overly processed and fake sounding. Super fizzy. Bleh. My first big Engl and boy did I hate it. I now own the Powerball II, and it's similar, but improved in every way. Still not much cutting mid content though
 
Bad.Seed said:
Stopping back in here as I see this baby went 4 pages, unexpectedly. Haha

I totally get that some amps just aren't going to gel with certain people. I basically just wanted to see if others had a similar experience with the Driftwood. Seems like some have, some haven't. I made a bunch of Quad Cortex captures with the amp as I'm selling packs of the amps that come through my possession these days. IMO, the captures are much more enjoyable than the actual amp, but I did doctor the pre EQ using a 6 band EQ pedal on the way in to taylor the bass response to be much more balanced. Worked on the captures, not on the amp in the room.

I guess joining the conversation of amps that were a huge dissapointment to me:
- Diezel VH4s - Stiff but not tight, bloated mids, crunchy gain structure. People thought I would love it because I love the stiff nature of the Splawn Quick Rod, but the Splawn is actually tight, while the VH4S was not.
- Friedman JJ100 - No Balls, thick and dark but no real weight to the tone. Very refined, stripped of all the Marshall raw midrange
- Engl Powerball I - Agreed with everything said in this thread. Super scooped, overly processed and fake sounding. Super fizzy. Bleh. My first big Engl and boy did I hate it. I now own the Powerball II, and it's similar, but improved in every way. Still not much cutting mid content though
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You still digging that Fireball 25? Waiting on your demo of it.
 
Surprised you could even sell it in this market. I owned one for about a week. Impressive at first then at band practise I ntoiced it did not cut at all, and th sizzle factor was not my favorite. Dealer took it back thankfully.
 
ClintN667 said:
I loved the splawn Nitro. I had one and the QR at the same time but sold the QR. To this day probably in the top 5 tones I've had. I used a Friedman Buxom boost with it and it was damn near perfect. But those amps vary depending on year and were picky on speakers
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Totally agree here. If you dial in a Nitro with your eyes and not your ears (as many of us do), you'll never find the full potential of this amp.
 
Sorry you didn't like the Driftwood. Haven't played one but not all amps are for everyone. I love my Hughes and Kettner Triamp Mark 3 and my Engl Inferno but I've heard other people say that it's not their sound at all. I don't care for the 5153 or the DSL 40 and other people love them.

Different strokes. Luckily we have a ton of choices available.
 
Dino 939 said:
There he is!!!!,
Y’all can keep you ENGL junk, I’ll take
the Pro-cabs, those are dope AF.
Jeez..are the engineers/designers retired
K-Mart guys?
Like a giant confusing plastic alarm clock.
Compression?-that’ll learn you.

-All that plastic and the Euro-voicing,
really gets to you at some point doesn’t it?-


*anybody who wants a nice selection of used
ENGL’s?
Head down to your local Guitar Center,
Go to where they have the heavy-hitters & 4X12
cabinets.
Boom!!!! It’s a damn ENGL holiday!!!
Why is that?
Because nobody wants to take the bath on resale
so maybe the dude’s at GC will realize the value of this and even with them robbing me it will be more then selling anywhere else,
(And saved the embarrassment of takin’ that bath!)
NOT!, turns out they can read like the PP associates, LTFOL!!
-There’s no free lunch..unless your buying and
it sure as shit better not be an ENGL.-
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Hey Dino why do all your post look this way? i'd love to read them but they always look like someone who can't type wrote them.
 
I owned the Darkest Nightmare and thought it sounded killer until I turned it up to pretty loud volumes, the amp got fairly thin and lacked the grunt when it was at friendlier volumes. I wanted to love it but Matt warned me their build quality was garbage. To me it sounded like a nice boosted Recto and had a thick low end and was fun to play. The Badlander 100 would be my choice if you're into what the Driftwood amps claim to do.
 
headlessdeadguy said:
The og III is the most overrated amp ever.
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Hmmmm, i don't think so, it is awesome. Had mine since it came out in 2008 or so?

Tha lack of gain on the blue channel that everyone complains about, is it's best tone!!! Man, i play strait in and have the gain at 3/4 or dimed sometimes and it is perfect for that 80's tone. Boosted it gets heavy too, and that's with the gain at 1 o clock!!!!!

I dont get it when people say it lacks gain!!!! Slam those strings if you want gain and aggression.
 
Bad.Seed said:
Not yet, my friend.
I'm doing a whole week of Engl content in partnership with Engl at the end of November after I'm back from Sweetwater, and the Fireball 25 is on the list for demos!
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WOW! you're demoing stuff in partnership with ENGL.... Damn dude, you've really grown your channel in a relatively short amount of time. Congrats on your success thus far, I hope it keeps growing.
 
Wow just checking thread out. Is this the male menstration thread 😂.
You all aware 70% of that sound coming from your amp is determined by your cabinet and speakers.

Got a 5153 stealth. Couldn’t get a TONE I liked from it. Got a EVH 4x12 and instantly changed the amp. Was running through a Mesa 4x12.

That’s why it’s good to have a variety of cabinets and different speakers

I’m running a ENGL Powerball II through a scum back 4x12. Simply awesome sauce. And lovely cleans as a bonus.
 
Same for me with the Driftwood. I was hoping for a raw pissed off tone , rectoish but tighter and more modern. It’s not a bad sounding amp but it falls short in my opinion. I tried different tubes and settings etc. The biggest issue was the lowend for me. It didn’t have the clarity I would have liked or expected.
 
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