What a week it has been for high-gain freaks. Just three days ago, Fortin announced the Meshuggah Preamp/Distortion, and now Engl gets in on the act, translating its classic Fireball tube amp as a two-channel preamp pedal.
Who did it better? Time will tell. Firstly, these preamp pedals are based on two quite different guitar amps, each super-hot in their own right. Secondly, Engl’s EP635 Fireball IR ups the ante with digital functionality. The clue is in its name; Impulse Response cab sims are on the menu, and this looks to be a hugely configurable pedal, amp-like but with all mod cons.
The layout is what you want to see from an amp-in-a-box. There are Bass, Middle and Treble controls aligned across the top, underneath, Volume and Gain, just like an amp.
There are two footswitches. On the right you have a bypass footswitch that pulls a double-shift engaging the mid-boost and engaging/bypassing the pedal – a button selects the footswitch mode. On the left you have your channel switcher.
There is a global Presence mini-dial and another for the noise gate. As with the Fortin Meshuggah pedal, having a noise gate makes this a serious contender for players looking to do work those 21st-century stop/start high-gain staccato riffs without all that extra hum and noise.
The mid-boost can help those riffs punch through, or add a bit more body for your leads if your running this for a more scooped turn-of-the-‘90s metal tone.
There is also a headphones output, so you can practise silently or monitor when recording. This, the two 1/4” instrument input outputs, plus your standard pedalboard power supply input (9V DC, minimum of 300mA if you please), USB-C for IR management, are all mounted on the top of the pedal. Hmm… there’s something about the fire engine red colourway that screams gain, gain and lots of it.
Now, a two channel design on a compact pedal like this means you effectively save your channel settings upon exiting. The LED lights up blue when you are using the Fireball’s Clean channel, red for Lead.
The onboard cab sim function is toggled on and off with a button and there’s a three-way selector switch for choosing your virtual cabinet. The pedal ships with a trio of Engl cabinets, all loaded with V30s.
There is the 2x12 E212VHB, the 4x12 E412VSB, and the over-sized monster metal 4x12 E412XXL – IRL this has a straight cabinet design housing a slanted speaker configuration, a bruising hybrid. You can, of course, download your own IRs to the pedal.
Priced £209/$249 street, the EP635 Fireball IR is available now. See Engl for more details.
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