NA EN Hardball Guitar Amplifier

Certainly not an amp (plugin) for everybody. But also much more than just a Metal amp plugin, although for this specific use this plugin is excellent, of course.

Not only, but also the perfect choice for guitars with dropped tunings, seven- or eight-string or baritone guitars, due to the tight basic voicings, even more in combination with the additional Tight control, which the plugin, but not the real amp offers.

Typical, maybe even more "metallized" Engl sounds, but due to the several switches (Bright, Bass boost, Mid boost, ...) also more decent, not only Metal compatible voicings are adjustable.

The Clean channel also already offers nice crunch sounds, but also some good. more modern voiced cleans, of course, but certainly is no vintage clean channel, although you also can adjust some more vintage character to it, by adding the Bass boost and/or reducing Treble and Presence, while the Crunch channel already offers as much overdrive as the Lead channels on some other amps, Lead I and II sound even heavier, if not to say, brutal, nevertheless very musically.

This plugin proves, why a lot of great guitarists use an Engl on stage. Maybe not especially this one, but in principle the typical concept is very much the same, only the basic voicings can differ between more vintage oriented and more modern and aggressive.

These amps simply sound excellent, are capable of cutting through every mix and the voicings are more intensely individually customizable or adjustable to different guitars and cabinets than the amps of some competitors.

This is no amp, on which every setting automatically sounds right, but once you have adjusted the controls right - in combination with the used guitar and cabinet - you can get absolutely fantastic sounds.

Also due to the immense gain, but also treble reserves sometimes less is more here, especially concerning preamp Gain, Treble and Presence. Nevertheless treble sounds excellently, never too shrill, scratchy or too digital.

Even better, if not to say, iconic is the harmonics reproduction and reaction to pick attack of this plugin, which lets you completely forget, that this is "only" a plugin and not the real amp itself. Very much like a real good, old Plexi, but only on double steroids and much, much hotter and heavier.

Due to the tons of gain this plugin is comparably more noisy than some others. I also found, that adjusting threshold alone, which usually works fine for me, is not always enough here. If I want to let some tones ring out, the tail still included some noise again or the signal was cut off too early, but with the three controls you can adjust the Noise Gate to your playing style well, it only lasted some time to find my personal best setting.

I am not really a Metal or drop tuning player, but this amp / plugin sounds awesome and also is a good choice for other sorts of overdrive and high-gain, due to the fantastic harmonics and also the very flexible sound shaping options, which allow a lot of sonic customizations.

One of the best Engl-based plugins, which I have heard up to now. I also find the Engl typical concept with the additional voicing switches sonically more flexible in comparison with competitors. A Rectifier, 5150 or SLO have their very unique sounds, which you can fine tune more or less, while this amp / plugins also offers more different voicings than the basic ones, also due to the wide range of the single controls.

If the plugin sounds a little bit too sharp, too aggressive and direct in mono mode, try using it in combination with eg. a good adjustable mono to stereo widener plugin, which smoothes out everything a little, adds some more dimensionality and chances are good, that you land in high-gain heaven, even without needing any additional delay or any other improvements.

This plugin also proves, that a really talented, skilled and experienced programmer even in 2023 does a better job than any AI based neural network. Unfortunately there are not very much programmers existing worldwide, which are comparable with Mr. Nembrini. Therefore I am very grateful, that programmers like him still exist and that they do such an excellent work, even if some marketing hypes rather lead into a different direction during the last years.

Highly, highly recommended.