New Opinion on Krank

[MesaENGR412]

Last night I went to see As I Lay Dying, (with All That Remains, Haste The Day and Through The Eyes of the Dead. ) AILD's tone was soooo solid. They played Ibanez guitars ( a Gibby-V shaped and a LP shaped guitar, I don't see the particular models on their website yet) with EMG-85's in the Bridge. One guitarist had 2 Krankensteins, and the other had a Krankenstein and a Rev 1. Both ran their heads through a single Rectifier Traditional Straight front cab, on either side of the stage, facing in towards the drummer. I honestly couldn't believe my ears. I mean, I could hear some of the Krank's distortion characteristics, but I believe they were using an OD pedal with them as a boost (one may have had the new Krankshaft pedal, the other I couldn't see any OD pedal....their website says they use Maxon OD808's) and it made those amps INCREDIBLY THICK sounding. There I mean, it doesn't make me want to go run out the door and buy a Krank, but it def. proved to me that with the proper set up you can get brutal metal tones without the harsh highs and grainy, solid-state-sounding distortion that IMO those amps have Plus the bassist was getting awesome tones out of a Fender P bass....by using a Bass 400+ and some SVT head.....the show was amazing, if they are coming near you, I would def. recommend you going!!!!

-AJH

 

[chris_EIT]

I don't know dude, I think there are many amps out there which DON'T need the extra boosting to sound better than a Krank. Any Mesa, the Engl Invader, Powerbal, the list goes on. I'm not saying Kranks will ever sound good, just not on their own. A good amps sound starts with the amp itself. Pedals come later

 

[MetalHorse442]

I almost bought a revolution 2 years ago when I got my mesa head. I'm **** glad I didn't get the Krank because I fell in love with Mesa. Now when I play a crank it sounds like a brittle wannabe of my recto with no personality and it sounds like it has a bag of pennies taped onto the front of the speaker cab.

 

[RR]

Not that familiar with KRANK amp other than what's advertise and Musicians Friend Catalog.

 

[Brewski]

Nice advertising! It almost makes me want a Krank...almost.

 

[jtb226]

i'd buy it...



























if she came with it... :lol:

 

[phyrexia]

I've played them, they're pretty cool. They take a while to get used to and they have a ****-ton of gain.

 

[mattmurray8]

That... ad.. makes ... me ..want to...sell my... roadster...and..buy.. a ...Krank...

Naw.

I love As I lay Dying, and I do agree they're tone is sweet. Although I didn't see them live because I was in NYC when they came by. ugh. They probably aren't using their live rig on the album, but I thought it sounded a bit NU Metalish. Not a bad thing, but that was MHO.

The 808 (tubescreamer) is used by most metalcore(ish) bands these days, and makes the tone a little more tweakable. I have yet to try it though myself.

I've heard some good things about Krank, but I'll stick with my Mesa Roadster and its endless tonal blisses.

 

[Turumbar82]

Krank's are definitely different sounding. I've played on one at Sam Ash a few times. I personally don't like the tone a lot. I really messed with the knobs a lot to see what all it was capable of doing. I understand why others like it but it's just not for me.

 

[MesaENGR412]

Yeah, I agree with all of you guys. I mean, I wouldn't sell me Mesa to buy one, but.....I was just completely blown away by the sound that AILD was getting out of them. Good discussion guys, thanks for the replies

-AJH

 

[Eddy666]

The OD808 is only used to tighten the sound, specially the lows.
The overall gain should be +/- the same.
Normally it is used with the OD808 gain in the lowest setting or at +/- 9 o'clock lowering the amp gain.

 

[Guitarzan]

I've heard them mixed with other amps live and the sound they produce gets lost very quickly. I'm not impressed with the Kranks what so ever. As another pointed out, I almost sold one of my 2 Ch DR's (unheard) to get a Rev. 1 and I'm glad I didn't. They match up real nice with a coke machine for that genuine fizz!