Metallica tones

Gixerscooby

Hows it going!

I play guitar in a Metallica tribute band and am looking to get some tips on achieving a more metallica like sound. I dont specifically play lead or rhythm we split up the lead work between myself and the other guitarist so I need to find an accurate hetfield/hammett sound. The gear Im using consists of an ESP KH2 through a Crate shockwave GT3500H halfstack. For effects I use a line 6 pod (original one) but I'm not altogether happy with the tones I'm getting.

Any help on this will be greatly appreciated.

OLP

You'd probably get a better reply on the Instruments forum

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/forumdisplay.php?f=125

SouperComputer

I guess it depends in what you mean by a Hetfield/Hammett sound too......the sounds are markedly different on each album and each tour between had different tones and equipment too.

hyn-zie

They use gibson guitars in the studio for starter's, Kirk use's his randy rhoads guitar as well, and they all have specific emgs, check this out

http://www.emginc.com/search.asp

Mr. CooL ICE

+1 on the instruments forum. They would probably know much more than a lot of people here



But my 2c: Don't bother trying to emulate a guitarists tone for the sake of making your tribute band a little bit more like them. Your time would be much better spent on getting your own tone established for live rehearsals and performances and getting it to sound good along with the other guitarist. You need to take into account that the tones that Hammett and Hetfield are using in the studios may sound different to what they use live, due to everything from compressor settings to microphone placement, etc. If you can emulate the tone perfectly, then fantastic. But get your own one sorted first.

Oh yeah, I recommend using the amps distortion over an effects board's distortion any day

coady

I think Hetfield uses line 6 stomp box's

Patricide

If i were you id just look at what there using live at the moment, afaik its all about that mesa tone at the moment live.

Karl Hungus

LordChessington wrote: »

+1 on the instruments forum. They would probably know much more than a lot of people here

It's mostly the same people that post though. Still, Instruments is the correct place, so moved.

feylya

Metallica's tone is not as high gain as you'd think so start by turning down the gain knob. Hetfield's main sound comes from a modified Mesa Tri-axis preamp that was modded for more mids, so turn your mids up!

Unfortunately, you're not going to get that all in one tone for rhythm and lead so you'll have to look at patch switching on the Pod.

Don1

I used my GT-6 to model it up. Have a Mesa Dual Recto, cranked nicely, then I colour it with the EQ until happy. Can't remember the setting I have now off the top of my head, but it is spot on imo for early Metallica.

Karl Hungus

You know, I'd just go and recommend a Mesa Mark IV. It would certainly get you the tones you want, and then some.

Voodu Child

Yeah, Boogies are always a good start. Mark series amps (MKIIC+, Studio, Quad) for the early stuff, and Rectifiers very extensively since the 90s.

But of course, they still use the Marks for stuff, and the triaxis for a bit of both, and all sorts of other gear...Marshalls, Diezels, i've even seen a pic of Kirk with a Dumble (ridiculously hyped/expensive boutique amps). So don't get too bogged down trying to nail an exact tone, just find a good high-gain amp that you like the sound of. And keep good control of your eq - that's something Metallica have always done. Perhaps with one or more eq pedals.

Thomas from Presence

Time to be controversial...

Scooby, as a former professional and now semi-professional emulator of the famous let me promise you that the requisite €4000 investment in a Mesa Boogie and a wah pedal is simply not warranted nor is it practical. Upgrade your POD for a POD X3. Mesas a great in studios and big rooms but at most of the gigs you will play you will encounter two very common but oft neglected problems:

1. Only you will appreciate you're using a Mesa and not not the audience. The sound of the amp will be squashed into a microphone that is pointed an inch off only one of your speakers. The sound you experience in your bedroom/studio etc. is not what the audience hears.

2. A miked up amp can't be driven at its fullest in most small venues.

I'll show you my one next time you're in the studio. They have DIs so you can run them into a clean power amp as loud as you like on stage and still get the same sound off stage.

Metallica use POD stuff in the studio and even Dave Mustaine's current amp is a line 6! Mesas are for the young (strong spines), the rich (strong wallets) and the famous (gigs big enough to make em worthwhile), the line 6 Pod X3 is for the working professional.

Voodu Child

Thomas from Presence wrote: »

the requisite €4000 investment in a Mesa Boogie and a wah pedal

Must be a damn expensive wah pedal :pac: I've bought a Boogie combo for as low as €450. How much is a PodX3 again? :rolleyes: A studio preamp costs around €400, a 3-channel Nomad can be had for under a grand, and even a MarkIV or Rectifier shouldn't cost more than €1500.

Only you will appreciate you're using a Mesa and not the audience.

'Only' you? Its a sad day when a musician becomes an 'only'. If a quality guitar and amp inspire a good performance, who's going to begrudge that?

The sound of the amp will be squashed into a microphone that is pointed an inch off only one of your speakers.

Im not sure the relevance of this comment That's how sounds are recorded, with microphones. I didn't realise there was something 'wrong' with it. The vocals are 'squashed' into a microphone as well, are Line6 going to save us from this terrible fate too?

A miked up amp can't be driven at its fullest in most small venues.

How many high-gain amps have you played?. They're a world apart from old non-MV Marshalls and Fenders. A Boogie MKIV sounds nearly good at low volumes as it does at high, and plenty of other high-gain amps are the same. I know for a fact there are some ENGLs that sound unreal at low/mid-volumes.

even Dave Mustaine's current amp is a line 6!

Using one single example of someone using Line6 is always going to backfire. I can name lots of guys who don't, and you're going to run out of names before I do.

Mesas are for the young (strong spines), the rich (strong wallets) and the famous (gigs big enough to make em worthwhile), the line 6 Pod X3 is for the working professional.

If you have to be 'rich' to spend €450 - €1500 on a piece of musical equipment, then half the guys in this thread must be millionaires driving Bentleys around :rolleyes:

Don't get me wrong, i love Pods and a X3 is on the cards, but daft sweeping statements won't help your cause.

Thomas from Presence

What I meant by the sound being squashed is that the big boomy airy delectable sound of a couple of 4x12s in a studio is not what gets fed into a PA whereas the sound of a POD X3 DI into a mixing desk is exactly the sound you hear onstage. Your sound must sound good for you but as a professional you serve your audience.

I run an inner city venue and compromises frequently have to be made with guitarists with mega-rigs to get them into the PA. Sounds that are great without a microphone have to be adapted to sound good through the PA to the point that the onstage sound is a pale representation to the superior tone the audiences experience. Larger venues with bigger stages can accomodate more cabinets and heads so that all aspects of the intended sound can be rendered to the audience. Larger venues also have a monitor engineer to make the tone acceptable to the performing guitarist through their wedges. This is the tone bigger bands use the most onstage.

Smaller venues can't cater for this. To experience the sound the performer is experiencing the amp would have to be out of the PA (which is what stacks were originally designed to do).

My comment on only you experiencing your own tone is exactly that, your audience gets a desk pre-amp driven to distraction by a blaring amp while you revel in delicous saturated gain. Some amps can sound good at lower volumes but the optimum volume for you to hear yourself is always lower than what a microphone and desk can take so you need to use your monitor rather than your amp if it needs micing.

A DI pod into its own monitor can be as loud as you like onstage as there is no mike. The tone you hear can be as you want it and it is the same tone (more or less) that the audience gets.

It is certainly the case that Mesa combos can be got relatively cheaply but the natural extension of your argument is that one should use what Kirk Hammett himself uses. As per these recent pics from metallica.com, Kirk is using quite more than 4k worth of Mesa and Marshall to get his live tone .

In a Market when a nights work is unlikely to net a whole lot more than €150 it would take a lot of gigs to turn a profit and a lot of heavy lifting.

Increasingly professionals on the gigging scene are using the pod-di method. I have done a lot of studio work and in the last five years I haven't used a single amplifier. Everytime I do a gig I'm always asked what amp I use and people are horrified to find the previously worshipped tone came from the POD*. When your in it for the monyer you have to be pragmatic. Yes the Engl stack sounds deadly (to me onstage) but is it worth me hauling it to every gig when a smaller pod based set-up gives me more realism, the sound I want both me and my audience to experience and more range for less bother?




*Come to the Porterhouse in Parliament Street Dublin 2 for a demonstration at 11:30pm tonight

Fingers Mcginty

Thomas your arguement is interesting. I have to say i havn't had much success with my Pod 2 on the gigging circuit. Never sounded right to me. Are you gigging with the new pod X3

Thomas from Presence

I don't know about the POD 2 as previous to the X3 I was using a Pod XT. When I was using the POD XT I had it's outs go into a DI box which in turn went straight to desk and to a monitor system for me. Because it's DI my onstage volume had no major impact on the sound man so I could have it as loud as the singer would let me!

I am gigging with the POD X3 Live presently which has it's own DI outs. I use a crate powerblock to amplify which has it's own DI which I use because it's higher off the ground so less wires for me to fall over (stage in the Porter House is quite high and small).

The sound is beyond perfect for all involved parties. Having a graphic EQ really helps get it just right for each venue. The whole system is a joy.

sei046

I am so sick of hauling tube amls in and out of places and having to keep them low. I am buying a Line 6 vetta where all the messing is gone and you can get usable tones twice as fast which are twice as consistent. i think every musician gets to that stage where when the novelty of gigging wears out after a few years, you are constantly looking for the easiest and smallest setup.

My advice would be unless your playing the point in the biggest metallica Tribute going, i would take a hard look at what can get you the closest to their sound, at a price which is comparable to your wage and that sounds as good as the rest of your band!

demanufactured

Kirks tone wouldnt be hard to emulate anyway , a lot of distiortion and a wah pedal......

Jonakin

From a TG Poster i got:
Gain: 4 o clock
Treble: 3 o clock
Mid: 11 o clock
Bass: 4 o clock

ktex2

Depends on which album your trying to get. Are you trying to get the tone for the black album or master of puppets etc ?

For what its worth i got the tone perfectly using a line 6 212 valvestate. The presets on the amp even allow you to select the metallica tone which to me is a little off so i had to adjust it slightly. Agree with the poster above there isn't a whole lot of gain so ease off it try and leave it at around the 6 mark. Put the treble and mids at 5. Mids are definetely boosted to get the punch through. Leave the bass at around 7 for the chunky palm mutes. If you can apply a noise gate to clean up the sound. Then pop the pickups on the guitar to treble and that will pretty much nail the tone for you.

The truth is your not going to get the ''exact'' metallica tone unless you go out and buy a mesa boogie and copy down all their equipment settings, so if your budget is small your best option is to find an amp which has inbuilt amp modelling. At the very least it saves you hauling various pedals around with you. Luckily line 6 do model mesa and do it quite well.