Tone

[Anonymous]

quick note before topic:

You may find odd to have a jazz guitar guy hanging around Metal Method – I’m not trolling the place!, but I’m sure by now you already know that 🙂 It happens I always enjoyed hanging with people with different interests than my own, a good chance to learn new things! Though in the 80s 90s I was mostly a rock guy (got my first electric guitar and bands in the post-punk scene) some 10 years ago I began to slide into jazz territory. And be sure there are some serious shredders in jazz too! Andreas Öberg, one of my first teachers is one of the fastest guys around doing jazz/gipsy/whatever improvisations! Jazzers share the “need for speed” with shredders and some love for tradition with “classic rockers” and do step into avant-garde, electronics, etc.

But I always considered myself a slow-hand guy, so I began searching and found “Speed Kills” and “Metal Method” a few years ago. Did Doug’s Speed and Accuracy contest and spent some time in the forums back then. Then found my way again into the new forums.

 

Now for Tone:

Brett (MotleyCrue) mentioned he’d like to hear some of my videos with a serious/heavy distortion tone; I do love those heavy sounds too. (for instance I really enjoy Sarah’s sound at metal Riffology! .. but I suspect some of that is a bass guitar doubling the lines? Or maybe an octave pedal? still a wonderful sound!)

So I’d like some advice on how to get there… – to a huge/deep metal tone 🙂

 

For fun here’s my current tone chain:

* Fender Deluxe Reverb III or Roland Cube 60 (has several heavy amp models) ; guitar on Channel 2, no drive, gain at some 35%/40% bass=5 mid=7 treble=4, light reverb // * Cable, guitar to amp // * Archtop/semi/solidbody guitar; neck or neck/middle pu; volume=8 tone=4; strung with flatwounds 014s, jazz dunlop III pick

 

My problem is:

I could use the models in my Roland amp, but as I play mostly at night, around 00:00 to 3:00am in an apartment building, I need to be able to connect directly to my mixing console so I can control the output better.

I do have a few pedals: compressor, vintage overdrive, digital delay, looper and a couple of racks from my gigs in the 80s, the Alesis Quadraverb GT. And I may buy a couple more if I know exactly what to look for.

What I’d like to know is:

What constitutes a common sound chain for a deep metal sound, specially in the case you can’t use an amp? Or what are you common sound processing chains? And, while we’re at it, if you had to name one player for your favorite guitar tone who would he/she be?

Thanks!

Joao

[safetyblitz]

The most ubiquitous “metal” amps are the Peavey 5150 (now the Peavey 6505) and the Mesa/Boogie Dual Rectifier. Running direct into something that models something equivalent to either of those, with plenty of gain dialed in, and adding a modest amount of reverb will get you 90% of the way to a tone most people would consider “metal”, unless they’re expecting more of a “nu-metal” sound. Some people like bit of compression to help the lead tone “sing” a little more, or a teeny-tiny-itsy-bitty-barely-perceptible SMIDGE of delay, but anything much beyond that is overkill IMHO (except if you’re using actual loud amps you’d want a noise gate as well). It’s also common to stick an overdrive like the Boss OD-1 or Ibanez Tubescreamer in front of the amp, though with a high gain amp, putting a Tubescreamer in front might call for turning down the gain on the actual amp a bit. I guess nowadays lots of guys probably use a “doubling” effect to approximate the fullness of doubled studio tracks.

My top tone guys would be Slash, Satriani, Santana. Also Van Halen until he started overdoing the chorus effect in the 90s, George Lynch on Dokken’s “Back For The Attack” album and earlier. On the more “metallic” end of the spectrum, James Hetfield on the “And Justice for All” album, Zakk Wylde on Ozzy’s “No More Tears” album, Darrell Abbott on “A Vulgary Display of Power”.

For a Metallica/Pantera type of sound, it’s common to “scoop” the EQ with lots of highs and lows, but far less mids, and make the sound very dry (little or no reverb, delay, etc).

[AlleyCatRocker1980s]

Hey Joaop,

I enjoy your stuff, glad you joined…Music is Universal, an open to all Welcome To Metal Method..:)

Let Errrr Ripp!

AlleyCat

Practicing Guitar

[superblonde]

To add to this topic I don’t understand the ‘scooped mids’ style. When I do that, the bulk of the guitar sound disappears completely! Might be the combo amp speakers I suppose? (Not enough bass range.)

I'm an intermediate student of Metal Method. I play seitannic heavy metal. All Kale Seitan! ♯ ♮ ♭ ø ° Δ ♩ ♪ ♫ ♬
And on the Seventh Day, Mustaine said: ∇ ⨯ E = - ∂B / ∂t ; and there was Thrash; and it had a ♭3; and it was good.

[Igglepud]

The guitar’s job is to be the mids. If you play with other people, and you have no mids, you will not be heard. I set my mids to about 7, bass and treble to between 1 and 3. Then I EQ a slight mid boost.

 

 

MY ROCK IS FIERCE!!!

[AlleyCatRocker1980s]

I totally agree with you guy’s, so much can be achieved with those dials on the Amp more than someone knows.

Practicing Guitar

[Igglepud]

Here is the chain I use:

 

Guitar -> Distortion -> Effect -> Wah -> Delay -> Amp

 

Not all of those are active at all times, but that is how I chain them. For effect, I usually use a Phaser, a Chorus, or a Whammy pedal. Also, having the right pickup helps a lot. I didn’t know that until I bought my last guitar, but there is a HUGE difference in single coil pickups vs humbuckers. Not that one is better or worse, but they definitely provide different tones.

MY ROCK IS FIERCE!!!

[MotleyCrue81]

For your guitar volume knobs, keep them all at max. Volume knobs are for swells only, otherwise you’re missing out on gain by having them around 5 or whatever. For metal tones, the guitar tone knobs aren’t for establishing your tone, they’re for adjusting your established tone that comes from your amp. I always keep my tone knobs maxed unless there is a soft part in a song, then I can lower them a little. To get a solid metal tone, put your gain on your amp at max or near max. Put the eqs all at middle positions and fiddle from there to see what you like. If you use distortion pedals, put your amp on a clean channel and have the distortion knob maxed or around max. Don’t use two distortion pedals in a row both set to max, you’ll regret it. I’ll always think George Lynch’s tone is the coolest when he was in Dokken.

Bring hair metal back!

[vinay]

Joaopaz, I believe metal and jazz are more closely related than you might think. Actually I always loved rock/metal rhythm guitar but couldn’t care less about the lead bit. Now that metal guitar players have widened their horizons it has gotten better but back in the day it seemed either very blues oriented or scale runs up and down the neck (or Kerry King wrecking his tremolo). That was until I heard some of the guitar solos on the later Death albums (by my hero Chuck Schuldiner, or the bass solos when current Testament bass guitar player Steve DiGiorgio was on bass). I later recognized that the element I liked about it was also present in jazz guitar, saxophone and trumpet solos I heard at and around the North Sea Jazz festival (which is a pretty big festival over here). I also later learned that Chuck actually did listened to jazz a lot so it was no coincidence. I’ve to admit though that I currently don’t have much more than a record by Maceo Parker though I’m eager to learn more.

As for the sound, I think it depends on the arrangement. The listeners focus will be on the midrange which in rock/metal is often the vocals, the guitar complementing the vocals or the lead guitar. You can’t have too much occupying that same range which is why I still think it works good to scoop the mids on the rhythm guitar. No need to have too much bass either as the bass guitar covers that already. But I always like it better if the composition/arrangement has got stuff sorted rather than have everyone do their own thing and leave it to the mixing board and eq tweaks to fix it afterwards. So if the lead gets intense, the rhythm should ease off. If the lead (or vocals) sustaines a note, you could have a nice rhythm fill to make it more dynamic. I don’t like the more old school approach of having a mindlessly repeating rhythm section and a lead effectively going nowhere. That’s my opinion based on my taste and it will be different for others, obviously. But in this context going back to the tone setting, the underlying rhythm is best off scooped whereas the lead, vocals and guitar fills could do with a bit more midrange. And obviously whereever the focus is on the riff, you’ll want more midrange as well. Mind you though that with scooped some guitar players don’t actually boost the high frequencies but instead boost the presence, which is just an even higher frequency band available on some (bigger/better) amps.

Apparently the best overdrive/distortion comes from a good amp (or so some insist), but I think overdrive/distortion pedals are getting quite good and sometimes give you options not present on a typical amp. Like the DOD Boneshaker, you have a three band eq but you also get a frequency sweep control for all these three bands (so you can tweak whereabout the “low”, “mid” and “high” bands are). When playing through a small practice amp, I really like playing through an overdrive and a distortion pedal in series both set to low gain. If you click the link at the bottom of this message (and provided I did this right) you should see a picture of my settings. The overdrive (Joyo Ultimate Drive) comes first. The overdrive leaves the dynamics a bit more intact. Then it goes into the Digitech/Hardwire distortion pedal. As you can see, low and high are slightly boosted, mid is slightly cut. I prefer to boost the highs a bit more than the lows. The distortion pedal could easily get me more distortion than I’d ever need, but I feel a distortion pedal alone sounds a bit too sterile. I think that is what some have against distortion pedals in general. Having the two in series makes it breathe a bit more. It is a bit more organic, dynamic and still sufficiently distorted. I currently have it going into the clean channel of my solid state practice amp (a small 10W amp by Kustom) but I don’t see how it wouldn’t work nicely on a good slightly overdrive tube amp when I drop the gain (distortion) levels on the pedals even more.

When switching to lead (where people often like a volume and distortion boost as well as the mid frequency boost) some people rely on an extra overdrive pedal like the Maxon or Ibanez Tubescreamer type pedals. The Boss DS-2 Turbo Distortion basically does just that. If you go to boost, it increases distortion and also boosts the midrange.

I think Sarah plays through a digital processing unit by Line 6 which probably sounds better (and is easier to make sound well) if you’re going to record it digitally anyway. It may be different if you want to sound good live. If it is about that, don’t underestimate the effect of your speakers and cabinet (or your combo). Closed back sounds tighter (which would probably suit what Sarah sounds like) whereas an open back cab breathes more. As for metal amps. In addition to what Safetyblitz already mentioned, nowadays you’ll be seeing more German amps in metal like Engl and Diezel for the higher gain and more aggressive stuff.

My pedal settings.

[Anonymous]

@Safetyblitz
I was playing with my Roland Cube 60 this evening – and noticed the ‘phones’ output doubles as a ‘recording out’, and that allows me to use the modeled amps straight into my mixer without having sound coming out. A look into the manual revealed a couple of amps you mentioned, right on!
CLASSIC STACK
This is modeled on the sound and response of a Marshall
JMP1987. Used extensively in hard rock during the 1970s,
this is truly the perfect amp for the “top rock” guitar sound.
METAL STACK
This is modeled on the Peavey EVH-5150. This is the high
gain amp, so even at low volumes, you can still get heavy
distortion and sustain.
R-FIER STACK
This is modeled on the MESA/Boogie Rectifier. This super
high gain amp is capable of producing slash metal, grunge,
and a wide range of other lead sounds.
I don’t have a noise gate but have a ‘slow motion’ pedal that can be used as such. And also have my overdrive to provide some extra power at the input 🙂
Great tips on tone, lots for me to try, thanks for that! (already tried a few things, namely the Metallica sound 🙂

Here’s a quick sound bit, a lot different than my previous attempts, at least. I’m using the Roland’s Metal Stack, with extreme EQ settings (all maxed with some 10% mids) and a tiny delay. Then I got it into Audacity and converted it to a stereo track and added a little more EQ on top(!) – went overboard, I know…

@AlleyCat
Thanks again for the great welcome, Sir. You sure bring some high spirits into this forum, making everyone feel great! It’s great to be in company of great folks like you!

@Superblonde @Igglepud
On the sound clip above I left only some 10% of mids and maxed everything else! it will most probably sound like a “joke” to most of you guys more aware of these tones than I am, but still felt great to play that 🙂

@MotleyCure81
Thanks! I always enjoy you feedback, very spot om, too! Will try with your tips for sure!

@Vinay
That’s a super jazz festival you have there! And today there’s a wealth of new experiments in jazz coming from the North. It all started with a band called E.S.T. (Esbjorn Svensson Trio) and those guys used an incredible line up, with piano, double bass and drums – but the double bass had some serious signal processing to it, controlled by Esbjorn from the piano! (so sad he died so early!). But there’s loads of exciting sounds coming from up there, most of which the purists would hardly classify as jazz, but who cares, they’re still awsome! Check these names if you don’t know them already: Eivind Aarset (guitar), The Portico Quartet, E.S.T., Nils Petter Molvær, Tord Gustavsen Trio/Quartet. Also, on guitar, Kurt Rosenwinkel (USA) and Ben Monder (who just played on the final Bowie’s album).
Great input on the sound department, too! Funny thing I have Vintage OD by Joyo (produced for Thomann in Germany under the Harley Benton brand) and a Digitech/Hardwire … but mine’s a delay 🙂 So the picture showed up perfectly!

Now I’ll have to play with it all, you guys already provided a load of ideas. Funny how with just reading this thread my sound already was so different form the clips I recorded yesterday!

Thanks, you sure Rock! 😉

[safetyblitz]

I think part of the equation is also going to be what direction your ears take you when you tweak things. There’s a mellow neck-pickup quality to the sample you posted that is a bit reminiscent of some of the solo work someone like Van Halen or John Petrucci sometimes does. It’s hard to tell whether it’s that or your phrasing that makes your “jazz roots” show a little in that clip. Not that that’s necessarily a bad thing. 😀

The more stereotypical metal rhythm and lead sounds I think are more “bridge” pickup sounds. Most metal sounds that appeal to my ear sound like they are coming from a punchy bridge position humbucker. Probably any typical stock “Gibson-ish” humbucker from the last 30 years will do, though some will be a little hotter than others. But I think anything that’s not advertising itself as “vintage” tone will have enough output for a “metal” tone. Though Van Halen is more “hard rock” than “metal”, one of his tone “secrets” is using only medium output pickups and letting the amp to the heavy lifting. It helps prevent the notes in chords from mushing together.

As Brett said, volume and tone knobs on the guitar maxed. Generally I find that a bridge humbucker I like for hard rock or metal sounds will sound way too harsh/nasal/trebly for clean playing unless I roll the tone knob back a lot. As I said, I think most default humbuckers in strat and les-paul type guitars are well-suited to the job.

Strings could be a factor as well, though I’m not sure how major. I haven’t used flatwounds or half-rounds enough to tell if they’ll sound noticeably different from round-wounds (which 99% of metal players will be using).

[safetyblitz]

For anyone who’s interested, here’s a promo video that does a nice job walking through some of the sounds you can get with that Roland Cube 60:

[rightonthemark]

i know most have already given sufficient answers to how to get a metal sound.
i will throw out the most common is essentially high gain and a mid scoop.
or on a graphic eq you might see it as a V.
you can off set that V to be more bass or treble depending on taste.
although, all that time spent on a thick low end growling metal tone will be met with a high pass filter by a sound and/or mix engineer.
i’ve struggled my whole playing life with my sound.
tube amps, solid state, modeling amps, etc.
i had a peavey 5150 back in my gigging days and hated it.
went thru an old peavey rockmaster tube head, a laney solid state head and the last amp i had was a peavey trans-tube combo amp.
used everything from boss, digitech and tube master stomp boxes to art and ada rack systems to boss, digitech and korg all in one floor fx units.
i don’t like most people’s sound – at least not 100% because i don’t want to sound like them. i have a sound in my head but i’ve never achieved it.
i describe it as somewhere between the sound of a lion’s roar and a harley-davidson. if i could put that in a stomp box.
today it’s all software based amp modeling.
i have amplitube 3 and ezmix amp packs.
i find acceptable tones but nothing that really yanks my crank.
\m/ \m/

rock and roll ain't pretty; that's why they picked us to play it.

[Anonymous]

@Safetyblitz

Roger on the jazzy tone, your ears are sharp. It’s indeed the neck pickup and I’m picking close to the neck which is where I pick for jazz. Then probably it’s the backing track I did that adds to the final result – the line itself is one of Speed Kills exercises 🙂

One of my Teles has a hot Seymour Duncan on the bridge that sounds really cool, I’ll try with that guitar.

About strings, flatwounds sound very different! Specially after some time they get a “muddy” sound but that helps us getting that “thump” on the walking bass lines. Roundwounds are really halfway. Much closer to a pure rock sound while retaining some smoothness due to the fact that you don’t hear your fingers on chord changes and going up and down the nect, etc.

I’m at work now (you can tell 🙂 ) but will check that Roland 60 video when I get home – I really dig the Cubes!

@ROTM

rightonthemark wrote:

i describe it as somewhere between the sound of a lion’s roar and a harley-davidson. if i could put that in a stomp box. today it’s all software based amp modeling.

Man, that’s a cool idea for a wild Audacity project 🙂 Find some real samples of the sounds you mentioned… blend them together and run the results through some spectrum analyser..! At least do it to find if that’s close to what you hear 🙂 I know, if the quest for “the” perfect guitar is almost impossible, then tone is even way harder..
Thanks for the input on the EQ tips, no such thing as too much feedback!

[barks62]

MotleyCrue81 wrote:

For your guitar volume knobs, keep them all at max. Volume knobs are for swells only, otherwise you’re missing out on gain by having them around 5 or whatever. For metal tones, the guitar tone knobs aren’t for establishing your tone, they’re for adjusting your established tone that comes from your amp. I always keep my tone knobs maxed unless there is a soft part in a song, then I can lower them a little. To get a solid metal tone, put your gain on your amp at max or near max. Put the eqs all at middle positions and fiddle from there to see what you like. If you use distortion pedals, put your amp on a clean channel and have the distortion knob maxed or around max. Don’t use two distortion pedals in a row both set to max, you’ll regret it. I’ll always think George Lynch’s tone is the coolest when he was in Dokken.

I agree with most of this, but I disagree with the bit about the volume knobs and maxing out the gain on the amp. For a high gain amp I think you’re better off setting everything more in the middle and adjusting from there. A lot of the sound you get will depend on the pickups of your guitar, so if you have high gain pickups you probably won’t want to max out the gain of the amp. I have a Marshall and usually only put the gain in the 4-6 range.

And volume knobs are for much more than just volume swells. If you work your volume knob while you’re playing you can change your distortion sound mid-song, which is useful for softening things up for different parts of the song. You don’t want the same tone for everything or the song won’t have a chance to build. If you’re in a band setting, it’s important to be able to change your sound for different parts of the song, and something as simple as rolling back on the volume a little can be perfect.

Unless you are just playing solos and recording yourself at home. Then you’re right, peg the volume and be done with it.

[superblonde]

In technical terms isn’t the Metal tone, for a given tone, just the addition of odd harmonics? (created by overloading a tube or a transistor in various ways, or now with DSP software which emulates this behavior, and also to do this usually means using a lot of compression to boost the audio signal) I think when it comes to “what’s Metal tone”, we know it when we hear it, experienced players these days know how to get it with gear settings, yet simply describing the tone is difficult. Thru every rock musician interview I’ve ever seen, if the interviewer asks “what’s metal?” the artists can’t explain beyond one or two simple words like, “Ehh, it’s loud!” or “it’s mean and can’t be ignored!” So what’s it really sound like?

I'm an intermediate student of Metal Method. I play seitannic heavy metal. All Kale Seitan! ♯ ♮ ♭ ø ° Δ ♩ ♪ ♫ ♬
And on the Seventh Day, Mustaine said: ∇ ⨯ E = - ∂B / ∂t ; and there was Thrash; and it had a ♭3; and it was good.

[barks62]

superblonde wrote:

In technical terms isn’t the Metal tone, for a given tone, just the addition of odd harmonics? (created by overloading a tube or a transistor in various ways, or now with DSP software which emulates this behavior, and also to do this usually means using a lot of compression to boost the audio signal) I think when it comes to “what’s Metal tone”, we know it when we hear it, experienced players these days know how to get it with gear settings, yet simply describing the tone is difficult. Thru every rock musician interview I’ve ever seen, if the interviewer asks “what’s metal?” the artists can’t explain beyond one or two simple words like, “Ehh, it’s loud!” or “it’s mean and can’t be ignored!” So what’s it really sound like?

I guess I define it as just lots of distortion! I tend to find the tone I want and use it for both Metal and Rock, and the more I play the less distortion I use. When I first started I always had tons of distortion but I find myself using less and less the more I play.

@joao, on your Roland I’m guessing that if you use the Metal Stack or the R-Fier Stack, keep the EQ knobs around 5 and adjust the gain to taste you should sound pretty good. I don’t know if you’d even need anything else in front of it. Like Safteyblitz said, your bridge pickup is your best bet. I can’t listen to the sample you uploaded at the moment, but I will tonight.

[barks62]

I want to amend what I said about the volume knob. If you’re going for maximum distortion, definitely turn the volume knob all the way up.

[safetyblitz]

superblonde wrote:

In technical terms isn’t the Metal tone, for a given tone, just the addition of odd harmonics? (created by overloading a tube or a transistor in various ways, or now with DSP software which emulates this behavior, and also to do this usually means using a lot of compression to boost the audio signal)

I always thought the most accessible explanation was in terms of visualizing the clipping of a simple sine wave (with the understanding that the actual signal is more complex)

I think when it comes to “what’s Metal tone”, we know it when we hear it, experienced players these days know how to get it with gear settings, yet simply describing the tone is difficult.

I think this is true of describing color in mathematical terms as well. A specification of the frequency of a wave of visible light does not contain any information that directly describes the sensation of seeing that color. Even people with fully functional color vision won’t be able to conjure mental images to go with frequencies unless they’ve specifically memorized tables correlating E-M frequency ranges with colors.

When we try to use words to describe sounds or colors, we typically rely on comparisons or on descriptions in terms of shared experiences that might evoke the intended meaning “like the glow of coals in a dying campfire”.

[vinay]

@Joaopaz, thanks for the info about those Scandinavian jazz bands. Somehow these Scandinavians have a good feel for melody and music in general.  I’ve heard quite some jazz. Some I liked, some I didn’t. I grew up in The Hague which used to be the home for the North Sea Jazz festival until it grew too big and moved to Rotterdam. It is so big and so many great artists gather that there are loads of related festivals where they drop by. They’re in the pubs, on the streets, on the radio… The whole city turns jazz. I liked how these musicians meet in the hallways, unpack and start a spontaneous unsceduled jam. So inspiring! Purists may think that it is not so strictly jazz but I like it that way. They’ve had Joe Satriani, Prince and even Snoop Dog there. I think it is good, inspire and be inspired. The currently confirmed list of artists for the 2016 edition[/url] looks promising as well. Big names like Buddy Guy and Joe Bonamassa as well as acts I wasn’t aware they still existed (Level 42, Simply Red, Earth, Wind & Fire to name a few). Later as a student I typically went for an early mountainbike ride on Sunday morning and returned at about 10am or so. Me and fellow students (just out of bed) would then drop on the couch for some tea and the mellow Sunday morning live jazz session on tv. So jazz was good memories to me, but I can hardly recall who I have been listing to. So your recommendations will be helpful, thank you for that.

I don’t think there is a typical metal tone for different reasons. One is that metal has evolved and branched in different directions. I get the impression that different students on this forum are into different types of metal. And these different styles already have different typical guitar sounds. Then within a song you can already have different guitar sound settings. Either because of the different roles the guitar takes and also what the other instruments are playing. Especially as most metal bands have more than one guitar player, they don’t want both to sound exactly the same. It is going to clash if they do, or you’d have to separate them left and right when mixing. And then within the same song they’ll use a different setting for one rhythm bit than for the other, than for the lead guitar sections. When guitar players double their sound (to sound bigger, for riffs in particular) they’ll also use different eq settings for the different takes to achieve the bigger sound and to not make it clash. So yeah, there is not one ideal setting. It depends on a lot.

As for the gain setting, yeah I also believe that it shouldn’t necessarily be maxed. As you could see from my stettings, I leave them pretty low. Despite the aggressive artwork, the Joyo Ultimate Drive is a fairly mellow overdrive pedal. The Digitech/Hardwire TL-2 can be agressive, but the gain setting is really low as you can see. As a pair in series, they sound nice and aggressive. High gain settings cause harder clipping, basically reducing the dynamics in your sound. I often find this too harsh for the higher gain “metal” settings so having multiple gain stages gives you a more complex/interesting clipping characteristic. Bigger tube amps have several pre-amp tubes and also a few power amp tubes so that’s quite a bunch of gain stages in series. That’s what creates the more interesting sound a single gain stage (either a hot metal distortion pedal or a small amp running at high gain) doesn’t deliver that easily. Some amps like Bugera allow you to mess with mixing different types of tubes to play with the gain characteristic but most require you to have them matched. Having several different overdrive/distortion pedals in series allows you to do the same thing and also allows you to tweak the eq per pedal. This you loads of options, especially if you add eq pedals in the line. Downside of this approach is that you could be adding (too much) noise with this many components and connectors. I don’t mind currently but I can imagine it could be a problem for some. Adding a noise gate helps, though it is typically when the gain is set high where the noise gets annoying.

All this said, this could be very different for others. If you like a more Pantera like straight and tight type of distortion, fewer overdrive stages set to higher gain will actually work better. Solid state gain (which is what Pantera was using in their Randall amps) was known to be tighter and less dynamic than tube distortion, though I don’t think this is necessarily so nowadays.

As for the lion and Harley sound, I actually believe you should aim for little distortion, not much. You want to hear the rattle, not the mush you get with high gain. The idea with the spectrum analysis seems like a good one!

Finally, it seems to me that trying to find some perfect tone can be a frustrating trap. Get something that is good enough to express yourself and once you’ve got that then, well, go express yourself :).

[safetyblitz]

vinay wrote:

I don’t think there is a typical metal tone for different reasons. One is that metal has evolved and branched in different directions. I get the impression that different students on this forum are into different types of metal. And these different styles already have different typical guitar sounds.

Perhaps, but I think those tones are more similar to each other than they are to the tones we associate with other broad families of music,

[safetyblitz]

vinay wrote:

Finally, it seems to me that trying to find some perfect tone can be a frustrating trap. Get something that is good enough to express yourself and once you’ve got that then, well, go express yourself :).

The other thing to remember is that settings that sound good in one room may not sound good in another. Or settings that sound good in an empty bar may not sound good when there are 300 people there. In general I think a lot of guitarists spend a disproportionate amount of time and energy fussing about details that can be very difficult or even impossible to discriminate under many circumstances.

Cool story bro: I got to meet Eddie Van Halen at sound check at one of the 2004 tour dates. He was annoyed that he felt his tone was off, though of course it’s all the same gear and setup as they use night after night. He was chalking it up to the cold weather at the time. The rest of us had no basis for comparison, since we weren’t there night after night, but it sounded fine to us. He was also drunk off his ass, though I wouldn’t be surprised if a sober Eddie would have thought he could hear a difference too. Nobody I talked to over the next few weeks said anything bad about his tone (apart from the moment during his sustainer wanking in the solo when he got a big feedback spike).

[Anonymous]

barks62 wrote:

And volume knobs are for much more than just volume swells. If you work your volume knob while you’re playing you can change your distortion sound mid-song, which is useful for softening things up for different parts of the song. You don’t want the same tone for everything or the song won’t have a chance to build. If you’re in a band setting, it’s important to be able to change your sound for different parts of the song, and something as simple as rolling back on the volume a little can be perfect.

Great point, Barks62!

superblonde wrote:

Thru every rock musician interview I’ve ever seen, if the interviewer asks “what’s metal?” the artists can’t explain beyond one or two simple words like, “Ehh, it’s loud!” or “it’s mean and can’t be ignored!” So what’s it really sound like?

And another interesting point! 🙂

[Anonymous]

@Vinay
Not sure if you’re to dig everything I mentioned, probably not! But those are very cool projects exploding in creativity, these days. There was this show running on the Mezzo TV channel called “Jazzed Out” and each episode was dedicated to one particular city; they did “Oslo Jazzed Out”, Berlin, New York, Tokio, London, etc with loads of crazy projects! Here’s a few more names for you, in case you decide to move on! Robert Glasper (piano, keyboards), and Chris Dave (astonishing drummer), Snarky Puppy (band, look for the “Flood” video on YouTube, the most incredible drum part I saw, starting around 4:40), Gerald Clayton (piano) .. these latest names are more “close” to the Maceo Parker you mentioned 🙂

Again, thank you and Superblonde for the extra considerations on tone, this is being great and inspiring to read. Makes me want to experiment with it all, and I will! I think I’ll setup some 2 or 3 guitars with different pickups with a same set of strings and will go from there, applying the things you guys have been talking about. The EQs and the Mids, the single/paired overdrives (my “Joyo” OD is also very light, by the way). Then the various effects, etc. It’s going to be fun.

[superblonde]

Some people assume metalheads are mean and especially thrashers as particularly aggressive, yet that is not so, we are an incredibly helpful and polite group of fans, look how much dedication we put into trying to help a jazz guy reconfigure his amp to play with a Metal sound. 😀

I'm an intermediate student of Metal Method. I play seitannic heavy metal. All Kale Seitan! ♯ ♮ ♭ ø ° Δ ♩ ♪ ♫ ♬
And on the Seventh Day, Mustaine said: ∇ ⨯ E = - ∂B / ∂t ; and there was Thrash; and it had a ♭3; and it was good.

[Anonymous]

superblonde wrote:

Some people assume metalheads are mean and especially thrashers as particularly aggressive, yet that is not so, we are an incredibly helpful and polite group of fans, look how much dedication we put into trying to help a jazz guy reconfigure his amp to play with a Metal sound.

😀 😀 😀 and the fact of the matter is that I was thinking about those same lines earlier today ;D !

 

[vinay]

Just checked Flood from Snarky Puppy in youtube, really love that! I actually love more rigorous twists and turns in music though in this case I really love the gradual evolution of the feel in the song whilst retaining that same basic pattern. Last weekend we dropped by the Africa museum here and attended a workshop African music. I love these intricate rhythm patterns, excellent lesson on syncopation to support the courses from Sarah and DJ Nelson :). It is funny because back in the day when I was clapping along with a song on the radio some would say I had no feel for rhythm, now I know there is a word for it ;). On the North Sea Jazz Heats The Hague festival about twenty years ago or so (a free open air jazz festival in the city center preceding the actual NSJ festival and with the same artists) I ran into Zuco 103. Later I also saw them at their own concert, good vibes. The good thing about such music is that I can bring more friends along as not everyone is into the more aggressive metal ;).

To put it in a metal perspective, you may want to check the track “Trapped in a Corner” by Death. It has pretty much the first lead that got me interested that lead guitar can actually be nice. I also like the rhythm feel in there. As for a proper arrangement, I think the track “Without Judgement” by the same band may be a nice example. But this has been my favorite band for decades now so I just have a strong bias here. No doubt there are loads of more good examples there.

[Anonymous]

@vinay

Just listened to the “Death” tracks you mentioned. Enjoyed them very much – the rhythm parts have the kind of sound I find very cool! And always like when singers go with this kind of vocals… how to you call that, that “dark growling” thing? I seem to have a personal problem with thin high pitched voices on metal (the first times I listened to Dream Theater the voice was a total knock off for me). The lead guitars had wonderful sections too! It’s great this song trade 🙂

Great story about the syncopation too 🙂 It’s an undefined thing but you can feel it when it happens – a bit like Superblonde mentioned above about the Metal tone, you can’t describe it but when you’re then you know it!

*

A lot of the names mentioned on this thread I didn’t/don’t know… but I like to go by instinct; when I reading here suddenly sometimes something rings an almost imperceptible bell and I know I’ll have to check it later: so I’m of to find some recordings by Dokken (don’t have a clue about them!)

[MotleyCrue81]

Death just isn’t the kind of metal that gets all the chicks. I’m a heavy metal guy, and let’s be honest, us heavy metal guys do what we do because we like the ladies. And the ladies really really  like us back haha..  😉

Bring hair metal back!

[vinay]

That’s a way. The ladies I like are the ones who like guys who do what they really like. Otherwise err… I’d have to be in a boyband…

That said, I think girls here if they happen to be into metal, it would be symphonic stuff like Epica and Within Temptation.

[AlleyCatRocker1980s]

Rocker Chicks are the hottest  🙂

Practicing Guitar

[vinay]

I grew up in The Hague. If you have to relate cities in The Netherlands to certain types of music (at least in the ’90s) I think The Hague would be about rock, blues and jazz like stuff (The Golden Earring, Anouk, Kane…), Rotterdam about hardcore techno music and Amsterdam about electronic dance music (DJ Tiesto, Armin van Buuren etc.) and also this R&B/Hiphop thing which I really didn’t like at the time (still not, actually). At least that was my perception at the time. So after school (in ’98) I moved to Amsterdam for study and I was a bit afraid I’d never really come to terms with the scene over there. Which was probably unfounded as students from all over the country come to Amsterdam for study so it was going to be mixed anyway. Anyway, within the first few weeks I ran into this girl wearing a hoodie from The Offspring (punk/rock band) so I went up to her for a chat. She’s my girlfriend now, we’ve got two kids and loads of fun :).

[Anonymous]

MotleyCrue81 wrote:

Death just isn’t the kind of metal that gets all the chicks. I’m a heavy metal guy, and let’s be honest, us heavy metal guys do what we do because we like the ladies. And the ladies really really like us back haha..

So I guess I took a right turn on my musical path, coming here to join the metal gang 🙂

[vinay]

Ha, that’s funny actually :). My brother used to have a poster of Dream Theater guitar player John Petrucci in his room because we liked the look of his guitar (I think it was from the era of their first album), but when we first heard a DT record we were definitely put off by the vocals. The poster remained on the wall though. Chucks vocals went up in pitch over time and the final album “The Sound of Perseverance” was considerably higher than on the previous album “Symbolic” (of which you’ve now heard the track Without Judgement). The last track on that album was a Judas Priest cover called “Painkiller”. I was in shock because of the high pitched vocals. He was also already working on his first album in Control Denied (which consisted basically of Death members but with a harmonic vocalist) which was released the next year. So I had to get used to it anyway as the music was good, obviously. It is called The Fragile Art of Existence. Unfortunately Chuck got severely ill (rare type of brain stem cancer) during the recording of that album and eventually passed in December 2001. They’re still trying to finish the second album called “When Man and Machine Collide”. Chuck had already recorded the guitar bits but unfortunately the Morrisound Studios have been burgularized while the rest of the band was recording there which was a major setback. They’re still trying to finish it though. If you like what you heard, you’ll probably at least like their albums from the “Human” album onwards including the Control Denied album (if you can get over the harmonic vocals). You’ll find that cool fretless bass work by Steve DiGiorgio on several of these albums. As for Dream Theater, I bought a large box of cds from them lately and am still in the process of getting along. I’m definitely starting to appreciate them, but I’m in no rush. There are still albums I haven’t heard. It also meant I had to get used to keyboards, which was another thing that used to put me off ;). I’ve also got two albums from Mayan which is more symphonic. Three different people take care of vocals so you have an operatic female voice (an Italian lady) a harmonic “power metal” voice (a guy from Germany) and the founder/guitarist taking care of the death metal screams and grunts (from The Netherlands). An open mind is essential in modern metal ;).

Syncopation can be explained actually. The focus goes off the first beat in the measure. A bit like what inversion is to chords. But just like me as a kid, it is probably something you already apply unconsciously. Especially as you’re into jazz.

[superblonde]

MotleyCrue81 wrote:

Death just isn’t the kind of metal that gets all the chicks. I’m a heavy metal guy, and let’s be honest, us heavy metal guys do what we do because we like the ladies. And the ladies really really like us back haha..

glam metal = girls 😀

at least they had that going for em!
Tho I wouldn’t go so far to say glam is very heavy at all.. (Steel Panther is a perfect example)

Thrash = opposite of girl magnet.. if a person isn’t moshing that person has no purpose in life ;-D

I'm an intermediate student of Metal Method. I play seitannic heavy metal. All Kale Seitan! ♯ ♮ ♭ ø ° Δ ♩ ♪ ♫ ♬
And on the Seventh Day, Mustaine said: ∇ ⨯ E = - ∂B / ∂t ; and there was Thrash; and it had a ♭3; and it was good.

[vinay]

Are you serious there? It would be a massive difference between the US and Europe then. The only glam rock bands I’m aware who’ve actually become known here are Europe (back in the 80’s) and The Darkness early this century. But I was a little kid back in the 80’s so I’m not aware of how many girls actually liked Europe compared to guys. Even though The Darkness is a respected band, I’m not aware of anyone who’s really into it and adoring the image of it. It is seen more as a bit of a joke. You’d have to have a strong personality to show up like that as you’re definitely getting funny looks and are being laughed at. You won’t attract more girls than the regular punk or thrash type dude. The contrary, probably. That said, the image did stick and is probably the stereotypical rock type image for the outsider, for Sesamestreet etc (who can bang their head properly, has to be mentioned). A while ago I posted the video to the Stolas single by Scale the Summit which does feature them in a glam rock outfit. I don’t think it was to be taken too seriously. Trials cyclist Danny MacAskill has a traveling circus with his team, a bit like what Travis Pastrana does with FMX. It is called Drop and Roll so they released this video a while ago in true glam rock style. It is not their regular outfit for their shows though and even Rob Halford doesn’t seem to like it ;). If you allow the guy to go outside, it is more like what he did in Cascadia.

As for thrash, no I don’t think that is the attitude over here. If a person isn’t moshing (or helping a fellow mosher who went down), just stay out of the pit. That’s it, all good.

In my experience if girls like rock or metal, it is because they like the groove and maybe can identify with the artist. So yeah, in most cases they start with the more groove based metal which features one or several female artists in beautiful clothing. Often over here that would be Within Temptation. The guitars aren’t particularly interesting or complex but are mostly there to lay down a groove. And then you have Sharon den Adel who is one of the friendliest, welcoming and also prettiest people (both from the inside as outside) on stage. And she dresses like the typical fairytale princess which still lives inside of many of them. Soon they move on to more complex stuff and start to appreciate the death metal grunts as well. And that’s where it starts to blend with death metal. Metal has evolved so much that it becomes near impossible to pigeonhole. Epica, is that death metal already? Loads of girls love them. And if it isn’t, how can Mayan be then? It is only a small shift from Epica (also mostly with the same members) and their debut Quarterpast says “symphonic death metal opera”. And I can’t argue with them.

At the end of the day, I think that if girls are merely interested in me for what I do or have done, they’re in it for the wrong reason. Same as if people listen to certain music not for the music but for the person performing. Really these are different things. If you want me, don’t get the plastic cd. If you want the music, don’t get me because I won’t be singing all day. I will be me all day though, so you’d better like that. I was in a successful project a decade ago and I really hated to get personal attention because of what we’d done. To me it is really different. I may just not be the ideal rockstar ;).

[superblonde]

Joao about your posted soundcloud example, it really depends on whom you’re trying to emulate I suppose. MAB is strictly “frowny face EQ” as he as mentioned in interviews and lessons, so, he does the exact opposite of scooping the mids- he boosts them and rolls off either end, this gives him his metal sound without sounding muddy or lost against other instruments. The Roland amp has some limits to how good it can sound with it’s high gain settings, can be heard here, it sounds more..ahhh.. the closest word that comes to mind is “bitcrushed” which is not a compliment (there’s an effect filter that’s been around since late 80s called bitcrushing which is a non-linear type of distortion, kind of like, 8-bit Atari sound effects mixed into the tone, it was/is purposely used by some alternative or noise bands, etc, it basically destroys the melodic nature of the tone). Whereas a good modeller would distort to make it sound… ahhh.. still pure yet richly textured.

Anyway if doing Speed Kills stuff, I think you want to boost mids and lower other ranges.

No one mentioned Palm Muting yet which is huge right? Metal is chugga chugga! Palm mute would contribute much more to the effect than what type or which pickup is used or how the pickup switch is set, right? I think so. In contrast I doubt any jazz tunes use Palm Muting. ;-D

I'm an intermediate student of Metal Method. I play seitannic heavy metal. All Kale Seitan! ♯ ♮ ♭ ø ° Δ ♩ ♪ ♫ ♬
And on the Seventh Day, Mustaine said: ∇ ⨯ E = - ∂B / ∂t ; and there was Thrash; and it had a ♭3; and it was good.

[superblonde]

This thread introduced the topic of hot girls so I have to add this tidbit too about jazz and hot girls, from a discussion in the edX jazz course (answered by instructor Monk Rowe, The Joe Williams Director, Fillius Jazz Archive, Hamilton College).

Back in the day (supposedly) all the hot girls would go to ‘jass’ clubs (1910-1920? I don’t know?) As things go.. nowadays my jazz neighbor’s jazz-rock-fusion band will play a great set at a coffee shop and only grey haired bearded men will be around. Uhh wait a minute that’s the same demographic as the King’s X show I went to recently..! – the times they are a changin’!

Question: What does the word jazz or the original ‘jass’ mean? I think that Jazz originally started as music on the fringe and was somewhat “racey” in the beginning. There is some belief that it was initially referred to as Jass but as it became more common the name was changed to the more acceptable term Jazz. Check out Jazz in America – https://youtu.be/Fy8tApx6uVU?list=PL1E9CF53D6FF4AE18 for more insight.

Instructor response:

“Jazz” , early on when used as a verb apparently had sexual connotations. And one of the anecdotes that is part of jazz lore has to do with that early spelling.. jass. According to the story, the promotors and clubs that were producing posters to advertise their jass bands had to change it to jazz because kids like to black out the “j” in “jass”. Probably not true, but an amusing thought. Monk – monkrowe

When I figure out where the hot girls are today I’ll surely let you guys know ;-D

Duke Ellington apparently did not care for the word at all saying:

“By and large, jazz always has been like the kind of man you wouldn’t want your daughter to associate with. The word “jazz” has been part of the problem. The word never lost its association with those New Orleans bordellos.” https://www.upstateswing.com/Greg/origin-of-the-word-jazz.php

Glam metal had that connotation to me. Motley Crue is also in glam category for me (they had hairspray.. OK, any band with hairspray, that’s a big part of glam) and hmmm, also very associated with.. bordello girls. And motorcycles! Don’t forget the bikes. 😀 Jazz tone also however, I don’t think ever had motorcycles as an element. Another plus for the metal camp ;-D Hah.

I'm an intermediate student of Metal Method. I play seitannic heavy metal. All Kale Seitan! ♯ ♮ ♭ ø ° Δ ♩ ♪ ♫ ♬
And on the Seventh Day, Mustaine said: ∇ ⨯ E = - ∂B / ∂t ; and there was Thrash; and it had a ♭3; and it was good.

[Anonymous]

Hi guys!

I’m catching up with the latest posts here, lots of interesting stuff!

@Vinay
I’m here listening to “Scream Bloody Gore” as I type, after listening to the “Painkiller” track. It sounds like Chuck was singing in “falseto”, something I’d never heard in Metal before. Curiously, the first track of the 1987 album starts with an almost identical high pitch scream! But the he goes quickly to the lower registers and remains there. The mix is incredible, is like a wall of sound, and the singer looks like he is trapped in padded room, with a really muffled sound.
You mentioned the harmonic vocals, and that’s a huge turn off for me…. specially because they always sing in thirds 🙂 If they’d do it in fourths or 2nds that would be another story! Who knows, material for a future track here in the house lol. My wife is a singer, by the way (we did our own album in the early 90s) but it’s a different world. Still as she enjoys so much a certain type of gothic music I may talk her into something 🙂
About “gothic”: Luisa is really picky about it! Most of the times I mention something/someone to her as being gothic she almost always says “those guys are posers, that’s not gothic, you can be a true gothic spirit and walk the streets in really normal clothes” … of course she had her days of all black (mostly to this date) though I must concede she never quite fit the usual gothic stereotype. One thing, she does like the grunt vocals “as long as the lyrics aren’t satanic” 🙂
About syncopation, very well said, as you did. What I meant is that there isn’t a particular measure for for “swinging” which usually relies on syncopation. It’s somewhere between an 8th note and a 16th… but then it has everything to do with the accents, how you push those notes around, how you drive your lines. And when one listen to it we’ll somewhat know “this guys is really swinging”!

Glam Rock … wow!
“My” very first band was a UK glam rock band, called “Slade”! I think I wasn’t even 10. My father had a record store and I used to spend a lot of time there, in the cabins, with a bunch of albums on my lap, and one day one really knocked me off! It was one of Slade’s albums … “Sladest” 1973, so I was 10 by then. Oh guys, the number of times that I listened to this album! So I rendered it unsellable and my father gave it to me to take home 😀 !

This track!

And this one, earlier!

@Superblonde
That was more great insight on metal sounds, thanks! Right now I’m very much aware I’m just mimicking an “idea of Metal”, but I guess that’s where it all starts. In some time from now I’m sure I’ll get closer to a “this is me” sound. But right now I’m just tweaking knobs, and editing them in Audacity, just having fun. Still, I can already state that you guys here helped me cover a lot of ground in a short period of time. I’m still going also through some of my guitars, changing strings and find the one that feels right for the job 🙂
About palm mutting, that goes back to my rock days, but in Jazz hardly, my hand is almost always close to the neck pickup area. Still, today Jazz is an umbrella for a broad numbers of stylistic options, and you can see almost anything in guitar players! A bit unconsciously I used it when recording ROTM’s backing track.

Girls and Jazz!
I think everyone was into it up until the mid 40s, specially because of the dance factor. It was the time of the big bands playing large halls and it was like that era’s disco. People would go out to dance, and jazz was the music being played! The rhythms were great for dancing, too. Then, enter the Bebop era, Charlie Parker, the wild solos, super fast and complex lines and it was a lot harder to dance to those grooves. Then it was the hard drugs, heroin, etc, the young guys going into it without really knowing the extension of the damage (just because if Charlie Parker was on drugs and played like that, I want some of that too! … I’m being simplistic of course, but there sure was that Charlie Parker effect). Still you had girls in the clubs………… for instance, Lee Morgan (super duper trumpet player) was shot by his wife in public, in a club, while he was hopping to the bandstand to start a new set! You had the incredible story of Pannonica and Monk, her being from the british Rostchild family who went AWOL in the States following Monk and the Jazz crowd in the 50s.. And if you see some footage of the Cool Jazz era, Dave Brubeck time, entering the sixties, you’ll see a lot of those cool gals, in those strong eyeliners of the 60s, mini skirts, etc 🙂

I guess that guys go easilly with the intelectual challenge of music, find a lot of pleasure in that, chatting about scales and arpeggios, song structures, etc while girls don’t loose their feet from solid musical ground so easilly…
My wife just felt in love with the “Oceans Collide” track of the Textures’ “Phenotype” album. She’s hardly interested in the band or the rest of the album. She just want me to put that track on because “it’s perfect”!

Great quotes about the origin of the Jazz word, too” 🙂 !

[safetyblitz]

superblonde wrote:

When I figure out where the hot girls are today I’ll surely let you guys know ;-D

They’re at the Ed Sheeran concert. Now you know.

Edit: Locally, they’re at whatever club has a hot DJ that night. 99% of the time, women under 30 don’t go out to hear music, they go out to dance. This is also a major reason country music has become such a mainstream success in many places: it’s dance-friendly.

Re-edit:

Some additional big-name shows guaranteed to draw lots of hot girls (ignoring acts that scew young, like One Direction, Selena Gomez):

Adele

Justin Timberlake

Rihanna

Maroon Five

Lady Gaga

Drake

Taylor Swift

Beyonce

Nicki Minaj

Katy Perry

Demi Lovato

Fall Out Boy

[safetyblitz]

safetyblitz wrote:

Justin Timberlake

Seriously. My girlfriend dragged me to a Justin Timberlake show a few years ago. That audience was like nothing I’ve seen before or since.

[safetyblitz]

superblonde wrote:

Duke Ellington apparently did not care for the word at all saying…

Sid Caesar had a beat poet comedy bit, where one of his lines was “Jazz is a beautiful woman whose older brother is a policeman.”

[superblonde]

I ran across this interesting guitarist comparison of tone from Fricker.

(Note the video has unnecessary profanity like all his vids)

he describes the studio recording setup signal chain, then the guitarists play the song/riff on that same setup, with video cutting back and forth to compare the tone of the guitarists.

Is the sound really in the hands?

I'm an intermediate student of Metal Method. I play seitannic heavy metal. All Kale Seitan! ♯ ♮ ♭ ø ° Δ ♩ ♪ ♫ ♬
And on the Seventh Day, Mustaine said: ∇ ⨯ E = - ∂B / ∂t ; and there was Thrash; and it had a ♭3; and it was good.

[MotleyCrue81]

It’s totally all in the hands I always pick a guitar and play with whatever setup and I still sound exactly like me.

Bring hair metal back!

[safetyblitz]

superblonde wrote:

I ran across this interesting guitarist comparison of tone from Fricker. (Note the video has unnecessary profanity like all his vids)

It also contains unnecessary Fricker.

[Author]

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