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Old 06-23-2013, 10:56 AM   #8
cycosuicide
Human being with feelings
 
Join Date: Dec 2010
Location: Los Angeles
Posts: 32
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I am assuming you are trying to emulate Metallica's heavy metal sound. As far as I know, they still use Mesa Boogie's. In other words to get that sound you must actually mic a speaker cabinet with a real amp head. And that amp has to be turned up to about 10. The fuzziness comes from too much preamp gain and not enough power tube gain. Power tube distortion is much less fuzzy and a bit more focused. AC/DC is a perfect example of power tube gain. But Heavy Metal recordings do both power tube and preamp distortion. By cranking the amp to 10, you have power tube distortion and you don't have to dial in so much preamp tube distortion.

Now that we have this out of the way, how do I accomplish this from my apartment where there is no way in hell I can crank my amp to 10? I bought an attenuator. Specifically I have the Rivera Rock Crusher. This allows me to turn my amp's volume to 10 so as to really get those power amps cooking along but the volume is at a reasonable level. The amount of preamp gain I use is not a lot to get a heavy metal sound. I can mic the cabinet or take a line out of the Rock Crusher and record that. After recording that track, I insert speaker Cabinet impulse responses.

I get a good heavy metal sound, but since I am attenuating the volume, I am not getting the speakers in my cabinet to distort slightly and push hard. Oh well.

Another option would be to buy a low power tube amp such as the Blackstar or Marshall 5W amps. I have heard those things give a great heavy metal sound and the volume is much much lower. Hell, you can get an attenuator to use with that for even lower volumes, but the amp will be cranked.


Bottom line, if you want things to sound more professional or less fizzy, you have to use a real amp. And use what they use: Marshall, Engl, Mesa Boogie for example. Get an attenuator to reduce the volume but crank up the amp's volume to max.

At this point, I don't think software is able to get those heavy metal tones you desire. And small solid state amps definitely won't get you there.
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