Optimal amp set up for death / black metal

[sonicsamurai]

yoyo just experimenting at the moment at getting a good dm/bm sound that is good for rythm and not too chopy for lead....

how do u guys eq and pedal up...and any particular pickups?

[ambitotpuphang]

Try VHT Pitbull CL/UL. Killer amp for death/black metal.

[metalhead28]

People's individual ideas of what is a good death metal guitar sound run the gamut from shrill, oversaturated buzzsaws to boomy, unintelligible murk.

Only you know what you're shooting for.

That being said, you can't go wrong with just a high gain tube amp and a guitar cable. Technically, you don't really need a different sound from any other type of heavy metal or hard rock.

Pickup wise, lots of people play EMG actives, lots of people play passives. I use Seymour Duncan passives. I prefer passive pickups because I don't like how actives flatten my sound out. On the other hand, some people want that....so there you go.

I always do something to change my sound when switching from rhythm to lead. I either use a different channel on my amp if I have one, or an overdrive or EQ pedal in the loop.

[Newc]

Ummm, offhand I'd say On and 10

[horns666]

yoyo..look mom.. no pedals!!!..

Uberschall..

[Freyr]

Haha! Newc wins.
But I must say... Marshall Valvestates, or as Bill said, an Uberschall.

[Danacus]

I have lots of high gainers; ENGLS, MESA's, 5150's (had a VHT UL and a couple Framus Cobras, but did not care for them) VH-140C, but I love the $500 Madison Divinity I just picked up. GReat tone for DM/BM.

[leftyguitarjoe]

a pre amp and no mids

[sonicsamurai]

ok sudden rush of posts lol, well i have a valvestate 8100 halfstack, which i just found out is the exact rig chuck shuldiner used , and i use a boss super overdrive as a kinda preamp, just for a bit of extra gain and tightness, so iguess my problem really, is the amount of gain, and eqing. I tend to play sinlge chnnel really ( i nevr switch - as i rarely play clean and if i do - thats what singlecoils and a guitar vol nob are for!) I guess the sound i like is like death morbid angel and deicide have a real cool sound. I cant work out how they get it. Coz most of them play JCM 800s which is single channel...i tend to apply a reasonable amount of mids and treble 5 - 10, but am wandering if that is too much, but it makes leads rather choppy if i take out the mids and i can't seem to quiet nail any of the aformentioned bands sounds on either my chrvel or my mahogany v...help!

[metalhead28]

What's funny is that Death, Morbid Angel, and Deicide all 3 have totally different guitar sounds. Death had the slightly buzzy yet clean Valvestate sound, Deicide the super saturated extreme gain sound, and Morbid Angel has the really warm, slightly murky sound.

If you want the Death sound, keep the mids up, the gain at 80% or more, and get the contour setting in the right spot. That means everything on those older Valvestate heads, there will be a sweet spot where the mids really sing but aren't too harsh. Somewhere around the middle is going to be the best...stay away from extremes.
If you want to sound more like Morbid Angel (which you're not going to get very close to at all with that amp) Back the gain down a bit more and crank the volume as loud as you can get away with. Turn the treble down a little more than usual and work the mids and the contour knob until you smooth things out a bit.
For a Deicide sort of sound, just turn everything all the way up.
You might actually need to use a pedal to get there and at that point a Valvestate is going to sound pretty harsh.

[horns666]

That is Glen Drover's amp of choice for years..he played at Cleveland John's and I rehearsal spot at his house.

A better/bigger version of that tone is my JMP-1/9200w/5881's/JFX-1 into four Marshall 1960b cabs..it has the same tone and crunch as that valvestate..but obviously..bigger, louder with more low end. You don't have to run four cabs..but I do!

Andy LaRoque always use the Valvstate too..until recently...I see him in the Krank adds now.

Valvestates are very cool sounding amps for that tone, but they do get "hairy" at higher volumes when trying to keep up with a loud drummer/band...I got into a arguement with my VH trib guiatrist when he ditched his Peavey 120/120 for the VS poweramp..because he didn't want to lug it around. I couldn't fuggin' hear him on stage or practice at all!!

[Mario8672]

Mesa Dual Rec.

[Spivonious]

For me, tight brutal death metal always means about 75% gain, 0 mids, 100% treble and 100% bass. Messing with the Contour will help get a scooped sound, so mess around with that and tweak the EQ to find a sound you like. Just remember that more gain does not equal better distortion. I find that the sweet spot on gain occurs between 50% and 80% so you have to experiment.

Oh, and if you can't get the sound you hear in your head from the Valvestate, it's time for a new amp

[Jeff Albertson]

Around 1K new....nothing beats 5150 II/6505+

[Inazone]

There are a couple of "gems" on the used market that gave me unexpectedly good results in terms of death metal tones.

Peavey Supreme: I had the old pre-TransTube 1x12 combo that was something ridiculous like 130 watts. I sold it to a guy who was playing in Anal Blast at the time, because he loved the tone. He actually gutted the amp, put the "head" in a rack, and ran it with some other rack gear (Aphex Aural Exciter, Behringer effects unit) into a Vader 4x12. He gigged with that for a long, long time. I'm not sure how the current TransTube version would compare, but the typical Peavey midrange spike lends itself to death metal.

Korg HyperDistortion: Just a little pedal with two channels/banks and a switch for amp or DI use. Very capable of crushing tone without any added EQ help. I loaned it to a "friend" and never saw it (or him) again. I tried it into both solid state and tube amps, with consistently good results.

ART FX-1: A small desktop-type effects unit that really was just a bunch of presets. The effects themselves were nothing special, but setting the unit to bypass and running it in front of a distorted amp OR in the loop had a weird "tone sucking" quality that actually took away fizzy highs and gave what a friend of mine likened to Possessed's guitar tone. Not so much a matter of EQing as just a hollow sort of sound. Not good for leads, but awesome for rhythms.

Most recently, I've tried the Peavey XXL and found it to be capable of almost any death metal sound between the various channels and voicings. For Death (the band), ART's Xtreme distortion (pedal or rack) is my personal favorite.