TONE.
Without it, a guitarist is nothing.
Without it, a band is nothing.
And without it, a metal band is especially nothing.
More than any other guitar-based music, metal depends on that combination of man and machine called tone. Entire albums are won and lost with tone. So, let’s talk about it.
Tone is first and foremost in a guitarist’s fingers. Two guitarists playing the same equipment will sound different due to the different ways they attack the strings. But equipment matters. Tube amps sound different from solid state ones. Materials and body construction matter for guitars. Production, from recording to mixing to mastering, also alters tone. Tone is a technical beast.
Here are my picks for the top 10 most bad-ass metal guitar tones ever recorded. They are the sounds of sticking fingers into the electric sockets of the gods. Increased heart rates and invisible oranges lie ahead.
. . .
10. Godflesh – Selfless
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Despite the monolithic nature of his projects, Justin Broadrick has had a wide variety of tones over the years. Godflesh’s Streetcleaner is probably the most immediate choice for tone, but bass and drum machine do much of the heavy lifting on that record. Blessed with major label money, Selfless is when his axe sounded biggest. “Axe” is probably the wrong word; “battering ram” is more appropriate.
. . .
9. Fear Factory – Soul of a New Machine
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Guitarists everywhere must have had a collective heart attack upon hearing Soul of a New Machine in 1992. Dino Cazares’ immense tone, which owed much to Godflesh, dwarfed that of any prior. In “Crisis”, he sounded like he was digging up huge chunks of earth and throwing them at the listener. Thrash suddenly sounded small.
. . .
8. Metallica – …And Justice For All
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Yes, the overall mix of this record is weak. But if you turn it up, the guitars are gigantic. Freed of considering the bass, they hog the midrange. Every time James Hetfield palm mutes, you can really feel it. His tone is like a big serpent, dry and sinuous. See also: “Breadfan”.
. . .
7. Scott Ian – Joey Belladonna-era Anthrax
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Scott Ian is one of the few guitarists who are recognizable within a few notes. That’s partially due to how he palm mutes riffs (and also how he writes them.) His signature sound is most evident in the mosh parts of old Anthrax songs. He lost that sound in the John Bush years – let’s hope he gets it back.
. . .
6. Black Sabbath – “Supernaut”
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Now we’re talking! “Supernaut” isn’t Sabbath’s heaviest moment – Tony Iommi had some huge tones in the Dio years – but its intro has one of metal’s most influential tones. That nasal, vocal-like tone is the ancestor of some of the tones coming up.
. . .
5. Pantera – Far Beyond Driven
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Like this one! The sound is different, of course; Dimebag Darrell is playing high-output humbuckers through a solid-state amp, resulting in a denser, tighter sound. But the Iommi lineage is obvious. When this album came out, Guitar for the Practicing Musician magazine (RIP) complained that Dimebag’s guitars sounded like “big-ass Harleys”. That’s cause for celebration, not for complaint.
. . .
4. Eyehategod – entire catalogue
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Eyehategod have legions of imitators, yet they are still recognizable within a few notes. This is due both to a “Supernaut”-inspired tone rich with squawking midrange, and a playing style that takes full advantage of it. Microtonal bends, greasy slides up and down, feedback all over the place – the sound is goddamn electric.
. . .
3. Tom G. Warrior – Monotheist onwards
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When Celtic Frost returned after a long hiatus with 2006’s Monotheist, Tom G. Warrior upgraded his sound significantly. Supposedly he gets it by rolling his tone knob all the way back, which seems weird since his tone is full of nasal midrange – again, shades of “Supernaut”. He has the same tone in his new band Triptykon, but tonewise I’ll go with Monotheist, which sounds more raw. Somewhat related is Jerry Cantrell’s massive tone in Alice in Chains’ Black Gives Way to Blue – see, e.g., “Check My Brain”.
. . .
2. At the Gates – Slaughter of the Soul
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The liner notes of the Slaughter of the Soul reissue revealed the signal chain for its legendary tone: “One Boss Heavy Metal distortion pedal, One Boss Metal Zone distortion pedal, One Peavey Supreme 160 amp… and here’s the tricky part: Anders’ home built cabinet with 2×10″ speakers and 2×12″ speakers… ” (Never mind the fact you’d probably need Anders’ fingers, too.) If you could turn a semi-truck into a tone, it would be this record.
. . .
1. The Sunlight sound
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If my inbox could have a sound, this would be it. There are approximately 2,387 bands today wielding the knobs-all-the-way-up Boss metal pedal sound. (See tutorial here). New bands are using it, old bands are using it, old bands are reforming just to use it. So many bands have this sound now that I could make this blog entirely about the Sunlight sound – but don’t worry, I won’t. Just be glad that the most bad-ass guitar tone ever is here to stay.
I’d add the Chaosphere – Meshuggah sound to this. It was pretty massive when it came out.
Great post! Glad to see Tom Warrior made it on here… he has one of, if not the most distinctive tones in metal. Monotheist and Eparistera Daimones(sp?) sound like To Mega Therion on steroids… and possibly quaaludes.
As I inched ever closer, I was beginning to wonder if/when the Gothenburg/Sunlight sounds were going to make their appearance. Finally, they did
I was listening to Slaughter of the Soul the other day through headphones at the beach, and it is just massive.
That Far Beyond Driven tone is intense. You feel like Dime is in your living room playing.
Crowbar anyone ?
awesome topic, awesome post…glad to see ‘And Justice For All,’ its likely the very reason I started liking music at all. Because at the age of 9, I really only liked the ‘Beverly Hills Cop’ theme song and thats about it. But after hearing ‘One,’ and the rest of the album, that guitar tone combined with heavy palm muting took possession of my being.
I’d also like to add Scott Hull’s tone on ‘Prowler in the Yard’ by Pig Destroyer. No other guitar tone makes me feel so beaten and violated.
my favourites outside of that top 10 are:
exhorder ‘the law’- massive, thick link between thrash buzz and death metal bludgeon
laaz rockit ‘annihilation principle’- just my personal favourite thrash metal ‘chunk-chunk-chunk’ tone
qotsa ’s/t’- dry as a bone and opened up a new way of looking at heavy for me
exodus ‘impact is imminent’- a guitar tone so thick and dense that the first minute alone blew my amplifier and left speaker which, for a 15 yr old boy, was an awe inspiring moment
van halen ‘fair warning’- bright as a crystal and yet thick as mud, just how does one describe that infamous brown sound?
agreed on most of these, especially 5 and 2. I don’t like Triptykon at all, but the guitar tone reminds me of Rick Scythe on Usurper’s Threshold of the Usurper EP. Heaviest metal sound ever!
I like Hymns to represent Broadrick.
RAZOR-VIOLENT RESTITUTION.
tones so bad they’re good: Order from Chaos-Stillbirth Machine, Ildjarn-Forest Poetry
What about Obituary? They have one of the most recognizable and crushing guitar tones ever.
Pantera over the likes of Dismember and Entombed? Tsk, tsk, tsk.
I’ve discussed various guitar tones with one of my best friends for hours upon hours over the years. Such a great topic, ha, ha. I have to agree with your citing of Godflesh, Metallica, and Anthrax 100%, though I could never in a million years limit such a list to just 10 options, ha, ha. There are too many to try and remember. For example: How can you omit Obituary!? I’ve also always loved Exhorder’s guitar tone (specifically on “The Law”), and of course Forbidden’s on “Twisted Into Form” is a huge favorite of mine. And then there are all the weird guitar sounds coming from Anacrusis, etc.
This is why I never really did anything with playing guitar, because I was never satisfied with my tone. My standards were too high!
Seconding Meshuggah and Obituary. I’d maybe add Bathory’s Nordland, Carcass’ Heartwork, Helmet, Ministry’s Psalm 69 (or NIN’s broken), and SYL’s City as albums/bands with particularly distinguished, original and influential guitar tones.
Here’s some of my picks A to C
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3UOxp42lWhQ (track down the record, the sound quality on youtube doesn’t do it justice)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GS4Nbdgs1eU (clarity and punch)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=46IE5LxSfbE (bass helps here enormously)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gVDuO9iLP-0 (bass like a shovel)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hF1nl4JVYnA (something unexpected from 1999)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Y6ajTP3wWc (perfect idiosyncratic production)
For as much as I don’t like the vocals on De Mysteriis Dom Sathanas, I have always liked the guitar tone on that record.
Jus and Liz from Electric Wizard have the most doomed -out guitar sound in history. No doubt about it.
Seconding Cirith Ungol’s King of the Dead album. Amazing guitar tone. I have to think about my ten favourites but I can say already that Loudness on Thunder In The East album had one of them.
Some other bands who had huge and unique tones:
Helmet — when the riff breaks out on “In The Meantime,” my jaw dropped
Sam Black Church — walls of orange amplification on “Superchrist”
Ministry — that bone-brittle, wall-rattling sound on “Just One Fix”
I think the greatest guitar tone ever is captured on Entombed’s Wolverine Blues. It is such a raw, massive juggernaut of a sound.
This is definitely not one of your classic “great” metal guitar tones, but it has to rank up there as one of the most interesting: Thergothon’s “Stream from the Heavens.” That’s always been one of those records where I’m never quite sure if the utterly bizarre sound was purposeful avant-garde-ism or some happy, idiot-savant-type accident.
Dale – Entombed and Dismember ARE the Sunlight sound.
Cosmo – Later day Celtic Frost is most definitely a perfected tone. Probably my all time favorite and most distinct. I don’t think I’ve ever heard anyone ape it. Yet you’ve got a whole genre of Sunlight bands. That one must be a lot easier to clone.
If I could add to this list it would have to include some more doom, such as Earth, Melvins, Sunn O))), and Boris.
Black metal doesn’t get enough credit when compared to these other bands because the idea is to strip away a lot of the bass. This leaves a bare tone which is even more difficult to impress with. Darkthrone does. It’s devastatingly heavy for how thin it is. I really like it when they put some bass back into it on Panzerfaust. Gorgeous tone.
Can’t argue with the examples people have mentioned already.
“If I could add to this list it would have to include some more doom, such as Earth, Melvins, Sunn O))), and Boris.”
I loved the fried, scintillating sound frequent Boris collaborator Michio Kurihara coaxes from his guitar. Gorgeous.
“Helmet — when the riff breaks out on “In The Meantime,” my jaw dropped”
My jaw still drops every time I listen to that record—not just the guitar tone, but also the bass, the snare, the weird, squiggly solos that seem to erupt violently out of nowhere. The sound is just immense.
Man great post idea!
I have to add Hunter’s tone on Liturgy’s Renihilation album. Shit gives me nosebleeds it’s so good.
Great picks, really nailed each example. I’ll always remember that day “Justice” came out–I was 17 and bought the tape on my lunch break from school, put it into my Walkman and…whoa. The tone was so so…dry. It took a bit to get used to, like “where’s the fucking bass???” After all these years and 1000X of listens, I couldn’t picture it any other way (sorry Newsted). It really fit the themes of the record, the overall look of the record (old stone, dry and hard)and the way it just stood out from every other metal release back then. And then when you played it in a stereo system, such as your car, boom box, or home stereo, the speakers really went “WUH WUH WUH” at certain intervals when the guitars hit certain freq’s. The damn record was so hard to EQ, you had to turn the bass down and mid’s up, but that still didn’t help much, you still had to live with that “WUH WUH WUH” all the time, and the clicky drums. It was Metallica as a three piece. So jarring and alien from what “Puppets” was.
Jason – Great description of EQing Justice. “WUH WUH WUH”. There would be a riff and then right behind it was that damn “WUH WUH WUH”.
Dopethrone is pretty seminal imo.
I really like Rob from Salome’s tone. Easily my most anticipated record of the year.
Also not metal related, but one of my favorite tones ever is Jesse F. Keeler’s bass in DFA1979. Sounds like a damn muscle car. A sexy muscle car.
“I really like Rob from Salome’s tone. Easily my most anticipated record of the year.”
Oh yeah, Salome and Kowloon Walled City get my nod for contemporary bands with huge sounds.
You really should just change number 1 to Entombed…it’s where that sound began with Left Hand Path, I know you think it’s an unremarkable record but it’s where it began.
While not your stereotypical “metal” bands per se, Yob and Tragedy have two of the best guitar tones of the last 10 years easy!
How did I know that when I hit play on #7, I’d be hearing “Keep It In The Family”? Probably the heaviest tone that dude ever had. The rhythm guitar is being used almost like a percussion instrument on that song — not really playing notes, just adding to the chug factor. Good call.
After my above post, I got curious and starting looking for “Justice” threads and found a site where somebody (it never says who) took Jason’s bass lines on Blackened from the “Rock Band” video game and mixed it into the song. It’s pretty much satisfied my curiosity on how it could’ve sounded, and makes the most difference on the slow parts. It also bleaches out Lars a little bit but nothing negatively.
Judge for yourselves: http://www.killerchops.tv/metallica/blackened-new-bass-video_7c3bfc6a3.html
I agree both Salome and Kowloon Walled City have sweet tones, but Thou absolutely crushes them. They have a far more original/diversive tone IMO than either Salome and Kowloon Walled City.
A few picks I’d add:
Coroner – On No More Color and forward, Tommy’s tone sounded chunky enough for the band’s grooves and riffs, but nuanced enough for their more sophisticated licks and HUGE solos.
Quicksand – Thick enough for the ’90s alt-metal drop-D ideal established by Tool and Helmet, but still plenty noisy and raucous.
Gorguts – Obscura was full of crazy skronk, squeal, groove and darkness.
Autopsy – Danny Coralles said in dB’s Hall of Fame article on Mental Funeral that he’s played the same beat-to-shit Gibson Victory on every recording he’s been on. It sounds like it. Everything on the record is warm, lo-fi and dusty.
Pentagram – I’m thinking Victor Griffin’s tone on the Relentless album is definitely a descendant of the Supernaut tone.
Bolt Thrower – IVth Crusade. The chug of the tank tread, the clearing smoke of a desolate battlefield.
I have to put in a vote for Jeff Waters. All through his career, everything he has played sounds like him. He’s played a ton of different guitars & amps on Annihilator’s records over the past 20-odd years, but everything comes out as unmistakably Jeff. It can only be the product of his playing style (and what a style!). There’s a certain midrangey honkiness (tonally, not ethnically) in his riffs and his solo tone, even when the overall tone is more along classic scooped-mid thrash lines. There’s a raspy, serrated edge to the notes but a great smoothness and fullness at the same time; it’s one of the greatest and most confusing tones I’ve ever heard.
The ultimate in the Sunlight sound for me is Dismembers Dreaming in Red. Shivers down my spine every time I hear that intro.
Obituary’s Trevor Peres has a great sound too, somewhat similar to the Sunlight sound.
While not a guitarist in a metal band, the late great Rowland S. Howard of The Birthday Party deserves a mention too, for the brilliant and very influential sound he developed.
Joe Bush well-said. I can imagine most guitarists picking up Water’s guitar, plugged in his gear from Never Neverland and they’d play it and it’d sound nothing like him. Something about his hand technique, what a wonderful, underrated player. Well, he dug his own ditch with a string of mediocre-to-awful records, but that doesn’t change the brilliance of the first two records.
Someone must have put some kind of filter on my brain that prevents all mentions of the phrase “River Runs Red” from filtering into my thoughts. It’s the only explanation for me not being able to see it here. Come on, now.
I’m a little surprised no one’s mentioned Bill Steer. I remember from watching the documentaries from the recent Carcass rereleases that he’s especially proud of the tone on Heartwork and I’d have to agree. There’s not a whole lot of low end on that album at all (vocals, bass, or guitars), but Steer’s cutting tone fits the melodic songwriting approach very well.
My favorite tone from 2009 was Sammy Duet’s in Goatwhore’s Carving Out the Eyes of God. Assist to Erik Rutan with the production – tons of low end and super chunky.
Last one. Not extreme in the least, but I always thought Tom Morello had an awesome, instantly identifiable ringing tone. You didn’t even need to hear the whammy pedal abuse to single it out. He owes quite a bit of his tone to the punk/hardcore scene, in my opinion, and now that I think about it, it’s interesting to see how few of the bands mentioned here do so. But I guess that falls in line with Cosmo’s linked post about the Sunlight Sound and how surprising it is that modern hardcore bands have adopted it.
Outside of the world of Heavy Metal, my favourite guitar person is Adrian Belew
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pMagxl-Rkas
Helm – Word to the max on Belew! One of my all-time favorites.
I know it’s not cool to like him, but Adam Jones of Tool always had a massive sound. He always sounded like he was taming a wildly squalling guitar into these meticulously sharp performances.
Kenny Hickey of Type O Negative is another amazing one. Low B!!!
I always thought Metallica had shitty guitar tone. The tone on Exodus’ “Bonded By Blood,” blows away their whole catalog.
Asphyx is a HUGE omission here. No one has killer tone like vintage Asphyx. Go back and listen to the lumbering track “Vermin” for a perfect example. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5cAE_BIsEGE
I’m surprised no one has mentioned Burzum’s Filosofem.
Another vote for Godflesh’s Selfless here. Dino Cazares’ tone on Soul of a New Machine would have never occurred to me, but you’re right, it’s a beast.
The greatest guitar tone I’ve ever heard is on Enslaved’s Ruun – just a muscular, kaleidoscopic force of sound that still gives me goosebumps. Vindsval’s metallic scrapings on Blut aus Nord’s The Work Which Transforms God still resonate with me as well.
And how could I forget Ministry’s “Lava” (from Filth Pig)? Is there another song title that describes its guitar tone more perfectly?
shanks – I second Filosofem
Alee – If it’s not cool to like Adam Jones, then I don’t want to be cool. I dunno if I think he has a great tone, but he most definitely has a really, REALLY good one.
Pretty good list. I would definitely include Death though. there guitar sound is KILLER. also one of my favorite guitar tones is Enslaved.
No Entombed?! What the fuck guys!
Older Death, Obituary, and Heartwork-era Carcass definitely could have made the list.
I’ve never found Helmet’s tone from Meantime that exciting (though the songs certainly were). Betty’s tones were much bigger and cooler.
Miskatonic – A lot of doom, especially modern stuff, certainly has earth-shaking tones. With much of it, however, I feel like you’re hearing more the amp setting than the guitarist.
Matt G – Old Van Halen definitely stands out as a pinnacle of rock guitar tone.
Tom – Yes, I thought of that particular Goatwhore tone as well. Awesome, and one of the best in modern times, though not particularly unique, so I omitted it.
floodwatch – Yes, I thought of “Lava” as well, though I omitted it because I thought that it was mostly bass. Now that I hear it again, I realize I was wrong. It definitely could have made the list.
Dale – Last time I checked, no. 1 was better than no. 5.
Richard – Last time I checked, Entombed used the Sunlight sound.
christopher – Sometimes I like the Wolverine Blues tone more than the Left Hand Path one. I didn’t know if they stuck with the classic Sunlight sound setup for Wolverine Blues, so I omitted it.
Matt Pike. King Buzzo. Adam Jones. Entombed. Sabbath (duh.) SUNN O))). Obituary.
Justin Broadrick. Wino. Cathedral. Fudge Tunnel. Kyuss. S.O.D. Voivod. Jesus Lizard.
Skullflower. Kim Thayil.
Oh, and the 1st Danzig album.
Articles like this are why this is the best thing on the internet. Thank you!
Here’s a good article w/Colin Richardson, the mastermind behind Carcass’ records. He also did Napalm Death and Bolt Thrower too.
http://www.maelstrom.nu/ezine/interview_iss61_254.php
What about Lemmy’s bass guitar tone?
I know it’s a bass but still.
I saw sunlight sound and knew that song was going to be on there. Those first 5 seconds rip speakers apart.
Some massive tones I dig:
John Adubato
Jes Steineger (listen to A Disgust for Details, it’s pins and needles and the sludge sound everyone plays these days)
Nasum circa Human 2.0, sunlight to the max
Wino (Magdalene)
King Buzzo
Kevin Shields, not metal but can I hear a fuck yeah
“Richard – Last time I checked, Entombed used the Sunlight sound.”
Cosmo, you should really amend that “used” to “made”…I’m pretty certain that wasn’t Tomas Skogsberg’s guitar tone!
I think the song Ride the Lightning alone cements that albums place in this list. It has maybe the best palm muting sound in the history of thrash. I remember sitting there and realizing that my friend’s Zoom 505 pedal or some equally heinous shit would never produce anything on that level.
I think what’s funny is that the best guitar players usually end up staying away from pure tone worship. Plus you’ll go broke getting all the signature pedals and shit that those dudes have anyway. That’s why they have endorsements.
@Mr Oranges: I don’t know the technical term! JUST BUZZSAWWWWWWWRRRRRRR.
This is the kind of post that makes me want to go completely through my record collection to build a proper response! See you in a couple of months…
Anyway, I can’t argue with any of these picks, except that ‘Body Dome Light’ is too polite, I prefer the tone in ‘Anything Is Mine’. And I much prefer the tones on Betty to Meantime.
One suggestion no-one else seems to have mentioned is Steve Vai, who has come up with a bunch of ridiculously good tones. For example, try ‘Bad Horsie’.
I’ve got agree with Nasum – Human 2.0… the guitar tone on that album is like someone scubbing your ears with steel wool. Ridiculously abrasive.
@Martijn: The whole song “Dreaming in Red” does it for me… amazing tune, my first introduction to Dismember. My wife, who does not like metal in the least and only listens to Latin music, made the observation that the main riff in Dreaming in Red is in the Meringue style/time… don’t think it was intentional, but it was interesting nonetheless
The guitar tone on the last 2 Disfear albums is also worth mentioning.
there should be another installment dealing with all the idiosyncratic/cost-effective/wrong-ly awesome tone solutions out there in underground metal!
can’t resist adding two more that I think about all the time:
Zeni Geva-Freedom Bondage
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qe-zkzPRlL4
Deep Purple-In Rock
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=93pE3npDRRs
no power chords in that main riff, just power!
I just literally had to do what Matt Vogt suggested… went to my itunes collection, sorted by genre and looked album by album for tones I personally love. What I realized is how hard it is to seperate tone from playing, and from overall band arrangements. So many of my favorite sounding parts are due to the guitars being rhythmically synced to bass and kick drum. Its rare that a solo’d guitar (not guitar solo, haha) has a particular tone that knocks me on my ass, at least not til the bass and drums kick that tone into your face with some rhythmic punch. (Of course, I’m a bass player, so it makes sense I’d feel this way.)
The other thing I noticed about my favorite tones… fall into completely different types of tones. There are those that kind of sound like shit: Autopsy, early Suffocation, Gothic-era Paradise Lost, Sodom, early Incantation (oh the hellish murk!), Vio-lence (favorite thrash tone ever, not so much the rhythm stuff, but the dual leads kill), ’90s Napalm Death (Fear, Emptiness, Despair), Darkthrone, lots of Scott Burns Floridian death metal… And then there are the “produced” sounds I like as well… the chunky thrash of later Immortal (sons of Northern Darkness is immense), later Emperor and then Ihsahn’s solo stuff (particularly his latest), Nile (Annhilation of the Wicked!), Gorguts (Obscura), recent Asphyx and Hail of Bullets, recent Candlemass albums, Carcass (heartwork)… I guess tone, to me, is one of those things that can’t stand alone. It has to work within the context of the songs and a particular album. While it’s something I personally obsess over with my own gear, I think a well-written and well-played riff will trump perfect tone any day.
Ok, a couple of other notable tones:
Vernon Reid’s tone on Living Colour’s ‘Stain’. ‘Never Satisfied’ is perhaps my least favourite song on the album, but the guitar tone is exemplary.
Anata’s ‘The Conductor’s Departure’ has an enormously gutsy tone for tech-death.
I love the guitar sound on Melechesh’s ‘Emissaries’, and Witchery’s ‘Symphony for the Devil’.
Some bands that have a great, consistent guitar tone: Bolt Thrower, Rollins Band (the old band with Chris Haskett).
Some bands that have consistently powerful and often varied tones: Deftones, Soundgarden, Monster Magnet, Ihsahn (though it’s hard to tell with all the layering everywhere!)
I think I admire guitar players who worship tone i.e. Wino, Matt Pike, Stephen O’Malley and Dylan Carlson because each individual has a different set of values. For example, one may prefer raw power over shimmering clarity or a singing quality vs. ambience that fills the room. I think it gets interesting when combining other players values as you become aware of them: these individuals playing styles relate not only in the way of fretting/strumming of notes but also downtuning. I find that dropping the 5th string down a step and tuning the 6th string to the dropped note adds some different playability esp. when I like to play along to Warhorse’s “As Heaven Turns To Ash” – one of my favorite tones of all time…
My jaw dropped the first time I heard Dopesmoker by Sleep,
AND again
when I heard Mocking Solemnity by Sunn0))).
It was as if these tones ROSE UP from below with demonic force.
Anybody feel like providing a technical breakdown of the term, “scooped” guitar sound? I know it generally means turning down the midrange somewhere in the signal chain, and I’ve always thought of Metallica as the perfectors of this sound. But you can hear those quintessentially scooped Justice guitars, “hog the midrange,” as Cosmo says.
Hailz to those repping Anacrusis, later Coroner, Cirith Ungol, Wino, old Rollins Band, Fudge Tunnel, early Danzig, Wolverine Blues, Panzerfaust, and From the 13th Sun.
Curmudgeonly nods of agreement to Invisible Oranges about newer doom bands relying on amp settings rather than guitar playing.
Vindication of the chromium-gleaming 80s metal tone:
Savatage-Power of the Night
Metal Church-s/t
Accept-almost everything
Crimson Glory-Transcendence
Running Wild-Death or Glory
Bewitched-Pentagram Prayer (a decade later)
Best molten tones on a live album: Slayer-Live Undead, Judas Priest-Unleashed in the East, Holocaust-Live (Hot Curry and Wine)
And a tone that always reminds me of being trapped in a melting aluminum box:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V1S0i_2jJl4&feature=related
Matt, it is essentially what you describe. Take a distorted guitar signal and run it through an equalizer (before and after distortion) and scoop out specific mid-range frequencies (not as drastic as one might think initially, it’s a bit more complex than ‘turn middle down to zero on that Marshall amp, mate’ although it started somewhat like that I would guess). A second equalizer doing small punches at specific ’sweet spot’ frequencies gives the punched-up signal character. Distorted signal is compressed signal so according to where you equalize in the signal chain, you get compressed transients that try to bleed through to the missing middle frequency space, which create especially boomy palm mutes. On which thrash metal was built. I tend to think ‘Master of Puppets’ has the most influential guitar tone for post 1985 metal due to this.
There should be another entry for Tom G Warrior’s tone on “Apocalyptic Raids” and yet another one for his tone on “To Mega Therion”.
I’m no expert, but I tend to think of scooped guitar tones as “crunchy”.
A fun one I like to jam with at home is the Effigy-era Suffocation tone, which is similar to the Sunlight sound in terms of extremity of settings… you take a solid state Ampeg amp (SS or VH series… these are cheap as hell, i got an SS-70 for $125) and turn the Gain, Bass, and Treble knobs to the max setting, while setting the midrange at zero. It’s ultra-scooped, ultra-crunchy, and transforms even my shitty playing into instant suffo-goodness. Fun as hell to shred on!
Helm, thanks for the detailed explanation! This should resolve a very long-standing argument with my metal guitar buddy. Googling “compressed transients” now.
“Crunch” to me implies midrange – grit, etc. – so scooping would be the absence of crunch. I like crunch, and I actually despise the ultra-scooped tone of Master of Puppets. It’s too frictionless. (Compare against Kill ‘Em All, which tonewise is full of exciting, spiky friction.) Of course, those are some of the best songs ever written, so I can’t mind too much in the end. But, hell, I prefer even Black Album tones to Master of Puppets ones.
Also, I don’t know why people keep mentioning Soundgarden as some paragon of tone. Some great songs, yes, but Kim Thayil was too quirky a player to get the hammer-of-the-gods-type tones I’m talking about. From that era/scene, Jerry Cantrell of Alice in Chains had the most bad-ass tones by far.
Re: Thayil– Cosmo, are you kidding me? Go listen to virtually any song on Badmotorfinger.
There’s definitely a lot of midrange-heavy guitar tones which I would describe as crunchy, I’m thinking of Black Sabbath, first of all. It’s just that the ‘thrash crunch’ tends to be engineered like that. Really thrash’s contribution to metal was mostly technical and to metal production. After 1987 you’d be hard-pressed to find any guitar player that didn’t know how to proficiently play fast triplets, a drummer that couldn’t play double-bass, a production that didn’t have scooped mids and so on all across the mainline Heavy Metal subgenres like death, power, progressive, doom metal, even. Black metal, for all the much-discussed no-low-end guitar tone, was mid-scooped as well. Outside influence from stoner rock and such returned some mid-range into metal in the last decade and a half perhaps.
“Outside influence from stoner rock and such returned some mid-range into metal in the last decade and a half perhaps.”
It seems that there’s been kind of a tone “arms race” going on among more forward-thinking bands trying to combine scooped, post-death metal ultra-heaviness with a newfound appreciation for midrange warmth and more nuanced chords. Mastodon’s Blood Mountain was the first album that made me think of this; the please everybody, “heavy like Cannibal Corpse but oldschool like Skynyrd” vibe of that sound and material really sucked.
On the other hand I thought Absu’s self-titled album featured some great integration of bright, interestingly voiced chords with ripping precision thrash. And from a somewhat more underground perspective, Chuck Keller’s tone on Return to Dust by Ares Kingdom is a great feat of metal guitar engineering. Incredibly gritty and heavy, but with massive clarity and resonance. That guy deserves a medal.
One that I have to mention, and either could or could not be considered metal, is Ty Tabor of King’s X. The guy has godly tone(s).
You made me remeber Persistence of Time! Thanks a lot!!
Anyone remember MORGION´s tone on “Solinari”? Godly.
As far as stuff that hasn’t been said, the tone on th last Soilent Green album is awesome.
EJ666, Solinari is mandatory listening around here. Everything about this record is class. The orchestration choices by the keyboardist, the battery by the drummer, the guitar tone, the compositions. Truly one of the classics in the romantic doom/death field. Rock on with your good taste.
I was once on a long cross country trip, driving mainly at night, and I played Solinari over and over…esp. when going through the Deep South. Appreciated.
Velvet Cacoon’s majestic oceanic blur on Genevieve. It’s hate it or love it of course (and I’m not even sure it’s “metal”) but I thought it should be mentioned.
Great article. Supernaut was an excellent choice. And it’s interesting to see the ‘roll the tone knob off’ trick. I’ve been playing 20 years just discovered that a month ago
The cool thing about liking the Sunlight Sound so much is that you can replicate it fairly easily and inexpensively.
Compare that to trying to replicate either Iommi’s or Blackmore’s tone: not only do you need a decent guitar and tube amp, but finding one of those Dallas Rangemaster Treble boosters is damn near impossible these days!!!
I finally bought an attenuator and just dime my 50w Traynor. With the Kustom tuck and roll 15″ cab, I get the full spectrum (Sab to Purple). Need drive, add a muff (or HM or DS1).
I would love to understand how Cantrell gets his tone tho.
Oh dear lord,
dear Kiddies -for you have gotten it all wrong again!
METALLICA’s wimpy/thin treble mess on “Justice…And For All”?…please, PANTERA (I will somewhat agree with, interesting -but bright as hell but yes – a “totally identifiable” tone nonetheless).
It really depends on what we are after with “tone” and since you mentioned “sounds of sticking fingers into the electric sockets of the gods” I am assuming you are referring to H E A V Y ass FU**? If so…
CELTIC FROST also rings pure, but old school Tom G. Warrior (even with a crappy production and no budget). Anything from the 1984 album “Morbid Tales” stomps all over most of the last two decades of “dial a distortion” preset(s) on the latest n’ greatest “stomp” pedals and or crappy software simu-plug in’s (hello: Anathema, insert 100 other bands here__________).
*And better yet, just think if Tom’s sound was recorded with today’s arsenal of equipment that is available?!! That was that heavy 26 years ago.
Then again, a great GTR tone could also mean Mr. Waters and Annihilator, Jerry from ALICE IN CHAINS or Akira’s LOUDNESS with clean, punch and very HQ distortion.
Most of the others are just heavier/modern versions of Sabbath (Kyuss, Cathedral, Candlemass…blah, blah). Let’s face it, it’s pretty damn easy to get a phat tone like that with a heavy (usually distorted bass).
Hands down the H E A V I E S T (most consistent) Sab. sounding guitar tone ever goes to Chicago’s TROUBLE folks. Sorry…Wino.
BUT,
-there was only one savage freight train running through towns and smashing over your head like a 50 ton sledgehammer and that train was being driven by Scott Ian + S.O.D. peeps(yes – Cosmo you were close, but ultimately fell just a little bit short by selecting ANTHRAX….ha ha).
This is a crappy compressed .mp3 and it still slams:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AAIg9rlZzkw
yikes! Killer intro/song as well. I am not aware of any other LP intro that announces “I am here and I am going to stomp yer’ face in” bitches like this simple-but-effective riff-fest does. Years later bands like Quicksand and Helmet were treading these very same waters…
You should experience the S.O.D. tone with a finely-tuned A/V system (pref. audiophile quality with a kick-ass powered sub woofer or two)and or via some hi quality (or better yet -studio quality) headphones w/extended bass response for maxx. effect.
The only other tone (in Metal)that approaches this “bite” would have to be from Gary Holt and the infamous “EXODUS” attack. There are far too many great examples to demonstrate this, but I am pretty sure everyone is aware of what this “wall-o-sound” feels and sounds like by now.
Honorable Mentions: (w/selective songs from) The Melvins, FORCED ENTRY, (slower) NUCLEAR ASSAULT, HELMET, ARTILLERY (w/that weird flange) etc.)
Side Note:
I once dialed in the most heaviest tone ever, with a Randall Head, old school 4X 12″ Marshall (w/ Celeston speakers) full stack + some overdrive pedal and Charvel/Jackson GTR. With LOTS of volume…& lots of booze. I named it “Hazardous Crunch” and (being a drummer who can only “crunch” in “E”)-I only played S.O.D. covers with that set up. Until the cops came that is.
Great/fun post Cosmo!
79 comments holy crap = one of the best audience participations yet.
KINGER
80’s Riffmeister
Carcass – Heartwork
easily my favorite guitar tone ever.
How about the last 2 Pungent Stench Albums? Ampueaty an Masters of Moral Sevants of Sin. Pretty sick tone if you ask me. I’d have to also agree w one of the replies that Morbid Tales Celtic Frost is high on the list.