How to Get a Good Metal Tone on Guitar
Getting a great metal tone on your guitar is easy. But before you can start playing like a metal god, you need to have the right equipment and know the right settings necessary to dial in the perfect metal sound. This article will set you on the path to sounding like a metal guitar pro.
- Difficulty:
- Moderately Easy
Instructions
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Getting a Good Metal Tone on Guitar
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1
Buy a humbucker guitar. If you have a single coil guitar, it's going to be hard to get a killer metal sound. Single coil pickups don't deliver the punch of humbuckers. Most metal guitarists stay away from single coil, so you might want to reconsider before you bring your tele or stratocaster on stage with you to a metal concert.
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2
Turn up the gain. The start of a great metal sound is to crank up the gain on your amp very high. Basically, turn it up as high as your ears (or neighbors) can take. If you have an amp with a master gain things will be a bit easier. You can fully turn up the first gain stage and turn the master volume to a more tolerable level.
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3
Turn up the highs. Turn up the treble knob on your amplifier. The treble knob will give you the bite that you hear in a metal tone of a great guitarist. The treble will start to blend with the cymbals giving you the classic ear splitting metal sound you're used to.
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4
Turn up the bass. Turn up the bass on your amplifier. This will make your tone blend with the bass drum and bass guitar.
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5
Scoop the mids. This is the most important aspect of the classic metal sound. Scooping the mids means to turn down the midrange knob on your amplifier. The guitar will no longer cut through very well, but with your treble and bass knobs turned up you'll blend in with the rest of the band creating a thick and heavy metal sound. That's all there is to it. You now know the basics of getting a good metal tone on your guitar!
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Tips & Warnings
When scooping the mids, you don't necessarily have to turn the mid knob on your amplifier to zero. This is a common mistake that many metal guitarists make. Use your ears and try to find the right balance. You want the tone to blend in, but not completely disappear from the mix.
Wear earplugs. Metal guitar is a loud endeavor. Never play at loud volumes without protecting your most valuable asset: your hearing!
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Comments
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also if you get a strat with a good humbucker in it you can do metal, there are no rules in the world of metal persay. Somthing different can change a whole generation of what people think of as metal, its happened before and it will happen again!
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this is pure shit... the gain has to be cranked to the limit where your tone gets imprecise. keep a clean distorted sound. Then, crank up the MIDS, the guitar tone lies in the mids. Bass and trebles have to be moderated, because in the mix or in live, bass frequencies are allocated to the bass drums and bass guitares. Highs are the domain of the cymbals. when you play alone you'll maybe find that it is weird, but you'll discover that with good mids, you don't need that much gain, as mids gives you the power. this is a simple way of understanding metal tone, which is NOT something easy to get. A lot of people use hi gain amps, and a tube screamer with gain at 0 to tighten and brighten their sound.
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Szatan Morawski
Feb 13, 2011
Uhhh, is that a joke article? Scooping the mids will generally kill you in the mix. IMHO the heaviest sounds are mids-heavy, especially with high ones close to 2kHz range, I always boost those for an amazingly punchy sound. notthatcrazy1 is right too, you need good equipment to get a truly good metal sound. -
notthatcrazy1
May 21, 2010
I meant to say Malmsteem did metal without humbuckers, but you get my point. This article is more the simpleton's way of getting a heavy sound, not necessarily a high-quality articulate high-gain metal sound.
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notthatcrazy1
May 21, 2010
This is more like how to sound like a tool in the world's smallest toolshed. Try this, first get a quality guitar. Schecter, Ibanez, Gibson, ESP, etc. All great guitars. Even the higher end Fender's do great metal sounds if you can play. Next get a good tube amplifier like a Mesa/Boogie Triple Rectifier, Marshall JCM 800, or Peavey 6505, throw a noise gate and a overdrive in front, then look up the settings of musicians you listen to on the internet or talk to other musicians to see what they use. Lastly, experiment with all kinds of settings at different volumes to see what sounds best. Yngwie Malmsteem did metal with humbuckers and Dream Theater does metal without the mids scooped and the gain at 11. You can too :)
