djenty metal tone

[dense palm]

Trying to understand the fundamentals of making a metal guitar tone similar to this. Specifically, something heavy but very clear, articulate, defined and pronounced, modern, and big rather than muddy, unclear, or something that ends up in the background.

reference (just the one section)
full mix
https://youtu.be/2Q1ujjbizok?si=Whlbh6JE2k-p1FiM&t=570

isolated guitars
https://youtu.be/2Q1ujjbizok?si=t_aGSlWRgTfyhhhP&t=982

I realize the guitars sound wayy bigger in the mix than in the isolated guitars. So how do the other instruments/layers work to create the sound of the guitars? Is part of it using single notes over chords too?

I have a rivera pubster 45 tube combo amp and an extra orange ppc112 cab so I could mess around with making new tones but it sounds better for rock but I'm not entirely sure its because of the way I have it dialed in or if there's things im not aware of like other layers in the mix that would give it that extra something from rock to modern metal.

feel free to link tutorials for me to watch.

[latent topaz]

Bass is a VERY important part of making it sound big, people tend to try to make their guitar tone sound big on it's own, but that will muddy up a mix very quickly.

to get this kind of clarity you usually scoop a bit of mids out of the tone so it doesn't become too honkey and use a moderate amount of gain

you can see the settings he's using on the amp in the video

there could be a clean boost in front of the amp too, to tighten up the low end

As for your setup ... I think the Orange cab is one of the biggest influence on your tone and what makes it sound more rocky

I found this video pretty useful for getting a more modern metal tone https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZJLnfaw7I-g&ab_channel=Sweetwater

my own preset for modern 7 and 8 string stuff looks like this

with a drive in front as a clean boost

[dense palm]

okay thank you, I'll mess around with it when I find more time, hopefully by the weekend. My setups a little weird, I have my di going into my computer via hybrid mixer and then back out through the mixer into a metalzone into my amp. Was messing around with both the metalzone as a boost and the pedals from some amp sims (fortin calis pedals) but didn't really notice a difference besides smoothing out the dynamics (which I guess is the point?).

I'm micing the cab with 2 sm57's, not sure if i should be using a different mic for this kind of tone. I got the orange cab because it had a v30 in it. Do you think it would be better to use that or the combos speaker with a vintage gold?

in theory, I also have a loadbox running back into my mixer so I could use the amps signal with irs but I found the micd cab more dimensional if that makes sense. But if it can't make the tone then idk.

[unique condor]

this gives you pretty nice possibilities like adding plugins to shape di before going into amp

[latent topaz]

I feel you make it a bit too complicated

[unique condor]

guitar -> daw in -> a bunch of pedal plugins -> out

oh wait didnt read

[latent topaz]

as for the V30's ... not all V30s are alike .. some are voiced differently than others. SM57s a fine but it would be nice to be able to blend in another mic that compliments the SM57s harsh topend

I think a metalzone is kind of defeating the purpose because it's everything but a clean distortion

[dense palm]

Well I just wanted options, with this setup I can run any combination of my real hardware with any combination of my digital stuff. And in my demos I use virtual guitars so this lets me reamp them through my real hardware too.

yeah I figured I could reduce the harsh top end of the sm57 with a second one more towards the edge of the cone and further away from the speaker. I also have a samson r21s which is like... a shitty sm58 I could try using. That or I could just blend the sm57 with an ir or something.

Wish someone mentioned that about v30's before I bought the cab xD

well the metalzone I have dist all the way down, level all the way up like a boost, and then i eqd some stuff out (mids, some lows) but yeah I could use any of my amp sim pedals instead. Do you think the metalzone is still too much like that?

[latent topaz]

sm58 = sm57 with a filter so that doesn't really do much. And you don't use an actual guitar ?

and for the V30s ... there's almost a mini doc from Nolly about it, which year is good, which country of manufacturing etc

he went DEEP into it

[dense palm]

oh lol, i use an actual guitar when i get to the recording stage, but when im done the composition in guitar pro and start putting things in the daw i just use a virtual guitar until im ready to record.

[latent topaz]

aight ... that can work... unless you like me and you can program more than you can actually chew when it comes to playing 😉

[dense palm]

yeahh that happens sometimes xD

[latent topaz]

there's no bass since my bass is a 4 string that cannot go to drop A

this is the tone I came up with, using only the Nolly and some basic post processing (eq and mb comp for the palm mutes)

I kept it quite dark so leads will actually have a chance to come through

[dense palm]

So how much would a bass layer add to the rhythm guitars?

[latent topaz]

it would thicken up the whole mix

it interacts with the kick ... fatten up the palm-mutes

@dense palm the difference is quite drastic

it's a virtual bass run through the NDSP darkglass ... you immediately notice something missing in the second part

[dense palm]

i mean sounds good but doesnt really sound like the tone i was going for, but i think the actual composition is way different too.

[latent topaz]

this was something I already had lying around

composition wise

even if you had the same amp, guitar, mics ... you probably would not even get that exact tone cause a lot of the tone is in the speaker

[dense palm]

well it looks like hes using a v30 in a 1x12. No idea which v30

[latent topaz]

and I bet there's also a healthy layer of processing on the guitars that he doesn't show

[dense palm]

yeahh thats the stuff i want to figure out

[latent topaz]

if I look at the amp settings I would never have guessed it would be that tone ... the mids seem way more hyped in the actual audio