Distortion stompbox for death metal

[needlework]

First of all, Hi to all.

I'm quite new to DIY (i'm trying to educate myself with all the FAQs and tutorials I can find o'er the web, and this forum is like Garden of Eden) and I was wondering about one question above all:

what is the BEST (I now it's totally subjective) distortion stompbox for use in death metal?

Help me! (and excuse me for my bad english )

[MartyMart]

Hi back to you and welcome :-)
OK, so you're after a HUGE distorted sound - possibly "scooped" mids ....
Some suggestions to search for here :
Univox Superfuzz
Blackfire
Dr Boogey
Vulcan & Jfet Vulcan
Big Muff PI
Simpler things from www.runoffgroove.com :
Grace/Big Daddy
Whisker biscuit
Thor - though perhaps not heavy enough, GREAT and can be pushed with a booster.

MM.

[needlework]

thank you very much 

[Jurgen]

Depends on what kind of DM sound you are going for. Some general quidelines:


The Morbid Angel guitar sound is basically just a Proco RAT (other similar overdrive/distortion pedals will work too) into a Marshall (probably a JCM800 or JCM900.) Most of the distortion comes from the amp, with the pedal just giving the extra dirt that's needed.

A Boss Metal Zone is good for that scooped Suffocation/Cannibal Corpse style sound. Just set the gain to taste, adjust the bass so that it's punchy but not boomy and the treble so that it's sizzly enough. Set mids according to taste, but don't scoop too much, 'cause that's just gay (in more politically correct terms, it'll make your guitar disappear with a band.)

That sick Swedish death metal sound (Dismember, Entombed etc.) is achieved with a Boss Heavy Metal pedal (HM-1 or HM-2, can't remember which one it was) into pretty much any crappy amp (Sunlight studios had a Peavey in those days, probably a cheap solid-state one.)


You can pull off a good death metal sound with just about any pedal or amp that has enough gain and a 3-band EQ.

* Crank the gain, but don't go straight to eleven. Experiment. A little adjustment can make a huge difference in the "feel". Find a balance of saturation and dynamics that's right for your playing style.
* Set the bass high enough to get some low-end punch without getting rumbly and drowning out your bass player.
* Set the treble so that it's sizzly, but not icepicky.
* Adjust mids to taste. Again, don't go too scooped, that just sounds weak.

Your touch and the tuning of your guitar also have a big effect on the sound. Dig in with that pick and really hit those accents. The effects that different tunings have on your tone become obvious when you compare, say, Morbid Angel or Angelcorpse to bands like Autopsy and old Carcass. Morbid Angel's old stuff was mostly in E or Eb, which has a lot to do with the tight rhythm tone. Lower tunings give a more sludgy sound, as the strings are looser.


As for DIY projects, look into:

Mr. Boogey
SansAmp GT-2

If you have an amp with enough gain and a flexible-enough EQ, pretty much any old booster/OD/distortion pedal will get you there.

[MetalGod]

The Digitech Death Metal pedal does a good job imo - it's got that scooped mids with a huge bass end and an obnoxious amount of gain.

I've got a Metal Zone and it's not really much of a DM sound - maybe some of the other Boss pedals like the Hyper/Heavy Metal would be better

If you want something a little different you could try the Boss Hyper Fuzz - it's the exact tone that Bloodbath have (and the pedal they probably use).

[nordine]

Ibanez Black Noise

[ambulancevoice]

The Digitech Death Metal pedal does a good job imo - it's got that scooped mids with a huge bass end and an obnoxious amount of gain.

I've got a Metal Zone and it's not really much of a DM sound - maybe some of the other Boss pedals like the Hyper/Heavy Metal would be better

If you want something a little different you could try the Boss Hyper Fuzz - it's the exact tone that Bloodbath have (and the pedal they probably use).

i wouldnt recommend the digitech death metal, id reccomend the dod death metal. the digitech version is muddy and not as high gain then the dod one, dod death metal would be pretty much pefect
seach ebay for one

Boss metal zone is also what Gorerotted's guitarists use, and they have a brutal guitar tone

i dont think a fuzz would work well for death metal

also, any good distortion (big daddy, 3 legged dog, dist +, etc) pre/post driven by a booster would work ok too

[blanik]

i'm more old school (Hell Awaits-Bonded By Blood, "good old days"  ) and scooped pedals didn't exist back then (maybe the Heavy Metal but it still had some mids left (it was my first dist) and i think guitars sounded more violent back then... i've seen a lot of "new (black/death/noise/etc...) metal" shows and the guitar don't cut it live compared to the slayer-exodus shows i've seen, now it's just a noisy buzzing,you can see that those guys can play but you can't hear them live...

i will repeat myself but bedroom sound and rehearsal/live sound are two different worlds, live you often need to remove some bass and highs and add a little mid from your signal as you crank up the volume to keep definition... trust me, it'll be as violent as your mid scooped bedroom sound (even more!  )

the best sound i had back then was my JCM 800 cranked to 10 (no joke, my constant ear ringing is my witness..  ) with the DS-1 cranked... with any cheap guitar with some Ibanez pickups we removed from an 80's Ibanez explorer (the def leppard model with 3 cream pickups)... there was 3 levels of sound in there, a powerful low freq punch that you could feel in your stomac, a grinding mid sound that gave the definition to the picking (intricate multi-pattern picking back then...lol) and the 3rd level was the magic level, it sounded like pure electricity, it' hard to decribe but you could hear it above the guitar sound some kind of electric "wooomph" with each note... but it was still pure tube amp with analog pedals... 

nowadays they all have rack mount Mesa power amp with a POD set on triple rectifier and all kind of digital emu... the levels on stage are low, and the guys jog every day and eat celery and carrot sticks before they jam...pffft    that's metal for you... lol



singed: old fart 

[boyersdad]

...the best sound i had back then was my JCM 800 cranked to 10 (no joke, my constant ear ringing is my witness..  )

The sound guys that worked for you must have been thrilled!

[jonathan perez]

CRANKED JCM800!!!! 

[needlework]

woa!

thanks to all!

well, the band is "at the gates" style .

Actually I play with a B.C.Rich and a Zoom 9150 Valve DSP.

I was searchin' for a DIY project by the way, since I'm going to build my own guitar (I'm waiting for the last two months of "seasoning" for the wood - mahogany), and in the meanwhile I want to build some effects

thank you very much!

[jonathan perez]

theres a jcm 800 clone around here, somewhere...hmm...

yeah man, find your own death metal tone! 

[aron]

Take a super hi-gain pedal and use the Duncan tone stack calculator and modify the VOX tone stack - try different values - experiment with it. Some really serious mid-notched variations can be done. It's actually pretty amazing.

[jonathan perez]

how about the shaka express, speaking of Aron? 

[user]

Kinda off topic but can somebody find me a soundclip for the Boss Xt-2 (xtortion)? I searched for it but without success..