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With 7 Studio albums under their belt, Grammy award winners Mastodon have been redefining the sound and shape of heavy metal for over a decade.

The Band’s progressive style and seismic sound is due in-part to their wide range of influences; a combination of classic rock, thrash metal and even a bit of country & bluegrass makes for a truly unique and instantly recognisable sound!

Before we begin, let’s take a listen to some of the huge tones that Mastodon guitarists Brent Hinds and Bill Kelliher are known for.

Let’s dive into some Mastodon tones

You’ll know that Mastodon have achieved some of the biggest guitar tones on the planet in the last few years and have even gone against the rulebook when it comes to metal guitar tone. They generally use heavy drop-tunings but on normal scale guitars. This is an interesting approach because their amp and pedal setup gives them a tighter bass and low-mid response yet in theory, tuning low on a normal scale guitar should sound more ‘flabby’ than normal. But this helps Mastodon achieve a loose sludgy feel with a tighter low-end than you’d expect.

Rather than scoop the mids, Mastodon make sure that their guitar sound has plenty of mid dialled in. This is so that the guitar will be heard under all that distortion. They use British style amps to achieve this and crank the amps (and the gain) up to 11. As for effects, they tend to dial in loads of different tones (Especially modulations, reverbs and delays) with the axe-fx but an Octave pedal and a TS-style overdrive will get you close.

Please remember that these sounds haven’t been endorsed by Mastodon and we are just offering some advice on how to get similar guitar sounds. Also, never follow the rulebook and feel free to take these guidelines a step further and create your own sound.

Guitars

Bill Kelliher Guitar Sound

To nail that heavy Bill Kelliher tone you need a fat sounding, LP style guitar. Fortunately this is easily achieved with his two signature ESP guitars. We’ve chosen his singlecut LTD BK-600 which has a familiar feel and design to other LTD guitars but with a very big difference at it’s heart. The pickups. These are hot without being super modern or scooped sounding. In fact they’ve got a mid-range sweet spot that works well with his Friedman Butterslax amp to give you an aggressive, throaty mid-range sound with an open, dynamic low-end. Perfect for drop-tunings and especially good with the high gain channel cranked on your amp.

Kelliher has got another signature LTD which is called the Sparrowhawk for the more open-minded player. This offset body shape has similar spec to his BK600 but with Divinator pickups instead which are slightly lower resistance pickups but still retaining plenty of heat! To get in the Kelliher ballpark you’ll want a meaty sounding guitar like the LTDs with clear sounding medium/hot pickups. This is what will give you the clarity you want under all that gain!

Brent Hinds Guitar Sound

Brent Hinds is a famous Gibson user. He’s been seen using everything from Flying Vs to SGs and Les Pauls! He even has a signature Epiphone Flying V which was designed to give you his powerful signature tone. Go for a guitar with powerful passive pickups and enough mid-range sizzle to cut through loads of gain.

Amps

Bill Kelliher Amp Sound

It’s no secret that Mastodon use bucketloads of gain on their guitar tones. But what is interesting is how they still retain note definition! The easiest way to nail Kellihers amp tone is by using his signature Friedman Butterslax amp.

He uses channel 3 so that he can really pile on the distortion. The Butterslax is a tight sounding 100w head, so you’ll want to avoid any flabby low frequencies (Especially with the lower tunings) if you decide to use something different. It’s powered by 4x EL34 tubes which give you that classic British sizzle but with all of the modern low-end you need.

Brent Hinds Amp Sound

Rabea chose the Victory VX Kraken to get the Brent Hinds sound. By using channel 1 (The ‘British’ side of the amp) he was able to achieve that signature fatness that Mastodon get. But in a similar way to Bill Kelliher, Brent Hinds doesn’t lose clarity by cranking the gain and scooping the mids. Instead, he keeps the gain up and uses high output pickups (With a present mid-range) to get that brutal tone.

Brent Hinds currently uses a JMP and a Diezel to get his tone so if you want to be spot on then you’ll want to have a healthy dose of British overdrive with powerful German distortion. Why not try the Diezel VH4 Preamp/Overdrive pedal into a clean amp to get that tone?

Pedals

Bill Kelliher Pedals

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The octave is there to fatten up the low-end and beef up any rhythm tones. Traditionally you wouldn’t use it over your lead tones. But by dialling in octave onto your dry signal (This is easy to do with something like the EHX nano POG,POG2 or Boss Super Octave) you can add chunky bass notes without making your tone muddy.

Having reverb on the tone will warm up your signal and make those octave sounds a little bit bigger. You can add reverb to taste depending on the tone, but just remember that having a dry signal will make your tone ‘tighter’ and more in your face. You can use anything from the MXR Reverb to the Boss RV-6

Brent Hinds Pedals

Any TS-style mid-range overdrive (Try the Maxon 808 or an Ibanez Tubescreamer) will be useful for getting the Brent Hinds tone. Turn the gain all the way down and set the tone where you want it and just watch how it tightens up the low-end on your dirty channel. Rabea found that adding a Klon style pedal (RYRA Klone) into the mix works wonders for the Mastodon tone. It adds a touch more gain but also saturates the sound a bit which’ll just help in fattening those riffs and tones.

For EQ Pedals Something like the BOSS GE-7 will just allow you to take out some of the high-mid and remove any fizz that you might have from running so much gain.

It’s worth having a delay and reverb (or combo pedal) in your effects loop or at the end of your chain to warm up those lead sounds. Having the delay and reverb on for the single note runs will give your tone space in the mix and give it width. Again, this makes your guitar sounding bigger and more powerful. For an example listen to the solo on Oblivion and you’ll easily get an idea of how reverb and delay should sound. The Earthquaker Dispatch Master was an easy way to fatten up the Brent sound.

Do you think Rabea & Matt got close to the Mastodon sound? Leave a comment below and share your thoughts!

If you’re interested in finding out how to achieve the tones of your favourite artists, check out more of our Sound Like articles by clicking here.

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