Metallica aren’t distinguished for using pedals to achieve their core tones. James Hetfield has famously stated that he prefers the direct distorted tone from an amplifier, as opposed to relying on pedals. Having said that, back in Metallica’s heyday, distortion pedals were nowhere near as advanced as they are today – with only a handful of options available.
With many companies producing advanced, flexible stompboxes that can closely imitate the tones of distorted valve amp, Rabea chose a great contender to stay within budget. Using the MXR 5150 Overdrive, this high-gain pedal has the essential features that you’d typically find on a genuine amp channel:
With a built-in boost circuit too, you can really tighten up the overall sound of the pedal, akin to when you place a Tubescreamer-style stompbox in front of a distorted amp. The 5150 Overdrive’s noise gate is another thoughtful addition, eliminating the frustrating hiss that can occur when running an ultra-hot amplifier.
As previously mentioned, the Roland JC-120 Jazz Chorus solid-state amp is the main source for Metallica’s clean tones, both live and in the studio. To emulate its beautiful, washy chorus effect, Matt and Rabea chose a chorus pedal each, with the desire to closely imitate the JC-120’s wonderful sound.
Matt went for the popular MXR Analog Chorus pedal, which uses an old-school bucket-brigade circuit much like the original Boss CE-1 units. This gives you a bold yet warm chorus sound, and features all of the key controls you’d expect to find, as well as two EQ controls that allow you to boost/cut the lows and highs.
Rabea went for a more affordable candidate to keep below the £1500 threshold for his rig, but the Tone City Angel Wing is by no means a cheap-sounding pedal. Although it doesn’t have the same level of flexibility as its MXR counterpart, the Angel Wing delivers that unmistakable analogue tone for around £40!
Kirk Hammett is a borderline wah addict. Once quipping that he’d need to have his foot cut off to stop him from using his wah pedal, Kirk employs this effect in many of his pentatonic-based guitar solos. With his Jimi Hendrix influence evident, Hammett uses wah in a heavier context to not only achieve a screaming lead tone, but to also allow his playing to cut through in frantic mixes.
Do you think Rabea & Matt got close to the Metallica 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.
Transcript
Rabea: Hi, I'm Rabea.
Matt: And I'm Matt.
Rabea: And this is Sounds Like on Andertons TV.
[music]
Matt: Rabea.
Rabea: Hi, man.
Matt: Hi.
Rabea: How are you?
Matt: I'm good. Who are we going to sound like today?
Rabea: We're going to sound like the massive, the brutal, the absolute thrash gods Metallica.
Matt: Metallica.
Rabea: Yes. They don't need introduction.
Matt: They don't need. Everyone should know who they are and everyone should appreciate how good/big and everything else they are.
Rabea: And influential.
Matt: Exactly.
Rabea: We're looking for guitars with active pickups. We're looking for amps with lots of gain, preferably two channels so we can do the clean bits and some of the songs we want to do.
Matt: We need a really nice [unintelligible 00:01:03] as well.
Rabea: Of course, my entire rig-- I don't need a guitar or an amplifier, I just need a Wah pedal because I'm doing Kirk Hammett.
Matt: I think maybe hopefully with the budget we have, we can maybe get you 10 Wah pedals.
Rabea: Yes, 10 Wah pedals would probably be better.
Matt: [crosstalk] roll it down the street.
Rabea: Let's go and get some Wah pedals. Okay, so we're in the guitar department-
Matt: Yes.
Rabea: - and we're looking for specific guitars. We need active pickups. I would like a guitar with a Floyd Rose because that's very common of Kirk Hammett's style. I guess you need--
Matt: I need James Hetfield, obviously, as you know probably has played Explorer types, Les Paul types. He has his own signature, but way too expensive. He also has his own signature set The Het set, EMG pickups, which is the 81/60 and preferably an Explorer or Les Paul shape with EMGs. I'm probably going to be around that about that.
Rabea: Dude.
Matt: I like it.
Rabea: It's £615.
Matt: I think I want an Explorer shape.
Rabea: This is an LTD single cut with EMGs, hardtail. This is pretty damn close, is it not? Surely this is close.
Matt: [laughs] It looks like a brush.
[laughter]
Rabea: Looks like you can-- You might want to move out with some dust on the floor.
[laughter]
Speaker 3: The Nimbus 2000.
Matt: I have gone and found this Epiphone Explorer in a nice party bat black color with EMGs installed. It's very simple, it's all that it is, it's just all black, made in China and it's 450 quid.
Rabea: Are you going to go with that or are you going to go with the--?
Matt: Yes, I think this is one of the rare occasions where an Explorer has its day. He's very renowned for playing an Explorer.
Rabea: That's a very good point.
Matt: I'm going to go with this.
Rabea: Fair play.
Matt: Okay, so you're looking for a guitar for Mr. Kirk Hammett.
Rabea: I am. I think I've just spotted one. This has got EMGs, it's got a Floyd, it's £651, and it's got a really weird neck joint, three bolt.
Matt: That is for better access.
Rabea: It's totally to get to that 24th fret, but you know what, this might actually do the job. I don't know, I'm just going to go with this.
Matt: Cool, sounds good.
Rabea: I've got two paths I can choose. One being a high gain, heavy metal amplifier. Of course, the wah is the most important thing. I'm thinking of using the EVH pedal, the two-channel pedal with the boost and something that does crunch, maybe a distortion, but not necessarily a high gain amp so that I can do some of the cleaner stuff, whereas I think for you it just needs to be straight up.
Matt: I just need a straight up, but really versatile amp that can do loads of different gains and really nice cleans. I'm thinking the Egnater Tweaker-40 might be the shout. I only say this, we've looked at lots and lots and lots of amps and just the amount of switching this amp has, it means that you can get that long vintage sound. All these different switching options mean that hopefully, we can get it somewhere close.
Rabea: I hope so. Seeing as we're here by the pedal cabinet, I have spotted the EVH 5150 overdrive. It's got its own noise gate, it's got boost in there, it's got a full three-band EQ. I reckon that that will achieve a high gain thrashy tone. If not for anything else, most definitely for leads, but only if there's a Wah pedal, so we're going to do that, and we'll just see what happens. Literally, my options are I go Marshall DSL40, which we always have used in the past. I go Blackstar, which I don't think will get us anywhere close. Fender won't get us anywhere close.
Matt: You could also go Egnater.
Rabea: I could also go Egnater.
Matt: Because if you're controlling overdrive from a pedal, it's a bit less risk.
Rabea: It does not have a built-in reverb and my guitar's more expensive than yours.
Matt: How much is yours, £640?
Rabea: £650.
Matt: £650. These are already £650, so that'd be £1300 for pedals.
Rabea: Yes, for pedals and I have to get at least 10 Wahs.
Matt: That's like 700 quid.
Rabea: It's just not going to happen. I've just been speaking with the wonderful people at Andertons and we-- Just a complete hunch, but the Bassbreaker 15 combo is a new amp that Fender have brought out. It's two-channel, it's got built in reverb. The overdrive on it is actually quite modern and it has a clean channel. I'm thinking I'm using the 5150 overdrive to get my thrash metal tones. Because it's a modern voice overdrive, if you blend the two you might get somewhere really close-
Matt: Okay.
Rabea: - but the most important thing, aside from everything else, is Wah, so really it doesn't matter what guitar or amp I'm using as long as I get a good Wah pedal. For this particular video, the most important element of the entire rig, and that is the Wah pedal. As you can see, we've got a great selection of different Wah pedals from all different manufacturers. We've got Morley Wahs, we've got Xotic Wahs, Vox Wahs, Fulltones, we've got these classic Jim Dunlops and we've got the signature series. As you can see, there is every kind of Wah pedal you could want. I reckon if we use all of them at the same time, it will sound just like Kirk Hammett, but we don't have the budget, so I have to choose just the one.
Matt: James Hetfield uses the Jazz Chorus 120 by Roland for his clean sound. Therefore, I'm thinking I'm going to get a reverb pedal, use the Boss RV-6 for a bit of reverb because my amp doesn't have reverb. The JC-120 has built-in chorus, and so I'm thinking if I just get a chorus pedal just in case we need it.
Rabea: What kind of sound of chorus? What kind of quality chorus?
Matt: Maybe something--
Rabea: The Angel Wing, Tone City, £40?
Matt: Yes, that's super cheap. I've got a bit more money, I might as well get the--
Rabea: Your MXR Analog Chorus?
Matt: I think I'll do that. I'm going to get the MXR Analog Chorus.
Rabea: I'm probably going to add a little Angel Wing to my rig just for the beginning. I really want to do the beginning of One, and that's a clean guitar tone for Kirk's part. Surprisingly no Wah, so just the chorus from that. We're going to sound like Metallica.
Matt: Let's do it.
[music]
Rabea: We are here in the video room.
Matt: We're here again once again in our quest and our long-time mission to sound like Metallica.
Rabea: We are and in fairness, it's been one of those missions where because of the way the tracks sound on the way they were recorded back in the day, it's made it quite difficult to get those tones out of more modern gear, in fairness. I think we've got somewhere close.
Matt: Hopefully, but again, as always, we're aiming for an all-rounder. Something that could--it probably replicates more of their live rig than it does each studio recording that they have.
Rabea: Indeed they do.
Matt: Yes, without further ado--
Rabea: You're Mr. Hetfield, aren't you?
Matt: Which we'll have a look.
Rabea: Let's have a look at what Hetfield's packing.
Matt: I've got this beautiful, beautiful all black-
Rabea: It's the Epiphone Explorer.
Matt: - Epiphone Explorer. It's very black. In keeping Hetfield, obviously, is very famous for playing these, so-- Yes, it does the job, EMGs as well. What more can you say?
[music]
Rabea: It looks right. It looks the part. If you were in a Metallica cover band, you'd probably want to get one of these guitars.
Matt: Yes, and they're not even very expensive. For £450, I think for this [crosstalk] which is great.
Rabea: My guitar, I'm using, this is the Jackson and it's one of the Dinky series. That's essentially what Jackson is, they have the double cutaway with the extra access to the upper frets. It's normally got Floyd and some pickups depending on- not always EMGs, but a lot of the Dinky models do. I love the reverse headstock. It's not exactly what Kirk Hammett would use, it's got the Maple fretboard, but its got EMGs, it's got Floyd Rose, and it plays really well. It's a really easy guitar to play.
Matt: That's really a nice guitar. It's a couple hundred pounds more than this. I think that you can tell. Amps, I've got the Egnater Tweaker-40-
Rabea: Which is a beast.
Matt: - as we said in the store, the reason was just to try and get something with enough versatility to cover the really-- The thing is with Hetfield, he has such a nice plinky clean tone, and that is all because of the Roland JC-120. We're basically trying to get something that could get a nice clean as well as some high gain American tones.
[music]
Rabea: My amp is, funnily enough, it's the Fender Bassbreaker 15 combo. My hunch, I think I got off lightly with this because it's a two channel amp, clean and distortion. I'm only really using it on the clean channel. If I just quickly give you a chord. It's a powerful clean, but the thing is that's probably due to the high-powered EMG pickups that you get in that extra little bit of boost. I then teamed up with my EVH 5150 overdrive which is doing all my distortion.
Matt: That is doing you a service.
Rabea: It really, really is. Of course, I've scooped all the mids. That's what you expect from your early '90s late '80s thrash metal sounds.
[music]
There's no mids in the amp at all-
Matt: Neither on mine.
Rabea: - because that's just not what the tone was about. Dimebag being an extreme example of such. That's how I'm getting my two main tones and I use the Angel Wing for the clean at the beginning of One on the neck pickup just to--
[music]
What about your rig?
Matt: I've got the MXR Analog Chorus and the RV-6 reverb just to give us a bit of '80s space, so it sounds like this--
[music]
Rabea: It's great.
Matt: It sounds beautiful and spacey.
Rabea: We really wanted to explore doing some of the more, I guess, how would you describe the beginnings of Fade to Black and Sanitarium and stuff like that. We wanted to do some of the more epic, written out musical parts of Metallica tunes rather than just throw out a load of riffs. Because it's more of a challenge, it's actually more enjoyable to play. It's really satisfying when you get it right.
Matt: They have a lot of guitar interplay, don't they? Which is always fun.
Rabea: None of this would be possible, any of it. None of the tones. None of the- just basically Metallica-
Matt: Or life itself.
Rabea: - wouldn't exist. The universe wouldn't have happened had we have not got the Crybaby Mini on the floor right down here.
Matt: Perhaps it was a mistake choosing the mini one because, I don't think it really represents how much Wah, it really is.
Rabea: The magnitude of this situation.
Matt: Maybe less is more in this situation.
Rabea: Maybe less is more. The thing with it is that it has the three different modes, the three different voicings, and that's like three-dimensional universe of what you can do with the Kirk Hammett sound, essentially, because you've got three different modes. Changes the response of the Wah, so you can get all generations of Kirk Hammett's Wah.
Matt: Can you give us at least one.
Rabea: Yes, I'll give you one.
[music]
Anyway. As I say, it's a pretty straightforward rig, but it did take quite a bit of time to work out exactly how to replicate those old-school Metallica tones because that's what we wanted to hear, and I think that's what most people want to hear. There you go.
Matt: Let us know how you think we've done in the comments section below as usual.
Rabea: I've thoroughly enjoyed this, brings me back to being 16, 17, learning Metallica tunes.
Matt: Yes, it's a good one.
Rabea: It's pretty good.
Matt: It's been heavily requested, so yes, let us know what you think on how we've done.
Rabea: Please discuss so in the comment section. All the information for all of these bits of gear will be in the description box. That's it. I've been Rabea.
Matt: I've been Matt.
Rabea: This has been Sound Like on Andertons TV.
[music]
[00:18:08] [END OF AUDIO]