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What guitar pedal effect or pickup would be good for metal guitar?
I have a Fender Tube Vibro champ, Boss Metal Zone, and Mxr 10 band eq. I use a Jackson Js Series Rhoads. My favorite music styles include thrash metal and death metal.
My favorite bands include Death, Metallica, Morbid Angel, Possessed, Slayer, Venom, Evile, Kreator, Necrophagist etc.
The sound I want to achieve is a really scooped lead tone that sounds close to the bands I mentioned(especially Chuck Schuldiner of Death).
Well, you've got a really good start! I'm surprised you're not able to get a reasonable metal tone from the equipment you've listed... the Metal Zone is a very versatile pedal, its all in how you mess with the mid control.
IIRC, the tone I favor from the Metal Zone is Treble and Bass at 1 o'clock with both mid controls around 10 or 11 o'clock. This should give a reasonable mid scoop and provide a bit of edge and a hint of chunk.
It's all in that mid control. The outer knob moves which frequency you cut/boost, and the inner knob controls how much you cut/boost.... so iirc turning that knob to the left cuts, and turning it right boosts. It very quickly gets ridiculous how much it can cut/boost, I don't like it much before 9'oclock or after 3 o'clock. (gee, I hope these clock references are making sense to you!)
When that outer knob is straight up, that's approximately 900hz - 1khz, I think. Most of the time when you want to scoop you want to cut below that - the "mud zone" is between 300hz and 800hz, approximately, so this is the region you want to look at for cutting away the body, boominess, flab, and "wood" character of your tone. It will take some experimenting, but one way to do it is to dial in a moderate cut and slowly sweep back and forth in that area.
Second, you've got an EQ pedal, so that should put you most of the rest of the way there!
If the EQ goes before the pedal, it controls how the pedal saturates. In other words, if your tone has a lot of bass that's what will saturate the pedal first and be emphasized the most. To balance your tone out and make sure the right parts are represented in the distorted signal, you would use your EQ pedal to level it out.... in general, you want to cut bass, boost mids, and level off or cut highs... what is known as the "frowney face" EQ. What exact frequency you boost will depend on your rig etc, but 800 hz is a good place to start.
What? Boost mids? Yes, boost mids. Death metal etc is all about cutting mids, but by boosting your mids in front of a distortion pedal or amp you end up pushing the amp harder and getting a thicker more saturated, fuller distorted tone.... you can then cut your mids after that. This is exactly what Dimebag Darrell did, for instance - an EQ pedal before his distortion boosting mids, and an EQ pedal after it cutting mids.
Putting your EQ pedal after distortion controls how the distortion is voiced... ie, the overall tonal response. This is where you would want your "smiley face" EQ, ie cutting mids and possibly boosting some bass/treble.
Without going much further, I would encourage you to not buy anything quite yet.... you have the basis for a pretty decent tone, I think, I would encourage you to keep at it for a little longer!
Hmm.... other thoughts.... use your tone knob! Rolling off some highs at your guitar should help smooth out your overall sound a little.
You can try messing with your pickup height as well.... not a lot of bass? Try raising the bass side of your pups (the side under the thick strings). This increases your bass response and can give you a little more low end. On the other hand, I usually *lower* it because bass going into distortion can quickly turn into mud or farty noises. I like to have the treble side a little higher, because it gives me more high end to work with.... and of course, if I want less high end, I can always use the tone knob to roll some off!
Wait until as late as possible in your signal chain to cut your mids. If you can do it in your amp's FX loop, that would be even better! That way you can have a gentle mid cut on your amp, then specifically target the "scooped" frequencies with your pedal, without lowering your overall volume too much.
Rolling off high end before and after distortion can help "smooth" the sound out. Common offending frequencies are in the 5k-7k region.... cutting them after distortion or possibly even in your amp's fx loop may help reduce some of that buzzing sound that the Metal Zone can develop.
As a last word, when using your EQ pedal, its better to cut than boost... boosting frequencies will tend to add some noise, depending on the quality of the pedal and how much boosting you're doing.... so I recommend trying to cut your signal there before you boost here... if that makes any sense....
Good luck! The Metal Zone is a pretty sweet pedal, I've used it for years both for playing live and recording. I've moved on to the Metalcore at this point, most of the time, because it has a little less of the buzzy character and doesn't cut as much of the low end or low mids, which means a little more overall chunk. Metal Zone = great pedal for leads, Metalcore = great pedal for rhythm, and I do mostly rhythm anymore....
Saul
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