midnightlaundry
Well-known member
LOL, maybe, but I seen some mics in front.. Might be for show..
The Mark2C days are over tho as they're representing Recto..
The Mark2C days are over tho as they're representing Recto..
For The Metallica Fans
- Thread starter japetus
- Start date
Tone Monster
Well-known member
Yeah who knows. Sounded digital to me.
TheGreatGreen
Well-known member
Would you mind defining what you mean by "sounded digital" please?
Because in my opinion, no it didn't "sound digital," and I think you wouldn't have even had the thought if you didn't already know Metallica was using Axe-Fx's. This kind of ultra conservative "nothing can sound as good as anything made after the 60's" mentality really needs to stop.
Metallica's guitar tone has suffered ever since James moved to blending VH4's with his Mesas (and then the Axe-Fx's very accurate modeling of that bad tone) but the phrase "sounds digital" is meaningless now when it comes to the best modeling gear we have these days. ESPECIALLY when we're talking about high gain tones, which modeling has always been the best at out of all the kinds of tones it tries to emulate.
I'm waiting on replies of "It just sounded cold, lifeless, sterile, flat to me" or whatever other buzzwords people can think of that have been associated with "digital = bad" for years now... none of which is true in this video, btw. The tone definitely wasn't great, it wasn't gainy enough and had a weird, honky, half-cocked-wah thing going on about it (even when Kirk wasn't soloing) but again, all of those elements were introduced to their sound during the St Anger era when they moved to James' VH4's and Kirk's Randalls and whatever other random stuff they added to their sound. And nothing about those elements is inherently "digital." It's just bad tone. Personally though I didn't hear any aliasing, jitter, or noise that would actually be attributable to digital tech, but that's just my opinion.
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Tone Monster
Well-known member
Just compare the tone to anything after St Anger till whenever they switched to digital.
Just a random show from 2005 when I know they were using the VH4
So much body and crunch vs the current digital rig. Saw them live 2 years ago. Saw them 5 times before (tube rigs). It sounded horrid. Boomy mush.
Kimmel "Does just sounded cold, lifeless, sterile, flat to me". The high end has too much "hair" and theres no body to the tone. I went all in on digital too. I've got the Kemper and AxeFX III. IMO they suck. Could be user error! I definitely put them thru their paces. What's my shitty opinion matter to you so much? I'm just another hack with my own preferences. I wanted to LOVE the AxeFx III. Would be so simple and cost effective and could pocket the $20K I've got tied up in real amps but it just doesn't do it for me...
midnightlaundry
Well-known member
I don't see any reason why they would take the time to set up mics just to use the Suck Toasters...
But it must have been a while since they have used real amps because the mix is a bit off. There's no Toms even tho Lars is hitting them hard..
Any guess what Cabs KRK is using with the blocked Logos?? They might not be Marshalls. Maybe Randalls??
But it must have been a while since they have used real amps because the mix is a bit off. There's no Toms even tho Lars is hitting them hard..
Any guess what Cabs KRK is using with the blocked Logos?? They might not be Marshalls. Maybe Randalls??
Metalhex
Well-known member
Just speculating but I think the black album is the way it is because Lars realized he was running out of steam as a thrash drummer (which he was anyway), so he probably forced everyone to slow things down. But if you slow things down, it still has to be catchy. I could be way off as I'm not really a big Metallica fan.
Tone Monster
Well-known member
Decent point. But they’ve used fake back lines for years.
TheGreatGreen
Well-known member
I didn't mean to come down so hard on you specifically. I mostly get annoyed because the perception that digital stuff is "inherently digital sounding which is bad" ultimately translates to this kind of pervasive thought in the industry that modeling tech is simply "not worth improving because it will always be flawed from the start" which I don't believe is true, and that kind of attitude is what keeps guitar tech innovation from moving forward because smart people who could improve it might just not even bother because they've heard "digital is just doomed from the start" one too many times.
However, I also have an Axe-Fx III and a handful of tube amps. 5150 III EL34 100w, Mesa Dual Recto Multi Watt, Marshall JCM 2000 DSL, Mesa Lonestar, Mesa Triaxis and ENGL 570 preamps + VHT 2/90/2 poweramp, couple others, etc. The Axe-Fx models for each of those amps doesn't sound exactly like them but I'll maintain that the models do sound ...as good... as them, and that if you blindfolded me and plugged me into one of my full digital Axe-Fx patches that emulates my amps, or one of my real amps into a reactive load, then into that same patch's IR's and out through whatever PA I'm listening through, I'm not confident I'd be correct if I had to guess which one it was, and really, it's close enough that after 10 seconds of playing and getting used to it, any difference loses its significance anyway. Both rigs are equally inspiring and fun to play on.
Basically, while I will agree that Metallica's sound has only gotten worse since they started using Axe-Fx's (representing a single step in a continuing trend of increasingly worse tones), I also don't think that's the Axe-Fx's fault. I know, I've done the testing with my own ears.
edit:
Also, I'm not seeing any speaker cables behind those amps.
From the camera's perspective they should be falling from the right side of each Recto.
Then again the amp's pilot lights are lit somehow and I don't see the power cables, which should be falling from the left hand side of each amp from the camera's perspective. Maybe it's the pixelation of the images blurring the cables, maybe they're not there. Who knows.
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Tone Monster
Well-known member
Dummy heads 100%I didn't mean to come down so hard on you specifically. I mostly get annoyed because the perception that digital stuff is "inherently digital sounding which is bad" ultimately translates to this kind of pervasive thought in the industry that modeling tech is simply "not worth improving because it will always be flawed from the start" which I don't believe is true, and that kind of attitude is what keeps guitar tech innovation from moving forward because smart people who could improve it might just not even bother because they've heard "digital is just doomed from the start" one too many times.
However, I also have an Axe-Fx III and a handful of tube amps. 5150 III EL34 100w, Mesa Dual Recto Multi Watt, Marshall JCM 2000 DSL, Mesa Lonestar, Mesa Triaxis and ENGL 570 preamps + VHT 2/90/2 poweramp, couple others, etc. The Axe-Fx models for each of those amps doesn't sound exactly like them but I'll maintain that the models do sound ...as good... as them, and that if you blindfolded me and plugged me into one of my full digital Axe-Fx patches that emulates my amps, or one of my real amps into a reactive load, then into that same patch's IR's and out through whatever PA I'm listening through, I'm not confident I'd be correct if I had to guess which one it was, and really, it's close enough that after 10 seconds of playing and getting used to it, any difference loses its significance anyway. Both rigs are equally inspiring and fun to play on.
Basically, while I will agree that Metallica's sound has only gotten worse since they started using Axe-Fx's (representing a single step in a continuing trend of increasingly worse tones), I also don't think that's the Axe-Fx's fault. I know, I've done the testing with my own ears.
edit:
Also, I'm not seeing any speaker cables behind those amps.
From the camera's perspective they should be falling from the right side of each Recto.
Then again the amp's pilot lights are lit somehow and I don't see the power cables, which should be falling from the left hand side of each amp from the camera's perspective. Maybe it's the pixelation of the images blurring the cables, maybe they're not there. Who knows.
This makes a ton of sense.
They probably all burned a hell of a lot less calories per show once
they could stick the slow stuff into the set every few songs to give them all a rest.
Metalhex
Well-known member
I'll give you the benefit of the doubt to assume that you're being serious here
I'll give you the benefit of the doubt to assume that you're being serious here
100% - getting old sucks
dainbramage0
Active member
I'd guess a dummy back line as well. An opportunity to get your endorsements on screen. Gibson owns mesa, mesa heads on display.
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japetus
Moderator
I don't know if this is an ironic post, or an absolutely based take, Donnie.
Taken in the context of when that concert aired, and what it was about, it
just reeked of being too overtly 'packaged' as "look, even the rebel macho
bad ass rocker and ultra flamboyant gay man can share the stage!"
Kumbaya. Yuck.
In hindsight it was actually pretty cool to watch live.
But it really opened the doors to some really strange and not really sensible band/artist
collaborations that were less about the final musical product and more about the colab itself.
After Bowie and Bing there was really nothing else left to do anyway!
