How does metal distortion work?

[Andy123]

I've been wondering what makes a big metal distortion sound work.

A lot of the artists whose tone I like turned out to be playing a Mesa Dual Rectifier, but probably my favourite distorion sound would be that of Machine Head's Robb Flynn. He uses a Peavey 5150. I ended up getting an Engl Fireball and was quite happy with the distortion sound it churned out.

I assumed a these sounds were the result of a particularly voiced EQ running through a bunch of red hot tubes with the help of bucket loads of gain - end of story.

I've been hearing whispers though, that the part that makes all the difference and takes things from a sensible blues overdrive into djent/death/doom territory is actually solid state.

When recently downsizing/upgrading my gear, I decided to get a Fender amp and try to find a pedal capable of the distortion sounds I like. Thinking it was a tube sound I was after, I checked out a bunch of tube preamp pedals. More than one of them claimed to be all tube for clean and overdrive "with a solid state circuit to help out with the distortion".

I even found one by MXR called the EVH 5150. It claimed to bring the distortion sound I love from the 5150 amp, except it's completely solid state.

Would it be safe to say that the Dual Rectifier and 5150 distortion sounds come from a top quality tube driven sound pushed in the final stages through a solid state circuit? Has my valve fixation been a red herring?

[Marcel]

Nearly every pedal that I've seen that actually has a tube inside usually has a big 'song and dance' about it actually containing a tube, and usually you can easily see the tube too, with typical tubes being either a 12AX7 or a Nutube. Practically every other pedal is solid state.

Tube amps usually have a set of tubes, some smaller pre-amp stages and a set of two or four larger power tubes to drive the speaker(s). A solid state amp obviously has nil tubes, however hybrid amps often contain only one tube in conjunction with all the circuitry found in a standard solid state amp to be used to help develop those tube tones.

As "Metal" often uses heavily overdriven circuits the methods to achieve this can be many. And we can 'over drive' at any point in the signal chain between the guitar and speaker to get our desired tones. Popular ways are to do it all inside one pedal, or to beef up a signal at one point so as to overdrive the next point in the chain. Depending on your desired tone one way may provide better results than any other.

I'll list some examples below.
1/ A 'Metal Zone' or 5150 pedal into a solid state or tube amp.
2/ A high gain tube amp with all 'gain' controls set to above 8
3/ A solid state modeling amp set to 'Double Rec' mode
4/ A TS9 pedal set to above 8 into a standard tube amp with gain set to maximum.
5/ A high output humbucker into a boost pedal into a high gain amp
6/ ....

There are SO MANY ways.!! The decider is what appeals to you and what fits in the mix of your band...

If it sounds right then it probably is right for you ......

Sadly, many of us (including me) have fallen in lust for the perfect 'tube sound'. Often it's at the detriment of ignoring other ways to get even better tones. Using tubes is only one way to achieving a result, but that solid state MXR seems to go a long way to where you want to be. Nobody (except maybe your closest friends) will jump on you for letting the whole tube Vs solid state thing slide... Your valve fixation has been a red herring...

[DrNomis_44]

The sound of Metal Distortion has evolved over the years, if you go back to the 80's, what was considered a "Metal Distortion" back then sounds a lot different to what is considered a "Metal Distortion" nowadays, having spent my teen years growing-up in the 80's I'm fairly familiar with the 80's Metal Distortion sound, most guitarists back then used some kind of Distortion pedal like for example the Boss DS-1, they would plug it and their guitar into a guitar amp of some sort, Marshalls tended to be a big favorite, a good mate of mine had a Marshall JCM800 dual-channel amp and Quad Box setup.

I went through the whole scooped-mids phase during the 80's and 90's, and I've recently been getting into more of a midrangey-tone.

As Marcel said, there are lots of ways to produce a Metal Distortion sound, it really depends on what your budget is, what sub-genre of Metal you're interested in playing, for example if you're going for the Swedish Death Metal Distortion, you could try getting a second-hand Boss HM-2 Heavy Metal pedal, your best bet is to check out what gear your favorite Metal artists are using and use that as a guide.

[Dedman]

It's dead easy, just turn your amp up to 11

[dave.king1]

Hit a lump of tin with a FBH

I still believe though that for heavy distortion via pedals you really need to start with a clean & loud amp.

With the H||H that I still have which is clean to ear bleed levels there is a Sustain control which in reality also provides thick fuzz when dimed and when combined with my Schaller fuzz maxed out gave a Leigh Stevens (Blue Cheer) tone which was fairly vital when we did the few heavy rock numbers in our repertoire that the bikie & water skier mob at the Tropocana Hotel wanted on a Sunday afternoon back in the mid 1970s

[Simon Barden]

The solid state thing within amps is normally a pair of clipping diodes. A feature of some of the later Marshall JCM800 and all the JCM900 and Jubilee amps. The main source of the drive sound from a Tube Screamer. It's not easy to get valve circuits to give you a really hard-edged distortion sound, which is why the diodes are there, to give a harder sounding drive. And why a non-valve drive pedal is often used to get a similar effect.

Or else, as has been said, a valve pre-amp and solid state power amp. Valve amps have a very low output impedance compared to solid state amps, so the damping factor (a measure of how well an amp can control the attached speaker), is very low, typically between 1 and 4 , but often less than 1. An amp for reproducing sounds needs a damping factor of around 50 or greater, and most solid state power amps have a damping factor of 100-200. Low damping factors cause a lot of 'smearing' in the bass frequencies as the amp can't stop the speaker cone moving quickly at those frequencies. Of course when creating sounds, it doesn't matter about a low damping factor as long as that looser feel is the sound you're after, and it's normally fine for most types of music.

So a solid state power amp makes sense for those styles of metal that rely on palm-muting and noise gates to give a well defined end to each chord. They are always going to give you a 'tighter' sound than any valve power amp can manage. You can increase the output impedance of a valve amp by using a lot of negative feedback in the power stage, but too much does reduce the dynamics available, so in anything other than flat-out mode, that type of amp often sounds rather sterile.

Of course in a studio you have lots of options. You can record rhythm parts with solid state amps and more fluid lead parts with valve amps rather than try and achieve both sounds with the same amp, as often happens live.

[Andy123]

Thanks guys, that's been a big help. I still don't quite trust my ears yet but I'm getting there.

[CascadiaGuitarGeek]

This is the true secret to blistering metal tonez...

[Fretworn]

If you go back and listen carefully, most metal guitar sounds aren't as distorted as you assume. They are distorted, but not enough to loose clarity. Multi-amp set ups where the cleaner amp sound is also added to the mix is often used. One of the secrets of heaviness is to get the bass to play unison riffs with the guitars to fill out the bottom end.

[Andy123]

I'm seeing a lot of this: