How to get Chuck Schuldiner guitar tone?

Leonkkj

Leonkkj

Member
I'm talking about the late days, with albums like Symbolic and Sound of Perseverance. He used only a Marshall Valvestate 8100 for his tones, which is a solid state guitar amp.
 
Marshall JMP-1 is the closest to the Valvestate as far as models go, if I had to guess circuit wise.

Other than that, if I was doing a cover of Symbolic era I would try the Powerball model.
 
Joshua_L said:
Symbolic tone got some mids, it’s more of a heavy metal sound than a death metal tone.
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I mean the main difference between a Marshall with tube and without them are the mids and the high/ harshness . Not to remove them all. Turning them down a little bit help to be in the ballpark
 
No matter which amp you try, I'd use just enough gain, but no more. The Sound of Perseverance especially sounds to me like he used the bare minimum gain to get his riffs across. Personally I'd put an od that works well with your guitar in front of the 2203 High with the Treble knob up pretty high and the MV low, into a trebly V30. I think that might be a good starting place sonically, even though the original gear was different than that.
 
Leonkkj said:
I'm talking about the late days, with albums like Symbolic and Sound of Perseverance. He used only a Marshall Valvestate 8100 for his tones, which is a solid state guitar amp.
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It’s a solid state power section, but actually uses a tube preamp (a single 12ax7).
 
It is amazing to think back on how an 8080 and later a 8100, with a Les Paul Studio, were such a big part of my teenage life. I still play that Studio nearly everyday, although it does have some companions now, but it is the E standard, well... standard! For that late 80's/90's extreme metal sound I grew up on, I gravitate to the Powerball model. If I'm tracking demos I usually use that and the new 5153 Stealth Red as my preferred combo.
 
I would think a JCM800 or JMP-1 as mentioned. Add an extra parametric EQ after the amp with a scoop around 800hz to simulate the Contour knob, Add a Super Drive in front, as Chuck used a SD-1 before the JCM800 when he used that before the 8100.
 
Fjelltronen said:
It is amazing to think back on how an 8080 and later a 8100, with a Les Paul Studio, were such a big part of my teenage life. I still play that Studio nearly everyday, although it does have some companions now, but it is the E standard, well... standard! For that late 80's/90's extreme metal sound I grew up on, I gravitate to the Powerball model. If I'm tracking demos I usually use that and the new 5153 Stealth Red as my preferred combo.
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Love the Powerball as well! You should check out the Splawn too, that thing is brootal!
 
Shahar said:
Love the Powerball as well! You should check out the Splawn too, that thing is brootal!
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I don't think I've tried the Splawn at all. I've been thinking of what to try for a Slayer tone. I'll give that a try tonight as I have no plans that don't involve the Fractal. Cheers!
 
There are two Splawns in the unit right now, the Quickrod and the Nitro. I think they're both awesome! And I think those would get you more in the ballpark of Human or Spiritual Healing.

By the way, if I'm not mistaken, the huge thing that helped him was his X2N pickup. I'd imagine you could turn anything rock amp into a flamethrower with that pickup.
 
State of Epicicity said:
There are two Splawns in the unit right now, the Quickrod and the Nitro. I think they're both awesome! And I think those would get you more in the ballpark of Human or Spiritual Healing.

By the way, if I'm not mistaken, the huge thing that helped him was his X2N pickup. I'd imagine you could turn anything rock amp into a flamethrower with that pickup.
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And if you don't want to go down the pickup replacement rabbit hole, you could use an EQ before the amp, or the input EQ in the amp block, or even the input trim to goose the incoming signal a little.
 
State of Epicicity said:
There are two Splawns in the unit right now, the Quickrod and the Nitro. I think they're both awesome! And I think those would get you more in the ballpark of Human or Spiritual Healing.

By the way, if I'm not mistaken, the huge thing that helped him was his X2N pickup. I'd imagine you could turn anything rock amp into a flamethrower with that pickup.
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X2n, dod death metal pedal … all these things that make us laugh back in the day as they were completely “too much” sounding 😅. The x2n have the crappiest clean tone of all di marzio’s 😅
 
My name is mud said:
Here it was a bandit 112 with a metal zone, with a Japanese strat with an humbucker.
Memories 🎈
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Oh yeah. My friend had the bandit. I would love to find one and make a really primitive 3 chord black metal album with it! Regarding the Valvestate, I did find myself today thinking how fun it would be to get a couple and feed the Fractal into the FX returns in some retro future madness. :)
 
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