Metallica live tone needed

Rafa Diaz

Experienced
Hello guys not sure if this is the right place for this post, delete or move if not appropriate.
I've seen lots of free and buy presets for Metallica that are quite cool but I wonder if anyone got the ones they were using live during their 2018 tour,
Kirk used a Les Paul most of the show and he sounded amazing.
Does anyone got these live presets for Axe 3 or can we buy them anywhere?
Thanks
 
The exact presets they use live are not available. Plenty of excellent fan made ones are, though, as you've mentioned. Grab one as a starting place and modify it to suit your playing. Tone is in the fingers!
 
Nor would you have the tone you remember from that night... you’d be missing all of the effects from the Board (Multiband compressors and EQs at the very least) and the natural EQ of the room....
 
I mean it starts with Active EMG pickups, a Mesa Mark head with the lows cut, the mids boosted and highs and presence on at least 5, with the classic ‘Metal Smile’ On the post, five band Mesa EQ our to a big 4x12 with high powered speakers close mic’d. Only a tiny bit of verb.

There’s some multi-band compression on there to get the evenness in the chest thud lows without destroying all the dynamics in the highs, but again a preset even if perfect needs the sharp, pick attack of Hetfield pushing through those strings with precision and fury.

You are in the ballpark with that IME.
 
Here is a great YT video from Sept 2017 on how they are using the Fractal gear live and what else they are using with it....


Well so much for all the mysterious gear. You should be able to absolutely nail that tone. Any other gear besides the Axe Fx and Matrix is there to simply deliver the tone to an arena crowd. What I saw there was Axe Fx->Matrix->Boogie cab with v30's. And that was the Axe Fx II. Glad I watched that though, I really like what they said about the Matrix and turning it up past 12 o'clock. I find myself doing that but I am always afraid I am doing something wrong.
 
Well so much for all the mysterious gear. You should be able to absolutely nail that tone. Any other gear besides the Axe Fx and Matrix is there to simply deliver the tone to an arena crowd. What I saw there was Axe Fx->Matrix->Boogie cab with v30's. And that was the Axe Fx II. Glad I watched that though, I really like what they said about the Matrix and turning it up past 12 o'clock. I find myself doing that but I am always afraid I am doing something wrong.

And this isn't even what you're hearing in the crowd. It's Axe-Fx direct in the PA. The cabs are just there for onstage reinforcement. The Axe is all you need to get the sound. That and James Hetfield's hands....
 
Thanks guys, Leon, have you done any Metallica patch?
Kirk was playing at the O2 (London) with a Gary M LP and sounded so big, this is the tone I am really looking for since my les Pauls have standard pickups not active.
Cheers guys
 
Thanks guys, Leon, have you done any Metallica patch?
Kirk was playing at the O2 (London) with a Gary M LP and sounded so big, this is the tone I am really looking for since my les Pauls have standard pickups not active.
Cheers guys

I generally like the IIC++ with more mids than a typical 'tallica tone, but you should still find this video handy.

 
I agree that the IIC++ model can bring you fairly close to today’s Metallica live sound. However, Hetfield combines the CII++ with a Diezel VH4 to get that amazing signature sound he gets. He did before Metallica started using Axe Fx, and he does now too.

I also absolutely love that tone and have been trying to get something as close as possible but the difficult part is to get to mix the two amp models to work in the same way he does. He must be mixing them so that he can take advantage of some key features of each amp. I’d say that amps separately would even sound like crap, but together they complement each other in a magical way.

Rafa, you may wanna use the tuning room videos as reference, as in these you often can hear Hetfield or Hammet’s guitar in isolation as they practice alone, and I suppose they will be using the exact same patches that they use later onstage. Here is an example, but there are many in Youtube:

 
Here is a great YT video from Sept 2017 on how they are using the Fractal gear live and what else they are using with it....


By the way, I have always wondered why they keep running a separate Axe Fx for cleans and for heavy tones, to then use a GCX analog switcher to switch between them. In the video, Chad claims that it is for instant changing, but could not they do that also with scenes or channels? I may be missing something...
 
By the way, I have always wondered why they keep running a separate Axe Fx for cleans and for heavy tones, to then use a GCX analog switcher to switch between them. In the video, Chad claims that it is for instant changing, but could not they do that also with scenes or channels? I may be missing something...
Scene and X/Y changing still had a bit of a gap on the Axe-FX II. A good example of these instant changes can be heard at the end of Unforgiven where Kirk switches from clean to lead several times.
 
Scene and X/Y changing still had a bit of a gap on the Axe-FX II. A good example of these instant changes can be heard at the end of Unforgiven where Kirk switches from clean to lead several times.

Specifically, changing X/Y states on the Amp block will incur a gap. I have not experienced, nor heard of any other audio gap on the Axe Fx II with any other switching. In fact, the whole purpose of scenes was to be able to avoid any dropout when switching.

This is likely a confirmation (as mentioned above) that they are using dual amp setups. Because otherwise they could just switch between Amp blocks.
 
Specifically, changing X/Y states on the Amp block will incur a gap. I have not experienced, nor heard of any other audio gap on the Axe Fx II with any other switching. In fact, the whole purpose of scenes was to be able to avoid any dropout when switching.

This is likely a confirmation (as mentioned above) that they are using dual amp setups. Because otherwise they could just switch between Amp blocks.

Indeed, unix-guy. You are right, that must be it. Since only two amp blocks are possible per preset and they use two already for heavy tones, in a scene change they would necessarily need to implement x/y at least in one of the amp blocks, which would lead to the sound gap.

Regarding the heavy tone combining the two amps, any ideas as to what each of the two does (eqs, levels, panning, etc). I suppose that metallica will be using their own IR instead of factory (pr commercially available) cabs, but at least, getting the amp settings right should be possible!

There is another old metallica gear rundown video in Youtube from the time they were still using real amps, where Chad talks a bit about the two amps



Any of the expert guys from the forum would have a good idea as to what to do in order to get the Hetfield signature live tone blend?
 
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