So some people asked for a tutorial.
Maybe in the future I'll do a YouTube video but I'll have to figure out a way to make a screenshot movie.
I'll just walk you through my process of doing the tonematches.
There are a couple of things that are quite important for doing proper tonematches from pre-recorded material (offline mode).
First of all you obviously need a recording where an isolated guitar part is audible.
What I mean by this is that there shouldn't be any other instruments audible in the part that you want to tonematch.
For the metallica stuff I was 'blessed' with the isolated guitar tracks from the guitar hero game.
This made the matching for a lot of songs easier.
You can also sometimes find isolated parts in actual songs/masters from an album.
Metallica does this quite often where you, for example can only hear James playing a riff on one side of the stereo image.
Because of the fact that on a lot of recordings metallica uses 2 guitarists for all the riffs it's important to have a stereo file where one guitar is set to the right and the other one to the left.
The more the different sounds blend, the more of a mixed tonematch you will get.
For a songs like king nothing this worked out great, I have the isolated tracks and a left (James) and right (kirk) side.
This made it possible to get 2 completely different tones out of one part.
The feature in the tonematch block where you can choose wich side to match is really valuable in this regard.
You will also need a guitar that preferably sounds similar to the guitar you are trying to match.
Also the same tuning helps a lot to cover all the needed frequencies.
Metallica mostly use mahogany guitars with active Emg pickups.
I recently got a new guitar with these features so I used that one almost exclusively for all the matches in order to get consistent results.
TIP: if you have a different guitar with say, less output and you feel the need to tweak my patches in order to fit your own guitar do this:
Set the gain and eq right on the amp model so that it sounds more similar to my recording of the sound.
Then re-do the 'local' mode in the tonematch block by playing a similar part with your new settings.
After that press match and the sound should be set-up for your guitar.
What I would do is set-up a session in cubase where I imported all the files I needed to one stereo track.
Then I kind of matched the levels in every song to get approximately the same level for each song.
For each song I would try to find a good isolated part where as much of the needed frequency range was covered.
In an ideal situation I would have a Palm muted riff with as many different notes possible to get all the low frequencies in the match, also a riff with open notes and even better high notes to fill up the entire spectrum of the match.
I would also do a little research before the match to get a tone that is as close as possible.
Check what type of guitar/pickup was used, what tuning and most importantly what pedals/amps were used.
Even better is having the actual amp settings used on the recording although finding those settings is rare.
For the Metallica songs I searched the internet for what amps they used.
Let's take master of puppets for example.
I read that they used a mesa mkcII+ for the recording slaved through a Marshall power amp with Marshall cabs loaded with G12-65 celestions in them.
I then proceed to build a patch that sounds and feels close to the recording.
Match the amount of gain, match the eq (even the eq module in the amp block).
For metallica you need to scoop some mids etc.
Pay a lot of attention to how your guitar interacts with the amp, how much definition your pick attack has and how soggy/fat or thin/transparent the low end is.
If your low end seems to woofy, back off the bass knob and maybe add depth or eq to compensate.
It's all about the character of the distortion.
Master of puppets has reverb on the guitar so after the amp/cab settings are done I would add reverb in this case.
It is well known that kirk hammet mostly uses a tube screamer in front of a rectifier or other similar amp.
For his sounds I would also add a tubescreamer in the chain.
If you don't do this the sound will not be close enough.
You have to add drive pedals in front of the amp and match the settings as close as possible before doing the tonematch.
Sometimes the source files had more audible compression (or Maybe Amp sag) than the model in the axe.
To capture this I would add a compressor after the amp block after the match was done.
Sometimes I would have to cut out little parts of the audiofile, put them next to each other and make a little loop for the match to 'record'.
Always make sure there is no bass guitar ringing out underneath the chosen guitar parts or cymbals/hihatts.
If there are more instruments playing in the part this will be integrated into your match, and we don't want that.
We want a clean part or loop with only the guitar sound in it
Then I would pless play and let the loop play.
Press the reference button and let the axe fx take in all the available information.
I always use the default settings except for the external source, I set that to usb.
Always make sure the part is playing before pressing the reference button and after pressing the button again to stop the reference mode.
Now another crucial part of the matching is ready.
The local button.
Say, you have a riff you want to match with a lot of muted notes and not a lot of high notes, then at first just try playing the riff exactly the same as in the recording.
If it sounds good, save the patch so the match you made is not lost if you try more things.
Sometimes the low end in a matched sound can be a bit off.
Maybe there is too much low or not enough.
This means it's time to experiment with your part.
You could try playing the riff with more low, more muting etc. so the match kind of balances the frequencies better.
Or maybe play the riff with a bit less muting so that the match will be slightly different.
The same goes for high frequencies although I found that this is a lot easier to get right.
Even if a riff only has low notes, a lot of the high content wil also come through because of the distortion.
This doesn't work as good the other way around.
It will be hard to get a good rhythm sound from a high note or lead part for example.
When matched and all sounds good I usually have to add about 7 or 8db to get the volume to a good level.
Add more effects if necessary.
For some of the sounds I tried to add studio tricks to make the sounds more alike.
Sometimes they use a short delay to make the sound a bit bigger, those kinds of things.
This is how I did the matches.
Hopefully it's a good read (technically) because I typed this on my phone while sitting in a train.
I'll check this post later to maybe correct some mistakes.
I hope this helps with your tonematches.
If you have any questions, go ahead and ask!
