Hetfield, "the Ride the Lightning amp was a...

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thegame

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French made Marshall". From a 1985 radio interview ( 5:24 )



Interesting! I've known the story of how Metallica's gear was stolen prior to recording RTL. Upon arriving in Denmark to record it, they tried out Mercyful Fate's gear and that of other local bands. I thought the amp James ended up using was one of those, or one belonging to Sweet Silence studios. But here he says none of those worked out and then he stumbled across a "French made Marshall" in a hole in the wall music shop in Denmark. Any amp gurus know of any French amp modders from 40 years ago lol?

Just found this interesting so I thought I'd share. Regardless of the amp's origin, so much of the RTL tone is due to heavy use of post mic studio outboard gear like compressors and EQ. Listen to any live recording from 84-85 and none feature guitars that sound anywhere close to the album IMO.
 
thegame said:
French made Marshall". From a 1985 radio interview ( 5:24 )



Interesting! I've known the story of how Metallica's gear was stolen prior to recording RTL. Upon arriving in Denmark to record it, they tried out Mercyful Fate's gear and that of other local bands. I thought the amp James ended up using was one of those, or one belonging to Sweet Silence studios. But here he says none of those worked out and then he stumbled across a "French made Marshall" in a hole in the wall music shop in Denmark. Any amp gurus know of any French amp modders from 40 years ago lol?

Just found this interesting so I thought I'd share. Regardless of the amp's origin, so much of the RTL tone is due to heavy use of post mic studio outboard gear like compressors and EQ. Listen to any live recording from 84-85 and none feature guitars that sound anywhere close to the album IMO.
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Metallica’s tone never sounded like “them” love until the late puppet days through the black album touring, this isn’t surprising. I disagree with the idea that that tone is the result of “eq and compressors”, that’s quite an achievable sound. Marshall cab, and 2 SM7b’s will get you there, or Atleast in the ball park. Also, at the time, and even still to this day I believe, metallics had endorsements with audio technical, and would use nothing but their shit live ( mics etc). Big mick absolutely hated the stuff they were using at the time live for many years. So take that into consideration as well.
 
Isn't this the RtL rig? Just a boosted JMP 2203.

3wVE7HL.jpg
 
"French made Marshall" .....so either modded by a French guy or a Marshall clone build by a French guy. Cool.
 
Snave has a pic of the rig (Marshall JMP 2203) above. Hetfield used it with an Ibanez TS9.

They recorded it with Flemming R in Sweet Silence over in Denmark. I’d bet the farm the “French” connection is just because of the model and where it was purchased. Marshall continued to make the JMP aesthetic heads into at least ‘83 - ‘84 for the Scandinavian market. They looked slightly different on the back panels, akin to the Canadian models. That included some of the instructions being written in French, hence the probable driver of Hetfield’s assertion it was a “French made” Marshall, as it looked different and had French writing on it. Given that they were in Denmark, virtually every local Marshall would have looked that way.

Any decent sounding JMP/JCM 800 2203 with a TS9 in front should get you the core tone. The rest of it is in the way James plays mixed with a king’s fortune worth of now legendary mic pres and studio gear.
 
NewWorldMan said:
Snave has a pic of the rig (Marshall JMP 2203) above. Hetfield used it with an Ibanez TS9.

They recorded it with Flemming R in Sweet Silence over in Denmark. I’d bet the farm the “French” connection is just because of the model and where it was purchased. Marshall continued to make the JMP aesthetic heads into at least ‘83 - ‘84 for the Scandinavian market. They looked slightly different on the back panels, akin to the Canadian models. That included some of the instructions being written in French, hence the probable driver of Hetfield’s assertion it was a “French made” Marshall, as it looked different and had French writing on it. Given that they were in Denmark, virtually every local Marshall would have looked that way.

Any decent sounding JMP/JCM 800 2203 with a TS9 in front should get you the core tone. The rest of it is in the way James plays mixed with a king’s fortune worth of now legendary mic pres and studio gear.
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That makes perfect sense. A regular JMP made for the French portion of the European market. James’s description could be taken either way (modded by a French tech or stock Marshall built for distribution in France) but your assertation is far more likely. Thanks for clearing that up!
 
thegame said:
That makes perfect sense. A regular JMP made for the French portion of the European market. James’s description could be taken either way (modded by a French tech or stock Marshall built for distribution in France) but your assertation is far more likely. Thanks for clearing that up!
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I'm not sure how you guys would Interpret that any other way. May also have had 6550 if that hasn't been mentioned. Like the ones we got here in Canada ...aka, made for the Canadian market, " Canadian Marshall"
 
cool find. old metallica tape trader here...never saw this around back in the day.
 
Just a question regarding the pic above that I've always wondered about, I can see that there is a TS9 and a Ibanez ST800 but what are the two other boxes on top that the signal is routed through before the amp input?
Guessing from the profile and relative size compared to the Ibanez pedal, could they be some TC Elec pedals, esp being that the TC pedals were Danish origin and could make sense being used in a Danish studio. Could they be perhaps EQ or boost pedals?. The TS9 isn't plugged in in the pic but the two other boxes are chained into the input. The Blue cable I'm assuming is the line from the splitter box as it is pictured in the MoP studio pics later on. Same studio and same producer so highly likely that its the same splitter setup to that point.
I know James stated in interviews he used the TS9 into the Marshall but wasn't a big fan on the grainy tone and preferred a more natural amp tone. Kirk almost always boosts his Marshalls and amps with a TS9 in the studio evident from all the pics of his studio setups.
 
Philhouse said:
Just a question regarding the pic above that I've always wondered about, I can see that there is a TS9 and a Ibanez ST800 but what are the two other boxes on top that the signal is routed through before the amp input?
Guessing from the profile and relative size compared to the Ibanez pedal, could they be some TC Elec pedals, esp being that the TC pedals were Danish origin and could make sense being used in a Danish studio. Could they be perhaps EQ or boost pedals?. The TS9 isn't plugged in in the pic but the two other boxes are chained into the input. The Blue cable I'm assuming is the line from the splitter box as it is pictured in the MoP studio pics later on. Same studio and same producer so highly likely that its the same splitter setup to that point.
I know James stated in interviews he used the TS9 into the Marshall but wasn't a big fan on the grainy tone and preferred a more natural amp tone. Kirk almost always boosts his Marshalls and amps with a TS9 in the studio evident from all the pics of his studio setups.
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I believe the other 2 boxes are the TC Electronic Dual Parametric EQ pedals. Kirk has stated that he used them on his leads for RTL. Could they have stuck one in front along with the TS9 to sculpt the tone a little for James as well? It’s possible, just never heard it mentioned before. Wouldn’t rule it out, though.
 
Looking back everything hit at once hendrix VH metallica. All happened in a very short time.
 
panhead said:
originality and innovation has been lost with technology
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Man i don’t think it’s that at all, there ar plenty of artists doing groundbreaking work with technology these days: whether or not you enjoy the music is a different question all together, but I choose not go go down the road of “back in my day”, it just hurts you as a player and your attitude towards it.

This is a hard one, but it’s the truth: nothing is going to hit you like the first time you heard your favorite bands at a young age: it just won’t. I rmemever the first time I heard pantera, or in flames clayman album, which is still a pinnacle of production and writing to me, and nothing comes close to that stuff for me. But it’s because I was new, young, brain like a sponge, and I simply had never heard anything like that or a tone like that in my life: as we get older, the nostalgia of those records etc stays with us, and we never are able to reach that again often, it’s just the way it is.

What I will say doesn’t happen as much anymore, is guys getting together and playing together in a room like a damn BAND. THAT has for sure changed, and you can’t get that feel playing to a computer and superior drummer, no matter how much I love technology nowadays, that’s a feel thing that many young generations aren’t going to experience. A true half stack blaring at you, learning how to control a high gain amp, the feel of it etc. hell many of these kids today have never even PLAYED a real amp, yet going around giving advice like they have, but it’s based on some type of simulation. Learning how to write good SONGS and not 30 second Instagram clips is the new Norm unfortunately.
 
VESmedic said:
Man i don’t think it’s that at all, there ar plenty of artists doing groundbreaking work with technology these days: whether or not you enjoy the music is a different question all together, but I choose not go go down the road of “back in my day”, it just hurts you as a player and your attitude towards it.

This is a hard one, but it’s the truth: nothing is going to hit you like the first time you heard your favorite bands at a young age: it just won’t. I rmemever the first time I heard pantera, or in flames clayman album, which is still a pinnacle of production and writing to me, and nothing comes close to that stuff for me. But it’s because I was new, young, brain like a sponge, and I simply had never heard anything like that or a tone like that in my life: as we get older, the nostalgia of those records etc stays with us, and we never are able to reach that again often, it’s just the way it is.

What I will say doesn’t happen as much anymore, is guys getting together and playing together in a room like a damn BAND. THAT has for sure changed, and you can’t get that feel playing to a computer and superior drummer, no matter how much I love technology nowadays, that’s a feel thing that many young generations aren’t going to experience. A true half stack blaring at you, learning how to control a high gain amp, the feel of it etc. hell many of these kids today have never even PLAYED a real amp, yet going around giving advice like they have, but it’s based on some type of simulation. Learning how to write good SONGS and not 30 second Instagram clips is the new Norm unfortunately.
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It’s called decline in the human race. It’s in every aspect of our daily lives and you pretty much blame it all on technology
 
LP Freak said:
It’s called decline in the human race. It’s in every aspect of our daily lives and you pretty much blame it all on technology
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Well I can agree on that. Atleast for how the younger generations act as a whole, And technology does give rise to more terrible music and terrible music and easy access to it: but I would argue that it has done just the opposite too, guitarists as a whole exceed much farther in their craft on a technical level than in any previous generation, and it has been like that for 30-40 years. Just excelling at a faster pace. I think this is just all perspective. I would’ve killed to have the technology kids have today and the millions of ways to learn how to be a better player. But also with the knowledge I have today.
 
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