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

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I'm sure that I read an interview with James Hetfield with him stating that he used Kirk's Marshall on Ride The Lightning with a tube screamer, i'm almost positive about this. He said they looked everywhere for a replacement to the stolen Jose Modded Marshall James owned but couldn't find anything he was 100% happy to record with. So what is it James???
 
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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Triple tracking too... one track left, one right and one down the center (called the thickener). I'm sure there is alot of EQ'ing on that tone too, they did that a lot in the 80's.
 
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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Im basing this off 70`s and early 80s. These bands all sounded different. Then the record companies started 3-4 clones of the most popular bands every other month. The last of it was STP AIC etc. After 2000 its been rehashed bullshit. Now there is no record business.
 
panhead said:
Im basing this off 70`s and early 80s. These bands all sounded different. Then the record companies started 3-4 clones of the most popular bands every other month. The last of it was STP AIC etc. After 2000 its been rehashed bullshit. Now there is no record business.
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Sure, but that has nothing to do with the reason why there is no record business. There’s no record business becsuse musicians were idiots and so was the business as a whole, and didn’t adapt with the times. The writing was on the wall when Napster hit the airwaves. The film industry? They weren’t idiots, and adapted and realized where their industry was headed, and got ahead of it. Sure, there still isn’t huge budgets for movies anymore like there used to be, but the record industry is a faint cry from where it used to be.
 
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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I hear ya. Lately, Royal Blood has kicked my ass, and Teenage Wrist in 2018 floored me...QOTSA in 2012 too.
 
anomaly said:
Triple tracking too... one track left, one right and one down the center (called the thickener). I'm sure there is alot of EQ'ing on that tone too, they did that a lot in the 80's.
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I remember reading Flemm talk about the eq- it was really aggressive. The only thing I recall is doing a hi pass (maybe around 100) and boosting the crap out of 160. I do that now and it sounds amazing with pretty much any amp

I also think that besides the typical multiple track rhythms, they added extra guitar tracks that played only the big palm muted sections to give extra chunk.
Which I think contradicts a lot of tutorials I see these days, people encouraging to use a multi-band compressor to tame those big palm mutes (?). Isn't that the opposite? I tend to go with no compressor on high gain tracks and I like early Metallica, so no multi-band here. I need to try that extra palm mute track trick....
 
crankyrayhanky said:
I remember reading Flemm talk about the eq- it was really aggressive. The only thing I recall is doing a hi pass (maybe around 100) and boosting the crap out of 160. I do that now and it sounds amazing with pretty much any amp

I also think that besides the typical multiple track rhythms, they added extra guitar tracks that played only the big palm muted sections to give extra chunk.
Which I think contradicts a lot of tutorials I see these days, people encouraging to use a multi-band compressor to tame those big palm mutes (?). Isn't that the opposite? I tend to go with no compressor on high gain tracks and I like early Metallica, so no multi-band here. I need to try that extra palm mute track trick....
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When recording I've never used compression on hjgh gain tracks, it just sucks all of the punch out of the guitar tone. I don't think it's a common practice in metal recording either because high gain guitar tone is already fairly compressed. It just doesn't need any extra compression. Clean tones on the other hand, that's another story.

I wouldn't doubt that about the paml muted sections, especially on Justice. Like that bridge section on "Blackend" it sounds like they may have added some extra track(s) on those fat palm mutes. That's a killer riff.
 
Most of the time on most bands back in the day it was a run of the mill amp. the studio did the rest. Fuck a plug in bullshit computer crap. What youre hearing is a compressor//s.Ones that set you back 50-60k most have never heard one work its magic less even seen one in person. Such as fairchild 670 etc. AC/DC carried a whole rack around with them regardless of the studio.
 
anomaly said:
When recording I've never used compression on hjgh gain tracks, it just sucks all of the punch out of the guitar tone. I don't think it's a common practice in metal recording either because high gain guitar tone is already fairly compressed. It just doesn't need any extra compression. Clean tones on the other hand, that's another story.

I wouldn't doubt that about the palm muted sections, especially on Justice. Like that bridge section on "Blackend" it sounds like they may have added some extra track(s) on those fat palm mutes. That's a killer riff.
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Overall compression on guitar tracks, yes absolutely not , total no no in my and many others opinion who actually make records. But, multi band compression is a totally different thing, and is very very much used on modern metal guitar tracking, has been for decades. Compressing certain frequency’s at only certain thresholds is a totally different ideology. Sneap and many others have been doing that for years, it’s an excellent way to tame palm mutes. Compressing say, 80-250hz just by a hair on big palm mutes that only opens on those huge palm mutes and not on other parts of a recorded riff, is a very common technique. And yes, high gain literally IS compression to the max , I have no idea why I see people advocating the use of compression on an overall guitar stem, complete and utter nonsense.
 
crankyrayhanky said:
I remember reading Flemm talk about the eq- it was really aggressive. The only thing I recall is doing a hi pass (maybe around 100) and boosting the crap out of 160. I do that now and it sounds amazing with pretty much any amp

I also think that besides the typical multiple track rhythms, they added extra guitar tracks that played only the big palm muted sections to give extra chunk.
Which I think contradicts a lot of tutorials I see these days, people encouraging to use a multi-band compressor to tame those big palm mutes (?). Isn't that the opposite? I tend to go with no compressor on high gain tracks and I like early Metallica, so no multi-band here. I need to try that extra palm mute track trick....
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Multi-band is nice when you get too much bloom & swell in the low-mid and bass regions when doing big chunky mutes. You can have a relatively killer tone and those palm mutes just bloom and get too loud in the context of the mix. It can really be a life saver.
 
crankyrayhanky said:
I remember reading Flemm talk about the eq- it was really aggressive. The only thing I recall is doing a hi pass (maybe around 100) and boosting the crap out of 160. I do that now and it sounds amazing with pretty much any amp

I also think that besides the typical multiple track rhythms, they added extra guitar tracks that played only the big palm muted sections to give extra chunk.
Which I think contradicts a lot of tutorials I see these days, people encouraging to use a multi-band compressor to tame those big palm mutes (?). Isn't that the opposite? I tend to go with no compressor on high gain tracks and I like early Metallica, so no multi-band here. I need to try that extra palm mute track trick....
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Sounds legit. I recall Bob Rock talking about Hetfields tone around and accentuating and capturing a certain freq band but he didn't want to specify as James is very protective of his sound. I think a good solid boost around 150-160 seems to help getting closer to his sound.
 
Outboard studio compressors were used frequently on guitar tracks in the 70s & 80s when guitarists were playing much louder and with much cleaner amps. I used to read EQ magazine in the early 90s which had tons of interviews with producers and engineers. I agree it’s not nearly as necessary with 5150 style amps that basically output a square wave super compressed non dynamic signal. I don’t think the setup in question (JMP + TS boost which can now be viewed as a classic rock setup) is nearly as compressed sounding as a typical modern amp coming out of the cabinet, so the RTL tone was partially built and crafted by such outboard gear. The result was a game changer in production values on metal recordings.
 
I remember at the time they first came out, the the ep was a small ad in the back of circus magazine, I bought it.. it was a cool crucnh tone at the time but I remember a lot of bands had a similar sound, raven, anthax, anvil... the punk/skate band the faction sounded the same lol. They certainly started to stand out with ride the lightening as far as the songs, then master of puppets was the last album I bought from them.. seemed like everybody was going for that sound, even judas priest... ugh
 
I understand the sentiment, but I think I must be in the minority. I believe music is the same as it ever was, meaning “back in the day” I had to search to find cool music and something new and different. Same as today, got to look for it, it’s never been spoon fed to me
 
James is known to dislike compression. In fact Bob Rock mentioned that he even didn't want his guitars going through the mix bus comp on the black album so Bob had to group the drums vocals and bass and route the guitars to their own uncompressed bus.
 
DanTravis62 said:
I'm with the old school guys on this one, Andy sneap style cookie cutter metal mixing has completely homogenized heavy music.
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exactly. the more important question is: do I listen to any records he has produced? and the answer is unfortunately no.

also compression on guitars is the anti-heavy metal. that’s for country.
 
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