Metallica’s Rigs 2023 tour

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Techdeth

Techdeth

RESIDENT ROCK PROFESSOR
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i've never been to a concert in a football stadium (the types of venues they play now) where the sound was even close to being good.
even if they brought out the c++'s, i doubt it would help much. The cell videos i've seen from this tour all sound like the sound is a coming from a mile away, even when its shot from the floor. I'm hoping to get some free tix from my boss to the detroit date with pantera so i can hear for myself. i can't afford metallica tickets.
 
best of all they can write them off as business expenses/tools
 
I saw them last night at MetLife stadium in New Jersey with my family . All I can say is Holy Crap . They brought it ! Up in the nosebleed seats which was ok . Too much echo going on but that was to be expected . I enjoyed the show ! I liked one of Hetfield explorer type ( mahogany ? ) guitars , probably a custom order .
 
klarran said:
I saw them last night at MetLife stadium in New Jersey with my family . All I can say is Holy Crap . They brought it ! Up in the nosebleed seats which was ok . Too much echo going on but that was to be expected . I enjoyed the show ! I liked one of Hetfield explorer type ( mahogany ? ) guitars , probably a custom order .
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The Ken Lawrence?



Fucking love that guitar, or any KL for that matter. When I saw them in ‘21 I was more psyched to see that than Greeny.

Edit- Man, listen to that sloppy performance. Kirk playing the solo that was on the record and not even throwing in any improvised blues licks, Lars actually thinking he’s holding a tempo, guitar tones that sound like Metal Zones going direct and most of all, the lack of people in that stadium. Good thing they’re saving on freight, they’ll need that money to make up for the loss of money on this tour. :rolleyes:
 
klarran said:
I saw them last night at MetLife stadium in New Jersey with my family . All I can say is Holy Crap . They brought it ! Up in the nosebleed seats which was ok . Too much echo going on but that was to be expected . I enjoyed the show ! I liked one of Hetfield explorer type ( mahogany ? ) guitars , probably a custom order .
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I wonder if our ears just get used to the new compressed tone? Listening to the 91 vid from 91 the amps sound sooo good. regarding the new rigs, it's interesting that they use matrix power amps -that's typically for traditional cabs.

Current tone is crap compared to albums and 80's 90's live tones. Surprised they can't get it a little better with Fractal. I'm betting using fractal is partially done to have the same tone every night and not have to mess with tubes.
 
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I mean, I doubt most guitar players, even the obsessive ones on forums like us, would even think twice about it if you heard a band playing live going full digital with the Axe-Fx, as long as the band had believable looking dummy amp and cab rigs setup on stage. And if the Axe-Fx was routed to a good poweramp (even a solid state poweramp) and one of those stage cabs, forget it. Nobody is going to be able to tell. You're fooling yourself if you think otherwise.

Metallica, as much as I like their older stuff, started going down the Bad Tone path long before they started using Axe-Fx's. IMO James' tone, especialy his live tone, stopped being great the minute he started blending Diezels into his sound. I've also heard people I trust say his EMG Het Set is also partly responsible for his mushy tone these days too.

At this point, modeling, especially Fractal's modeling, is good enough that if it produces bad tone, it's not the modeler's fault.


Also... Metallica's live tone hasn't always been consistently overwhelmingly awesome, even in the 90's:



Tell me that rhythm tone isn't about as "digital sounding" (if that word actually means anything, which it doesn't) as it gets. Relatively narrow bandwidth and no dynamics at all, nothing particularly elusive about the character of the crunch, etc. The performance is great of course, it's 90's Metallica after all, but if you told people it came from a modeler, and modelers existed at the time like they do now, they'd probably believe you.
 
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TheGreatGreen said:
I mean, I doubt most guitar players, even the obsessive ones on forums like us, would even think twice about it if you heard a band playing live going full digital with the Axe-Fx, as long as the band had believable looking dummy amp and cab rigs setup on stage. And if the Axe-Fx was routed to a good poweramp (even a solid state poweramp) and one of those stage cabs, forget it. Nobody is going to be able to tell. You're fooling yourself if you think otherwise.

Metallica, as much as I like their older stuff, started going down the Bad Tone path long before they started using Axe-Fx's. IMO James' tone, especialy his live tone, stopped being great the minute he started blending Diezels into his sound. I've also heard people I trust say his EMG Het Set is also partly responsible for his mushy tone these days too.

At this point, modeling, especially Fractal's modeling, is good enough that if it produces bad tone, it's not the modeler's fault.
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I have the new Het Set in an old LP. They sound killer. Best sounding EMG's I've tried. YMMV
 
headlessdeadguy said:
I have the new Het Set in an old LP. They sound killer. Best sounding EMG's I've tried. YMMV
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Hah good to know!

Even if it's not the pickups though, if Metallica has bad tone these days it's not flatly because of "the modeling" but rather how it's dialed in.
 
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Some of this has to do with FOH and stage volume issues. Fix? Jerry Cantrell uses his regular rig off stage and mic's it to the house.
 
They mailed it in years ago. This is the next logical step.
 
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