New Metallica song. I'm curious what everyone thinks

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Kirk's solo should have had a wah in it. 🤣

I'm serious though. Everybody rags on him because he overuses wah, and he totally does, but I love it. It's his signature, and credit where it's due, he sounds good with it. He knows how to use a wah as well as anybody. It's rough to listen to wah when it's used by guitar players who don't know what they're doing, and just do that awful thing where they rock back and fourth exactly in sync with their picking hand and never get expressive with it. Kirk doesn't do that, he makes it flow. That's his voice. I think he should stick with it at this point.
 
TheGreatGreen said:
What do you mean by "digital?" Please describe what "digital" sounds like.

Reason I ask is because 99% of the time when people describe sound as "digital" what they're really saying is simply "I don't like it."
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TheGreatGreen said:
Kirk's solo should have had a wah in it. 🤣

I'm serious though. Everybody rags on him because he overuses wah, and he totally does, but I love it. It's his signature, and credit where it's due, he sounds good with it. He knows how to use a wah as well as anybody. It's rough to listen to wah when it's used by guitar players who don't know what they're doing, and just do that awful thing where they rock back and fourth exactly in sync with their picking hand and never get expressive with it. Kirk doesn't do that, he makes it flow. That's his voice. I think he should stick with it at this point.
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You're joking, right? With a few rare exceptions, Kirk is a godawful wah player and has been since 91 at least. That's when he just went completely overboard with it. Off the top of my head, Dave Murray and Michael Amott are two guys that use the wah far more effectively and tastefully than Kirk in a metal context. Even Slash, (ok, he's hard rock not metal) is a master at wah compared to Kirk.
 
Now Kirk's solo isn't the only thing that's shitty....



"Lax Eternal"

Constipation
Its Domination
A Sea Of Farts Release As One, Putrefied
Mira-Laxation
Not So Gentle Sensations
Approaching Bathroom, Awaiting My Plight

Full Bowl Or Nothing
Full Bowl Or Nothing

Lax Eternal
Lax Eternal

Excrement Exportation
Anal Vibrations
Kind Of Hard To Keep It Inside
Concentration
Chronic Defecation
Crap Out The Dung That Is Causing This Strife

Full Bowl Or Nothing
Full Bowl Or Nothing

Lax Eternal
Lax Eternal, Yeah

Lax Eternal

 
thegame said:
You're joking, right? With a few rare exceptions, Kirk is a godawful wah player and has been since 91 at least. That's when he just went completely overboard with it. Off the top of my head, Dave Murray and Michael Amott are two guys that use the wah far more effectively and tastefully than Kirk in a metal context. Even Slash, (ok, he's hard rock not metal) is a master at wah compared to Kirk.
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I'm not saying Kirk is the best wah guy in the world or anything close to it, I'm just saying I'm the guy who still gets a kick out of Kirk and his wah. I dunno, I just like what he does with it and it makes me grin when I hear it. Partly because I think it's funny in a "there's ole' Kirk being Kirk" kinda way and partly because I do think he makes geniunely cool noises with it every once in a while in between those moments of him being a caricature of himself with it the rest of the time. But shit man if that Lux Eternal solo is anything to go by, at least the wah might give us something more interesting to listen to than... whatever that was.
 
James use to have the awesomest tones . Since Greg took over engineering his tone became bland and same old shit . This included . Shit even his St Anger vh4 was huge and killer.
 
It's sad but inspiring that the bands I listened to when I was a teen are coming out with good new music, touring in some cases, etc. I would rather have
Techdeth said:
Idk what he means about this song . But axe fx and things like still do have a digital sheen that’s hard to describe. But I don’t hear it on this song
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I know what he means. There is a sizzle and slight drop in low end that I hear. It is not horrible but doesn't sound like tubes to me. I still dig the tones though.
 
I recall hearing rust in peace for the first time. I knew it was crushing from the first note. This is nothing like that experience. These guys will never produce another crushing masterpiece in their lifetime...
 
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Nothing I "need" in my catalog, but it wasn't a bad song by any means. A lot better than pretty much anything since Garage Inc. in MY opinion...
 
romanianreaper said:
It's sad but inspiring that the bands I listened to when I was a teen are coming out with good new music, touring in some cases, etc. I would rather have

I know what he means. There is a sizzle and slight drop in low end that I hear. It is not horrible but doesn't sound like tubes to me. I still dig the tones though.
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To me it sounds like the hardwired tone only louder
 
Beandust said:
Not bad, definitely seems to be a digital sound , the guitar solo, is that the ascending phrase from sandman? Damn then the whammy stuff, he hit the wall I think maybe he just couldn't shred to the riff or even nasty it up a bit, he must be reading his press clippings, no wah? Is it really him🤔
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Lmao, where do you guys come up with this shit? Have any of you seen the inside of Metallica tracking sessions the last decade or so? There’s still nothing but amps in here.


Yes…. They went to a studio with a neve console, to run their axe fx into it…. lol GTFOH
 
VESmedic said:
Lmao, where do you guys come up with this shit? Have any of you seen the inside of Metallica tracking sessions the last decade or so? There’s still nothing but amps in here.


Yes…. They went to a studio with a neve console, to run their axe fx into it…. lol GTFOH
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This . The tone sounds like hardwired anyway . But louder . The guitar tone is not much different this time . Just a tad
 
Techdeth said:
This . The tone sounds like hardwired anyway . But louder . The guitar tone is not much different this time . Just a tad
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Personally I like this tone. It doesn’t hold a candle to the old days when they were breaking new ground with every album tonally but it’s at least got some crunch to it, unlike that weird ball-less Death Magnetic tone. If it was a different band people would probably say it’s a killer tone.
 
VESmedic said:
Lmao, where do you guys come up with this shit? Have any of you seen the inside of Metallica tracking sessions the last decade or so? There’s still nothing but amps in here.


Yes…. They went to a studio with a neve console, to run their axe fx into it…. lol GTFOH
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Yeah… high end amps with top tier microphones into an actual Neve console sounds digital and like shit… it’s not raw like my iPhone camera hahaha
 
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romanianreaper said:
It's sad but inspiring that the bands I listened to when I was a teen are coming out with good new music, touring in some cases, etc. I would rather have

I know what he means. There is a sizzle and slight drop in low end that I hear. It is not horrible but doesn't sound like tubes to me. I still dig the tones though.
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There is a very audible layer of upper harmonics in the sound yes but I wouldn't say it's due to anything being digital. Tube amps do that, they output consant super high range, fizzy sounding upper harmonics, especially modern high gain amps. It sounds more to me like whoever mixed the song either didn't know how to dial in the amp, or didn't know how to properly mic the cab, or didn't apply enough low pass on the guitars, or some mix of all three. Poor digital tech can produce audible aliasing but the band is using Axe-Fx's when they use digital (which we have no evidence for here) and Fractal stuff doesn't have audible aliasing (per Fractal's measurements, about -55 db to -60 db and continuously declining from there for anything occupying guitar frequencies, which is absolutely inaudible for high gain tones).

As far as the low frequencies go, the lack of low end sounds to me more like a (poor, imo) mixing decision than anything else. Besides, modelers can output as much or more lows than any tube amp so there's really nothing inherently digital about a lack of low end. What does happen though, is that everybody and their mom always shouts the old dogma that "guitars are a MID RANGE instrument and NOTHING ELSE so you HAVE TO make room for the bass by cutting out everything below 400 Hz or whatever, or else you won't be able to hear the bass player!" and guys who don't know what they're doing neuter the guitar tone, like has happened here.

Basically, I think the guitars we're hearing on this record are the product of one or more people who just weren't able to deliver a quality sounding high gain tone. Digital has nothing to do with it. We have to remember that great sounding high gain is an exceedingly hard thing to just come up with from nothing. If you think about it, the vast majority of all the high gain guitar tones ever recorded straight up fucking blow. That's not just a coincidence. Basically if you're anything other than totally devoted to metal production, chances are you're just going to get metal guitars wrong.

If you take a look at Greg Fieldman's previous work, you'll see that he does have some metal albums under his belt, but not many, and the ones he does have mixing experience with, well all I can say is that I'm not a fan of the guitar tones. They're ok but again they're certainly nowhere near what Metallica has been able to achieve in the past.

Bram576 said:
Yeah… high end amps with top tier microphones into an actual Neve console sounds digital and like shit… it’s not raw like my iPhone camera hahaha
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Kind of like as long as you have a really fast F1 car, any dude off the street can set great lap times and totally won't slingshot themselves off the track before the end of the first corner, right?

Similarly, the best guitar gear and mics can absolutely sound like shit and probably will sound like shit unless you know *exactly* what you're doing.

It's the driver, not the car.
 
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TheGreatGreen said:
There is a very audible layer of upper harmonics in the sound yes but I wouldn't say it's due to anything being digital. Tube amps do that, they output consant super high range, fizzy sounding upper harmonics, especially modern high gain amps. It sounds more to me like whoever mixed the song either didn't know how to dial in the amp, or didn't know how to properly mic the cab, or didn't apply enough low pass on the guitars, or some mix of all three. Poor digital tech can produce audible aliasing but the band is using Axe-Fx's, and it doesn't have audible aliasing (per Fractal's measurements, about -55 db to -60 db and continuously declining from there for anything occupying guitar frequencies, which is absolutely inaudible for high gain tones).

As far as the low frequencies go, the lack of low end sounds to me more like a (poor, imo) mixing decision than anything else. Besides, modelers can output as much or more lows than any tube amp so there's really nothing inherently digital about a lack of low end. What does happen though, is that everybody and their mom always shouts the old dogma that "guitars are a MID RANGE instrument and NOTHING ELSE so you HAVE TO make room for the bass by hard passing everything below 400 Hz or whatever, or else you won't be able to hear the bass player!" and guys who don't know what they're doing neuter the guitar tone, like has happened here.

Basically, I think the guitars we're hearing on this record are the product of one or more people who just weren't able to deliver a quality sounding high gain tone. Digital has nothing to do with it. Great sounding high gain is an exceedingly hard thing to just come up with from nothing. If you think about it, the vast majority of all the high gain guitar tones ever recorded straight up fucking blow. That's not just a coincidence. Basically if you're anything other than totally devoted to metal production, chances are you're just going to get metal guitars wrong.

If you take a look at Greg Fieldman's previous work, you'll see that he does have some metal albums under his belt, but not many, and the ones he does have mixing experience with, well all I can say is that I'm not a fan of the guitar tones. They're ok but again they're certainly nowhere near what Metallica has been able to achieve in the past.



Kind of like as long as you have a really fast F1 car, any dude off the street can set great lap times and totally won't slingshot themselves off the track before the end of the first corner, right?

It's the driver, not the car.

Similarly, the best guitar gear and mics can absolutely sound like shit and actually, it's more likely than not that they probably will sound like shit unless you know *exactly* what you're doing.
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A round of applause here please… so much yes on this post. Stop high passing your guitars so high, it sounds fucking terrible. And wrong. Also agreed on the low end was definitely a mix decision, albeit of course you can only fit so much into a mix…. But, how much more could’ve they fit? Who knows, the kick definitely tried to make up for it, it definitely sounds great.
 
VESmedic said:
Lmao, where do you guys come up with this shit? Have any of you seen the inside of Metallica tracking sessions the last decade or so? There’s still nothing but amps in here.


Yes…. They went to a studio with a neve console, to run their axe fx into it…. lol GTFOH
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Yeah I don't think Kirk would care so much but James....no way in HELL he would track with anything digital. He's a total gear nut and covets his gear. It used to drive Bob Rock nuts because he would spend days jamming through different guitars and amps to search for a sound he wanted.
 
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