How to sound like: Metallica (with sample and using only free Vst Plugins)

Hello everyone and welcome to the second episode of our "How to sound like" serie!

Today we will talk about a sound that is considered to be one of the most imitated of all times: Metallica's Black Album rhythm guitar tone!

This tone is considered to be one of the best guitar tones ever produced in heavy metal, and it was created with a guitar equipped with Emg active pickups through a Mesa Boogie Triaxis preamp, a Mesa Boogie Simul Class 2:90 power amp and a Mesa Cabinet.

The cabinet was microphoned with several microphones, but the producer, Bob Rock, always stated that a good part of the sound was achieved with a common Shure Sm57.

The sound is bassy, but with a surprisingly rich mid range and a medium amount of gain, that makes it very defined and sets hit somewhere between thrash metal and hard rock; the result is very euphonic.

To achieve a sound that tries to get close to the original one I have used (as you can see from the image) the amazing Tse audio Tube screamer simulator, the Mesa Boogie Dual Rectifier made by Lepou called LECTO and the best Free Impulse loader on the market: Ignite Amps NadIR. 

Then I have loaded in NadIR a free Impulse made by sampling the tone from the Enter Sandman song from the BGelais Metallica Golden Ir Pack, and I have just made the tweaks on the amp that you can see in the image.

If you feel that there is still too much midrange content compared to the original song, you can also lower the "tone" control from the Tube Screamer, even up to zero.

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