J. Killing Fizz

I go into this process in more detail on the EQ'ing Page.

Sometimes a distortion tone will have some fizz to it. If this is just a lot of crackly high-end that can be fixed by rolling off the highs, I use a Mid-Focus EQ to do that. Also, consider a lot of the cabs/mics are rather noisy by nature, and you can't dial this out without losing a lot of the guitar tone. I like the SM 57 mics and the Hiway 4x12 as they seem to have the least noise.

Sometimes you still get an annoying fizzy sound stands out in the tone. You can eliminate it by using a Parametric EQ with a high Q value. Set your Looper to Pre position and record some playing that emphasizes the fizzy spot. Then use a Parametric EQ behind your amp, set the Q high (95%) and gain relatively high. Now sweep through the frequencies until the fizzy spot is overbearing, completely wrecking your tone. Set the Gain back to 50% and slowly dial it downwards. Stop when the fizzy spot is no longer standing out. If you cut to 0%, the fizzy spot will be gone, but it will also sound like someone took a knife to your tone.

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K. Mids for Metal

For more on EQ'ing, see the EQ'ing Page.

The key aspects of a metal tone are punch (200-350 HZ range), warmth (350-550), and "cold djent"(850-1400). Without these, your tone will simply sound weak or harsh when cranked up; and it won't cut through a mix. Which of these is most emphasized will define your tone; but even with one emphasized, you still want the others to be there.

I like to cut around 650 HZ (what I call "honk") to make the tone sound more metal and scooped, but if you cut too much your tone disappears, especially in a mix. Try to make the cut somewhat narrow - not too narrow or it'll sound off, and only cut a bit - don't completely kill those frequencies. I'll often complement this with a wide boost of all the midrange, with a peak around 1 kHZ.

If you want a good metalcore tone, you need plenty of punch. Old Metallica tone emphasized the hot djent area around 2 kHZ, which gets a good palm mute bite but can be a bit harsh. Warmth is the key to a really creamy lead tone.

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L. Dual Cab

For more on using dual cabs, see here.

I find none of the stock cabs give me a rock solid frequency response from the Earth-shaking lows to shattered-glass highs. So I like to set up patches that use 2 cabs. I almost always use the Hiway and XXL 4x12's. The Hiway is nice and bright and has great mids, while the XXL provides the punch and extreme low-end that thickens up the tone.

To do this I have to use dual amps, but I use the same amp on both, and the same amp DEP and drive settings. I want the amp tone to be nearly identical, but since the different cabs have different frequency responses, I do vary EQ between them. Sometimes certain frequencies will sound better on one cab than the other, so I'll emphasize them on that one and turn them down on the other. Sometimes it sounds best when they both have the same settings - experiment with each control for both amps.

You want to pan both channels to center in the mixer, and you may need to level them relative to each other. I'm going for a nice mono tone coming out the mixer, where the cabs are blended together. You can put stereo effects behind either amp or the mixer and still have stereo space to the tone.

The tricky part is depending on your cab/mic selections, you may get comb filtering, because one cab is slightly delayed compared to the other. I'd advise trying to stick to cab/mic combinations that seem to be in-phase. For instance, I like to use the Hiway with SM57 on axis and the XXL with SM57 on axis or 409 Dyn. These seem to work nicely together.

For other combinations, you may notice the tone is a bit wonky or the high-end is getting smothered. You have to try to phase correct the two cabs. You can do this by adding one or more EQ effects after one of the amps before the mixer. An EQ effect slightly delays the signal (even if it has no effect on the frequency response) and can achieve at least partial if not full phase correction. I'd advise you to follow the link above for a more detailed process on how to do this.

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