Get all your news in one place.
100’s of premium titles.
One app.
Start reading
MusicRadar
MusicRadar
Entertainment
Rob Laing

Metallica fan recreates James Hetfield's Ride The Lightning guitar tone with a Marshall JCM 800 and Tube Screamer

Metallica

When you grow up listening Metallica and playing electric guitar, the tone of their seminal records can often feel like an unobtainable goal as you wonder why a Boss Metal Zone and a Marlin Sidewinder through a Gorilla amp isn't making you sound like The Call Of Ktulu. Tell that to Australian YouTuber LambChopper678 – he keeps getting spookily close.

Admittedly, he invests in the right gear, and after his impressive work on the Master Of Puppets rhythm tone with Neural DSP Mesa/Boogie Mark C++ plugin (and producer Flemming Rasmussen's notes from the sessions), he's turned his attention to its 1984 predecessor, Ride The Lightning.

No Boogies here; Metallica's James Hetfield and Kirk Hammett used a JCM 800, dimed with a Tube Screamer. But, as always, there's a little more to trying to recreate an iconic metal record's tone at home than that and LambChopper678 always goes the extra mile. The results speak for themselves. 

As well as a TS-9, he adds the Master Effects PMEQ pedal to simulate the recording console's character. This is a three-band parametric EQ that was actually designed for players to get closer to the Master Of Puppets studio tone that used the Aphex EQF-2.

The Fortin Zuul+ is then used as a noise gate to keep everything tight, and Empress Effects Reverb adds ambience. 

And don't worry about those parrots in the video, there's no cabs blasting in the room – headphone monitoring with Two Notes Torpedo Captor X saves their little birdy ears. 

Subscribe to LambChopper678 on Youtube 

Sign up to read this article
Read news from 100’s of titles, curated specifically for you.
Already a member? Sign in here
Related Stories
Top stories on inkl right now
One subscription that gives you access to news from hundreds of sites
Already a member? Sign in here
Our Picks
Fourteen days free
Download the app
One app. One membership.
100+ trusted global sources.