i pretty much have a shitty set up and am strapped for cash, so i have to deal with what i have. what you you suggest to help my sound for a black/death metal sort of sound. my set up now is a marshall MG100HDFX head, marshall 1936 lead 2 x 12 cabnet, im using a boss mt-2 pedal, and playing an ibanez RGT42DXFM. help me out

Well when I came around here asking for gear help everyone told me to lose the mt-2 pedal, so maybe you should look into playing without it. I did, and I'm way happier with the sound of my little peavey bandit 112 than I was with the pedal. I dunno, just my two cents. It depends on what you're going for I guess (I heard somewhere it works alright for black metal...)

In fact, you should wait until someone who knows what they're talking about comes and helps you.

I'd say you won't get a very good sound with that set-up, you'd better ditch the mt-2 and get a nice amp.

However, if you are on a realy tight budget, might I suggest you place an EQ after the MT-2? You'd be suprised how much tighter you can get it to sound. A 7-band one will do.

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i would work to replace the amp. sell it plus the mt2 and c how much you could get for it. if not that the mt2 souds better imo that the MG distortion. you may want to SLIGHTLY turn down the mids. if you've read on here before yes, they do help you cut through, but dimed mids may not be the right sound for BM. just work with th 2 EQs you have.

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I love the sound that dimed mids give me. But anyways, if you want to tighten up your sound maybe a Boss NS2 noise supressor is what you are looking for. Increase the threshold and decrease the decay until you get the desired amount of "tightness" in your sound. Hope that helped.
PS. Lose the MT2, amp distortion is almost always better than crappy pedals if EQ'd (using the amps bass,mid,treble controls) correctly.

If you could get about $300 or so for your mt-2 and the head then I would suggest getting a crate blue voodoo head. It sounds much better and its all tube.

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A blue voodoo for $300?

I dont think he's gonna get that for his stuff, a used mt-2 is worth $40 topps... and that MG100 head... well you'll have to find some sucker who doesnt know much about amps and rape him for $250 lol

I suggest playing without the mt-2 of course. You never said what kind of guitar your using. That has a big part of the sound of course. If you guitar sucks then dont even bother worrying about your sound.

Priority of equipment
1 - Good Guitar
2 - Good Amp Head
3 - Good Cabinet
4 - FX if you really need to...

Digitech (or similar) fx boards are "ok" but kind of fake sounding, an EQ would benefit you more then anything. Try playing with the settings on your amp, your better off without that mt-2.

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man i fucking hate distortion pedals...i presume the mt-2 is a distortion pedal or something..I'd ditch that shit. I run straight into an Ibanez SoundBlaster 50 and I get some decent tone and a nice tight sound. I'd suggest messing with the tone on your guitar (if you have one) and make it a bit sharper. That is probably the biggest change you can make to tightening up your sound. The alternative is to of course ditch the pedal and go straight into the amp. Cut some of the bass maybe or even cut out the mids (although I don't like to cuz it kind of cheapens the sound).

I'm not into really promoting my little "band" or whatever, but if you want to hear how my guitars soudn through my ibanez check it out here http://www.myspace.com/deedsoftheforsaken other than a tiny bit of tweaking of the EQ. The EQ is cuz the mic destroys some of the actual sound of the guitar.

Hope that helps?

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Or sell the cab also, as it is a great unit, and buy a combo. BV combo even. Arvina, a member here, might still be selling one.

well i have no idea what that marshall head goes for. I know when i sold my mt-2 i got $70.

and I bought my BV head for $299 used. That was at a music store too so thats a hell of a deal.

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ive got the combo version of the head and it is a piece of shit, hums like a barstard i suggest sell it and your pedal and maybe the cab and get something worth while

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The cab is worth a fair bit, get a BV combo.

We have a Blue Voodoo at work that I've been messing with. Sounds pretty nice (would sound much nicer without groove tubes though)

Still prefer the recto to it of course.

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tightening? put a booster infront of your distortion unit, and a noise gate after. The boost will compress the attack a little, and add some definate grit to the sound. I cant really describe what it does, but it does help. TS/OD 808 mannn

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They sell those heads at radioshack. Their $500 new, and RS is way overpriced. Thats also CDN $'s so take more off that price if you live in US.

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I would listen to him. Make sure that your your playing through your bridge pickup. And yes, plug straight into your amp. Distrotion pedals are too staticy, imo. The amps distortion is more raw. Also, try and experiment with string gauge. You'll just have to mess around with a lot of things.

Another thing could be your playing. Just practice with what you got and makke it sound killer. That way when you get better gear you'll be rippin it up like a mad man.

What radio shack do you go to that has guitar heads let alone a Crate Blue voodoo one?#)%&?

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haha yeah...I've sure never seen a radio shack with a guitar amp...maybe those beginner guitars...but not guitar amps...maybe he is talking about speaker amps...like for surround sound on home theatre stuff.

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Another common beginners mistake is to try play metal tuned in E. That only works for power metal and screechy black metal (and Opeth offcoarse )

Have you tried playing lower with different string gauges?

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How is that a mistake?

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fuck that. thats a load of bullshit. dont listen to him. the only reason i can think of to tune down is if a SINGER cant hit the notes.

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aaah delete that head man, delete it from existence.

Or get some amp modeler to run through it. I can speak from experience because its what I use, and I cannot get it to sound like anything other than ass on its own.

Disregard the whole tuning thing because, well, its wrong Psycroptic are pretty much in E (save for dropping the low E to D) and theyre savage as fuck.

Apart from that, I think the MorbidGuitar fellow hit it pretty much on the head.

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ROFL, thats the dumbest thing ive ever heard! A common beginner thing to do is to automatically think you have to de-tune to be heavy.

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not heavy. THIGHT!

But it realy depends on your strings and your guitar..

I'm talking about playing in D, not going to uber low sloppy C or B

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Buy an Ampeg vh140, dying fetus used these, suffocation did, some unique leader bands (cant remember). You should be able to pick one up used for under 300, really nice solid state for metal.

When I first started, I was putting my guitar in c standard and now its usually in e or drop d, I have a 7 string for that low shit now. That was definataly my mentality at the time though.

If you want a solid state amp thats good for metal that Ampeg VH140 is good, so is a Tech 21 Trademark300 and the older Randalls that are all solid state. I've never tried the Ampeg or the Tech 21, but I've heard good things about them. As for the Randall, IMO they have a nice tight low end and a somewhat gritty tone(in a good way of course) in comparison to tubes. I've never tried those newer Randall hybrids with the MOSFET unit, so i cant really say anything about those.

If you want a good/killer tone from your Marshall and MT-2 set it like this:

Amp on clean
Bass: 7
Mid: 10
Treble: 7
Gain: 4.5
Volume: 4

If you have a mid boost then boost the mids.

Metalzone:

Volume: Noon
High: Noon
Bass: 2 o'clock
Low mid: a little past 2o'clock
High mid: 3 o'clock
Gain: Wherever, preferably about half way.

But I do this through a JCM2000 with EMGs, so yeah it probably sounds a lot better. Instant Terrorizer/Inveracity style tones.

You've got a good cab and a working guitar, unfortunately your amp and pedal are not so great. So sell them both, you'll yield like 150-200$ tops.

Then buy a Crate Blue Voodoo 50, 50W valve head off ebay. No pedals needed, as it will cover you with incredible amounts of USEABLE gain.

I would not suggest the BV combo's because they cut a lot of corners on the power output transformer and other tiny things like the input jack and shit, so they're generally faulty. The head versions of the Blue Voodoo are of much higher build quality/more reliable, usually cheaper and are easier to find. Plus 50W tube is EXTREMELY loud, so it'll be more than sufficient for gigging and rehearsing, and can be tamed down for apartment volumes(even better if you buy an attenuator/power soak).

I just saw a 2 BV-50's go for 200$ and 210$ in the past 2 weeks on ebay, really really tempting to get one. Ampeg VH's are amazing and probably better than BV's for oldschool death metal but they will cost a little more than 300$.

Also check out in some new hot pickups. I wouldn't suggest actives for your axe because it alread probably sustains and sounds decent, so EMG's are unnecessary. So check out some Dimarzio or Seymour Duncans, particularily higher output dimarzios.

By the way fellows, the Boss NS2 doesn't tighten up sound, it just removes hum by smoothly fading the signal out when you stop playing so the hum/feedback that comes when you're not playing is hushed. It doesn't make you sound like Necrophagist or something, a good technique and a good amp will. Your tone can still sound like mushy shit even with an NS2.

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By the way look at this:

http://cgi.ebay.com/Crate-Blue-Vood...1QQcmdZViewItem

It's probably gonna sell for 250$, as there's 3 hours left, but that has a 1x12 v30 cab so without it you'd end up paying 200$ or less for the amp alone!

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if you want cranked marshall tone... which can be sweet to some people's ears... go for a laney protube 30 or 50 watt version... the 50 watt will be able to perferate your eardrum at max volume... keep that in mind. Theyre fucking loud, fucking heavy, sound like a boosted jcm800, and go for 200$

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Or a GH series, more expensive but are fucking brutal.

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lmao i love how i read this thread while im working at radio shack but yeah from what i know we dont carry any heads especialy not a bv cuz id be all over that shit.