Heavy/power metal guitar sound

[Wise_One]

Hey everyone... A friend of mine keeps saying that this is the best place for recording advice and stuff so I decided to check it out.

I'm really new into the whole recording "process" and I'm doing it purely for my pleasure. I know that I have a lot to learn but hopefully by strolling in these fora I'll get there...

Anyhoo, I like playing heavy/power stuff like Judas Priest, Iced Earth, Virgin Steele, Gamma Ray, Iron Savior... you get it.

This setup, gives me a nice heavy dark sound, very suitable for rhythm. A lot Iced Earth-ish actually.

This is a demo, you will hear the rhythm guitar sound at about 0.45...

I have a Dean Vendetta 1.0, mahigany body, rosewood fretboard.

But what about the other bands? How can I "approach" their sound? Iron Savior and Gamma Ray have a very crystal clear sound, but Virgin Steele have this "crunch" high gain (I guess) sound...

If that is too complex to answer, maybe you could tell me the "fundamental tips" of the heavy/power guitar sound, I will then tweak the heck out the amps sims to get the sound I want. I'm in Eb tuning, don't know if it makes that of a difference... And a friend of mine will be installing the SH-4 JB SD on my bridge.

Sorry for the long post, as you see I;m still struggling to get the sound I like listening on albums...

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PS. Radikal, If you're reading this yes, I'm opening again this can of worms. It's a long way for the tone-seeking...

 

[KillDivision]

On the demo, your guitarsound is mono (1 guitar).
Always record (at least) 2 tracks guitar and pan them 10% left/right.
The sound will be much wider and heavier.

 

[Fragle]

On the demo, your guitarsound is mono (1 guitar).
Always record (at least) 2 tracks guitar and pan them 10% left/right.
The sound will be much wider and heavier.

you want to pan them 100% left/right, i'm sure that's a typo!

 

[Wise_One]

Yes, since it was merely a recording of riffs, I just did it on only one track...

 

[EETFUK]

hm, my first advice would be to use a marshall sim like LePou's HyBrit maybe boosted by a tubescreamer or rat pedal simulation (mokafix). Even if you're not using a marshall sim you should try to make it sound like one (turn up those kickass mids!) This is a major step to get a true heavy metal guitar sound :-D trust me!!!
In addition use cabinets IRs with greenback or g12t75 speakers! A good heavy metal tone is always very mid-heavy. further more i'd try to pan not more than 65 to 70% as thats all you could do on vinyl recordings.

You're talking 'bout Gamma Ray and Iron Savior...
when the whole power metal thing began to became more commercial they had better productions. So try cutting some lower mids (ca. 350 Hz) and maybe around 2.5 kHz to get a more polished sound. That'll give you a lot of that "clearness" you were talking about...

hope i could help ya a little