Need advice / tips to get a Sick Of It All-like guitar tone

Heabow

More cowbell!
Aug 24, 2011
1,992
31
48
France
Hey all!

I'm working on a new project and I'm looking for a gritty guitar tone ala Sick Of It All 'Based On A True Story'. I don't know nothing about the gear or the mixing details on this album. It sounds like Madsen used not much disto on the amps but tons of saturation later on but everything I tried did not work at all in that direction. Does someone could give me advices to get such a tone?



Thanks a lot!!
 
Hi man! Why did you think there is not much dist? As far as I can hear, there is a HUGE amount of gain coming from his amps and some saturation after that. For that kind of sound start with a proper overdrive pedal. As for me, a tubescreamer would not be the best choice here, it's better to use something like Boss SD-1/MXR ZW44, as such kind of pedal can bring you more attack to overall guitar sound. If one pedal wound not be enough, you can use two pedals, that's ok, just find the best settings with a good amount of overdrive and attack. As for an amp, 5150 or Marshall would be a good choice here. As for a cab, 1960+SM57 anyway. And spice that sound with a little amount of Massey Tape Saturator in a normal mode. Don't run it too hot, make sure it's just smoothing high frequencies on guitars(and not distorting low frequencies here).
 
Used to LOVE SOIA... as i recall, back in the day, he used a Gibson SG gothic, mesa dual rec and a Metal Zone for 'tone-shaping'