Opeth Sound - Gear and tips

[Nexis]

The PRS Custom 24 is the best sounding guitar I've ever played in my life, by far. The sustain, resonance and general richness of the sound surpasses everything else I've played. I found absolutely nothing generic about it in the least.

it's a great guitar, I just can't stand that "Santana sound" that's so easy to get from it. listen to the solos on the lamentations dvd. it sounds lik santana is doing one of his duets things he does nto with Mikael and the band. it's such a horrible generic sound. obviously you can get amazing sounds out of a PRS, I'm not denying that. just listen to the albums. I just hate that one sound, and that makes me wary of any PRS guitars. that and because theyre waaaay overpriced.

 

[affinityband]

u probably hated it b/c u didn't know how to use it, or your gear isn't good enough to support it. Dont bash the gt6, b/c i have one and get incredible tone from it.

I have got a gt8 and the pre amp sounds are awful. Its actually made so self concious about the sound because i could fiddle for hours and not get the right tone. He is absoloutley right that it is digital, next time im goin for a vox multi fx that has valves in it.

 

[NoQuarter]

I find that I get a pretty close Opeth sound with my rig.. Clean and Distorted

-2002 Gibson Les Paul PP (BB Pro's.. I know these are vintage pickups, but I can dial in amps correctly)

-5150 Combo (on rhythm channel, use crunch switch for leads)

Fender Hot Rod Deluxe (cleans, any fender amp will do the Opeth clean sound on the bridge pickup of a mahogany guitar)

Mike uses the Full Shred/Full Shred combo in his guitars. You can tell because they are the allen head pole pieces. It seems as if Peter might have the same set in one or two of his guitars, but most of the time it's the Dragon II (stock in most PRS). I find that having a decent pickup in a mahogany bodied guitar through my 5150 will create Opeth if you have the chops!

This setup gets me closest to Still Life's distorted tone. (They used Les Pauls and 5150s for rhythm work on that album.. also on MAYH ). Again, the clean tone is really nice, but if you got the chops you can make it work on any decent vintage-like clean amp.

I also have a Mexican Fender Strat that I hot-rodded by changing pickguard, pickups, knobs, etc.. but I put a high output bridge humbucker in it (Custom 5). It definitely gets more of an Opeth sound with a higher output pickup, but in the Alder it's a little shrill for Opeth. You could probably associate it with more of the nasally midrange of Orchid and Morningrise. I love the tone on these albums though! Don't get me wrong! Just more of an "effects" pedal distortion.

 

[David Aaronson]

u probably hated it b/c u didn't know how to use it, or your gear isn't good enough to support it. Dont bash the gt6, b/c i have one and get incredible tone from it.

I think Jackson Soloist 2 USA and Engl Powerball are good enough.
Maybe it's the exact opposite question: if you have a not good equipment, you can make better sound with GT6/8, but, on the other side, if you have some kickass gear, the sound would be worse than without Gt.

it's only my think

 

[Led Opeth]

my friend had a Boss ME-50 pedal and he owned the damnation tone, i dont know why everyone is saying how bad the gt6 and gt8 are

 

[affinityband]

I have a gt8 and whn you listen that and a real amp. My god you will shoot yourself for wasting £300 on one. It is organised though which is good. Im probably just going to end up bypassing the sound eventually. Digital edgy crap to warm tasty power valves.

 

[Larsson]

Not the best thing you can by for money in other words.

 

[affinityband]

Exactly. Just make sure you buy something because of how it sounds. Not just because Opeth have pretty much the same thing. I done it with my amp and pedal. The amp is stunning though and such a good price.

 

[JoeVice]

do you think, guys, is it possible to reach the same sound of Damnation with a Laney VC15 too? (instead of VC30)

I've found a good deal about it
thx!

i have a vc30...which is a sweet sounding amp with some neat options. i played the 15 watt version of the lc series once...which is pretty much the same thing (can't remember the difference)...anywho, i liked it better. it had more heat and shimmer.

*edit* this is something that i heard once...that the vh100 was used for the cleans on damnation. the official sight doesn't list the vc30 for equipment used during recording. and, i swear that in some interview once, i heard mike say that they used the same amp to do the cleans on everything...which doesn't prove anything...so i don't know why i mentioned it. now, my vc30 is a very compressed sounding amp. it has a lot of punch, and dynamic response, since it is somewhat class a, but it always rings for a long time. when listening to windowpain, you must notice the lack of compression in the opening riff. it is very hard to get that sound out of the vc30. but, the beginning of in my time of need definetely has the swelling compression and warmth of the vc30...i dunno....also, i have heard that the vh100 has stunningly beautiful cleans. from reviews that i have read on harmony central, some claim that they prefer the cleans from that metal beast over the cleans of a fender or a vox. hmmmm....i dunno. i have always wondered about this. if i ever get a chance to talk to mike, i will ask him.