Hey welcome back to the show everyone, let's check out the brand new parametric EQ from Master FX Pedals which is modelled off the EQ that pretty much gave Master of Puppets an injustice for all the secret sauce to that tone, so let's check it out. I guess for all you Metallica fans out there, that have been down the rabbit hole trying to research the Master of Puppets tone, the holy grail of guitar I think, you would get no further than the producer being Flemming Rasmussen. And I'm sure you're all aware that he released a whole lot of notes and information about the recording sessions of Master of Puppets.
Puppets and Injustice for All and lays out all the gear and specs and microphones and everything that they used on production on those albums which is really cool. So that being said the main ingredient that was used on all those albums was the Meza Boogie Mark 2C Plus and the B&B Affix EQF2. It was an EQ designed for consoles and studios which offered a complex array of different switching for shelving and pass filters and these sorts of things. Having a look through all Fleming's notes in the recording sessions of March. master of puppets.
You'll notice that all the rhythm tracks for all the different songs, the EQ of two switching was all the same throughout. There were adjustments for the tunable EQ and all the parameters within, but the switching stayed the same. I guess that takes us now to the parametric EQ from Master FX and how it was actually designed to capture the essence of the EQF2. So with the EQF2, all those possible combinations of complex switching in different arrangements, that's actually been hard coded into the parametric EQ to give us the core of Master of Puppets.
So the parametric EQ is really simple to use but it's a little bit different than other EQs that I've used as well. It operates differently and the tones are different but on this upper bank here if we turn the dials clockwise the low will actually boost the lows, the mid will cut the mids and the high will act as a high shelf filter while the lower banks work to change the frequency. So the gear I'm using today is my Jackson KVX loaded with Seymour Duncan Trash Factor pickups, the Mezzoboogie Mark 5 in 2C plus mode. You can see the settings here and they're really just modelled off what Fleming Rasmussen had in the studio for the recording of the Master of puppets. For capture in the recording today I'm using the Mezzerecto 112 in the corner with a V30 inside and a single SM57 just off the dust cap that's behind the ISO cabinet there to keep things quiet in the room.
So going through all the forums and all Fleming's notes that I could get hold of, I tried to get definitive answers on what actual cabinet and speakers were used to record Master of Puppets. Fleming did answer the question by just saying that they had 12 or more cabinets at any given time in the studio. and they just rotated through them and found out what sounded best on any given day and he took no note of what actual speakers were in them at the time.
And something else that I really wanted answers on was did they use the power tubes of the Mezabugi with the Mezabugi Mark II C Plus to produce the tone? or was it blended with the Marshall JCM800 which so many people seem to think it was. And Fleming did say that they did experiment with the JCM800 as the power amp for some of the solo work but all the rhythm work was laid down with boogie power amps.
So let's get into it with the EQ off. This is the basic tone just of the amp head going through the SM57. AQ on.
And that's just awesome, you can hear straight away. I'm just going to experiment a little bit with the EQ and we'll just try and work out some different tones across the album as none of the songs are the same. But that seems to be a really good sort of master of puppets.
right there we could possibly change some of the bass frequencies just to lessen that a little bit bring it into a different realm And if we scoop that back a little bit more I find we get more of like an Orion flavour. Maybe a little bit more bass. I guess from there if we just darken the treble just a little bit more we might get a cool disposable heroes That's cool.
Maybe just a little bit more mids pushed under that and we'll just change the bass frequencies a bit more. So I guess that's it guys. The other camera just packed it in but look it's an amazing EQ pedal from Master FX.
There's links in the description below and please check it out and I'll see you next time. Thanks very much.