Metallica's Fade to Black is an epic song with a legendary outro. I remember buying Ride the Lightning when I was young because I liked the album's artwork. When I got home and actually listened to it, I felt like I'd hit the jackpot.
If you're interested in having a go yourself, below is the signal chain I used, the tone settings and the bits I had to practice.
Difficulty level
6/10 - moderate
Signal chain
This gets you fairly close to the original sound. With further tweaking, I'm sure you could get closer still.
| Stage | Gear |
|---|---|
| 1. Guitar | Strat, Hot Rails bridge pickup |
| 2. Overdrive | Boss OD-2 |
| 3. Interface | Focusrite Scarlett Solo |
| 4. Amp | Gateway plugin in Reaper, loading a Neural Amp Modeler file |
| 5. Effects | ReaEQ, kHs Reverb and ReaDelay in Reaper |
Guitar
I played this on a modified Player Strat
- Pickup: Hot Rails in the bridge position. It is a humbucker in a single-coil size, so it gives a thicker, higher-output sound than a standard Strat bridge pickup.
- Tone control: 7. Rolling it back from 10 takes some of the sharp top end off the lead sound.
- Volume control: set to max. The pot is 500k, which brightens the Hot Rails.
- Strings and tuning: D'Addario 9.5 gauge - standard tuning
Overdrive
I used a Boss OD-2 overdrive pedal. The drive is turned right down though to just give a slight boost.
| Control | Setting |
|---|---|
| Level | Maximum |
| Tone | 12 o'clock |
| Drive | 9 o'clock |
| Turbo | Off |
Interface
The OD-2's output goes straight into the Focusrite Scarlett Solo, which sends the guitar signal to the computer over USB. No real amp or microphone is involved.
Recording software
The guitar was recorded in Reaper, with the Gateway plugin on the track as the amp. Gateway loads Neural Amp Modeler files, which are captured models of real amps. After the Gateway plug I added some other subtle effects in the following order - ReaEQ, then kHs Reverb, then ReaDelay. Details of settings below.
Amp
Gateway running a Neural Amp Modeler capture of a 1986 JCM 800 2204, with a Marshall JCM900 Lead 1960 cabinet impulse response (SM57).
Neural amp modeler is free open source software and it sounds great.
Effects
EQ settings I used. Note the boost around 2.0K
Reverb was fairly subtle
Delay also fairly subtle
Difficulties
The two sections I had to practice are tabbed below.
The first is a fast bend followed by an immediate B on the 1st string then followed by a fast pull off on the 2nd string repeated. I found it hard to repeat over and over without a mistake.
Second is the fast expressive start to the climb towards the end of the solo. I found hitting the 12 fret on strings 1 and 2 alternately quite tricky.
The full tab I followed is available on songsterr.
Looking for a band?
If you're learning guitar solos like this because you'd like to play in a band, Bandonkers is a classified ads site where musicians can find bands, band members and other musicians.
You can browse musician adverts in your area or post your own advert if you're looking for people to play with.
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If you have any questions about the gear or settings, leave a comment below.