Historical development, sound aesthetics and production techniques of the distorted electric guitar in metal music

Abstract

The sound of the distorted electric guitar is particularly important for many metal genres. It contributes to the music's perception of heaviness, serves as a distinguishing marker, and is crucial for the power of productions. This article aims to extend the research on the distorted metal guitar and on metal music production by combining both fields of interest. By the means of isolated guitar tracks of original metal recordings, 10 tracks in each of the last five decades served as sample for a historical analysis of metal guitar aesthetics including the aspects tuning, loudness, layering and spectral composition. Building upon this insight, an experimental analysis of 287 guitar recordings explored the effectiveness and effect of metal guitar production techniques. The article attempts to provide an empirical ground of the acoustics of metal guitar production in order to extend the still rare practice-based research and metal-oriented production manuals.

Heaviness and the electric guitar: Considering the interaction between distortion and harmonic structures

“…He argued that elements of the primary domain such as tempo, metre, rhythm, melody and harmony must be brought in line with texture, timbre and location of the secondary domain (Mynett 2013: 40). For instance, layering guitar tracks extends depth by creating a wall of sound, yet the attack can lose definition (Mynett 2013: 106f;Herbst 2017a). Additionally, layering several guitar tracks can make it harder to hear each note within a chord.…”

“…That is why the guitar cannot be dominating. Furthermore, since distortion extends the guitar's frequency range down to 50 Hz in the bass and up to at least 12 kHz in the highs (Herbst 2017a), the instrument competes with all other band instruments even without a greater spectral density of an increased harmonic complexity. These negative effects can be controlled in the mixing and mastering to some extent, but in a live situation, this is much more difficult.…”

“…By tracking the electric guitar's acoustic changes in metal history, Herbst (2017a) confirmed more distortion and an extended frequency range to have increased heaviness over time. Furthermore, layering of guitar tracks became common practice negatively affecting intelligibility but increasing the spectral density (Mynett 2012;Herbst 2017a). Very slow or fast tempos and obscured tonality contribute to the perception of heaviness too (Berger 1999: 58f;Hagen 2011: 185).…”

“…Although metal music has become heavier over time, the means of achieving heaviness differed in metal's subgenres. Whereas the development from heavy metal to death metal was characterised by a significant shift to lower frequencies (Kahn-Harris 2007: 32;Herbst 2017a), black metal embraced a thin, brittle and harsh guitar tone to distinguish itself from other metal genres (Hagen 2011: 187;Reyes 2013). Apart from the guitar, other stylistic means define subgenres as well, be it the use of "blast beats" (Hagen 2011: 186), vocal screams or growls (Walser 1993: 42;Berger 1999: 58), distorted vocal voices and bass guitars (Elflein 2010: 250ff;Weinstein 2011: 41f) or the number of form parts (Berger 1999: 63ff).…”

“…Other authors (Walser 1993;Berger and Fales 2005;Cope 2010;Elflein 2010) share this view. Regarding chord structures, much metal music has become less complex while at the same time the riffs became more distorted (Herbst 2017a).…”