Trying To Replicate Opeth's Guitar Tone

Hey there Steemians !

Today i would like to share my process of trying to replicate THE guitar tone ! It's from my most favourite band Opeth and track is mighty Ghost Of Perdition ! So let's dive right in !

Apart from this track being one of my favourite Opeth tracks , the reason i decided to try and replicate the tone of this particular song is that there is an isolated track on YouTube thus making my job much easier to begin with . Since this track is 10 minutes long and has a lot different parts which all have their flavour of the basic tone , i decided to focus on one which i believe is the core sound . Here's that particular section from the original song :

Part 1 - The Raw Tone

Ok , so the first thing i did was decide which amp i'm going to use . Since i do not own any of the amps used on the album , i was using Amplitube - an amplifier simulation software . I think i read in some interviews that Opeth have used Messa Boogie Rectifier amps , so that was the amp i choose in Amplitube . Here's the picture :

Because of the copyright reasons , there are no real amp names in Amplitube , but i think this one is the emulation of
the Triple Rectifier . As you can see , all the controls are pretty much at the noon. The only thing worth mentioning is that i have changed the tube type from 150W ( smth ) to the 100W EL34 . They didn't sound as fizzy as the stock one and fitted the original tone much better .

Other important thing is the cab section . I used a combination of dynamic and condenser mic , dynamic being right in the center of the speaker cone , and condenser capturing the side of the cone . Here's the picture of that as well :

And finally , this is how it sounds :

Sounds pretty beefy and all , but it is nowhere near the tone you hear on the album . What i wanted to fix was the high end , which is lacking at this stage , low end is too prominent and boomy and there are some boxy mid frequencies . But all in all ,i think this is a good starting point from which we are going to shape the tone similar to the one on the album .

Part 2 - EQ

This is the most important part of the process. As i mentioned earlier , the top end was not so present , so that's the first thing i worked on . Let me show you the full EQ curve and discuss what i've done :

So , notice the pretty big bump at 9k-ish . That really opens up the sound . But it also introduced some unwanted harsh spikes so i removed those as well . A lot of surgical movements here , but i wanted to get as close as i can to the original tone . Also , a strong cut at around 13 k , just because it is a common practice to high cut the highest of the frequencies .

The next critical area is the midrange . There is a hefty cut at around 450 Hz , which eliminates the boxy character of the sound . You generally don't want that in a heavy metal guitar sound .

The last thing at this point is a low cut filter being applied . But i felt like there was a strong presence at around 100 Hz in the original track so there is a slight boost at that region .
And this is how it sounds now with the EQ on :

I think it sounds much better already , but still not as good as the original . The original has a lot of beef , which is caused by the guitars being double tracked , so let's do that in the next part !

Part 3 - Double Tracking

In order to get that wide , punchy , wall of sound kind of tone like Opeth , you have to double track . It is almost impossible to get that kind of sound with just one guitar . I suspect that perhaps they've even quad tracked , but let's assume that double tracking will do . Once you record the same part again , you pan them hard left and hard right .

At this point i got a bigger sound , but i still felt that there were some problem areas . Let's take a look at the trusty EQ and see what i've done :

So there are two areas where i felt my tone wasn't faithful to the original . First of all , i boosted the ''throathy'' frequencies at around 1k . That really made a big step towards the original tone . Second , i got rid of some of the muddy frequencies around 170 Hz . That in itself made a world of difference . Also , i heard a strong ring of the fifth of the D , and notched that a bit . It is somewhere around 444 Hz . Everything else was usual stuff , a bit top boost , a bit of ''meat'' boost at around 270 Hz and there you go . Let's hear how does it sound now :

At this point i thought it sounded pretty much there ! But there are still some little tweaks at the end . Let's jump to a final part !

Part 4 - The Room

Before i focus on the last piece of the puzzle let me show you just the last couple of brush strokes i have made as far as EQ goes . My curve was already getting messy , so i wanted to start with the brand new one .

Compared to the other curves , this one pleasing to the eye :D So as you can see , a low cut , a high cut , and i felt like there was some of that 2k hiss which wasn't present in the original . I have taken that out , and boosted a bit of 4.5k to compensate . I thought that really nailed the sound pretty well ! This was the effect it had :

And finally , a little bit of spice to finish it off ! I heard that there was still something missing from the sound , and realised that there was a slight room sound in the original . It was probably the amp closet or a very small room . I tried to replicate that with a reverb plugin :

As you can see , i set the space to be very small , and eq to have that prominent low mid bump . The mix was at about 18% . So at that point i thought that i've nailed the sound pretty much . Here's the final sound :

Final Notes

No matter how hard i try i probably won't be able to make the exact replica of the Opeth's guitar sound . I believe that many factors have contributed to the creation of their sound to be so massive , all of which i still so not have access to or knowledge to be able to pull it off . Considering all of the aforementioned setbacks , i can say i am pretty satisfied with the end result !
I hope that it will be of some use to you if you happen to be interested in this kind of stuff . I know it's a bit geeky :D
If anybody has some suggestions on how i could improve the sound to be even closer to the original , i would be very happy to hear about it :)

Thanks for stopping by !