It seems like most amp sim guitar tones I hear tend to be "metallic, shrill and digital" sounding. I can't say I've ever heard an amp sim produced guitar tone that sounds like the albums I listed below. Case in point, I have watched countless videos on YouTube of people testing out amp simulators and their tone always sounds
"metallic, shrill and digital" sounding.
For all the various times when I listened to the original recorded material of musicians I had either met in real life or online through Craigslist or Reddit, I've noticed that all these guys have the same exact "metallic, shrill and digital" guitar tone that I mentioned in the above paragraph regarding those YouTube videos reviewing amp sims. Basically no one ever sends me a recording that has a guitar tone that sounds like the guitars from Suffocation - Effigy of the Forgotten. And this isn't a genre thing either because it doesn't seem to matter if the band/musician/bedroom project that is sent to me is raw Black metal going for a raw guitar tone or a tech death project going for crisp squeaky clean guitar tone, all these entities across all genres have the same "metallic, shrill and digital" guitar tone except the difference being one is trying to be raw and distant sounding and the other is crisp and in focus sounding.
So anyways for my desired amp sim tone I want to sound like the guitars of the following albums listed below. I don't know how one would describe this guitar tone production. A bottom/bass heavy, slightly fuzzy, warm and sludgy guitar tone? Anyways, its definitely one of my favorite. If I were a real band in a studio and I needed to show the sound engineer/producer examples of my desired tone/sound I would show them these albums. Is there a technical name for this type of guitar tone and production that seems to span all of the different extreme subgenres of metal of the late 80s and 90s and is it possible to get this guitar tone using an amp sim? Here are the examples:
* Suffocation: Effigy of the Forgotten
* Disgorge: Cranial Impalement
* Black Sabbath: Master of Reality
* Eyehategod: Take as Needed for Pain
* Sodom: Persecution Mania
* Sleep: Jerusalem
* Assuck: Anticapital
* Disastrous Murmur: Rhapsodies in Red
* Dispatched: Blackshadows
* Baphomet: The Dead Shall Inherit
* Bolt Thrower: Realm of Chaos
* Varathron: Walpurgisnacht
* Enthroned: Towards the Skullthrone of Satan
Basically everything that Scott Burns worked on between 1989-1991 has the sludgy guitar tone that I am describing (with the odd exception being Obituary's Slowly We Rot album that mysteriously sounds unlike anything else he worked on during that era as it has a more metallic/percussive sound).
Side question:
The following question I assume is more of a sound engineering/mixing/mastering question...is it possible to get the overall sound (I'm referring to all instruments as a whole) of my bedroom project to sound like the aforementioned albums I listed above? Basically I don't want people to hear the final product of my material, after its been mixed and mastered, and think "oh this is a one man band bedroom project" or even "oh this just sounds like some run of the mill local band in the studio..." I want it to sound like a real band as much as possible, but not only that, I want it to also have the same sonic caliber or "quality" of sound as a "big" classic band from that era. I know we could probably be getting really subjective here but there just really seems to be a big difference between a studio album from a nobody small/local act compared to a release from a "big name" band. I'm not even referring to the timbre of the drums or the tone of the guitar here anymore. Take say Sodom's Persecution Mania album from 1988 (
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_oHO5AeDXJM) and compare it to say Witchaven's Terrorstorm album from 2010 (
https://witchaven.bandcamp.com/album/terrorstorm-2). Most people, even laymen who know nothing of these two bands or even about metal, would say Witchaven has a smoother more modern sound, but will also probably say that Sodom sounds more professional and official sounding and is the "bigger" band and probably spent more money in the studio and probably went to a renowned studio to make their album at that. Likewise any new releases coming out today from big name extreme metal bands with old school or modern origins will likewise just have a "atmosphere/sound" on their album that instantly distinguishes it from albums from unknown local acts and bedroom projects. Even like a new release from Megadeth or Metallica (bands I abhor save for early Metallica) will just have that "sound" to it that some nobody local band or bedroom project could not hope to ever match. Am I just babbling away or is this a real thing? If such a difference exists between the album sounds of a big name band versus a small nobody act, what do I need to do to get to the same album production caliber as a big name act? Would this require me to go to a physical studio to have my DI guitar tracks mixed? Would the studio have a large library of amp sims that they could apply to my clean DI tracks and tweak for me as well? Or is it an unavoidable requirement that in order to get the "big name" band sounding sound I would have to record my guitar in the studio with mic placed against loud real amp and work with an expensive producer like Bob Rock?