Gear on Sepultura's Arise and Chaos AD?

[Monkeypriest]

Does anyone know which gear (amps, pedals...) use Sepultura (Max and Andreas) on Arise and Chaos AD albums?

I saw them playing in the under siege video with Marshall but what model?

 

[blister7321]

all i know is that max used bcrich warlocks
and kisser used some kind of jackson
and marshall cabs at least

 

[Whoman Bean]

Necro bump

How do I get a Chaos AD tone? Couldn't find much useful info online.
Also went through Tonex tone.net but hell I can't see any presets Sepultura related.

 

[col]

You'll need to ask Andy Wallace that. Best guesses are Mesa Triaxis and ADA MP-1, boosted with Boss BD-2.

 

[Crungy]

Jesus that's a necro bump

 

[GÜMERSINDO]

Judging for the live footage and the era when it was recorded I guess Arise was somewhat boosted JCM800.
On Chaos I don´t know, maybe Dual Recs?

 

[gabito]

Necro bump

How do I get a Chaos AD tone? Couldn't find much useful info online.
Also went through Tonex tone.net but hell I can't see any presets Sepultura related.

Tune to D standard and, um, I don't know.

There's a few threads with some info:

What specific amps were used for what specific deathmetal albums?

@aesthyrian Here’s what I have saved for TBDM. Deflorate is in here, I add to it when I come across new info and keep it saved. Nocturnal Hi there everyone. I am new to the metal forum, and must say that I think this is all very cool! I tracked the vox and drums for the Nocturnal record...

www.sevenstring.org

Andreas Kisser's old gear?

Could you help me to recognize the elements of the rack?, I just recognize the ADA preamp, but I can't identify the rest.

www.sevenstring.org

It's been always difficult to find info about their old gear... If memory serves:

- Morbid Visions / Bestial Devastation: whatever they could find in Brazil at the time. They didn't even tune their guitars... Max mentioned that his first guitar was some hand-made brazilian guitar that he called "podreira" (piece of shit). I don't know if he used it for recording.
- Schizophrenia: same, but a bit better. Guitars' tuning is better this time, except for "The Abyss" which is... kind of in tune.
- Beneath the Remains: probably the first time they got to use some "proper" gear, supposedly Scott Burns lent them some Mesa Boogies. Duncan distortions or something like that on their guitars. From here on the guitars they used were usually a B.C. Rich Warlock for Max and a Charvel Model II for Andreas. Max's guitars have only the top 4 strings installed (E / A / D / G).
- Arise: JCM800s + ADA MP-1, all guitars dual tracked (they sound chorus-y if you pay attention, and that's why). All the albums up to this one were tuned to E standard, or tried to be. I think Andreas got a Jackson Randy Rhoads Black Model around this time, or maybe it was for Chaos A.D.?
- Chaos A.D.: Triaxis / Strategy 500 poweramp. I think Andreas started using EMGs here, maybe be before, probably Max too. They mainly tuned to D standard / drop D here.
- Roots: A mix of JCM800s (Max) and the Triaxis / Strategy 500 poweramp (Andreas). Six string guitars mainly tuned to B standard IIRC.

And I don't know what happened next, they got very famous and suddenly vanished from existence. Or at least that's my headcanon.

So... yeah, good luck with that! The info around the web isn't very trustworthy (including the info I listed), and Max and Andreas aren't the type to talk about gear a lot. The interviews and articles I've found contradict themselves quite a bit.

But wait! There's more!

Here's a video of Sepultura playing in 1985 when they were 15 / 16 years old, Max still had a full 6 string set on his guitar and the other guy (Jairo) played death / black metal with a single coil strat.

 

[gabito]

all guitars dual tracked

Hmm, I meant "quad tracked" here: two guitars hard panned to the left and two guitars hard panned to the right. I don't know who is who in the mix, but you can hear that they play some rhythm guitar parts different (like "one of them learnt the part wrong" different) in all of Sepultura's discography. That's why some bands have only one of their guitar players recording rhythm guitars.

Also the guitars they used in Morbid Visions / Bestial Devastation (and probably in Schizophrenia too) were most likely from a brazilian brand called Giannini. They still exist, I buy strings from them sometimes.

I didn't know about this, but it seems they re-recorded Schizophrenia and they're going to release it on June 21st. That's cool, I liked what they did with Morbid Visions / Bestial Devastation, the re-recordings sound like the equivalent of when game companies remaster old games.

 

[Whoman Bean]

Thank you very much sir for such detailed info.

 

[bjjman]

- Chaos A.D.: Triaxis / Strategy 500 poweramp. I think Andreas started using EMGs here, maybe be before, probably Max too. They mainly tuned to D standard / drop D here.

I remember both of them were using EMGs on The Chaos AD tour. I'd assume they were used for the album but can't be sure.

 

[gabito]

I remember both of them were using EMGs on The Chaos AD tour. I'd assume they were used for the album but can't be sure.

Yeah, some EMG pickups are visible on Andreas' guitar in this live video from 1991, so maybe he used EMGs for Arise too.



I just checked, and you can see that Max's guitar has some regular neck pickup paired with what looks like an EMG bridge pickup at 0:48 here, but... I don't know.



The guitar is visible in some other parts of the video, but quality is very bad so I'm not 100% sure.

So yeah, maybe they used EMGs or a mix of EMGs and something else in Arise and afterwards.

 

[HeHasTheJazzHands]

That or Max just disconnected the neck pickup and never used it. Just EMG 81 and a volume knob. Before he got his sig model Max would always switch the bridge pickup, keep the neck pickup stock and screw it as low as it can go into the body.

Remember, were talking about the dude that would only have 4 strings on his guitars lol

 

[Shask]

That or Max just disconnected the neck pickup and never used it. Just EMG 81 and a volume knob. Before he got his sig model Max would always switch the bridge pickup, keep the neck pickup stock and screw it as low as it can go into the body.

Remember, were talking about the dude that would only have 4 strings on his guitars lol

Yeah, I always thought he used the EMG 81 through these years, until around Roots/Soulfy when he just used stock Gibson pickups, or the Duncan Distortion.

I think a Mesa Mark series, or boosted JCM800 will get close to that tone. I remember when I had the Mesa Mark III, it basically sounded like Chaos AD all the time. That was the only sound I could get out of it, lol. Well, that and Justice for All....

 

[MASS DEFECT]

Andreas Kisser always had killer tone. Live and in the studio, even now when he uses Orange amps. But his heaviest tone was when he used his Triaxis into a Mesa Strategy. I hope he somehow gets his Triaxis settings out there now that Sepultura will retire.

 

[Spinedriver]

I think it'd be a safe bet to say that it was either Marshall JCM 800 or possibly a rackmount pre/power amp setup. I know for sure that Max is not what you'd call a 'gear snob', so he'd definitely would have used a JCM800. Hard to say with Andreas though, what he would have been using at the time.

 

[gabito]

That or Max just disconnected the neck pickup and never used it. Just EMG 81 and a volume knob. Before he got his sig model Max would always switch the bridge pickup, keep the neck pickup stock and screw it as low as it can go into the body.

Remember, were talking about the dude that would only have 4 strings on his guitars lol

Yeah, you can see here that there's no neck pickup installed (sorry for the shitty quality, the picture is from a 1994 argentinian magazine). The original picture is probably older.

 

[Grindspine]

Whoa necro bump.

Max was using B.C. Rich Warlocks with Seymour Duncan Distortion bridge pickups and typically only the four lowest strings.

Andreas was using Jackson Rhoads guitars with EMG-81s through a Mesa/Boogie TriAxis and Strategy 500.

The tuning changes a lot on Chaos A.D. Some of the songs are Eb while others are at D. Kiowas was an open D tuning on acoustic.

I basically modeled a lot of my guitar equipment off those albums.

 

[Grindspine]

I see a covered pickup in a few of the videos. It is really hard to tell if he was using EMG-81s back then or just blank plastic covers over an SD Distortion. He does use Duncans now in his ESP guitars. If the old NJ series B.C. Rich guitars had EMGs in them, the logos had worn off of the covers.

 

[Grindspine]

This one does pretty clearly show an EMG at the bridge. I think it is around Arise era.

 

[HeHasTheJazzHands]

I'm watching some Chaos AD-era Sepultura footage and it looks like Andreas is doing the same thing as Max; Replacing the bridge pickup, keeping the neck pickup stock. In his main D-standard Rhoads he's using an 81 bridge and the stock Jackson neck pickup. Makes sense since he also only uses the bridge pickup.

I see a covered pickup in a few of the videos. It is really hard to tell if he was using EMG-81s back then or just blank plastic covers over an SD Distortion. He does use Duncans now in his ESP guitars. If the old NJ series B.C. Rich guitars had EMGs in them, the logos had worn off of the covers.

I'm going to assume they're all EMGs since he had several guitars that had visible EMG logos at the time, though yeah it looks like around Roots era he was transitioning to Duncan Distortions.