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Slash: can you recreate his sound in software?

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They're three of rock's most iconic guitarists: AC/DC's Angus Young, Metallica's James Hetfield and former Guns N' Roses and current Velvet Revolver star Slash.

Their tones are ones that many players attempt to emulate: here, we've set ourselves the tricky task of doing this using only freely downloadable PC plug-ins.

On the following pages you'll find three mini walkthroughs that detail how we went about this, plus details of the gear favoured by our three inspirational guitarists.

And of course, there are audio clips, too, so you can listen and decide for yourself just how successful we've been.

Angus Young

Guitar of choice: Gibson SG
Amp of choice: Marshall SLP head through custom Marshall 412 cabs
Ideal pickup: Bridge position humbucker
Compromise pickup: Neck position single coil
Tonal secret: Don't overdo the distortion and pay attention to the mid-range

1. Even if you're on a budget, you can still benefit from Studio Devil's excellent tones. The company's freeware plug-in British Valve Custom (BVC) is perfect for emulating Young's biting tone. First, we set the Gain to 6 and the Drive to 10.

2. To get the required attack into our emulation, we boost the Mids up to 10. The tone is a bit thin, so we increase the Bass to 7 and drop the Treble to 4.

3. Next, we call up the Electri-Q CM plug-in that comes supplied on Computer Music magazine's DVD every month. Alternatively, you could download the standard freeware version of Electri-Q. We apply reduction at 50Hz (to remove unwanted rumble) and add some extra volume at around 800Hz. Notice how much middle there is in this tone – guitar sounds without this may sound good in the bedroom, but they'll rarely cut through a full band mix.

Our Angus Young tone

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