Guitar technology has changed significantly, even the Godfather of Death Metal himself, Chuck Schuldiner, would be impressed by today’s standard of guitars. When Metal hit the music scene back in the 1970s, it spun the (R)evolution for underground Death Metal bands of the 1980s such as Possessed, Death, Venom, Obituary, and many more… and here we are some 38 years later in 2020. So put your disco-stick away and let’s get started. I will throw in a few budget-friendly starter guitars for the broke-ass-beginner, just set your expectations to “you get what you pay for” – However, with Death Metal Guitars, you CAN, in fact, polish a turd… and in this guide, I will teach you how. This guide is going to focus on intermediate level guitar players. We are going to talk about each metal guitar by price, construction and quality and which one fits best for you.

We need to help you find the best instrument within your budget along with one that compliments your fierce playing style. Picking the right guitar for Death Metal is much more involved than sinister-guitar-styles and deadly-pointy-shapes in dull-dark-colors. You’ll want nickel, steel or cobalt sets to make certain you’ve got the higher range harmonic content to go with the crushing heaviness.10.5 Best Death Metal Guitar Riff To Play Without clarity of tone, your guitar tone will be muddy so a set of flatwound nylon strings won’t do the job here. This is especially true with extended range guitars and down tuning of regular instruments. While metal guitars are all about the heavy, you need to make sure you’ve got the clarity to go with it. The material is a crucial component of how guitar strings sound. When you next pop a set of heavy gauge strings on your guitar, make certain to check they’re sitting in the nut nicely, ideally they should be half in and half out, with no side to side movement. Issues at the nut can cause tuning instability and fret buzz, most often due to the string not sitting properly. Nut issues are a common gremlin that can often fly under the radar. You may also find the string doesn’t sit in the nut properly thanks to its larger circumference. The solution to this is to raise the action to compensate for the thicker string. A string that’s thicker can cause multiple issues with your guitar, the most common will be buzz from the string not having enough clearance from the frets. When you change the gauge of your strings, you’ll also need to adjust the setup. Once you’ve selected your string gauge, it’s not enough to just slap them on and start down tuning.

A Les Paul-style guitar has a shorter scale length than a Strat-style guitar, and this means a set of 10s on an LP will feel like a set of 9s on a Stratocaster, so worth bearing in mind when purchasing a set of strings to play down-tuned metal. Also, it’s important to note the scale length of your guitar. For anything a step-down or below, you’re going to want at least a set of 10s or 11s. If you’re going to be down-tuning to drop D, then you can probably get away with a set of 9s, but 10s would be better. This means you get a string that goes out of tune when you press down too hard on it and that’s not what you or your audience want to hear. Using a standard set of strings and then down-tuning can result in the dreaded string flap, whereby the string isn’t thick enough to maintain the correct tension. One of the first things you’ll need to contemplate when selecting the best guitar strings for metal is the gauge of string. (Image credit: Michael Golab/EyeEm - Getty)

Standard deathmetal tuning