How to Sound Like Gojira with Efektor Whammo

Get ready to experience the ultimate guitar tone that will blow your mind! Join us today as we delve into the world of Gojira, one of the most iconic metal bands in the industry. Led by their incredibly talented singer and guitarist, Joe Duplantier, we will show you how to unlock the secrets of his signature sound. We’ll start by taking a look at his impressive career and the history of Gojira, then we’ll dive into Amplifikation 360, the ultimate tool for creating massive and complex tones. Whether you’re a beginner or a seasoned pro, this powerful software allows you to express yourself like never before. So don’t miss out on this opportunity to learn from the best and unleash your true potential as a musician.

Joe Duplantier, who is known by the name of Joseph Andrew Duplantier or Joe as he is more commonly known, is a French – American musician born in 1976 that swam through time and ended up being one of the most well-known modern metal artists of this time. Being 46 years old and being in tune with all the modern and new age music genres at the same time is a way of being somehow a musical visionary, or in other words, let’s call it a musical shaman.

Originally from Paris and working as a graphic designer, he founded his dream band Godzila in 1996 and then became the prominent metal band Gojira, circa 2001. The band’s style could be described as tech death metal, trash metal, groove metal, or progressive death metal. You can easily recognize this heavy sound, with the tight drum beats and the massive guitar tones.

Photo by Morten Skovgaard from Copenhagen, Denmark
https://www.flickr.com/photos/mortenskovgaard/753852590/

One of the key elements of Duplantier’s sound is his heavy use of distortion and effects. He achieves this by running his guitar through a complex effect chain that includes a variety of pedals, such as distortion, reverb, pitch-shifter/bender and delay. This allows him to create a thick, layered sound that is both aggressive and atmospheric.

Duplantier is also known for his use of a guitar amp rig that is heavily modified for his specific needs. He combines several different amplifiers, including Peavey 5150 II, Fender Twin Reverb to vintage Marshall, to achieve his desired tone. He is also known for DIY recording and music production, which allows him to have full control over his sound.

In addition to his technical proficiency, Duplantier is also known for his energetic and dynamic stage presence. He often employs percussive techniques on his guitar, such as slapping and tapping, to add a unique element to his live performances.

Overall, Joe Duplantier’s guitar playing style is characterized by his heavy use of distortion and effects, his complex amp rig, and his DIY recording and music production. His unique sound, tone and stage presence has made him one of the most respected guitarists in the heavy metal scene.

As we already know it the band was founded in the early 96. Then in 2001 it was changed to ‘Gojira’, taken from the Japanese pronunciation of ‘Godzilla’. Over the years the band proved and maintained their determination and passion to the heavy death metal style and slightly involved into more modern progressive variation of the style. Going through the band’s different albums from around 20 years is almost an unreal experience. Asserting itself with every other album is quite a quality that makes them very distinctive and capable of conquering a very large audience. The brothers Joe as a vocalist and Mario Duplantier as drummer along with their friends the lead guitarist Christian Andreu and Jean-Michel Labadie-bass stayed the same members since 2001.

Seven studio albums marked their musical career all these years in a world overcrowded with bands. Fully deserved a place in music history, they have got a strong attitude and sent a clear message to their fans, that they left uncompromising with the genre they played since the beginning. Unlike their playing, that is their character, another thing that is worth mentioning is their sound. It is evolving from album to album, headlong to the modern age, where everyone competes to reach the listener with the “next level” sound, unheard before.

“Stranded”
Guitar Tone

The “Stranded” song first appeared in 2016 from the album “Magma” as the breakthrough of the band. The name of the album perfectly describes the energy that flows from the songs within. We can hear fear, anger, sadness, all the feelings that were inside the brothers at that time. Everything in this album feels raw and intense and somehow deep from the heart that can be shared through the music. In other words “Tour de force”.

The song starts with 3 short notes followed by a simple chord. But it’s not just a simple guitar Major diminished 5th, it’s a chord that is pitched quite dramatically with a whammy pedal to the point that it sounds like a scream. Joe probably used the famous red whammy pedal in the actual recording. However, in the past few years he got into digital audio and used software recreations of his favorite amps and pedals. It is clear that we no longer lack resources, and we are not left in the lurch to find a way to recreate the same sounds within software.

The whole effects chain and amp of “Stranded” with Amplifikation VVV and our fresh new pitch pedal Whammo.

First in the chain is our free Efektor Silencer or the A360’s Noise Gate module. The tone is quite distorted in its origin and the palm muted notes should be clean and precise.

Then, second in the chain is our newly released pitch shifter Whammo. The pedal is set to pitch the signal 24+ two octaves above the root note. It is engaged on the small chord between each palm muted group of 3 notes on your low D string.

After the pitch shifter we will add our Efektor OD3603 Overdrive‘s PRO Overdrive module to make the main tone more solid and tight in the low end.

Then there is the Amplifikation VVV, type C module. It’s a high-gain amp with harmonic overtones and detailed attack. The gain is two notches after 12 o’clock and that’s quite enough. The Eq section is with moderate settings. No big just or drastic settings.

And finally we will use a single 4×12 cabinet with the dynamic 441 mic. Put in offaxis position.
It was chosen to match the album tone.

Final words:

We know a lot of musicians express sadness and depression in their music. Some are fulfilling the empty space with happiness and hope. But creating is the point of everything. Gojira are churning the ground to destroy all the stereotypes and give us musical experience with ground breaking tones and sounds. Leading us into the future. Embracing the digital!

Let’s face it. We are living in an era where digital recreation took our lives in quite different and modern journeys. From having the chance to record yourself without even touching a hardware old school recorder, to the point we almost don’t need real amplifiers to achieve great results and just create! Create our visual and audio ideas, coming from our minds and imagination, and then just lay them down on the blank canvas in our digital workstations, to be heard, hated or loved.

We are not stranded and will never be!

Here you can hear the tone. The guitar is a super strat style guitar with Duncan Distortion (SH-6) pickup.