Sabbath sound

[keeleyvandervort]

I'm brand new to Amplitube 4, and I was wondering if there is a preset using the basic amps that can get me close to Tony Iommi's Sabbath sound. I've played around with it and I end up getting lost in the rabbit hole of different mics,speakers,cabinets and rooms. Any tips are appreciated.

[lbp2017]

Hi I'm new to the forum but not to Amplitube 4. The way I achieve/match my tone in Amplitube 4 is I research what gear a particular musician/ guitarist uses, amp, pedal board then I tweak the amp and pedal settings.
There are lots of you tube videos out there but you surely know which one sounds like Tommy's.

Keep it simple, remember Black Sabbath back in the days used simple set up. Mostly the sound comes from the guitarist's playing technique, type of strings, guitar set up, volume tone knob rolled off etc. Also the sound you hear is often processed in studio, double track, various microphone placements etc.
Have fun using Amplitube 4

[carlaz]

Here's a link to a forum post I made on this topic in July of 2020:
https://cgi.ikmultimedia.com/ikforum/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=25016&p=105365&hilit=sabbath#p105354
IMO, the info in that post should go some way to helping you dial in a plausible '70s Iommi tone.

To summarize that link in brief, although I yet hold out hope that IKM will include "based on Laney LA100BL" (and matching cabs), for early Iommi-esque goodness, you basically want a fairly cranked 1970-ish-era "British"/Marshall-type amp (since the Laneys were basically knock-offs of Marshall back then) which you then hit with a treble booster. In AT5, your best amp options are (IMO) the JH Gold and the British S100 amps (which sound fairly similar) and the Treble Booster stomp (from the Brian May collection). That said, despite being modeled on a modern "lunchbox" amp, I think the MiniPlex 20 with the right settings (and smacked with the Treble Booster) can also get plausibly Iommi-esque. In all cases, the effects of cabs and speakers are not to be neglected. I would tend to go with the Satch Green, but the 4x12 Closed 25 C would do, and then you can try any sets or combinations of the Brit Green, HiAmp, and Brit Alnico S speaker models.

For more modern Iommi tones, e.g. in Heaven and Hell about 10-12 years ago, you could actually try the ENGL Powerball amp model, since Iommi actually used Powerballs on one of the tours from that period (and the signature amp that Laney put out shortly afterward was rather Powerball-ish ).

As you might expect, there is a great deal of online discussion regarding Iommi gear voodoo -- just how the original Rangemaster might have been modded, the effects of the particular transformers used in the Laneys, various speaker possibilities, changes to pickups at different times -- but a "plexi"-style amp and a treble booster will get you quite a lot of the way there.