To get Zacky Vengeance's thick rhythm tone, A7X often blends two amps.
Rating: 7/10
Most A7X presets for Guitar Rig 5 focus heavily on the rhythm tone required for songs like Bat Country or Beast and the Harlot.
Synyster Gates literally uses a wah pedal as an EQ. In Guitar Rig 5:
The Honest Verdict: Close, but not identical. preset guitar rig 5 avenged sevenfold
The Good: Guitar Rig 5 excels at capturing the character of Avenged Sevenfold’s lead work. For solos like the intro to "Afterlife" or the melodic lines in "So Far Away," the Psyche Delay and Reverb produce a beautiful, airy sustain that feels authentic. For practicing in headphones or recording rough demos, a well-tuned patch gets you 80% of the way there.
The Bad: The low-end "chug" is where GR5 shows its age (released in 2011). A7X’s Hail to the King album has a massive, woody, power-chord thump that Guitar Rig 5’s algorithm struggles to reproduce without becoming flubby. Modern plugins like Neural DSP (especially the Nameless or Nolly suites) decimate GR5 for rhythm tones.
The Ugly: High-gain palm mutes on the low B string (drop C# tuning) can cause digital aliasing (those weird, screechy frequencies) if you don't manage the input gain carefully.
Before we open Guitar Rig 5, you need to understand what you are chasing. Avenged Sevenfold’s guitar tone is different from classic thrash or modern djent. To get Zacky Vengeance's thick rhythm tone, A7X
Gear to emulate in GR5: We will be simulating a Peavey 5150 (for rhythm) and a Bogner Uberschall (for leads), pushing them with a Tube Screamer-style overdrive.
To review these presets fairly, one must understand the target tone. Avenged Sevenfold’s sound is defined by the "Gates/Vengeance" dual-guitar attack. It relies heavily on:
Guitar Rig 5 attempts to emulate this using its internal components, primarily the "Citrus" amp model (based on an Orange Rockerverb) or "Van 51" (Mesa Boogie Mark series) to simulate the high-gain channel.
Would you like a step-by-step screenshot guide or an exportable .ngrr preset file as well? Gear to emulate in GR5: We will be
There are no official "Avenged Sevenfold" presets installed by default in Guitar Rig 5, and copying settings from a picture manually can be tedious.
Below is a ready-to-use text block formatted specifically for Guitar Rig 5. You can copy the code below, save it as a text file, and load it directly into the plugin.
This preset is designed to capture the "City of Evil" / "Nightmare" era tone: a high-gain heavy metal sound with a tight low end, scooped mids, and crisp highs, utilizing the Van 51 amp model (modeled after a Peavey 5150, which is Synyster Gates' primary amp).