Classic '90s skate punk off About Time: relentless downpicked palm mutes in F minor at full sprint. The tone is saturated but dry and percussive — tight low end, forward mids, zero wool. Stamina matters more than gain here: if your picking hand smears, no amp setting will save you.
Front of amp: Cheeky Pint (off) → TS Mini (on, tightener) · FX loop: GE-7 (on) → Spark Mini (octave lead).
Slightly less gain than 1985 — at this tempo extra saturation turns palm mutes into mush. The chunk comes from your right hand and the Resonance knob, not the gain.
Same recipe as 1985: low drive, level hot. It firms up the low strings so the fast F5–Ab5–Bb5 mutes stay percussive instead of flubby.
Off — downpicked punk lives on attack transients. Compression flattens exactly the thing that makes this groove.
Kick on for the octave lead over the intro riff (and any verse octave fills) so it rides above the rhythm wall. Off the rest of the song.
Off — at skate-punk tempo delay turns the mutes into porridge.
Off. Dry and percussive.
Low cuts keep the machine-gun palm mutes from stacking up into boom at speed; the 800 Hz–1.6 kHz push is the dry Pennywise bark. Leave the bass frequencies to the bass player — at this tempo you want punch, not weight.
Bright and aggressive — healthy bridge blend and tone up so the pick attack reads at tempo.
Randy Bradbury: pick, bright and aggressive. Tone wide open. Match the guitar's downstrokes — the whole band is one machine at this tempo. (Mix stays at min — it's the line-in blend, not part of your tone.)
Standard tuning, F minor. The intro starts palm-muted and quiet, then repeats loud with the chord stabs. Everything is downstrokes until your arm falls off.
Intro — palm-muted and quiet first time, loud the second time. F5 → Ab5 → Bb5 → Db5 → Eb5 G|-------------------------------6666-8888--| D|--33333333--66666666--88888888-6666-8888--| A|--33333333--66666666--88888888-4444-6666--| E|--11111111--44444444--66666666------------| Octave lead — ride it over the intro riff with the Spark Mini on. Mute the D string with your index finger. G|--10-10\--13-13--(repeat)--13131313--10--8--| A|---8--8\--11-11------------11111111---8--6--|
A cover with the tab on screen, good for nailing the rhythm-hand feel:
Opens in a new window — Songsterr blocks embedding in other sites (X-Frame-Options), so it can't be shown inline. Use the guitar track for the riffs; the octave lead sits in the same track.