Drop D tuning. Tom Morello's tone is famously NOT high gain — a Marshall JCM800 2205 on crunch with the mids cranked, and he never touches the settings. The aggression is all groove, muting and attack. On the DSL we use Classic Gain / Crunch with a big mid hump and the TS as a mild push — if it starts sounding "metal", you've got too much gain.
Front of amp: Cheeky Pint (off) → TS Mini (on, mild push) · FX loop: GE-7 (on, mid bump) → Spark Mini (solo).
Middle at 8.5 is the whole trick — Morello's JCM800 is mid-cranked and only moderately driven. Chords should bark, not saturate. Drop D: tune the low E down a whole step.
Gets the Classic channel up to JCM800-2205 grind without going modern. Tone kept low — the brightness comes from pick attack, not fizz.
Off. The verse ghost-note mutes and the chorus stabs live and die on dynamics.
On for the tremolo-picked solo and trills so they scream over the band. Morello's actual solo rides a wah — without one, the GE-7 mid bump + this boost is the closest stand-in.
Off for the song itself. (Morello has a DD-2 on his board, but it's for his noise tricks, not these riffs.)
Off. The ghost-note mutes need silence between the hits.
Morello runs a DOD EQ on his board for exactly this — a honky mid push that makes a moderate-gain Marshall sound huge. The 6.4 kHz cut keeps the top from getting raspy.
Commerford growl: the bridge pickup adds the snarl, the rolled tone keeps it fat. Fingers, near the neck.
Tim Commerford: fat, growly fingerstyle funk. Tone down to ~30%. The intro is the bass's moment — lazy, behind the beat, huge. Drop D on the bass too. (Mix stays at min — it's the line-in blend, not part of your tone.)
Drop D (D A D G B e). The verse riff is one finger across the bottom two strings with percussive mutes; the "killing in the name of!" riff is the D5 shape with scratch mutes. Groove beats precision — lay back on it.
Verse riff — the ghost mutes (x) are as important as the notes D|------------3h4-----------| A|--0-3h5-x-x-----5-0-2h3-2-| D|--0---------------0-2h3-2-| Main riff ("killing in the name of!") — D5 shape, scratch the x's hard G|--7-7-x-7-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-| D|--x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-| A|--5-5-x-5-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-| D|--0-0-x-0-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-| Solo opening — tremolo-pick (=) every note, descending in pairs, then trills up top e|--20=-----17=-----15=-----13=-----10=----8=----|--/17h19--/20h22--| G|------17=-----14=-----12=-----10=-----7=----5=-|------------------|
Two lessons with on-screen tabs, riff by riff:
Opens in a new window — Songsterr blocks embedding in other sites (X-Frame-Options), so it can't be shown inline. Use the "Tom Morello | Guitar" track — remember it's written for Drop D.