Tears Don't Fall
Bullet for My Valentine · The Poison · 2005
The heavy main riff is a Drop C, bridge-pickup EMG 81 into a Maxon overdrive used as a clean boost, then a Peavey 5150 on its rhythm channel through a Mesa/Boogie slant 4x12, miked with an SM57 and MD421. Producer Colin Richardson's own numbers are low mids, moderate bass and treble, and high presence and resonance, which is why the riff sounds tight and cutting instead of woolly. Matt Tuck tracked all the rhythm guitars himself and doubled them, so the width you hear is layering, not chorus.
Where these numbers come from: the player said these settings themselves
Tuning
Drop C (C G C F A D)
All guitars on The Poison were tracked in Drop C; the clean intro was recorded on a Fender Cyber Twin, so the heavy main riff and the clean intro are two different amp sounds on the same record.
Guitar
- Jackson DK-1 Custom · EMG 81 (bridge) / EMG 85 (neck) · bridge pickup
- ESP with EMG 81 · EMG 81 · bridge pickup
Amp
Peavey 5150
Producer Colin Richardson gave these as the album's 5150 numbers (pre-gain 6.5, post gain 3, resonance 7) for the rhythm channel on the Sneap-co-produced 'Hit the Floor', so treat them as the session's house setting rather than a per-track dial; the head belonged to Andy Sneap and is the amp Matt Tuck later profiled in a Kemper, while Boost Guitar Pedals credits Tuck's own Peavey 6505 for the heavy tones.
Amp
Fender Cyber Twin
Documented as the amp for all clean tones on the album including the Tears Don't Fall intro, thickened with the amp's built-in chorus and delay; the knob numbers here are my estimate, the amp choice is not.
Pedals
- Maxon OD808 · overdrive (boost) · Drive 0, Level near max, Tone 5-6 — tightening boost into the 5150, no extra gain
- Morley Bad Horsie · wah · Used for lead/solo work in this era, not on the main riff
Tone character
tight high-gain crunch · scooped mids · boosted presence bite · fast palm-mute attack · doubled, wide rhythm tracks
The main riff is low-string power chords in Drop C over a steady palm-muted chug, so the challenge is right-hand stamina and keeping the mutes tight at 162 bpm rather than anything in the left hand — the solo later in the song is a much harder part.
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