Sugar, We're Goin Down
Fall Out Boy · From Under the Cork Tree · 2005
The riff is a mid-forward, tightly palm-muted high-gain rhythm sound in drop D, double-tracked hard left and right so the two takes stack into one wall. Nobody has published the actual amp used at Ocean Studios, so the settings here come from Trohman's documented high-gain heads of that period and from the sound of the record: humbucker bridge pickup, gain under control, mids up, bass trimmed so the low D stays punchy instead of boomy. Skip reverb and effects entirely — this is guitar straight into a loud amp.
Where these numbers come from: worked out from the documented rig and the sound of the record
Tuning
Drop D
Both guitars sit in drop D and the intro riff is double-tracked left and right, so cut two tight passes rather than one wide one.
Guitar
- Gibson SG Special · humbuckers · bridge pickup
- Gibson Les Paul · humbuckers · bridge pickup
Amp
Bogner Uberschall
Trohman has said in interviews from the years right after this album that he A/B'd an Uberschall with an Orange Rockerverb and ran no pedals; no source names the amp actually used at Ocean Studios, so treat this as the period rig, not a session credit. Back the gain off well below max — the record's riff is tight rather than saturated.
Amp
Marshall JCM800 2203
A widely held alternate reading: engineers on The Gear Page/Gearspace hear JCM800-style crunch across Cork Tree, and in Premier Guitar's 2024 rundown the band's own amp templates are built off a JCM800 for crunch and a Mesa Dual Rectifier for their heavy sound — a Dual Rectifier on the modern channel with mids around 5 gets close too.
Tone character
tight high-gain crunch · forward mids · controlled low end · double-tracked rhythm guitars · bright pick attack
Two-finger power shapes on the bottom strings in drop D with quick position slides, so the work is in keeping the palm mute and the picking hand even at tempo.
Want this on your own amp?
These are the record's settings. Tell us what you play through and we'll translate every knob to the amp you actually own — free.
Adapt it to my gearSources
- Sugar, We're Goin Down — Wikipedia
- Fall Out Boy – From Under The Cork Tree (Discogs credits)
- Bass Transcription: Fall Out Boy – Sugar, We're Goin Down
- Sugar We're Goin Down tab — Songsterr
- Joe Trohman Interview — Guitar International
- Joe Trohman interview archive (Washburn signature era)
- Fall Out Boy Rig Rundown: Digital Trio Goes Wild — Premier Guitar
- From Under The Cork Tree gear list — Equipboard
- Fall Out Boy Guitars — Gearspace thread
- Song Exploder: Fall Out Boy — Sugar, We're Goin Down