Laid to Rest
Lamb of God · Ashes of the Wake · 2004
The main riff is a bridge-humbucker guitar — Morton's converted '75 Les Paul goldtop with a Seymour Duncan '59, or his Jackson Swee-Tone — into a Mesa/Boogie Mark IV through V30-loaded Mesa 4x12s, in drop D. Set the gain high but not maxed, pull the bass back so the palm mutes stay tight, and let the Mark IV's treble and graphic EQ do the chainsaw upper-mid thing. Note that producer Machine re-amped much of this album, so the record's exact texture is partly a mix sound; the equipment is well documented, the knob positions here are inferred.
Where these numbers come from: worked out from the documented rig and the sound of the record
Tuning
Drop D
Both guitars are in drop D on the record; live in recent years the band often drops the whole song to drop C#/Db, so play-alongs with concert video may not match the album pitch.
Guitar
- 1975 Gibson Les Paul Goldtop (converted to full-size humbuckers) · Seymour Duncan '59 (bridge) · bridge pickup
- Jackson Swee-Tone · humbuckers · bridge pickup
- Mesa/Boogie-era rhythm guitar (Willie Adler, Seymour Duncan '59 humbuckers) · Seymour Duncan '59 · bridge pickup
Amp
Mesa/Boogie Mark IV
Morton confirms the Mark IV as the album amp; one account (Boost Guitar Pedals, citing a Guitar World interview) says he ran a pair of Mark IVs, one with EL34s and one with 6L6s, plus a small amount of Dual Rectifier tracking. Use the Mark IV's 5-band graphic EQ in a mild V with the 750 Hz slider only slightly dipped — the record still has plenty of mids.
Amp
Mesa/Boogie Rectifier 4x12 (Vintage 30s)
V30-loaded Mesa 4x12s close-miked; Machine re-amped a great deal of the album, so the released tone is a mix decision as much as an amp setting, and Morton has said publicly he never liked how it came back from mix and master.
Pedals
- Maxon OD808 · overdrive used as a tightening boost · Drive 0, Tone ~5-6, Level high — boost only, not extra distortion
- Boss NS-2 Noise Suppressor · noise gate · Threshold just above the amp hiss; the riff's staccato gaps need to be quiet
Tone character
tight palm-muted low end · aggressive upper-mid bite · scooped-but-present Mark IV mids · high gain, still articulate · dry, no reverb
Fast palm-muted sixteenth-note runs on the low string at about 140 bpm with constant position shifts and a slide into the opening figure — the picking-hand stamina and the tightness of the muting are what make it hard, not the notes.
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
No published source — the settings below are estimated by ear.