Nail the ToneSlipknot

Psychosocial

Slipknot · All Hope Is Gone · 2008

Psychosocial is two guitarists playing the same low riff: Jim Root's EMG-loaded Jim Root Telecaster prototypes into an Orange Rockerverb 100 blended with a Diezel Herbert, and Mick Thomson's custom Ibanez MTM "Stormtrooper" into his Rivera KR7. The gain is high but not extreme, with mids left in and the low end kept tight so each chug lands like a snare hit. Nail the palm muting and the drop A tuning first — those matter more here than any knob.

Where these numbers come from: worked out from the documented rig and the sound of the record

Tuning

Drop A (A E A D F# B)

Both rhythm guitars are doubled in the same low tuning; heavy strings help (Thomson used D'Addario .011–.058 sets for his drop-A guitars), and note that some published tabs write the song a whole step higher in Drop B, which sounds close but not in the record's key.

Part: Riff

Guitar

  • Fender Jim Root Telecaster (white and black prototypes) · EMG 81 / EMG 60 · bridge pickup
  • Ibanez MTM Custom "Stormtrooper" · Seymour Duncan Blackouts AHB-1 · bridge pickup

Amp

Orange Rockerverb 100 MkII

GAIN
7.0
BASS
5.5
MID
6.0
TREBLE
6.5
REVERB
0.0

Root's core album tone: the Rockerverb was split with a Diezel Herbert through a Little Labs PCP Instrument Distro, cabs mic'd with an MD 421 and an SM57 into a Neve 1073, and he says he used the same sound for rhythm and leads across the record.

Amp

Diezel Herbert

GAIN
6.0
BASS
5.0
MID
5.5
TREBLE
6.0
PRESENCE
5.0

Blended underneath the Orange rather than used alone; it supplies the tight, compressed low mids that keep the drop-A chugs from turning boomy.

Amp

Rivera KR7 Knucklehead Reverb (Mick Thomson signature)

GAIN
7.0
BASS
5.0
MID
6.5
TREBLE
6.5
PRESENCE
6.0
REVERB
0.0

Thomson tracked most of All Hope Is Gone with the KR7 into his Celestion K100-loaded signature 4x12s; a separate account from the Premier Guitar Rig Rundown has him also using a Marshall JCM800 2203 pushed by a Maxon overdrive on this album, so the exact head on any single track is not nailed down. Set Focus tight if your amp has it.

Pedals

  • Maxon OD808 (modified TS808-style overdrive) · overdrive used as boost · Drive near 0, Level high, Tone around noon — tightens the low end rather than adding gain. Thomson describes using it live and in the studio; at least one write-up claims it was on solos rather than the main riff.

Tone character

dry percussive chug · tight controlled low end · forward grinding mids · bright pick attack · almost no ambience

medium

The notes themselves are single-string power-chord chugs, but the syncopated 16th-note pattern at about 135 bpm has to be palm muted and picked with exact consistency, and in drop A a loose muting hand turns the riff to mud.

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.

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Sources