Nail the ToneSystem of a Down

Chop Suey!

System of a Down · Toxicity · 2001

Malakian tracked Toxicity with no effects pedals, blending Marshall and Mesa/Boogie heads and cabs — Mesa for the bite, Marshall for the body — each cab miked with an SM57 and a U87 into a pair of blackface 1176s. For the main riff, use a bridge humbucker into a tight high-gain channel with bass restrained for Drop C, treble and presence up so the strings stay audible, and double the take if you can. The exact guitar on this track isn't confirmed: an Iceman is his period instrument, and a black Les Paul appears in session photos.

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

Tuning

Drop C (C G C F A D)

The clean intro/verse figure is a stack of multiple layered acoustic guitars in the same tuning; the heavy riff is the electric doubled several times, so one guitar alone will sound thinner than the record.

Part: Riff

Guitar

  • Ibanez Iceman (IC/ICX) · stock Ibanez humbuckers · bridge pickup
  • Gibson Les Paul (black) · bridge pickup

Amp

Mesa/Boogie Dual Rectifier

GAIN
7.5
BASS
3.5
MID
4.0
TREBLE
7.0
PRESENCE
6.0

Engineer Dave Schiffman said the Mesa side "gave us the teeth" — set the Modern channel tight, with the bass pulled back so Drop C chugs stay articulate; the amp has no reverb.

Amp

Marshall Super Lead 1959SLP

BASS
5.0
MID
7.0
TREBLE
7.5
PRESENCE
6.0

No gain control on a Plexi — run Volume I around 8 with channels jumpered; Schiffman credited the Marshall with "the body." Equipboard cites session photos for a 1959SLP, while forum accounts commonly claim a JCM800 was the Marshall used on Toxicity, and the specific Marshall model is not named in the engineer interview.

Tone character

tight high gain · bright stringy pick attack · forward mids · controlled low end · dry, in-your-face

medium

One-finger Drop C power chords, but the riff jumps positions fast at a brisk tempo and needs clean palm muting and tight right-hand accents to keep the syncopation from smearing.

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Sources