bass guitar rifts hypnotize system of a down

So a slight roll off of the gain will help tighten things up. Here you’ll need to be muting the guitars pretty quickly during the pre-chorus. Chop Suey!Įveryone’s favorite System song. Treble: 6 – A small treble boost just to accent the pick attack helps a lot. Mids: 6.5 – The brunt of Daron’s tone was coming from the mids, so a fairly generous boost here is going to help the guitar push through the other instruments nicely. So rolling this off a bit can help to tighten things up. If you are using low-output pickups then consider raising this to 8.īass: 4 – System of a Down uses very clear high-gain tones that don’t require a lot of bass. Gain: 7 – Daron didn’t rely on distortion pedals so you’ll need as much gain as you can get out of the preamp before the tone starts becoming unwieldy. Here’s a really solid baseline setting you can use to get that signature System of a Down high gain tone. Daron’s Amp Settings for System of a DownĪs Daron needed to utilize both clean, crunch, and high gain tones for System of a Down’s music, he’d make heavy use of the different channels of his amp and adjust his settings to whatever the song required. You can achieve similar tones with other popular high-gain heads such as the Peavey 6505, or even the Mesa Boogie Mini Rectifier, although you may need to drive it a bit harder by using a distortion pedal.

Not only do they sound great, but they’re built like tanks and can stand up to the busy touring schedule playing in System of a Down would demand. The Mesa Boogie Dual and Triple Rectifiers are the gold standard when it comes to modern high-gain tones. But it certainly was seen often when System would play live. It’s not known how much studio use this amp received. So while you can’t purchase an off the shelf modded amplifier like Daron’s, something like Marshall DSL100HR or a JCM 900 will pump out enough gain for his style of music.īut for the average home player, something like the Marshall DSL20HR is going to give you comparable gain for a fraction of the volume (and price). One unique aspect of this amplifier was the fact he had modded the second channel to include additional gain staging to get that more modern nu-metal sound. He’d use his Gibson SG into this head paired with a 4×12 Marshall cabinet which would actually be recorded with a single room microphone, instead of the traditional closed mic technique.

The Marshall JMP 2203 produces that quintessential rock guitar tone whilst still retaining enough headroom for some pleasant clean sounds. Often described as God’s gift to rock guitar. The general ethos is that they’re all high gain and high wattage as he’d rely almost exclusively on pre-amp gain for the majority of his distorted tones. AmpsĪs far as amp go, he likes to keep things pretty old school, sticking primarily to a traditional tube amp and cab setup. This means every string is dropped by 2 semitones to make D, G, C, F, A, D, then the lowest string is dropped a further 2 semitones to make it a drop tuning giving you C, G, C, F, A, D. Tuningĭaron uses Drop C tuning exclusively for System of a Down. You’ll be able to achieve very similar results with both the Epiphone SG Standard and Epiphone SG Standard ’61 Maestro Vibrola as these have the same mahogany body and pickup configuration. This combination of dual humbucking pickups with a mahogany body and medium output pickups allowed him to achieve the wide variety of sounds he needed. On occasion, he’d also use a Gibson SG Standard ’61 Maestro Vibrola for when he needed the floating bridge and vibrola system. Gibson SGĭaron also likes to use a regular Gibson SG standard which is left completely stock. So a more modern production guitar like the Ibanez Iron Label Iceman can work as a great alternative. These guitars are pretty expensive and even tougher to find nowadays. Then in 2004, he released his signature model, the Ibanez DMM1 which is based on the aforementioned ICX120 Ibanez.įundamentally it’s very similar, but features a new custom tail plate and Ibanez’s own Axis pickups which have individual tone control knobs, much like the SG. For the longest time, he used various models of the ICX120 that would have unique artworks and designs painted onto them.

Ibanez Icemanĭaron has had a longstanding relationship with Ibanez.

You’ll be heading from crystal clear clean sounds to ultra-high gain distortion tones from section to section. One of the main characteristics of Daron’s sound is that he’s diverse. Daron’s Amp Settings for System of a Down.

Bass guitar rifts hypnotize system of a down