Nail the ToneRage Against the Machine

Killing in the Name

Rage Against the Machine · Rage Against the Machine · 1992

The main riff is Morello's stock 1982 Telecaster on the neck pickup, tuned drop D, straight into the boost channel of his 50-watt Marshall JCM800 2205 and a Peavey 4x12. His amp EQ is unusual and well documented: bass and mids dimed, treble and presence around 7, gain near 9, which is why the riff sounds thick and mid-forward rather than bright. Nothing is on the riff itself except a flanger for the first four bars of the intro; the record is intentionally dry, so keep reverb and delay off and let the palm mute do the work.

Where these numbers come from: the player said these settings themselves

Tuning

Drop D

Morello wrote the riff while demonstrating drop D during a guitar lesson; the whole track stays in drop D with the low string as the riff's root.

Part: Riff

Guitar

  • 1982 Fender Telecaster "Sendero Luminoso" · stock Fender single-coils · neck pickup

Amp

Marshall JCM800 2205 (50W head)

GAIN
9.0
BASS
10.0
MID
10.0
TREBLE
7.0
PRESENCE
7.0
REVERB
7.0

Boost (dirty) channel only, into a 1987 Peavey 4x12 with Celestion G12K-85s; Morello says these settings have been fixed since 1988, so they cover the session. A photo-based reading circulated by Guitar Chalk instead shows presence about 1, reverb 0 and treble about 6, so the exact presence/reverb positions are contested.

Pedals

  • Ibanez DFL Flanger · flanger · On for the first four bars of the intro only; slow, shallow sweep (Morello swapped in an MXR Phase 90 for this part live in later years)
  • DOD FX40B Equalizer · EQ / clean boost · Sliders flat, level pushed above unity as a boost
  • DigiTech Whammy WH-1 · pitch shifter · 2 octaves up, used in the solo rather than the main riff

Tone character

fat mids, dimed EQ · tight palm-muted chug · single-coil bite · medium-high tube gain · bone-dry, no ambience

easy

The riff itself is a two-finger drop-D power-chord/single-note figure, but it lives or dies on tight palm muting and dead-accurate placement of the syncopated rests.

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Sources