Bleed It Out guitar tone

The rig LINKIN PARK used

Researched from interviews, production write-ups and gear histories — not guessed.

Signal chain

The order the original sound was built in. The exact settings get dialled for your own amp or modeller when you generate the tone.

1. PRS Custom 24

   1

   the guitar on the track

   guitar
2. Soldano SLO-100

   2

   the distortion

   amp
3. Marshall 1960 4x12 with Celestion Vintage 30 speakers

   3

   the speaker voice

   cab
4. Shure SM57 close on the cabinet

   4

   close capture

   mic

Why we think this is right

The prior chain is accepted with no rejections. The PRS Custom 24 is well documented as Delson's instrument, and a Soldano SLO-100 on its Overdrive channel matches both the reporting on these sessions and what is audible - the distortion here keeps its midrange and stays articulate under fast muting, which is characteristic of an SLO and specifically not characteristic of the scooped Rectifier sound of the previous decade. Neither the amplifier nor the cabinet nor the microphone is credited on the sleeve, so all three sit in the medium-to-medium-high band rather than being treated as documented fact. What this research adds is the per-block settings and the two guitar voices. The prior gave the song one scene covering the riff, the verses and the chorus together. There are two articulations on the record: the fast palm-muted figure that drives the verses, and the open sustained chords in the chorus. They share one amplifier setting and that is stated explicitly, because the temptation on a song that builds like this one is to write the chorus as a hotter amplifier, which would be a fabrication. One deliberate omission: there is no delay or reverb block. The guitar on this record is strikingly dry, and adding studio effects that cannot be heard would be inventing gear.

Sources

• Minutes to Midnight (2007) album credits, produced by Rick Rubin and Mike Shinoda
• Documentation of Brad Delson's PRS Custom 24 as his main instrument in this period
• Reported use of Soldano SLO-100 amplification for the Minutes to Midnight guitar sounds
• The recording itself, for the dryness of the guitar, the palm-muted verse figure and the open chorus chords

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