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Date: Sun, 11 Feb 2001 16:57:41 -0500
From: Moshpit Cow <moshpitcow@usa.net>
Subject: r/rage_against_the_machine/mic_check.tab

Rage Against The Machine
Mic Check
>From the rather splendid album The Battle Of Los Angeles, 1999

This is only my second tab, ever, so try to keep the criticism constructive
:)

Verse:

Despite what anyone tells you, that 'wrerp-wrerp' noise is not Tom's guitar.
It's Tim's distorted bass, probably with a wah as well. This riff is played
over it. King Tom uses a delay effect which perfectly matches the beat. I
can't get it dead on, because of the way my dekay effect works. It's
somewhere around 500ms.

E-------2----------4---------2---------1--
B-----2----------2---------2---------2----
G---2----------2---------2---------2------
D-4----------4---------4---------4--------
A-----------------------------------------
E-----------------------------------------

The song goes into the chorus (where there's no guitar), back to the above
riff, then the chorus, then onto a new part. Two guitars are audible here,
one playing this:

E-----------
B-5--4--4--4
G-5--5--5--5   
D-----------
A-----------
E-----------

...and another guitar, making a REALLY wierd bomb-dropping noise. I can't
get even close to this, you're gonna have to play around with this one.

Next comes a grinding noise, which is easily done by scraping a hex key
(or allen wrench in America-speak) along the A string while toggling your
pickups. For those of you not familiar with Tom's toggling, Tom has a volume
switch on each of his pickups, and if he turns one down and turns the other
all the way up, then switches between them, well, you get the idea. I've
got a similar thing on my guitar but I've simply got a switch on my middle
pickup.

The next noise you here is a lot like a a DJ scratching on a record. To get
this, use one hand to rub the strings and another to toggle the pickups.
This is what Tom does, but I find it sounds much, much cooler to take my
Zippo cigarette lighter (unpolished) and brush that against the E and B
strings. I can never get my toggling to sound right, so I cheat and use a
volume pedal really quickly. To get the 'moo' sound you hear every so often
just play the E string and pull up on your tremolo arm.

That's pretty much it, cos the noises on the final chorus are basically
combinations of the above.

Mail me:

moshpitcow@usa.net

Or find me as Seth_Putnam or Tom_Morello on the ArtistDIRECT IRC
server: 209.216.207.245.