For this Sleep Token-style guitar tone, we wanted the guitars to sound heavy while keeping the notes clear. The track was recorded on a baritone, so things could get muddy pretty fast. Keeping the gain under control and leaving room for the bass were a big part of getting it right.

We used the heavy channel in Clairvoyant, with no extra processing on the guitar bus afterward. You can absolutely put your own spin on it, but this gives you a chance to hear what the amp suite itself is doing.

Hear the finished tone in the track →
Sound example by Alex Garmon. The full walkthrough is also included below.

Start with the way you pick

To get this kind of tone, you need to pick hard and really dig into the strings. Before you start turning knobs, though, check what that does to your tuning.

If you tune perfectly with a lighter touch and then start hitting the strings hard, the notes can go sharp. If that happens, try tuning slightly flat, then check the tuner while picking as hard as you actually will in the part. You're looking for the note to be in tune under that attack.

This is especially worth checking if you're not using an EverTune bridge. Play around with it on your guitar instead of assuming the tuning you checked with a gentle pluck will hold up when you dig in.

Dial the tone in with the song playing

Start with Clairvoyant at its default settings and select the heavy channel. For the initial adjustments, we used one guitar side and panned it to the center. That made it easier to hear what we were working with before applying the tone to both sides.

Keep the song playing while you dial it in. We don't recommend building the whole tone in solo unless you're just jamming out in your bedroom. Here, the goal is to get the guitar working with the track, so that's the context you want to hear.

Keep the gain down and leave room for the bass

More note clarity was the main goal. With this baritone part, less gain was more: we wanted to keep the notes from turning into a muddy wash.

The low end also didn't need to collide with the bass. We kept that in check, kept the mid sound we liked, and took a little off the highs.

From there, the Tilt control added back some of the high end we'd taken out, in a way that sounded a little more musical for this track. Enhance was only around 25–30 percent. These were small finishing moves to get the tone where we wanted it.

Shape the top end with the overdrive

We took a similar approach with the overdrive: keep the gain restrained, then use the Tone control to add a little more high end. The pedal's Mix control was around 90 percent.

Once the tone was in a good place, we applied it to both guitar sides and listened again in the track. That gives you a better idea of the finished result than judging everything from one centered guitar.

Keep the cabinet choice simple

We used Clairvoyant's default IRs for this tone because they sounded good in the track. You don't need an additional IR pack to follow this example.

If you already have third-party IRs you like, feel free to experiment with them. You might come up with something cool. The default choices are simply where this particular sound landed.

Give the lo-fi section its own character

The lo-fi part uses the exact same underlying guitar tone. The only change was turning on Clairvoyant's Lo-Fi pedal at its default settings.

That kept the change simple. Listen to the lo-fi section at 3:26 to hear what that one pedal does in the song.

Hear the full walkthrough

The idea is to keep the notes clear, make space for the bass, and judge your adjustments in the song. Start there, then put your own spin on it. You can hear the finished sound and follow the adjustments in our original walkthrough.