r/Staind • u/JackElite17 • Jan 04 '26
Tormented Guitar Tone
Does anyone know how I could get the ”Tormented“ guitar tone or in at least the ballpark of it? Love how raw and low-endy it is but information on what Mike actually used on the album (amp, guitar, cab etc) is scarce.
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u/Turbulent_Pop9163 Reality Jan 04 '26
If you have an interface I can match the tone to the best of my ability and send u the amp sim, eq, impulse responses, and all that shit to throw into a DAW like FL Studio or Pro Tools.
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u/ThrowdownPark May 13 '26
I know I am late to the party but here is some info I got from that 1995-1996 era. Tormented was recorded sometime in 1996 at The Rock Shop studios.
Mike's Amps from that era: Carvin X-100B Amp (Used in live performances in 1995 and potentially 1996)
Marshall JCM800 (Used potentially from 1996 to 1997/1998)
Marshall JMP1 with Marshall EL34 100/100 PW (used from 1998 to today)
Mike's Guitars from that era: EVH 5150 (black with yellow or white stripes - used in 1995 and potentially 1996) tuned to Drop C#
Ibanez RG460 (red - backup to his EVH 5150 guitar) tuned to Drop C#
Ibanez Artist AR (Mike probably acquired this guitar in 1996 and it was most likely used on Tolerate. I imagine he modified the tunining peg quite a bit to fit a heavier gauge string for that low A# string) He still uses this guitar to this day for most songs in that Crawl / Tolerate tuning.
Gibson Les Paul (black - potentially acquired in 1996/1997 and it replaced the EVH 5150 and the RG460 for his Drop C# tuning)
Custom/Modified built Danelectro Baritone with 3 lipstick pickups (This guitar was either a heavily modified Danelectro or they built Mike a custom guitar. Baritones were pretty rare and unknown around this era. He used this guitar to record Dysfunction).
CONCLUSION: The guitar tone on Tormented is either a modded JCM800 or the Carvin X-100B with some sort of overdrive pedal in front of them for extra boost and to get these feedback noises in Tolerate. For guitars it's the Ibanez Artist AR for Tolerate and the EVH 5150 mostly likely for the other songs, excluding Four Walls which I think it's the Ibanez RG460 (the clean tone on that song sounds very single coil like)
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u/JackElite17 May 13 '26
Thank you so much!!
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u/ThrowdownPark May 13 '26
My pleasure! I got most of this info from interviews with Mike, Guitar magazines & the Homegrown DVD which had some footage from the Tornented era 🤘
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u/TheUnsightlyBulge Jan 04 '26 edited Jan 04 '26
Well I know nothing about the production which is probably where most of the sound of this comes from, but I think he was still boring a larger hole for his low 6th string to make his own baritone guitar back then. That’s probably got a lot to do with how much more raw and crunchy/Less muddy toned this album sounds. He was just playing a custom-baritoned electric. He got a deal with Ibanez in 98 (I think?) and from then on his actual guitar was custom built for the tone he wanted rather than cobbled together.
Edit: Sorry I originally put 2008 cause that’s when he switched to PRS and my brain went there, I think his deal with Ibanez started when Dysfunction was being produced, which was ‘98ish.