Show Me How to Live (Riff · Distorted) — Guitar Tone
by Audioslave · riff
The Show Me How to Live by Audioslave guitar tone is built on a Marshall JCM800 2205, dialed in at gain 8.5/10, bass 8, mid 8, treble 7, presence 7 (community-researched baseline). Full breakdown below — then adapt every knob to your exact guitar and amp, free.
Community-researched baseline. Your rig is different — GuitarToneAdapt re-dials every knob for your specific guitar, amp and pickups.
Original gear
Amp: Marshall JCM800 2205 (50W, overdrive channel) into a Peavey 4x12
Pickups
bridge humbucker (Seymour Duncan Hot Rails)
Effects / signal chain
distortion, pitch-shifter
Tone character
thick mid-forward gain, Marshall chime, expressive, effects-driven
Recording context
studio
How it’s played
thick, mid-forward JCM800 high-gain distortion. This shapes how hard the amp is pushed and where the EQ sits for the Show Me How to Live sound.
What makes the Show Me How to Live part tricky
Whammy technique, kill-switch rhythms, expressive bends. GuitarToneAdapt gets the tone right so you can focus on the playing.
Note: Show Me How to Live is a driving, thick JCM800 riff with Morello’s wah/Whammy flourishes — full bass and mids for the Marshall chunk., Tom Morello kept the same rig from Rage Against the Machine into Audioslave: a 50-watt Marshall JCM800 2205 (overdrive channel only) into a Peavey 4x12. His long-standing settings are roughly Presence 7, Bass high, Middle high, Treble 7, Gain ~9 — a thick, mid-forward high-gain with Marshall chime. (Sources vary between bass/mid maxed and bass/mid ~4 with treble up; the maxed version is the most-cited.), The signature moves are effects: a DigiTech Whammy (the Like a Stone solo, plus Cochise / Revelations) and a Boss DD-2/DD-3 delay set to a fast slapback with high feedback (the helicopter intro of Cochise). Guitars are his 'Soul Power' (Seymour Duncan Hot Rails, kill switch) and 'Arm the Homeless'., Settings are community-researched starting points, not official recall sheets — a Whammy and a slapback delay get you most of the way to the signature parts.