Tosin Abasi — £2,500 · Premium Tone

• The Marshall DSL40CR delivers power-tube saturation at master volume 6–7 — this compression and sag is what separates amp-driven tone from pedal tone. Set the master first, then dial back the channel gain to taste rather than the other way around.
• String gauge matters more than any pedal — use .010–.074 or heavier on 8-string for tight low end
• Palm muting must be precise: too much muting kills the percussive chug, too little creates mud
• The eight-string guitar's lower two strings (typically F# and B) carry bass-register riffs that in a traditional band context would be handled by the bassist — the thumb-muting technique required to control the physical ringing of these heavy strings must be built as its own independent practice priority
• Tapping with three or four right-hand fingers across different strings simultaneously creates the polyrhythmic textures — each finger independently hammers on to a different string, producing multiple simultaneous voices from a single hand. Isolate each finger's independence before combining them
• Animals as Leaders' compositional approach places technique in service of musical structure — the complex rhythms and extended techniques occur within composed sections with clear beginnings, middles, and ends. Transcribe full sections rather than individual licks to understand how technique serves music
• Muting with the right-hand palm is more critical on an 8-string than a 6-string — the additional low strings produce significantly more sympathetic vibration and string noise. Develop aggressive, consistent palm muting on the lower strings as the baseline default for all playing

• ✗Running the Peavey 6505's gain channel at maximum — above 8 on most high-gain channels, palm mutes lose note separation and become an indistinct wall. The target is the minimum gain for the target saturation, not maximum
• ✗Using the cab simulation on when running into a real guitar cabinet — cab simulation is for FRFR speakers or direct recording. Running a simulated cab into a real guitar cab double-simulates the cabinet sound, which sounds wrong
• ✗Not setting delay to song tempo — a delay that doesn't match the song tempo creates a rhythmic clash that builds and becomes increasingly obvious. Tap the tempo every time.
• ✗Ignoring down-tuning — trying to achieve dropped-tuning riff character at standard pitch produces a thinner, less aggressive result regardless of EQ.

If you like Tosin Abasi's tone, these players use a similar approach — same gear philosophy, comparable sound characteristics.