Map of the Problematique Riff Guitar Tone Settings — Muse

Tone Character

• Programmed octave pulse
• Firm chord center
• Defined low end

Playing Technique

Practical suggestions for this riff reconstruction; difficulty reflects the exercise, not an official transcription.

• 🎸Hold the input shape steadily · difficulty 3/5Keep fretting pressure even while the effect moves, avoiding accidental pitch changes in the source chord.
• 🎸Synchronize the first attack · difficulty 4/5Practice starting exactly with the programmed pattern so the repeating figure lands in the intended place.
• 🎸Mute before changing harmony · difficulty 4/5Stop the previous shape cleanly when moving to the next chord, preventing the pitch effect from processing both at once.
• 🎸Keep the processed mix readable · difficulty 3/5Balance dry and effected sound until the pattern is clear without turning the entire riff into a diffuse texture.

Sources

• 📎Muse's Matt Bellamy on Their New Album Will Of The People - Premier Guitar

Tone Story / Why This Tone Works

• 🕰️Guitar behaving like a sequenceMap of the Problematique places a patterned guitar texture within Muse’s Black Holes and Revelations-era production.
• 🎸Bellamy’s programmed movementMatt Bellamy describes holding a guitar shape while programmed pitch changes create the apparent moving pattern.
• 🎛️The dry chord still mattersA cleanly fretted source gives the effect a stable signal. Excess string noise becomes part of every processed repetition.
• 🎯Timing connects player and effectThe figure works when the guitar entrance and the repeating pitch pattern agree. More notes by hand can obscure that relationship.