Cover Band: Do you match the guitar tones?

I love the varying (but well thought out) opinions this has brought out. I appreciate you guys taking the time to drop some answers my way.

Having read every reply twice, I feel like I've got a really solid foundation of ideas to roll with now, and I'll likely end up taking a little piece of everything from everyone who has posted.

Thanks, gents! :)
 
I usually use about 5 presets per gig, for different amp sounds.
Marshall, Fender, Tucana, Vox, and Swart .
Using those presets with different effects per scene lets me cover pretty much everything pretty close to the original tone.
 
In the muse tribute I was in it was a main preset and some special ones with the goal to be as the cd :)
 
I try to, at least, use the same amp the original guitarist used on the song. Got an Axe Fx and access to all those amps. So for example for The Romantics What I Like About You I dial up a HiWatt. Of course without the Rics, it's not going to be perfect. But with a Tele and a HiWatt it gets pretty close. Then on songs like Message in a Bottle I try and get as close as I can with the effects and harmonies. It takes some extra work, but I hate not using the AxeFx to it's potential, and what I'm doing is just scratching the surface.
 
Amp voice, gain structure and effects coupled with style of playing will get you their. Trying to match EQ with a recorded tone will only get you buried in the mix!

Unless you are playing a song that has a very unique sound about it say Boston where one has to rely heavily on pre EQ to get the sound to be recognizable most of the tunes out there can be handled with getting close simply using the style of amp used to record the song with Marshall, Fender, Vox.
 
I try to get as close as I can to the original tone. I play in a 90's alternative cover band and this is the reason I got the AX8 in the first place, because I now could dial up all the different amps to match the different bands we cover. In the beginning, I did make the mistake of trying to have a preset for each song, which got very cumbersome very fast. So now I just have a preset for a particular band and if I know another band sounds close or if I know they used the same type of equipment, I'll use that same preset. Most bands of that era and genre pretty much used the same few different amps/cabs that were available at the time, so it's not so difficult to emulate. I agree that the audience probably pays more attention to the groove and the singing more than anything, but when I listen to a cover band I am pretty nit picky about it being authentic and as close to the original as possible, but that's just me and what I like and I try to achieve with my own covers. If I was playing my own original music it would be a different story. I think, whether the audience knows it or not, there are particular tones associated with the songs in their heads and if I can unlock this at a show, then we will stand out to them.
 
Yes, but within limits.
Certain styles have certain tones and are VERY WELL KNOWN to the audience.
Nothing (IME) says "fail" worse than listening to a guitar play a Journey, Eagles, Hendrix, Zep or other [extremely well known] lead with the WRONG tone and making it "their own".. ugh.
 
I’ve done some covers where I’ve researched the guitarist’s gear, picked up the right guitar, loaded up the correct amp and effects and been blown away how close you can get to the original tone. It’s a very gratifying experiance and it just puts me in the zone with the original player. Great fun to do!
 
POB said:
I’ve done some covers where I’ve researched the guitarist’s gear, picked up the right guitar, loaded up the correct amp and effects and been blown away how close you can get to the original tone. It’s a very gratifying experiance and it just puts me in the zone with the original player. Great fun to do!
Click to expand...

Yep, I do this too with pretty good results.
 
I grew up on bands that covered songs "in their own style" (Phish, the Dead, etc.) so it doesn't bother me or the crowds we play for if we don't sound exactly like the original. We'll usually start out new songs by rehearsing them close to the album or a specific live version and then over time make it our own.
 
Our band tries to keep the songs as close to the originals but do not chase tones. A couple high gain and mid gain banks with cleans and acoustic patches along with boost and solo patches and call it a day. Guitar volume for nuance's to the gain.
 
We play to a click and lock in tempos for each song. Locking tempo allows me to sync up all the time based effects in each song as is usually done in the studio. Since I'm creating a tempo based preset for each song, I'll go the extra step and get as close to the guitar / amp tones as time allows. I even went as far as using a US made Tyler Line 6 Variax for a while. It sounded pretty bad when played alone but some of the guitar models are pretty convincing when you hear them in the mix with the rest of the band. The instantly altered tunings were a big help too when covering stuff from Alice In Chains, Goo Goo Dolls, Black Crowes, etc., in the same set. Aside from that, it was also a seriously nice guitar. I've simplified the rig a bit lately as were mainly doing acoustic stuff now but, if you're going to own an Axe FX, you may as well use all the bells and whistles.
 
With the exception of the keyboard player who has to come fairly close to make it sound good for the more iconic numbers, we don't worry too much about striving for the exact tone of the original - they (80's/90's classic rawk) generally all fall into just a few different amp types/gain structures - so 'ballpark' seems to work out pretty good.

Trying to play the correct notes is probably more of the challenge!
 
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