frustrated trying to match the tones from songs...

[Chiguete]

So how do you guys try to figure out to the tone of a song that has been double tracked? Do you open it up in the DAW and try to match the left or right side? Or try do come up with a tone that gets close to the combined double track recording?

 

[chris]

I don't worry about it because tones from recordings are completely different from live tones. There is so much bass removed and specific frequencies cut to sound good in the CD mix that no one would use that live because it'd sound thin and lifeless.

 

[Matt_B_77]

I don't worry about it because tones from recordings are completely different from live tones. There is so much bass removed and specific frequencies cut to sound good in the CD mix that no one would use that live because it'd sound thin and lifeless.

This. If you listened to isolated guitar tracks from recordings you will begin to understand how this works and thanks to the Internet they're easy to find now.

 

[Geezerjohn]

Although other guitarists create some stellar recordings, I never try to be them or ape their playing. I create presets that work for me and the sound I am trying to get. I have my basic clean tones, rhythm tones and lead presets. The AX8 allows me to create very compelling guitar tone that suits me. I never try to nail someone else's sound. I want the tone that works for the song.

 

[solo-act]

I don't worry about it because tones from recordings are completely different from live tones. There is so much bass removed and specific frequencies cut to sound good in the CD mix that no one would use that live because it'd sound thin and lifeless.

I disagree a bit - what happens at the board in the studio likely happens live at the FOH board. To your point though, in that scenario the player can dial whatever they want.

If OP is gigging direct to board, no FOH guy, and his monitor has everything it, or he's gigging to tracks and monitoring similar way, then copping album tone will cut as needed and sound great in mix, but not in isolation.

To the OPs point, you can do stereo cab and 2 amps to get the "bright & dark" two-flavor mojo of the original 2-rig recording, but that falls into mad skills of dark-art engineer/producer, not the easiest thing to nail, and definitely not required for home jamming.

I gig to tracks. To save time and effort on rig and rig redial on big FW updates, I cop a single tone that sounds like the two rigs combined. I do that with 80's anthem 867-5309, and others.

 

[DaveO]

My 2 cents= I never drilled down too hard on recreating percise replicas of guitar sounds as it really can be a tetious undertaking but I do like to do my best to capture the gist of a sound i.e type of guitar sound like distortion or clean, echo or phase or verb etc... so if I'm playing a lick or song friends say "hey thats sounds just like that song" obviously some tribute and audiophllies guitarist would be inclined to be 100% accurate so then you may need to use tools to dissect your guitarists tone to get to where you need to be.