Excellent Sarge. I love the attention to detail where you have the guitar in one channel "looser" with less palm muting, and the other one under more control. Sounds like two different guitarists tracking it live in the studio together as a band. Your tone has more bottom, as you know. It's possible they used Tele's which would be thinner overall.
It was really nice of John Cougar to swing by and lay down the vocals like that.
I enjoyed it because we often hear mega-gain demonstrations, and I think where the modeler does a better job than anything else, and the toughest tone to reproduce digitally, are slightly broken up overdrive tones. Your track proves the Axe FX does it well, and in a mix, you can't tell the difference.
Rod
Surprised you noticed what I did with the different tracks. That was intentional.
When I did my first couple recordings, I found some sections sounded better when I played them a little different then the other track. To be fair most is about the same, but I intentionally play it differently in a couple areas.
John and I go way back. He was nice enough to give me the backing track here.
John Mellencamp - Hurts So Good (2) Free Guitar Backing Track
I also agree regarding how well the axe FX really does the classic rock tones and isn't simply a metal modeler. I rarely play metal with it. Metallica is the heaviest I get. And I play that sparingly.
I live on the JCM 800 and plexi patches. They simply sound SO authentic, and don't require blowing the windows out to get a great tone.
I would imagine from a programming standpoint, replicating slight breakup and the nuances that go with that would be considerably tougher then standard compressed high gain.
But I would only be guessing.
As far as them using Tele's, perhaps. But I am using a Suhr Classic with the bridge pickup. It's a single coil.
My guess. When they recorded, they used some brit amp and recorded it at a low volume. That is why it sounds so thin for them.
Mine I have the master at 12:00, so my tone is a bit warmer, though still crisp.
My favorite tone in the recording is when it is a single guitar during the verses just sort of screwing around through the chord changes.
I'm telling you, since gen 1, I turn my Axe FX on EVERY DAY that I am home.
