Mike Rutherford/Genesis sound

kavevester

Inspired
I'm starting Genesis Revind band and this is from scratch so first of all I need to (as guitar player) to get close to Mike's sound.
Is there any basics I need to know before fine tuning the FX's? Is he playing with both clean combined with chrunch sounds (2 amps) or what is
his ideal setup? Dos he use Muff Pi? What FX's is signature in his sound?

I have a Suhr standard custom guitar and hopefully it will cover the clean/chrunch parts. (ML standard neck , ML standard middle, SSV bridge)..
 
Depends which era you're after. The last Genesis album was a Groove tubes preamp, and if I remember correctly he had a Boogie rig just before that, that also had a Fender Super Champ. Probably the Alan Murphy influence who played some amazing solos on the Mike and the Mechanics first two albums
 
He seems to change his tone a lot, so there's not any one preset that's going to "do it all". Also the live recordings with Darryl Struermer are very different from the studio recordings. I'm in a Genesis tribute and play mostly a Super Verb Vib + compression for the cleans, and a Vox AC30 for the dirty channel. Here's the preset if you want to check it out:

Scene 1 - Clean
Scene 2 - Rhythm
Scene 3 - Acoustic
Scene 4 - Lead w/ delay

Since I'm using a custom cab, you'll need to change the cab to something else to make it work right - preferably a Vox, and the acoustic also probably won't sound right because I'm using a custom cab.

In the past I used a lot of different presets to get the tone just right for specific songs, but nowadays I just use the attached preset for everything and it sounds good to me in the band mix.
 

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Here's a vid of me using the above preset on In the Cage... Scene 1 for clean, and Scene 2 for dirt, and Scene 4 for the solo at the end. I wasn't trying to reproduce the studio album so much as his live sound on Three Sides Live:
 
i was in a genesis tribute for a bit and ended up using the buttery. one instance for edge of breakup and one dialled in dirty. drive blocks for additional gain. his sound is so different on the various albums, it's hard to pick a one size fits all amp. i know he was using a fender on many of the live shows later on.
 
My comment will be that Mike was often recorded with a lot of compression at the desk.

Oh, and your vibes player is insanely cool.
 
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