Muse's Guitar Tone

[Fast_Fingers]

Matt's rig, as insanely complex as it is, consistently produces tones I've never heard before. When recording his guitar, how many tracks on average are being used? Was a DI box used for reamping at any point, and how was the MIDI output exploited?

[johnleckie]

When I worked with Muse we did it on tape so even though often 48 tracks used (2x24T) we didnt use that many tracks. They mount up when you double track stereo guitars and have ambience on separate tracks too. Rarely was DI recorded and rarely was anything re-amped cos its just never the same. I try get good main guitar sound that would work live and any performance FX changes would be made live on backing track 'guide' guitar. Often this was kept as a basis and even solos would be tried and kept on this track. The better and as close to the real thing this 'guide' guitar is the easier the track will be to overdub and build on. We'd then break it down into parts and by overdubbing, double tracking and feeding the taped tracks to different fx we'd create the guitar sound for whole song. Never used no M1 D1 ! Sometimes guitar split to two amps left and right.
I'm sure he's all midi-ed up now with Kaos pads on his guitar.
Cheers
JL