How to replicate guitar tone

Example?

I might also chime in... SRV did actually use Marshall amps with his Fender amps, Marshalls for clean tone, Fenders for Overdive (backwards to how most people do it).

(Sorry for Guitar-nerding...)

The Gear of Incubus Guitarist is here: https://equipboard.com/pros/mike-einziger-incubus?gear=amplifiers

The record is different from what is played Live I think, on the record there is a real accustic guitar, on this song I think. In the Video to this Song Mike Einziger plays Humbuckers , when he did not use the Guitar just for the Video persentation. Live Mike Einziger plays a Fender Telecaster for this song over a Mesa/Boogie Dual Rectifier Trem-O-Verb Combo Amp, and does use some pedals, he plays live a clean Guitar with Telecaster goes in the direction of accustic and with some crunch for the Refrain and a Compression Sustainer, you can hear live very a cleanish Telecaster Tone, after the Intro he got a reverb and delay on. The Tone is not really complicated to replicate of what he is playing Live, of course in respect to the Quality the record is weird its very Studio pushed , I think it can not be played like this, thats why his setup live is different from the record. A Cruchy Amp or Amp simulation like a Vox crunch or Vox kindish cruchy pedal, would go in the direction , with a Telecaster and some pedals for more crunch , delay, reverb, and a lot of compression.

Having seen them live in the last couple of years, this is super correct and I second this. Especially the sentiment that the studio tone is super complicated and you're probably not going to be able to get it at home-but his live tone is similar and easy enough as a tele with a bit of drive and some standard effects. IIRC he (at least currently) uses a tele for everything live despite having some acoustic stuff and even driven jazzmaster and humbucker parts in a lot of songs, but it sounds great.

Isn't he a mesa player? I forget. Mesas homogenize all pickups to my ear.

This seems buttoned-up but just to poke the bear … while I agree that certain gear combos can not be fully replicated … we can not ignore the huge, industry-wide success of amp sims and impulse profilers like the Kemper … so here is what I consider when trying to make my gear sound like other gear:

• mahogany is a dense wood resulting in warmer, fatter tone; humbuckers emphasize the lower and midrange EQ of your strings; if you want a Les Paul to sound like a strat the first thing you gotta do is brighten up that tone by rolling the mids and bass down (on your pedalboard or amp); I would also use the bridge pickup which will help get a brighter, snappier tone (this is true of all p'ups because of their physical location nearest the end of the playable string).

• Fenders tend to be made of lighter, more porous woods, and single coil p'ups are brighter and snappier (funk-ier?) right? so go the opposite route as above: boost your bass (like all the way up, probably) and mids (to taste, at least 7/12 most likely) and roll your "treble" or highs down; then use your 2nd-pos. neck/mid p'up combo to try and get that 2-coil meat on your tone

Again, I know this is controversial but I have had many sessions with students seeking their idol's tone where we basically tweaked their amp and distortion pedal settings to match a wide variety of players from Gilmore to Rhodes to BB King to SRV. It is possible to a certain degree.

look at live sessions, music videos and finding articles, or use this site. there is some gear that is hard to replicate, but often you can just use alternative gear. the better the artist the harder to replicate style I'd say. from an artists view influence is a compliment, copying is weird imo.