It really depends which record you want to sound like, but +1 on a Maxon OD808 in front of the amp. AILD uses the EMG 81/85 combos in their guitars. Don't rule out the use of a 10-band EQ in the loop as well as it can take out some of that scooped mid tone Mesa Rectifiers are famous for, smooth out the top mids which causes a little bit of the grit in the tone and tighten up the bass for some nice tight chugs. For the lead tone, you might want to put a delay pedal in the loop along with the EQ. MXR makes a great 10-band EQ and I currently use a Boss DD-20 and a Line 6 DL-4 in the loop with my current setup. Those 2 delays might be a little much, but for what I am playing now, they work great!
When I was with AILD (Frail Words Collapse record), we used a combo of Marshall JPM-1 Preamps and Dual Rectifier Recording Preamps with a 2:90 Power amp as well as a Marshall JCM900 and JCM800. For Shadows are Security they used Krank Amplification and played around with Framus Cobras and Dragons (like Killswitch Engage), but found them somewhat unreliable on the road. They initially tried the Cobra out at the recommendation of Adam from Killswitch. The latest record they used Randall Amplification (I believe the MTS Series), but can bet there is still a little Framus Cobra in there somewhere as a result of Adam producing their last record. We put a Tubescreamer (TS9) in front of all the amps for a little bit more bite on Frail Words Collapse and I would imagine they are still doing that.
Further proof...when I was asked to come in and do some leads for the new Sworn Enemy record (Tim Lambesis produced it and recorded the guitar tracks in his home studio), I was playing out of a Framus Cobra with a Maxon OD808 in front of the amp, along with a noise suppressor. Additional EQ, compression, a slight delay was done in ProTools after laying down the raw tracks.
Hope that helps a bit!
jasun krebs
