I wanted to experiment if I could get close to getting the Siamese Dream tone by using the same setup as Billy through VST.. Billy originally plugged his Big Muff into the low sensitivity input of his JCM 800 with the volume cracked at max and the treble knob that stays at 3/4. He also used little to no gain.. I'm not sure about the bass and mid knobs... I can't find any info about it anywhere based on all the articles I could find about Billy talking about his setup. Note that he used a Big Muff version 4 op-amp that's plugged into a 100 watt JCM 800 modded with kt-88 powertubs. One of the guitars he used was a 57 Bat Strat modded with Lace Sensor Pickups and a Les Paul. Well, I'm not using any of that so uh, I'm using VST instead. I'm using about the same basic setup as Billy but through VST emulation.. I'm using Guitar Rig's Lead 800 that's running trough Poulin LeCab impulse loader. I high/low shelved the rhythm guitars for that “wall of sound” effect @ 01:41 which means I individually recorded 4 rhythm tracks for that thick guitar layer sound... I panned the Fender guitars 90% left and right that are mic'd with SM 57's running through a Marshall cab impulse and low shelved the ESP guitars (which is supposed to be a Les Paul) 60% left and right that are mic'd with Sennheiser MD421's. The Marshall 4x12 1960A-G12Ms are the same cab and mics used by Billy. The rhythm guitars were probably done in a different way than I'm doing it but I might as well give it a shot since I don't know what the hell doing anyway. Other songs on Siamese Dream uses multiple rhythm tracks like Cherub Rock for example, uses 5 layers. For leads, Billy used an MXR Distortion II combined with his Big Muff for all the solos in Siamese Dream.. The MXR Distortion II I used for my old Rocket cover sorta crapped out me.. It won't turn on anymore.. it was kinda old and heavily used when I got it.. The internal power source is probably dead because it had be plugged in every time I had to use it.. The only effect I can find that came close to it is Plusdistortion VST.. I tried to match the lead tone as best as I could... From what I read in interviews from Butch Vig, the fuzz tone it had to be heavily compressed by using equalization... If you were to plug in a Big Muff into a modded JCM 800 in real life with the volume cracked at max, it will sound extremely loud. All I did was run 3 or 4 EQ's and a couple of compressors until I got remotely close to where I wanted it to sound. From everything I've learned about EQing so far, it's not unusual to run multiple EQ's to get the sound that you want. There's no real wrong way to do this since I haven't really seen anyone try this before... Its just the how I do it..

Stuff I used:

iPhone edited with Sony Vegas pro 13
DAW: Reaper (rendered in 96 kHz 24 bit resolution)
Focusrite Scarlet 2i2 USB audio interface
Big Muff pi (according to Billy: Big Muff is “best used” with a 9 volt battery)
Guitar Rig 5: Lead 800 preamp
Poulin LeCab: Fender Guitar: Marshall1960A-G12Ms-SM57-Cone-0in ESP Guitar: Marshall1960A-G12Ms-421-Cone-0in
Classic Compressor
Niteshine Compressor
Plusdistortion+Big Muff (Siamese Dream lead tone)
Multiple equalizers
DJEQ VST
Classic Chorus
Classic Delay
RL Twin Delay

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