Hey I've had some requests to link to the guide from other sites, etc.  I just wanted everyone to know that's perfectly fine.  I'm not looking for credit or anything like that.

You can even edit the doc and repost it if you want.  Just please make a note in the beginning of the document that it is an edited version.  And please make a post in this thread letting people know if you have something to add or believe there's an error in the document.

i agree - insurgentes was his best album, imo.  and don't forget no-man!

I have made a webpage with sample clips and patches attempting to somewhat emualate some metal/shred artists.  Some are a lot closer to the actual artist's tone than others.  I really just wanted to use all the amps and demo some of my tone-building techniques referenced in the guide.

http://foobazaar.com/podhd/toneDemo/

for the rhythm tracks in E or drop D, I used my EBMM John Petrucci signature. It's the first model, which had Dimarzio pickups.  I think they're custom, but people said the bridge humbucker is most similar to a Steve's Special.  I don't use the neck pickup at all.

for the ones in B or drop Ab, I use a Yamaha Pacifica with a Seymour Duncan AHB-1 Bridge Blackouts humbucker.  I have the heavier strings from a set of 7 strings on them - I think it's .013-.058.

for the lead clips, I use a custom guitar I've been building - custom-made Jem body with an RG neck and AHB-1 Blackouts pickups.  I put the neck pickup in the neck position, bridge in bridge.

I checked out that guy's dual amps tips.  There is one suggestion that I really like, which is setting one amp to your desired tone, and one amp to "amp disabled", then blend them so that you get a little more definition to your tone.  I'm not sure why I never thought of that - I don't think it involves any DSP cost, like dual amps usually do.  One guy used to always tell me how much better a distorted tone will sound if you blend in some clean guitar just a bit.  To be honest, I don't think I ever tried it to the point where I can make a firm conclusion on it.

The other suggestions I find I more-or-less covered in the guide.  You can get good sounds from them if you make a completely stereo patch, but for live use, if you have to go into a mono track on the mixing board, you're screwed, and if you want to record, why not record each amp as a separate track?  I find the upside is quite limited while the DSP trade-off is huge - it's simply not worth it IMO.