Not the guitar sounds you think..

[Dexter Inferno]

I do find that stuff quite fascinating.

Been a part of the PLAP (Produce Like a Pro) community for a few years and some of the interviews Warren has done are quite interesting. According to Michael Beinhorn and Dave Jerden, most of the "grunge" bands (Alice In Chains, Soundgarden, Nirvana) were using Dual Rectumfriers in the studio (but often in tandem with a Marshall), which I really wouldn't have guessed back then.

A few others:
The clean intro lead on Floyd's "Coming Back To Life" is one of the very first Zoom modellers - and Gilmour recently mentioned he still uses that box in his studio.
The Sorrow intro I think was a Big Muff into a Super Champ. That one sort of does make sense though. Small amp and crank it to where it nearly blows up.
And the "Brick In The Wall, pt2" lead was a P90 Goldtop going straight into a Neve desk.

Queen, specially in the 70's, a lot of Brian's leads were done through the Deacy and not the AC30s he used live.

Guess there are countless examples of stuff like this. A lot of guys would use stuff in the studio they'd normally not be associated with.

Think I've read Page used a tiny Pignose amp on occasion, but other than the ones I've mentioned I can't really remember any well known ones. But I'm sure there are plenty.

The studio really is a different ball game.

 

[jrockbridge]

The studio really is a different ball game.

 

[jelloman]

I remember reading a story in one the guitar rags back in the day in which Billy Gibbons claimed that most of the pre-Eliminator Top albums were recorded with very small speakers... eventually the search for tiny tones led them to hooking a Marshall head to a 3" radio speaker with the master Volume barely cracked open with an SM57 almost touching the cone... according to that account much of the guitars on Deguello and El Loco were recorded that way...

Of course knowing the Rev, that was probably total bullshit...but still, cool story...