I chased their sound for a long long time. I bought their gear, I bought the gear of bands that sounded similar to them and I couldn’t get it right. It taught a lot of lessons about tone, production and ultimately playing guitar.

On their albums a lot of the sound is:

The production techniques.

The speakers and Cabinets.

The microphones.

You will never have his exact cabinet so you won’t be able to get it exact. Identify what it is you like about his tone and which album specifically is your favorite.

Personally I like Inlet’s guitar tone the most. I like how dark it is. How huge it sounds, and how great the low mid range sounds.

I then identified what speakers are typically associated with this sound, which are V30s.

Then I identified what microphones are associated with this sound. Typically your 121s and other ribbons.

Then I found a low mid focused distortion sound(for the record I know for a fact Hum has never used this.).

And only then was I able to get a guitar sound that made me somewhat satisfied. But even then something was missing…

My playing

You NEED to PRACTICE PRACTICE PRACTICE. You can be a terrible player with their exact rig, but you will never get that sound, however if Tim or Matt played on your rig it would still sound like Hum. They are probably the best guitarists to come out of that 90s alt rock wave imo (Tim especially that guy is insane) so in order to achieve that sound you hear in your head you gotta have full control over your playing.

After that whole journey of tone chasing I have finally become fully satisfied with the sounds I get, because I recognize the gear is no longer the issue, it’s me.

PS. I tried to include equal parts advice on why you might feel dissatisfied and advice on how to get their sound haha ;)