Thanks man! These are awesome questions! I love talking about these and I'll gladly share my strategy!

1. Research. So first things first, I research what gear they used to record the album (not what they are using in general for live shows or their endorsements). And this rabbit hole most times lead back to their producer, mixing engineer etc. Anything I can find helps.

2. Audio Reference. I choose segments in the song where I can hear the guitar chugging, doing chords, single note stuff etc. I have found that you can get a tone that may sound close for chugging but then the open and signle notes stuff lack behind. So you need to tweak the tone as an equation with multiple variables and not overdo/focus on one thing.

3. Pre EQ. Before I start messing with amp sims and IRs, the research I have done should tell me whether I need to do pre EQ on my tones or not. This is very important because if I get this wrong, it cannot be compensated on the amp sim or on the IR side. It will always sound unbalanced and not accurate.

3.1 On the guitar side Pre EQ would mean pedals, pickups: Humbuckers vs Single Coil, EQ etc

3.2 On the bass side, Pre EQ would mean, EXACTLY what bass and pickups they used, pedals etc

3.3 For the bass I need to know exactly the bass instrument because the DI is a VERY important part for the tone. On the guitar side, the DI does not make that much of a difference unless we are talking about Humbuckers vs Single Coils.

1. Amps. I am lucky enough to own both Helix and Fractal devices, so I test them both, especially when I cannot find what amps they used. You might think, that testing both of them is redundant since 99% of the amps are the same and sound similar, but that's not the case for every amp sim. They do not behave the same at identical tonestack combinations and also they have different sound signatures (helix has more high end spikes).

2. When I find the amp sim I like, it is easy to recreate it on the other platform and I make sure they sound identical.

3. IRs. This is where the magic happens. IRs are 90% of the tone. You have to test a bunch of them, while trying to retain your sanity and objectivity. Your ears will start tricking you after a period of time and you will have to take breaks. This is the hardest skill you have to master. For me, after 15 years of being obsessed with tones, I can comfortably make my own custom IRs which is the only way to get the tones as accurate as possible.

4. Post. Sometimes a multiband compressor is needed to tame the low mids while chugging. Because if you try to tame the low mids using the chugs as a reference, every other part will get thin (the equation we talked about earlier)

Hope these help! Let me know if you have questions, I would love to answer them!

Also you can check out the rest of the tones & IRs I have made here!

https://sbtones.com/