: How do you get that big 90s distorted guitar sound (Jawbreaker, Pixies, etc.) I've researched this question before but after not finding exact sounding examples of what I'm going after, I decided to post my question here

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The guitar sound on that track is clearly a fuzz pedal to me. Fuzz pedals include:

ProCo Rat (very popular in the 90s because of Kurt Cobain - it might be a Rat)
Big Muff Pi (this recording might be a Pi)
Dallas/Arbiter Fuzz Face - Maybe the most famous vintage fuzzes with many clones made over the years up through today
Sola Sound Tone Bender - Also vintage and many clones have been made

There are some fuzzes that have come out since the 90s that have been popular, most particularly the Zvex Fuzz Factory as made famous by Matt Bellamy of Muse. But that's not related to this question.

I would try some different fuzz sounds, and probably single coil pickups. Actually I find the guitar sound in the sample recording to be quite thin. It only is full in context because of the bass guitar. Fuzz doesn't usually have a setting that only applies a little bit of fuzz, but you can find the edge of fuzz by rolling off the guitar's volume a bit.

So I would say single coil bridge pickup into a fuzz pedal like a Rat or Pi or some cheap 90s fuzz (punk is all about cheap - usually). Make the amp pretty clean, maybe even a solid state amp - it doesn't have a rich midrange. Set the fuzz to middle settings and put all the tone controls on the amp all the way up. Roll off the volume knob on the guitar until it starts to sound about right.

That hopefully gets you close to the raw guitar sound. There are two guitar tracks on that recording both with the same sound. It's not exactly double tracked, because the parts are slightly different. One guitar is panned around 50% right and other about 50% left (meaning halfway between center and panned hard. Then there's the bass that helps with the low end.

I suggest working from time to time to recreate tones that you like, but limit yourself to just giving it a good attempt. Don't spend too much time chasing someone else's sound because you really want to find your own. You'll never nail another sound anyway.

When you're done, a look-ahead peak limiter on the whole mix was very popular (I guess actually mandatory) in the 90s, and just a bit of subtle reverb.