I read this interesting interview with recording guru Chris Lord-Alge on the DiscMakers website. The whole interview is pretty good, but I found the most interesting section was when he was asked to share some of his techniques for getting the best sounds from electric guitars as possible.

You want the guitar player to get the sound s/he wants. I find smaller amps are easier to control and have a more personal sound than big racks and 4x12 cabinets. There's a special tone with amps that have just one speaker or with little 50-watt amps. At high volume, smaller amplifiers give a bigger sound than big amps most of the time. If you go back to Allman and Clapton on "Layla," they used little amplifiers like Fender Champs and it sounds pretty damn large.

I like to pick a few amps first, then put a some mics in different positions because they will become your equalizer. Usually, I'm close to the amp. I haven't found many advantages to putting the mic far back unless the guy has the amp on absolute stun. If you use a 57, 421, 414 and Telefunken 251, and put those four close to the amp in different positions and bring them up on faders, you'll find they have different EQ curves. So rather than jamming one mic in front of the amp and grabbing the EQ and going, a couple of mics will give you better tone without the EQ and all the phase problems you get when cranking up the EQ.

If you want to get even more esoteric about it, you can try different mic pre-amps. If you're running multiple mics, you'll want the same mic pre's instead of combining different ones, because that'll give you even more phase problems. Try different ones until you come across the perfect sound.

If I use just one mic, my first choice is a 57. And depending on how spanked or compressed you want the sound, you have an array of compressors. Usually, I start with a Fairchild for guitars because that's best for something fat and chunky. A UREI LA-3 is my second choice.

Also, you're going to get a better sound recording electric guitars on analog than digital. If you're going digital, you may want to use a bit more compression than normal, maybe dial more low-end because digital is like a clear pane of glass. And it's important to make sure the guitars have been set up well, that the intonations are in good shape so the players are not having a tuning nightmare. A lot of guys run across a problem where they can't keep the guitar in tune and that kills the whole process. The general rule is find one good tuner and use it for all the guitars, bass and otherwise.