Okay, does anyone know the band "the Folk Implosion"... they did that song called Natural One from the KIDs soundtrack. BUT before that they (mostly Lou Barlow) did a lot of impressive recordings on a 4-track. Does anyone know how this was done? I really like the drum sound he's getting-- does...
One other thing... layering guitars will give you nice HUGE sound too. I did about 6 tracks of guitars on top of each other on my CD. Plus maybe running that sonic maximizer over it will help. As far as analogue... I read an interview in EQ from a mastering engineer (who masters Archers of Loaf)...
I don't like those Zooms so much... although the new one looks slick-- with phrase sampling and stuff. I use an old BOSS HM-2 distortion which has a lot of growl to it. I definantly recommend stomp boxes-- not DOD (DOD is crap. You can only get 1 or 2 sounds out of them). I also use my chorus on...
Now wait a second! Before you go shelling out to much cash! I just finished my first CD (woohoo!) and did all of the mastering stuff (from DAT to CD-r) in CoolEdit Pro. It sounds LOUD (not quite as *good* as Flaming Lips mind you). The tracks were fairly similair to what you are describing with...