I'm not the worlds biggest AC/DC fan, but I think that shouldn't be too hard a sound to get. I'd recommend:

1. Getting good, tight drum sounds
2. Making sure the bass has some bottom but isn't overbearing, it should also leave lots of room for the guitars in terms of the number of notes being played (in short: less is more)
3. Getting the guitar sounds out of the amp in the context of the mix
4. Do a double, and hard pan it (so two main guitar takes tops)
5. Overdub a solo if needed
6. Leave room in the guitar for the vocals

Notice 1 and 2 have nothing to do with guitars at all. If the bass and drums aren't suiting an AC/DC type sound, then even the exact guitar tones would never sound right in the mix. Mixes are puzzles, where all the pieces need to lock together. 

Now aside from that, once you get the rhythm section together, it shouldn't be too hard to get AC/DC like guitar tones. Most of the sound would come from the amp. Aside from that, I'd use a bit of EQ to filter out some bottom, maybe cut some mids, and then I'd even consider doing a hishelf cut around 16k if needed. Aside from that, maybe a tiny bit of a short room reverb sound (if any at all, you shouldn't really hear the verb), and maybe something like Slate's VTM at 15ips to add some heft to the overall mix. 

AC/DC use a lot less gain than perhaps you may think. The sound is more clean with a light amp crunch than "distorted".

Every note and chord is very defined and audible, and this, in my opinion is a lot of "the trick" to get this kind of sound on record.

you can make guitars sound huge and punchy when you keep the gain down. 

Also, avoid playing the same parts too many times. It does work in some genre, to create a "wall of sound", but in the style you specified, it is more important to hear / feel the pick attack, which dissapears when too many guitars are recorded playing similar parts.

I would also say: 

don't try too much to compare how your amp sounds in the room compare to plugins.

its not how its meant to be compared.

the amp sims reproduce the sound of guitars recorded from an amp and played back through your speakers. So, if you want to compare with your amp, you need to mic up your amp, record it and then play it back through your speakers and see how that compare with the amp sims you have.

you can then decide which sounds best.

Finally, don't put too much bass on your recorded guitars as they will clash with the rest of the bottom end of your track. They will sound better and warmer on their own, but once in the mix, it will sound muddy.

then only some light EQ / comp should be required to make them seat in the mix.

I hope it helps and you get the sound you want.

I know "chasing tone" is a never ending headache for guitarists. I'm still chasing..

So Beepster, are you working in the recommended 96kHz? And do you notice a difference to your guitars? 

I think a big part of it is backing the distortion down and the gain low-to-moderate for rhythm. You can add on those to get more of a "live" sound for leads.

I noticed this on a recent "real" studio recording of my band.

If you read all the responses, you will find a lot of consistency: go easy on distortion, layer guitars in stereo, cut the unneeded bottom out of the guitars, use EQ to make sure each sound occupies its own space (esp guitar, bass, and kick by using HPF), etc.

Some of these things I had already been doing bu luck however the article, http://www.soundonsound.com/sos/jul11/articles/sonar-tech-0711.htm, was a huge help to get rid of the fizzyness of the amp sims i am using. now my mix is sounding much much better.  Thanks all!

updated the bogus link above.

Hi sharke... I've always done my recordings at higher sample/bit rates then mixed them down to 44.1/16 even back when I was dorking around in Nuendo so I don't have much to compare to. Back then though I only had GR2 which was arse so I didn't bother with it. I used my Line 6 and my Keeley modded Boss MT2 (Metal Zone) and recorded the wet effect. I may try that again because it sounded pretty darned chunky and I didn't have to fiddle around so much in mixing. Obviously that only really covers one style of music though... nuts out metal. ;-)

I do THINK I notice a difference when engaging the HI button in GR4/5 but it is rather slight. However considering how tricky GR can be to tweak any little bit helps. I've actually fell in love with TH2 though (the sound anyway... the GUI is whack) so that'll likely be my new go to. Kind of want to check out that Acme Bar Gig stuff Danny keeps talking about to.

  The things that make the biggest difference to me is proper EQ settings, panning and experimenting with blending. Jeff mentioned cloning and applying different amp sims. That's a really cool method I've used for a LONG time myself (actually I used to set the two output channels on my Line 6 to two different models but now I clone). There is just so much that can done with guitars and obviously tones vary wildly but those things will always have a place in any style IMO. 

Cheers.

And I do agree with lowering the gain but some of my tones are still pretty hot when I record my metal stuff. It is still much lower than what I would use live. The blending makes up for the lack of spicy sauce. That's why I find it's better to record two identical takes of things instead of cloning wherever possible. This is obviously easier to do with rhythm tracks and more basic written lead parts. Improvised or blistering solos are much trickier so I just clone those.

I'm pretty much a n00b at most recording stuff but one thing I do know about is guitars. I think wrestling with inferior amps for years on sh*tty stages gave me a good ear for tweaking stuff. Everything else is a struggle.

Actually, play the parts twice/4X as opposed to cloning the tracks.
The subtle nuances sound better overall.

Still need to play tight, though  

Glad you found the article helpful, and thanks in general for the props :)

However, that was written awhile ago and I've found two more tips recently I thought I'd better pass along...

• De-Esser before amp sim. The VC-64 works great for this! Killing the highs at higher input levels gives a much smoother sound.
• I've found cutting around 2kHz going in to the sim gives a creamier tone by causing the distortion to work more on the fundamentals of the notes than distorting the harmonics.

BTW if you check out the music videos in my YouTube channel (as listed in my sig). all the guitar sounds on all the songs use amp sims. Also, all the "acoustic guitar" parts are Variax. The "Ambience Rose" one is particularly interesting, although it's not like the other songs (I rarely do ambient instrumentals). It's all Variax through a POD HD500 played live in one pass. I then copied that part 4x in Sonar to add additional processing, like some flanging.