Two rhythm guitarists playing same song?

I once did something "eye opening" for a band that came to do a quick "two songs in two days" kinda demo, so we didn't have a lot time for the mixing because they played Alice in Chains kinda stuff, but 6 minute songs and a bit more progressively. The band had a drummer and two guitarists, but as I understood that they had fired their bass player a month earlier, so we had to do the bass parts on the fly at the studio, I think I actually did the parts for the two songs. One guitarist was doing all the solos, but also played the same rhythm stuffs as the other guitarist.

I recorded both of their parts, and it all just sounded really blurry and didn't seem to fit. Then I asked can I try something that would make it sound better? The band had awesome attitude: "I don't care what you do, but if you do it, just make it sound better". We doubled the rhythm stuff with bass and then I just completely muted the solo guitarists' parts on the rhythm stuff where he played the same stuff, but turned it up when he did some melodylicks. It just cleaned up the mix by a lot than doing it with two guitars doing the same stuff and fighting for the same frequency range.

A 30 second clip

If the session would've been like 7 days, I know the sound quality would've been a LOT better especially in the playing and mixing side (eg. I'm not satisfied with the drumsounds and separation), but thats pretty much the best we could do in 12 hours (tracking, mixing, quick mastering).
 
I always thought that the producer's main job was to make the band sound on the recording like their musical vision. Given that if the band needs tight and technical playing then the best player for that part should be used. If you have a band with two guitarists with very different styles, like early Guns and Roses, you let both do their thing. In my last band the other guitarist was great but was more of a soloist than a tight rhythm player. For the CD I ended up doing all the rhythm tracks, since I wrote them I also knew them better, and the result was far far tighter than with his takes included. It pissed him off initially but since I did his rhythm tracks with my guitars and his rig it didn't totally sound like me playing 4 tracks. His ego-sphincter relaxed and the recording sounded good.
 
I always thought that the producer's main job was to make the band sound on the recording like their musical vision. Given that if the band needs tight and technical playing then the best player for that part should be used. If you have a band with two guitarists with very different styles, like early Guns and Roses, you let both do their thing. In my last band the other guitarist was great but was more of a soloist than a tight rhythm player. For the CD I ended up doing all the rhythm tracks, since I wrote them I also knew them better, and the result was far far tighter than with his takes included. It pissed him off initially but since I did his rhythm tracks with my guitars and his rig it didn't totally sound like me playing 4 tracks. His ego-sphincter relaxed and the recording sounded good.

Sometimes producers also need to know things that the band doesn't and do things that will reduce the amount of cringing done well into the future...

Jeff