i've said before that i love the guitarwork on this tour before. mike just seems to explore more here, as does the rest of the band. but, aside from the increased use of delay and wah, at some points in mike's solos it seems like he has an effect that makes his sound scream that much more. Immortality during the second solo is a great example as is the Black solo. it seems pretty feedback laden as well and i didnt know if this was an effect. does anybody know if this is a guitar effect or pedal or amp effect or am i just making this up in my head?

i seem to recall the recordings from the salt lake shows at the delta center in november 95 being clear enough to hear his flanger and that really seemed to add a lot of color to his solos for me. are you referencing a particular show? the guys seem to change up their rigs/pedals just about every tour and if you're a guitar player, you know that there are hundreds of different fx to alter guitar sounds. i use a phaser which produces a different sound than a flange, although their sorta similar, but i know mike used a flanger on the clean riffs of given to fly. that could be what you're hearing, but its just an amateur's guess.

6/20 and 7/11 on immortality or good examples. i read somewhere that mike has a tube screamer pedal and that name seems to describe what i'm hearing. if you can describe this particular effect maybe thats what i'm thinking of. also, what are some examples of phaser? i know what flange is.

An Ibanez Tube Screamer is just the overdrive pedal Mike & Stone use, seems they have done from 95 to the present day.

The tone Mike's getting on the 95 tour just seems to be a result of using quite a bit more gain than he does now and hence the screaming sustain you mentioned. Since 98 or so they've definitely turned down the amount of gain/distortion they use for better or worse (better in some cases, worse in others I'd wager).

You could probably get a similar tone with a cranked-up tube amp with an overdrive/distortion pedal with a fair bit of kick to it. The wah is also an important part of Mike's solo tones and that also can produce a fair bit of squealing overtones when you're playing at high volume.

I know Mike uses (or has used) a MXR Phase 90 for his phased tones on Given To Fly etc.

http://www.giventowail.com should have all of the gear info you need about pedal boards for specific years. Spenno's right though about the screaming tone... a TS-9 Tubescreamer is the rock standard of distortion pedals, just as much as a Big Muff. the Big Muff tone is all over Siamese Dream. the MXR P90 is another popular pedal, but I was under the impression that Mike had actually used a flange. Off the top of my head, I can't think of a specific tune by any band that could be cited as an example of what it sounds like. you can easily go to a local music shop and plug into their FX racks.

another easy way to alter tones in the middle of a song is to use a toggle switch to change which pickups a guitar uses. it sounds like Mike uses the neck pickups for the fatter fluid tones, but using the bridge pickups will give you a brighter tone characteristic of a heavy metal sound.