Layer them differently.
I am making a shameful plug for thaliacapos.com I recently purchased a thailia capo love everything about it. It does a great job of locking down the strings for pristine sounding chords. What I find interesting, is that I read two different articles talking about the same concept. Let’s get into it.
The first article written by thaliacapos.com (there’s the tie in) talks about great songs produced throughout history using capos. One example described within the article is the song Free Fallin by Tom Petty. The article talks about how three guitar parts are stacked together, providing a sound so much larger than any of the individual parts. Guitar one and two both capo at the first fret. Guitar one plays the lower part locking in the groove, while guitar two plays a higher part. Both guitars are playing the parts in E, but actually sound like F, due to the capoing. The third guitar is capoed at the 3rd fret playing its part in D and sounding like F. Together, the different chord voicings and capo positions provide an amazing sonic effect.
The second article I read is from Jeffrey Kunde at theguitarinstitute.co In the article, Jeffrey talks about the home studio and how to create pro-sounding guitar tracks. He discussed the process I currently use, which is to duplicate a guitar track and place different delay effects on each track (I use reverb on one and delay on the other) to create a fuller sound. He then suggested a different approach.
He recommends creating a total of three tracks. Track one is where you record the most basic version of the chord progression keeping it tight and simple. Track two is where you use some chord inversions and alter the rhythm slightly to add color. Track three is then used to add higher voicings, partial chords and broken up rhythms to create interest. Layering all three tracks together provides the magic. Similar to Free Fallin, the combination of tracks creates a fuller more sonically interesting track.
Making music is all about being creative. Look, listen and learn from everyone around you and take those ideas and make them your own.