As others have said, there's a big difference between tone and audio quality, so I won't get into that.
Sticking with tone, however, I can tell you that I have 4 basic tones: super clean, clean with a little breakup, heavy rhythm, and lead. Just about everything I do is with one of those four tones. I have continued to work on them, tweaking, etc, but I NEVER customize a tone for a cover.
And the funny thing is, the same tone that I used for a ripping lead I also used for the solo in "Mother" by Pink Floyd, and there were a couple comments on that post that I "nailed the tone."
It was my "standard lead tone," and had about as much in common with what David Gilmour used as a Hershey bar has in common with jelly beans.
Moral of the story - tone is there to inspire YOU, the player, to get into the moment and play your very best. Most people can't really tell the difference and besides, an awful lot of what people call "tone" really is in the fingers.