I agree with Jason Brown, who, the article states, noted that the piano chord in the background is critical to capturing the overall sound. Listening to this, I hear everything but the touch of dissonance added by the piano, which completely changes the feel of the chord.
Listen to this and the original[1], you can clearly hear a missing piano part, which gives the chord such a crunchy bite. The damper pedal is clearly depressed as well, and it sounds like there is some sympathetic resonance from the guitars/bass that's helping to muddy up the piano sound.
Presto. Compared the chord that Randy Bachman played against the original track and it sounds exactly the same to me. For anyone else interested in knowing what the 12-string chord is, pretty sure this is what he described:
1st string = G on the 3rd fret (pinky)
2nd string = C on the 1st fret (pointer finger)
3rd string = A on the 2nd fret (middle finger)
4th string = F on the 3rd fret (ring finger)
5th string = C on the 3rd fret (with the thumb, curl it over)
6th string = G on the 3rd fret (with the thumb as well)
Listen to this and the original[1], you can clearly hear a missing piano part, which gives the chord such a crunchy bite. The damper pedal is clearly depressed as well, and it sounds like there is some sympathetic resonance from the guitars/bass that's helping to muddy up the piano sound.
[1] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zSm0M-BbVdY