Guitar Rig sounds muddy/muffled.

My setup is like this... I have two guitars. Both are Jackson Dinky DX10D's. One has a Fred/PAF combo and the other has a Super Distortion/PAF combo. They're running into an ART Tube MP preamp and then into an M-Audio 2496 sound card with ASIO drivers and 5ms of latency. For speakers I'm using a set of Fostex PM1 120 watt powered studio monitors. My PC is a quad-core Intel with 4GB DDR2 800 RAM. All my signals are good an strong and nothing is clipping anywere. HI-Q is enabled in GR. I'm not using the pedal board or any other Guitar Rig hardware. I'm using the latest version of Guitar Rig 3.

For the most part, cleans and fuzzy tones sound decent. But heavy distorted metal/thrash tones sound like mud. They're muffled and just overall sound like total crap. It seems like if I boost the highs to make it less muffled, the tone takes on a thin and hollow "tin can" type sound. Both my guitars sound great through real amps when overdriven, but in GR it sounds like poo-poo.

I've tried just about every available preset on the Internet and with cabinet impulses but nothing seems to help. I've also tweaked and twisted knobs until I'm about ready to pull my hair out. I've also tried numerous sound shaping plugins both before and after GR, but again, all I end up with is a muddy muffled mess.

What's the deal? Any advice? Do I need an additional piece of hardware? I'm always seeing various presets that people comment on about how great they sound but for me they sound like garbage.

Please help.

 

too much bass.

boost mid for clarity.

 

:|

 

I actually think most of the user presets tend to be on the harsh tin can end, not the muddy end. But I know what you mean, it's a balancing act of alot of factors.

Here's some of the factors I tweak alot:

To mellow/warm up a tone, increase preamp levels and/or decrease Variac/Bias. The Screamer as your first pedal is great for mellowing out alot of tones, the "just warmer" setting is a good place to start. Another trick I use is an EQ that rolls off the extreme highs starting around 3K (parametric will work well). This way you can brighten up the tone but then mellow out the top frequencies once it starts getting harsh.

To brighten it up, treble and presence are the obvious choices. But also try lowering your guitar signal or the volume levels on distortion pedals, tends to make things sharper (compensate the volume with the cabinet volume or preset volume.) Increasing Variac/Bias will also make tones cut through more.

Gain/Volume at every stage is always a factor in the muddiness/tinnyness battle.

 

I have average guitars here, no pro stuff. I find to get the best out of GR3 you have to use it as if you was in the studio doing multi-tracked guitars n stuff.

You're unlikely to record quality guitar sounds with just 1 guitar/track.

How about posting a clip for us?

 

Which ART Preamp do you use? There a serveral ART Tube MP preamps.


What are your settings on the ART preamp?