Thanks guys,. you're really giving me a lot to chew on. I would say the distortion is a combo of things(presonus pre,compression, harder picking) that I would normally pay a little more attention to. I agree the verb was boosting the highs and the flutter to ill effect.
As this is the type of performance I'm looking to capture in studio I will :
-Apply more room treatment. (this weekend hopefully!, boy the holidays really slow down studio spending,.lol)
-Be more mindful of gain staging and heavy compression
-Be much more cautious about overuse of the verb.