Help troubleshoot audio quality in my simple guitar recording signal chain

bjd9282

New member
Hi, thanks in advance for any advice, here is my question:
The quality of my guitar sound is quite noticeably better into headphones via the headphone jack on my DSM&Humboldt Simplifier pre-amp and cab sim pedal while I play the guitar than it is in playback after recording the part into Cubase 5 via my Steinberg UR22MkII audio interface. Does anyone know why? Or what I should try to troubleshoot the quality degradation? To me it seems like Cubase 5 is just digitizing the signal badly and losing information, but from what I can tell the preference settings are correct and should not be causing this issue (I realize it's probably time to upgrade regardless, this version I use debuted in 2009).
The guitar sounds great with lots of airyness and detail in it coming straight from the headphone jack of the pedal so why can't I capture that to my recorded track?simplifier.JPG61acj80uDSL._AC_SL1200_.jpg
 
Is your DAW recording the pedal at all.. and it sounds like the pedal only worse? Or is the pedal effect not being recorded.. just the raw guitar?
 
It sounds like the pedal only worse. I've double checked that it's not just a difference in volume between the two: at similar volumes there is noticeably more clarity in the signal coming out of the Simplifier headphone jack, regardless of the actual signal (clean guitar, distorted guitar, microphone, or bass.)
 
I'm not familiar with your gear, so I'm working through this blind. Which of the pedal's OUTs are you running to your interface (TRS or XLR)?
 
XLR, sometimes both in stereo, sometimes just one in mono. The cables are not the highest quality I guess but they are also only 8ft I think.

Also, a possibly important clue: from the headphone jack of the Steinberg audio interface I get the degraded sound, either live while tracking or from playback.
 
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