kkenn, I don't really have a standard technique, I just use my ears, and if I'm close to what sounds right to me (which, I guess, comes from listening and listening all these years), that's basically all i'm after. I'm just not really interested in recording engineering, at least not the finer points of it.
The second one is far better.
I know this is a recording clinic, not a music clinic, but... uh, how to ask delicately -- how long have you been playing the guitar? I would guess not very long.
Your playing, while exhibiting some speed, has almost no other good qualities. The notes start on time but once they start streaming out they have almost no rhythmic feel at all.
The best advice I can offer is, try to play melodies -- try to play like you were singing the lines, remember to breath, play slowly with a metronome until you can feel the rhythmic subdivisions, then start speeding up the metronome a few notches until it starts to fall apart -- notch it back and work there until that feels natural.
Once you can play melodically, soulfully, at slower speeds, cranking up the speed will come easily. But without those fundamental musical elements, your playing will be uninteresting, no matter how fast the licks and how wondrous the tones and effects. The Groove is King (or it's don't mean a thing if it ain't got that swing, or however you want to say it.)