One guitar. One mic. Advanced techniques get applied later IF, and only IF, it will make an improvement. You seem to have one area where improvement is needed, and its not technical. You need to be able to listen to a sound and compare it with another. Too bassy? Too trebbly? A really good thing to do is visit a busy guitar shop where people grab a guitar off the hangers, plug them in and play them through whatever amp is available, with no pedals. See if anyone even fiddles with the amp settings, or uses the one everybody uses to compare tone.
The record process is really simple and does not involve aiming for ANY dB value. Plug it in, twang it the loudest you will play, and set the input gain so it does not distort at that loudest level. Then press record and play the song. The level will be quite a bit lower than maximum, but with modern gear and digits, adding gain later isnt a problem.
You mentioned you used two mics and didn't notice one was reversed. Reversed or not reversed is a question for your ears. I have never needed two mics on a guitar cab, and am not a fan of two on a snare drum to be honest. I certainly understand why some people do it, but I am not one of them.
Red lights and distortion are bad. Hiss from too low a gain setting are bad, but it leaves you a huge area in the middle where gain simply means tweaking a knob with no ill effects.
As a side comment on amp eq, i am trying to sort out my store. Bursting at the seams and a real mess. I found 4 different amps. Two combos, and two heads and cabs. All just put away after a session or live event. Totally random tone control settings. Each one must have sounded ok when used. No idea what was plugged into them.
Well, the recordings do reflect the amp settings. Treble 10, mid similar, bass lower. Sounds exactly like that. It sounds like early punk rock tone just wants somebody yelling over the top. It is not remotely similar to the band who created that song.
In the first clip, the tuning is very, very obvious. The concern is that you cannot hear it. We know your playing is still a work in progress, but all the suggestions we make are because your current state of aural acuity is quite low. You are reading about techniques that your ears cannot evaluate. We dont mind listening to your stuff, but you need to also be listening yourself. Go back through the comments in this topic, and ask yourself if you can hear what we comment on?
You are on a train journey, avidly looking at trip advisor telling you about the wonderful places on the route, but you've not even noticed you got on the wrong train.
You need to train your ears to appreciate tone and tuning. You need to compare your sound with professional recordings. Until you can do this, do not even get a microphone out!
The sounds I'm getting these days would have blown me away even as recently as a few years ago, and I'm STILL not totally happy!
