Originally Posted by: schmangeWell, there's a number of things going on with your recording that might cause it to be less clear sounding.

1) Overall hiss. The signal to noise ratio is pretty high.
Basically, either your amp if you're using one, or your effects pedal is causing a whole bunch of hiss on your recordings. So much that it's muddying everthing else.
2) Too much wet reverb. Turn the 'wet' reverb down just a bit so that the individual notes are easier to hear.
3) Playing that could be tightened up. Your playing is good, but you're missing notes and flubbing things like letting your left fingers brush up against other strings and not being more precise with your picking hand.
4) No compression. Just a little would be enough to even out the sound.
You can run your recording through a denoiser and compressor and it cleans it up a little bit. You end up losing some frequencies though...
ie,

http://s93744050.onlinehome.us/cleantest.mp3

5) Stereo: It sounds like you're using a chorus which would sound a whole lot better with some stereo separation in it.
6) Distortion: There's not much but on your high E string you can hear some clipping on a couple of notes.

Hey Schmange, thanks a lot for the tips. Do you think it would help if I played the progression completely dry and then add the FX in the post mix? I'm not totally clear on your description of stereo separation in suggestion 5. I am using Cool Edit Pro student edition (if you are familiar with it) so if you have experience with that program any walkthroughs would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks a ton! -Micah