I’ve made about a dozen v.2 captures of my beloved Dr. Z amp (X-Ray) with different EQ tweaks and levels of “hair” on them. I find it funny how you capture the essence of the amp, but those EQ tweaks don’t turn out as you’d expect (v.1 was the same way)? What would normally cut my head off with treble, sounds pretty dang good on my QC, but turning down the cut (less highs) doesn’t have the same effect on the capture as it does on the actual amp. My amp would get really darker, but the capture has more mids and the highs aren’t that much different.
While these captures all sound very similar and you can tell they’re the same amp, the main place I notice a difference is when I use overdrive (blocks) in front of the amp block. Those little EQ tweaks on the amp, play a HUGE role in the way the overdrive sounds and interacts with the capture. What I mean by “interacts with”, is even if you add an EQ block in and adjust it there, it doesn’t have the same affect as if the amp was captured with more/less (insert EQ knob flavor here).