Muffled/bad sounding tones on Imperial King

Plugins
1

Hey, new to plugins here, any tips are welcome. I just struggle to get any kind of good tone, especially distorted ones, no matter how much I tweak them, EQ or anything, they always sound muffled and harsh. I have uploaded a small clip of me playing a solo on Soundcloud if you care to listen, this tone is literally what I mean and I hate it.

I’ve researched and done the basic things to fix this including:

-Lower gain on Scarlett
-Set from Line → Instrument
-Got a new decent cable

Imperial Tone King Mk 2
Gear: Scarlett 2i2
ESP LTD EC-1000
DAW: Reaper

2

Have you got an example of the type of tone you are trying to achieve? Something like the original Bed Of Roses sound?

3

Hey, yes I really like the tone in the original Bed of Roses tune. Needless to say I didn’t quite nail it, lol. If you have any suggestions/presets I’d love to try them. In retrospect, I think he’s playing on the neck pickup, but I don’t think that would have saved my clip audio.