Fed up with weak guitar tones!!!!

I have been playing for 3 1/2 years now. I want to add that I've only been playing mostly metal for 1 year. The first 2 years were playing songs from Silverstein, Hawthorne Heights, The Used, Armor for Sleep, Greeley Estates(first 3 cd's, not the newest one). So for the longest time I was used to strumming power chords in easy rhythm and solos that weren't that hard, usually in a slower tempo too (140-180).
 
You can get the "best tone in the world" and it still sounds bad if your playing techniques are bad, how long have you been playing?

+1
I would suggest practicing to your fav artist, getting as tight as you can with them. listen to what they are really really doing, take no short cuts. when i was learning i found it more exciting when there was a hard part that i could play over and over till i got right. don't be in a rush to record your music wrong....take your time and practice and get better and then record your music right.
 
+1
I would suggest practicing to your fav artist, getting as tight as you can with them. listen to what they are really really doing, take no short cuts. when i was learning i found it more exciting when there was a hard part that i could play over and over till i got right. don't be in a rush to record your music wrong....take your time and practice and get better and then record your music right.

Thanks for the tip, I'll do that definitely.
 
I am kinda with Winter Snow on this one, the problem has been shitty gear.

If you insist going with hardware, then I suggest that you get atleast a physical tubescreamer (eg. Ibanez TS7, Digitech Bad Monkey...), a 2x12 or 4x12 with preferrably Celestion V30 elements (eg. Framus FR212CB) and a higain tubeamp (eg. Peavey, Mesa, Krank, Engl, Marshall, Bugera, Bogner, Rivera, VHT, Hiwatt...)

And you must remember that when it comes to physical gear, with a dollar you get a one-dollar-sound, with five dollars you get a five-dollar-sound, so don't buy cheap shit.

dont get the framus
fuck
 
I am sorry but htere is no way that there is a cabinet sim on the clip you posted. It sounds comptely direct.

why don't you start from scratch. Download nick crow's 8505 http://www.kvraudio.com/get/3770.html and voxengo and SIR http://www.knufinke.de/sir/sir1.html, download some impulses from this thread and check it out. open the Guitar sim first, then the cabinet sim at the end, and be sure to turn down the dry volume all the way and bring the wet volume up until its near clipping. Record some of that and see wherer that gets you.
 
I think Dark Tranquillity were touring with V-Amp Pros once, and although they may have only used them in the loop and had the distortion come from the amps, it certainly didn't turn everything to shit. I'd say you should persevere with the Pod XT, since if you're seeing significant differences between Pod Farm and Pod XT I think the problem is somewhere else along your signal chain because the audio processing should be pretty much identical. Make sure your gain levels are correct at each stage, for example. With the Pod make sure you're using amps from the Metal pack, have the output mode set correctly, have the level sending a decent signal to the interface, etc.