Need suggestions for a Clear Guitar Sound on Stage

[Integxx]

Gearing up to hit the stage with ableton.. I have Guitar Rig 2 and also a Line 6 Pod xt live which I hook up straight to the PA. But I cant seem to get a clear guitar tone to mesh with all the drums/synths/basses in a live situation. Any distortion models I try to tweak end up being to muddy and interfere with the synth bass. And with a lead sound you can hear my pick scratching and it doesnt mesh well in verses. Do you guys have any advice for tweaking and perfecting a live sound. Also I have a Gibson Les Paul custom. The cheaper mahogany one. Maybe I need a new guitar for this style of music. The music we play kind of sounds like this, just so you can get an idea. http://ursession.com/urCONTENT/view?id=16889
Any advice would be greatly appreciated. Thanks.

[Superchibisan]

eq is your friend, thats about all i can give you.

[hurlingdervish]

you certainly shouldnt be boosting frequencies on the eq for guitar

you only want to cut them or use the "scoop"

but it mostly comes down to the quality of your guitar and amp. you cant polish a turd in the guitar world unless you use distortion but thats not polishing is it

[Integxx]

I generally use the scoop figure for the eq.
Im running the pod xt live straight into the pa with a DI box in between so no amps are involved
The guitar sounds good with my mesa stack but this processer-to-P.A. setup is a bit new for me.
Any other suggestions?

[Tone Deft]

rtfm for the Pod. you've got a great box there and didn't learn how to use it. you're about to get your head flown...

I'm forgetting the name of the software, Tone Monkey or something? launch the app, it goes on the web. you browse the tones people have uploaded, click on a tone and it's uploaded to your Pod in 2 seconds. then try the patch out, save it if you like it. pay attention to single vs. humbucker tones.

[Sage]

Guitars are all about mids, you don't want too much bass, so usea high pass filter from 100Hz upwards and NEVER scoop your mids unless you don't want the guitars to be heard or you happen to like fucking awful metal guitar...

[littlepig]

Buy a telecaster? They cut through anything...

[Kent_in_CO]

I'm playing an LTD Eclipse through Guitar Rig, and having the EXACT same issues. I'm going through a Toneport UX2, which is great for low latency, and using the GR VST on a channel in Live. It sounds great on its own, but can't for the life of me get any of the sounds to sit well in the mix. This even happens when I use a bare-bones tone (no FX), EQ'ing out a large chunk of the lows, and adding some mids.

In fact, it sounds so out of place that I had to go without guitar for most of my first gig - and that sucked, because live guitar is a big part of my set. I'm going to try messing around with TonePort's PODFarm (which is the follow-up to ToneMonkey), and see if I have better luck there. The downside to that would be the lack of integration with Live, unless I wouldn't to shell out more cash for the PODFarm VST.

As far as your situation, it almost certainty isn't the guitar. If you can get it sounding great through an amp, it should sound good going DI, as long as you have a reasonably high signal going in. I've also heard people here on the forum (UKRuss) rings a bell) having great luck with live amp modeling. So it's definitely possible.

[Integxx]

Its the Line 6 monkey app. I have it.. maybe ill try uploading some custom tones into the pod xt live... ive heard the only way to get good sounds through the xtlive is by tweaking your own sounds. From there ill up the mids/ lower the bass and see how that plays out.
Im on toneport ux2 for an interface and use the Guitar Rig Vst. Ive gotten some good sounds from GR for recording but going to stick with the pod xt live for the stage.
I was actually looking into getting a telecaster. Although my les paul sounds awesome with heavy distortion models... the tele has that clear cut sound im looking for and might mesh better with everything else... I'll keep you posted
Any other suggestions for getting a great live sound? Check out the video to see what kind of music the tone will be mixing with.

[Tone Deft]

ive heard the only way to get good sounds through the xtlive is by tweaking your own sounds.

but you're asking for help after taking that avenue, doesn't seem like it's working. TBH it sounds like your friend was copping attitude, ya know? user presets are a great way to start. also spend time sitting down tweaking the Pod. there's no reason to EQ in Live when the Pod has plenty of places to EQ (pre-amp, on the amp and post-amp.)

browse lots of sounds. from time to time I upload a handful of new ones then weed them out over time and tweak them.