Couple simple tips here. Im not sure how this stuff will apply, cause Im not sure of how you actually did those first takes(so its tough to say what to change without knowing what was done....), but here is some ideas.
First of all, whatever mic you are using does a pretty good job of picking everything up. I would stick with the mic you got and keep micing it how you have been, but Id also get a good condenser mic in the mix as well. You can read online and find a million different ways to position the two mics, but generally here is how I do it.
Again, stick with whatever mic setup you have now for a close mic.....and for the condenser mic.....just walk around the room and listen to your amp. Trust your ears on this one. Once you walk around and find a spot in the room that makes you think "my amp sounds pretty good right here".....well hook the condenser up right there where your ear was! This way, the condenser is picking up just what your ear heard. Just make sure the two mics are in phase.
Another thing, try to dial in a sound thats a little more focused and not quite as saturated. This may mean backing off a hair on gain, but the "clarity" of your riffing will come through better and this makes things tighter.
And to get the saturation back, just layer multiple tracks.
Just a quick example of what Im sayin. Pretend you record one single track with the gain maxed and the amp dialed in to sound friggin thick and nasty! Now, redial the amp and only run the gain between 11 and 12 oclock. Not nearly as thick and nasty sounding....but record two tracks and pan one left and one right with the less aggressive sound.
If you compare the two, even though the sound you used wasnt as thick.....the double tracked guitar will sound bigger than the single track guitar with loads of gain.
Id try this for amp settings. You say you use the gain from 1 to 3 oclock.....try between 12 and one. Back the treble down to around 12 instead of one, and push the presence up to about noon instead of 10. This will "polish" it up a bit and make it a little cleaner and focused. Now, record each heavy riff 4 times. Pan 2 recordings left and 2 recordings right. Now its both tight, and saturated.
To add further saturation, if you have the software, bump just one left recording and one right recording by about 5 to 10 milliseconds. This is not enough to hear any sort of delay, but its enough to make the duration of each note "sound" larger.
You cannot make an exact copy of a track and do this. Well, you can, but it goes out of phase if its an exact copy. This adds a neat effect.....but to get the saturated effect without the phase issue, its gotta be two individually played tracks that are offset from one another by a few ms.
