[DupleMeter]

Hi Sean - nice to meet you.

I'll share some very basics with you. FWIW, I've been recording since 1987, and even studied it in college (as a minor).

Everything starts with the signal chain. The better those components are the better your recording will be. I don't have any experience with your equipment, but let's assume that your mic & preamps are decent.

Next - the room. Most homes have rooms that are far too small to record properly in. The boxlike shape and close, flat surfaces create what are called axial room modes. You can calculate the actual frequency of the modes and then apply specific fixes for those frequencies, but let's make this simple: an investment in a good broadband bass trap will help more than anything else. Real Traps is a great resource for that as are the Ready Acoustics Chameleon Bass Traps. 2 of these to create a quick wall around your recording position will do more than spending twice the amount on acoustic foam products.

So, now you have the room tamed and your signal chain is good. You get your recording onto your hard drive.

EQ: roll off the extreme low end. The only thing down there is a/c & heating noise and the rumble from the world outside. It's probably somewhere around 75Hz that you will start your roll-off. acoustic guitars have a wolf tone somewhere around the 800 Hz mark. Grab a parametric with a tight bandwidth and boost it as much as you can, sweep through the 750-850Hz range while listening for that cardboard/cheap sound. When you find it, reverse the gain on that EQ band to a cut -2dB to -4dB depending, and widen the band a bit to make it smooth (2/3 octave - 1 full octave Q area). Lastly, for the brightness you want, add a high shelving EQ starting around 4k, just boost about 2dB or so to add sparkle and clarity. Now, if you need a little low end to oomph too: that's somewhere in the 100Hz area. Just a small boost with the EQ will add some size to the recording, and since you've already tamed the sub frequencies, there is no fear of adding mud.

Compression: Be careful. Using a compressor so that it's unnoticeable is an art more than a science. And, a good compressor is a definite requirement. If you don't have a good outboard comp to track with, use the best plugin available to you. Set the attack to the slowest and the release to the fastest setting. Set the threshold so that you are below your average level. Now, speed up the attack as you listen and stop when you hear it kicking in and you're getting a good 3dB of compression. From there, slow down the release until the effect is smooth.

Reverb: setup a good sounding 'verb on a bus and using the send from the guitar's channel, bring up the send volume until you just notice it. Then I always back-off a hair from there to keep it natural.

And one last thing: record with plenty of headroom. Your peaks should be around -12dB on your DAWs meters. That gives you plenty of headroom for plugins to do their work and to keep from overloading internal busses.

Recording is an art - much like playing. Dive in, experiment and have fun with it. You'll hone your skills over time.