I've been running my 8ohm Mark IV head into a 16ohm cab because I was stupid and ordered the wrong speakers. Well I rewired my cab to 4ohms parallel, and now running the 4ohm output on my amp to the cab, so everything matches up.

There is DEFINITELY a tone different. I read somewhere that 4ohms tightens up the bass and makes it more punchy, and that's definitely true. When I was mismatching, my bass response was loose and the bass was just out of control even with a tame bass setting (you can see on some recent clips of people saying the bass it too boomy)

I actually should have recorded some palm mutes but oh well. I don't know what this is.. just some riffs. I really want to add some drums.

I've always wanted to do this! haha.

The wah is the Chrome Custom on the HD500.

Re-recorded this riff right when I got my cab a few days ago but I forgot about it.

compare to:
http://netmusicians.org/?section=id&value=9371 and
http://netmusicians.org/?section=id&value=9383

That's what I had my Crate cab, two different mic positions.

This tone is overall kind of bright and piercing but I had just received my cab and stuck my mic in front of it, already amazed at how much my tone improved. Although it's not the best, I think overall it's much better than the sound coming from the Crate.

Re-uploading with just the guitars isolated. I had the backing track too loud in the last clip and wanted to fix it but figured I could just upload this instead.

No post processing besides very slight high/low passes and some compression to give it some punch.

Oooohh noooo it's the ROS DI tracks yet again.

I was able to rig up a faux reamping rig. My interface output into my HD500, bringing the signal to instrument level, into my Mark IV, the mic'd and going back into the interface. I played the DI track in Reaper while also recording a track.

I couldn't get the signal as hot as I wanted (and the DI clips are definitely hotter than my guitars pickups, yet I wasn't receiving as much gain, so I put the TSE 808 boost VST before the DI track, then I had my Lead Drive on 10. Whew.

Testing the HD500 using the "screamer" overdrive model to boost my Mark IV.

I was playing around, and Petrucci's old Mark IV settings are just really muddy on mine... probably because I have medium output, muddy, stock pickups, in combination with old tubes. But I had the idea to boost it with my Pod since I don't have a boost pedal.

I think it worked out pretty well. More gain and more tightness. Pretty good for a modeling pedal.

First clip is normal, then the second is boosted.

Came up with the bouncy delay part awhile back and it turned into this... not sure what else to do with it.

Running my HD500 through my Mark IV. The clean is the Mark IV clean channel, and the lead is still the clean channel with a tube screamer on the Pod. Effects are all pod, including the background pad-like noise. Bass is pitch shifted guitar, drums are Addictive Drums.

Also that lead-y part is like half improv, so it's kind of sloppy.

If anyone has any input on what this could turn into, I'm all ears... I want to make it longer but I'm not sure what to do.

This song is more difficult to play than it sounds.

Tried to get as close as possible to the actual tone but I'm still way off. No idea what kind of mic set up Petrucci used and I doubt it was an SM58. Not to mention his superior pickups, different cab enclosure.. and not to mention my tubes are old, and my strings are completely dead.

Also this is sort of low volume. It's a bit louder than the last low volume clip but still not loud. Lets just say I put pillows in front of the cab and the person sleeping in the room next to me didn't hear it.

This is a little demo of the Behringer US600 Ultra Shifter.

Pretty nifty for a $50 pedal, especially compared to the Boss shifter and the Morhpeus Droptune, both of which are both much more expensive.

First clip is unprocessed. I'm in D standard.
The next clip is shifted a whole step to C standard.

As you get further down in steps, the latency gets a tad longer, but it's not unplayable.

Finally got my cab.

Lowest volume possible without it being completely silent. I had to crank the mic gain all the way up so I could get a decent sized waveform. I'm surprised you can't hear the strings though the mic.

Mic right on grill aiming straight on the cone. I was expecting icepick fizzy sounds but maybe the mic isn't completely level with the cone.

I'll try to get a cranked clip soon.