Sounds good. The snare needs more depth and thump, boost around 140-200hz. Bass Low end is too strong (boomy), reduce the bass low end a little bit. Care with 20-40hz area, keep the bass guitar away from it, this is kicks low end area. Increase guitars volume by a little bit and cut a tiny tiny...
CPU!! It's the most important part of the I/O for lower latency, lower buffer range and less system overloads. Get a minimum an i7 which gives you hyperthreading = more cores to use while mixing so Logic splits all your project into those cores. You say you are getting a Mac with 8GB standard...
I got my Ultimate Edition on email, listened the whole album and I got to say this is a brilliant piece of work with so much musical emotion built into it. A truly masterpiece. Great work Ola!
Still waiting for the physical album to arrive at my door :D
There's nothing wrong with a little clipping, especially if you are using high output pickups and pick hard. I'm myself I'm a very hard pocket and been using Duncan Distortions for years and with an Apogee Quartet I set them high and the DI clips too, that won't do any harm to the signal. If you...
I still have a Vypyr 30 that I play from time to time, which is the same as the 75 but with lower wattage, and it actually sounds really good for a solid state modeling amp!
There's tons of effects built and tweaks you can use and it gets loud.
My favorite Vypyr amp preset is the Rec, I like it...
Does your audio interface have a power supply? It can be a ground problem if connected to a bad power outlet or adapter. If it's the case then yes the power conditioner helps. If not some amp Sims generate more noise because of the gain, which is basically digitally boosted output.
CPU and Hard drive type is very important to latency since the better these components the less buffer size you can have thus giving you a lower latency. Thunderbolt is supposed to help with lower latency but it doesn't go far from USB.
I personally don't think it's worth going for Thunderbolt...
Thunderbolt definitely helps keeping latency low, but as suggested you could try Low Latency mode in your DAW or better, reduce the buffer size while recording and increasing while mixing.
I'd go with the RG652 without thinking twice. Of course it's all personal preference but Ibanez guitars are among the most comfortable for playability, replace the pickups and you're set.