Jeez, Liz,
Why the shrieking, what with the double punctuation and the all caps, and the many exclamantion points, and all? Matt did something reasonable -- use the mid gain for the not-a-regular-MC-but-not-an-MM-either setting -- especially when he had bad advice that entailed he do that.
Anyway, I bet Elizabeth is right. Turn it up a nitch (I hate that expression) and it'll sound great. But Matt was right to ask first.
Enjoy!
RNM