OK I've tried sending, then saving; saving, then sending and the absolute highest quality recording that has resulted is the thinned-out live recording of my buddy. he has the same result on his end. (meaning his recording of his performance is trashed, and his recording of my performance is cheesy at best.) What is the secret to getting this mythical better-than-cd- quality recording?

I'm sending your post on to our Lead Programmer because I've had a similar experience with SEND SONG recently. This could be a bug that's crept into Beta 12

We'll check into it.