How can I fix this?

[blueYOSHI]

Hi, I got a problem with GIMP. First, take a look at these two pictures.

The first one is super clean, I did that one before some years. The second one looks a bit messy and just bad. I just don't know how to recreate the first one! If you got some ideas how I could do this, please answer. Im sure I didn't do it manually.

How I did this the second time:
I wrote the text with a size of 18px and used the blend tool to color it.
Copied the layer, did "alpha to selection", increased the size of it with "Grow" (listed under "Select") and used the blend tool again.
Redid that for all layers (4 in total).
Used "Scale Image" with "None" as "Interpolation".  (the pic already looked the same before this)

[Blighty]

Just guessing:

When you created the text for the second one, you had Antialiasing checked in the tool options for the text tool. Try switching it off so that there is no antialiasing.

[rich2005]

That is very small text to work with. I could not match your font so there are differences.

I went straight to Text-to-Path then turned the text layer off. Selections came from Path-to-selection

The first layer is the only 'funny' one. I filled the selection with the gradient then to remove the odd stray anti-aliased pixel, inverted the selection and cut.

The outline layer 2 is a straight stroke selection line size 1 with anti-aliasing off under layer 1

The background, layer 3, selection, grow selection 4 pix fill with gradient.

To hide the odd anti-aliased pixel, the outline goes over that (layer 4) again stroke selection, anti-aliasing off, line size 1 pix.

edit: just seen the odd pixel that will need a bit of hand editing

[blueYOSHI]

Before doing the new text I thought it's a good idea to try recreate the original one and I think it looks pretty good! I need to edit some pixels but I felt I didn't need to for a test version.
Thanks! You helped a lot!