Miking guitar amps

[soundhack]

the sm57 is pretty popular for recording guitar and vocals because it has a nice upper mid boost (around 5-6k) that brings out articulation and upper harmonics. you can add this boost to other mics with eq - it helps alot if your sound is a bit muddy.



when i record amps, i alway play with the position of the amp. walls and floor help reinforce low freqs., you can change the sound a lot by getting closer/further from the wall or lifting the amp/cab off the floor.

lately i've been liking small condensors like schoeps, dpas or neumann km184s - a royer or two is in my shopping list though 

[Meshuggahnans]

I was considering buying a mixer and a couple of new mics to get a REALLY good guitar sound. Can you guys tell me what you think of this setup?

- SM57, close mic'd at the front
- Samson condenser at the back (angled to avoid phase cancellation - thanks meshuggahnans!)
- another condenser about 2m from the front of the amp


Do you think this will pick up most of what my ears hear? Also, what would a typical balance between the 3 mics look like? I'm thinking the SM57 would be high in the mix, the back mic about two-thirds of the SM57 and the ambient mic a touch lower than that. Does that sound like a good starting point to tweak from?

That could work.  Just know what you're dealing with.  Get to know your mics, record samples with them miced in certain positions and learn what they sound like.  There are just so many variables to experiment with.  Record dead center 12 inches away --- then move it a little to the right -- then move it 6 inches away dead center --- little to the right.  Record these samples and compare them.

One last note about phasing.  Don't be afraid of it, but just know what its doing -- you can get really nice results with phasing sometimes, other times it will ruin your tone.  Know that it IS fixable too -- you can micro-move your tracks forward and backward to alter phase cancellation.  Here is a good experiment to start off, just so you know what to listen for.  Record a guitar track in your DAW.  Then duplicate that track so you have two identical guitar tracks playing.  Zoom in to the waveforms pretty much as close as you can get, and move one of the tracks forward gradually more and more while its playing and listen to how the tone is affected by it.  Notice how at points the phase may actually enhance your tone and at other times it completely wrecks it.

Oh, and this is where my weakness comes in, remember that its called an audio chain for a reason!  Good Guitarist--->Good guitar ---> Good Amp ---> Good Mic ---> Good Mic Pre  ---> Good recorder.  A weakness  in the chain (and i certainly have a couple) and it really will only be as good as it's weakness!  Good luck, and let me know if you have any more questions I can try and help =o)    ---Also, lets hear some samples >=oD

[Oyster Boy]

I got a reaaaaly nice clean sound yesterday at work. I used my AVRI through my Ampeg Reverberocket.

The amp was elevated on a piano bench, in a live room.

I had an Audio Technica 4060 (large diaphragm tube condensor) right up to the grill, where the center meets the speaker cone.

Then I had an AKG c414 in cardioid, off axis, about 3 inches back. It was kind of off axis vertically, tilted back towards the ceiling at about 30 degrees.

Then I had a Royer R122 (ribbon mic) about 2.5 feet back.

There were Gobos around my amp because it was a live recording.



We also used a mid/side technique on my other guitarists amp. We had an SM57 on axis, and another 414, in figure 8 totally off axis. we split the sigal of the 414 and flipped the phase on one of them and panned them hard left and right to get that mid/side effect.


You can hear a rough mix of the song on a myspace I have. listen to the one called "second band practice." Mine is the clean, his is the distorted (he uses a strat) http://www.myspace.com/thelateoysterboy 

[northern_dirt]

I got a reaaaaly nice clean sound yesterday at work. I used my AVRI through my Ampeg Reverberocket.

The amp was elevated on a piano bench, in a live room.

I had an Audio Technica 4060 (large diaphragm tube condensor) right up to the grill, where the center meets the speaker cone.

Then I had an AKG c414 in cardioid, off axis, about 3 inches back. It was kind of off axis vertically, tilted back towards the ceiling at about 30 degrees.

Then I had a Royer R122 (ribbon mic) about 2.5 feet back.

There were Gobos around my amp because it was a live recording.



We also used a mid/side technique on my other guitarists amp. We had an SM57 on axis, and another 414, in figure 8 totally off axis. we split the sigal of the 414 and flipped the phase on one of them and panned them hard left and right to get that mid/side effect.


You can hear a rough mix of the song on a myspace I have. listen to the one called "second band practice." Mine is the clean, his is the distorted (he uses a strat) http://www.myspace.com/thelateoysterboy 

What no U87?... ;P thats a nice selection of mics mang

[Oyster Boy]

We actually did use a U87... but it was on kickdrum.

[øøøøøøø]

Lots of things can work.

The one thing that's universal is step one: start with a great player/guitar/amp combination and get it sounding good in the room.  With that, the battle is over half won.

Some people like to put crappy dynamic mics like the Shure SM57 right up on the speaker.  Some people don't.  Everything is pretty open to interpretation and experimentation.

Lately i've been getting good results almost every time starting with a Beyerdynamic M160 into a Neve 1272-clone (SCA N72) preamp.  That's a pretty nice-sounding chain for guitar amps. 

Add a room mic if you want, or whatever, if you have a good-sounding room. 

I tend to avoid little iso-boxes and things because even close-micing, a little room getting into the mic can make it sound a little livelier.

Another trick some people like is to face one mic angled in so that the diaphragm is exactly parallel to the slanted surface of the cone, and then place a mic on the back-side of the cone at the same angle (so that the mics are facing each other separated only by the layer of paper that is the speaker cone) and inverting the polarity on the back mic. 

Something to try anyhow.