Micing electric guitar

trackmixstudio

There you go!
What mics?
How many mics?
Should you use a room mic?
How loud should the amp be?

I will jump in after a few replies.

teamdresch

Usually a ribbon and something bright a few inches out.
I'll more likely use whichever one of them suits best rather than blending the two (although that happens too).
Either way, I have 'em lined up as close to each other as possible for phase.

i57dwun4yb1pt8

project studio answer ;-)
( so go easy ;-)


im using an avergae amp so ( marshall avt 2000 150 watt )

which i use for clean sounds only and rarely distorted sounds .

its 4 feet off the floor on some foam on a wardrobe in a bedroom

sm57 or audix i5 2 inches from the cone midway from center to edge .

the room dont sound great so no room mic generally
sometimes i put an LDC down the stairs and wack the amp up though.

volume around half way usually

i use a pod for the main distorted stuff - im not goona get as good in my house with real amps

i record a dry track di as well in case i want to reamp due to not being happy .

PaulBrewer

teamdresch wrote: »

I'll more likely use whichever one of them suits best rather than blending the two (although that happens too).
.

I find that too ..... in the mix either/or will sit better than a bit of both.

teamdresch

Yeah, I find that quite often I'll spend a bit of time getting the blend between the two mics right.
Then I come back to the gtrs 20 minutes later and mute one of them.
8 times outta 10, it sounds better.

trackmixstudio

Good replies guys.
A great guitar sound is something of a holy grail for me and I am almost there after lots of work and experimentation.
Here's a few things I have picked up on my quest.
A set of isolation headphones are VERY helpful for this. Vic Firth drummer phones are great.
Get the guitarist to play an open E chord in a pattern daaaa daaaa daaaa da da da da (three full strums followed by 4 short ones or palm mutes).
I often find it better to record this with a di then loop and reamp it. Consistency is the key to hearing variations in the mic positions and it is very hard to get a guitarist to play the same chord and pattern for 20 mins without changing it.
Turn the amp up just past the point where it changes from fizzy to full sounding.
Put a 57 or i5 on a short boom in front of a speaker and gain your mic pre so it is getting a good level.
Get in the live room with your headphones loud and loosen your mic boom.
There is a very small area on the cone that will give you clarity without fizz. This area is easy to find when you get used to this method.
Start with the mic in the middle of the cone. Listen carefully to the fizzy high mids then sweep the mic slowly towards the edge of the cone. Just after the fizz you will hear a good balanced sound. Keep moving towards the edge and you will hear the low mids get a bit indistinct. The area you are aiming for is between the fizz and the point where the low mids go off. This point is usually about 1-2" towards the edge from where the bubble in the cone's centre meets the paper of the cone. This mic will end up either parallel to the grill cloth or parallel to the cone. Repeat this for each cone and pick the best one. If it is your own amp, you will know the best cone next time. This method will almost always give me a good clear punchy guitar sound.
The other method I use is 2 57s. One on the centre of a cone and the other near the edge of another cone. Using headphones as above, move one mic with each hand and get them in phase. These two mics will sound sh1t on their own but sound great together. The fizzy highs and boomy low mids get cancelled out and you end up with loads of clarity in the mids where it counts.
I will generally record the guitar tracks with both of these methods and decide on the 1 or 2 mic setup in the mix.
I will rarely use a room mic but when I do I will always align the phase by shifting the recorded wave form.
The cab sits on a foam play mat (http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2055348671)
with the head in the control room for tweaking.
Once I have my mic positions as above I will turn the amp up to recording level. In a very unscientific approach I will put my hand on the cab and turn it up until I can feel it shake with the low end of chords.
An ibanez or maxon tube screamer before the amp does a wonderful job of hi and lo passing and focusing the mids on the way in. Leave the drive at zero, level 1/2 way and tone 1/2 way.
Have a go with these ideas and let me know how you get on.
Michael

PaulBrewer

Niall - Dahlia wrote: »

I've a bad habit of using both signals no matter what, even if one is pretty much inaudible. I've gone to all the trouble of using two mics, I just have to use both!

Aha! I've seen that before ok.... I don't know how many times I've bursted Joe over similar.

If you have 2 mics on one thing, you have phase differences, it's just how you manage them.

'It does make it any worse' isn't an argument for using a mic, only 'it's better'

StudioRate made the same point re drums, less mics!

Seziertisch

http://www.soundonsound.com/sos/aug07/articles/guitaramprecording.htm

This gives a pretty comprehensive run down of what your options are/could be.

I suppose a 57 isn't a bad place to start but really isn't the be all and end all. It works well for distorted stuff more so than clean and definitely produces something that slots fairly readily into a mix.

I would have to say though, that from my fairly limited experience, I am with Alan Parsons on it at least most of the way.

That said, using ribbons and condensers really exposes the true nature of the amp, so if the amp is less than stellar expect this to show in the recording.

TelePaul

How loud should it be?

that's an interesting question. How about the volume it sounds good at? Or is that too simplistic? What's the general concensus on Master Volume pots when our perception of tone is intrinsicaly linked to volume (assuming it is of course)?

I've never really thought about it before. Actually, amp micing isn't something I generally think too much into.

PaulBrewer

TelePaul wrote: »

How about the volume it sounds good at? .

That's the correct answer...

trackmixstudio

PaulBrewer wrote: »

That's the correct answer...

Depends.
Your perception of high frequencies changes depending on volume so what sounds good in the room is not necessarily what it will sound like on playback at a lower volume.
Valve amps sound better and fuller when the power amp valves are driven a bit (or a lot!)
When you crank an amp and get the power valves and the speaker cones working it tends to get rid of any fizz in the sound and although it may sound boomy and indistinct in the room, the recorded playback (at regular listening volume) usually sounds way better to me than recording at lower amp levels.
As I said earlier, feeling the cab with your hand will tell you if the speaker cones are REALLY moving. At this point the speaker cab is usually too loud in the room to make critical tone judgements. That is why I keep the head in the control room so tone changes can be made and judged at reasonable listening volumes.

if6was9

I've not got much experience in micing cabs- only done it a few times but i've read tons on it and so far this method has worked for me.

I have the amp at a fairly low level and get them to keep playing riffs- i tell the player to run through a few of their own songs if they can't think of anything to play. i wear a set of phones turned up so i hear the miced sound well over the one in the room. I sweep a 57 around one of the speakers till i find a spot that i think sounds the best. Then on another speaker I sweep around a Ribbon mic( using a t bone RB-100 at the moment) while still listening to both this and the 57. I've been finding the 2 mics cancel alot of the fizzy highs and give a nice rounded thick low end and I have options in the mix to use more of one than the other if I change my mind a little. I've been placing them about half an inch/an inch away from the speaker.

When it comes to recording then I turn the amp up alot louder till I hear it get fuller. I find the miced tone gets alot sweeter once it gets louder with the same mic positions as earlier, I've just been taking care to not over do it to kill the ribbon mic.
A cool idea i saw that i've to try again is to hang a baffle behing the ribbon mic to kill crap room reflections from that side of the figure of 8.

I'd like to be, but i'm not a fan of the 57's much on heavy distorted electric Guits- the tone i get with them seems to be thin and kinda fizzy. I know it must be something i'm doing cause i've been wowed by tons of other people recordings with them. I've got to experiment alot more- i'm really only getting into micing cabs now having relied on amp sims and impulses for a while due to volume constraints

TelePaul

I'm coming at this more from a musicians point of view rather than an engineers...but I think it's important to think of an amp almost as an instrument in its own right. Tube amps provide a dynamic and varied response to a persons playing style. And people talk alot about cranking tubes to saturation but for me, the biggest thing about a tube amp starts with the 'power' behind a clean tone...solid states are great for certain clean applications, but for me, a tube amp just sounds fuller, cranked or not. I've been playing around with smaller tube amps - epi valve junior, fender champion 600 and have gotten pretty sweet results with them at very useable levels.

Seziertisch

Smaller amps have the advantage that you are able to push them a lot harder at reasonable volumes (although reasonable may still be crazy loud). This is the principle behind Neil Young and his use of Tweed Deluxes as his main amp. Nothing like an amp running wide open to get the blood flowing. Johnny Marr's favourite amp is the Deluxe Reverb because he can get it just to that point of just breaking up in a musical way at a more manageable volume. This "clean pushing crunch" sound is a good starting point for a lot of guitar sounds. Nels Cline also favours smaller amps generally for this reason.

On the other hand larger amps can offer a touch sensitivity that gets lost as smaller amps compress. This requires a greater degree of control from the player. A classic example of this is Jimi Hendrix and his Marshalls. Larger amps also serve sometimes as a better host for a lot of effects pedals, allowing the timbre of the effect to really shine. J Mascis and his fuzz pedals would be an example.

Otherwise a lot of what we perceive as loudness on a recording is the interaction between the guitar and the amp in the room. A cranked amp with the player positioned fairly close increases the likelihood of natural feedback occuring. Les Pauls are particularly suited to this owing to their already quite long sustain (presuming that it is a decent Les Paul). Even if it is never let go into feedback the inclination towards this translates to the recording as a very "energised" and "loud sounding" sound.

Otherwise the quality of an amp is really telling on a recording. Boutique/vintage amps just have a magic going, a level of detail and 3-dimensionality that can make for wonderful sounding recordings. If I had a studio and had a a couple of grand to spare I would invest in a really good mid-sized combo of some sort (or possibly even a couple). This would allow for great guitar sounds even if the band didn't have particularly good gear. Another important factor is the cables being used to connect the guitar to the amp. This is not necessarily particularly audible listening in the room but is really picked up on in a mic situation. The better the sound coming out of the amp the less that needs to be done with it afterwards. This also applies to any/all cabling being used in the studio.