How do I improve mic'ing my guitar amp?

[Hemmick Reef]

I am having trouble getting a decent rhythm guitar sound from my amp and need some help.
I am using an SM57 pointing at the center of the amp and touching the cloth.
The sound is thin and uninspiring and adding chorus & reverb & eq does not seem to help very much.
How loud should the amp be when recording like this and are there any points I should follow?
Thanks
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Equipment List:

Carillon Computer 2.8P4 1gig ram
Edirol DA2496 8ins/8outs soundcard
Alesis M1 Active Mk2 monitors
Groove Tubes 'The Brick' preamp
Groove Tubes GT67 valve microphone
SM57 microphone
Rickenbacker 4003 Bass
Marshall bass 100 watt transistor combo
Yamaha AES500
Laney VC15-110 valve combo
Edirol midi controller keyboard

Uad-1 x 1
Powercore unplugged + VSS3 reverb

Cubase SX2
Korg Legacy Collection (softsynth)
Sample Tank (softsynth)
FM7 (softsynth)
EZDrummer (softsynth)

 

[A Gruesome Discovery]

You may want to try some different mic positions; I find that the center of the cone can be a little harsh with certain speakers, and I usually move it an inch or so off center. Maybe try moving it back a little bit as well. I find that even the smallest mic movements can make the difference between \"sweet spot\" and \"awful\". The 57 should be more than adequate (I rarely use anything else for a cab mic), but I guess it depends on the sound you want; a \"roomier\" sound might call for a condenser a few feet away, or a combination.
As far as volume, I personally record amps turned up pretty loud; obviously for heavier stuff, but even lighter parts benefit from the speaker pushing a lot of air. Otherwise, it tends to sound weak and far-away. You'll obviously want to avoid the point of distortion if it's a clean part, but I'd turn it up as loud as it can go while still being fairly clean (and of course adjust your mic preamp to avoid clipping your recorder/DAW).

 

[imdrecordings]

Quick Question: Why are you putting the mic there?


When I'm in a hurry and have to mic up a bunch of guitars in a short time, say a live session. I use the old Butch Vig trick. Works 8 out of 10 times.
Have the guitar player turn his volume down at the guitar. Then crank the gain on the amps pre and Master as well as the treble(remember or write down what they were, before you fk with'm). Crank a set of headphones and put them on. Start moving the mic around in front of the speaker until you here the loudest signal. Now, start moving in smaller increments until the High and low end of the white noise seems balanced. Put the amp settings back to the way they were and BAMM! done...
Play around with it. Some times I'll try micing the loudest part of the hiss...
What ever works.

As for taking my time or Overdubbing?
Sometimes the above works, but then I'll find tune it with different mics or if its a real LOUD Hi-GAIN guitar, I'll mic the cab off axis. Placing the mic close to the grill, with the mic following the angle of the speaker cone. Of course I use Dynamic mics when doing this. Ribbon mic? Come back about 3 feet, straight on. Move around a bit until it's cool. Watch your volume. Depending one the Ribbon mic, the louder the amp the farther back you'll have to pull the mic.

I try to keep the \"Proximity\" Bass build up, out of the guitars. Try and be careful with the 100-300hz range when tracking. Use a frequency analyzer while tracking or a phease meter when using more than 1 mic.

But my guitar tones suck... Sooooo?

Most people don't ever talk about this, but I have great luck using noise reduction software on guitars....

 

[Hemmick Reef]

Quick Question: Why are you putting the mic there?


When I'm in a hurry and have to mic up a bunch of guitars in a short time, say a live session. I use the old Butch Vig trick. Works 8 out of 10 times.
Have the guitar player turn his volume down at the guitar. Then crank the gain on the amps pre and Master as well as the treble(remember or write down what they were, before you fk with'm). Crank a set of headphones and put them on. Start moving the mic around in front of the speaker until you here the loudest signal. Now, start moving in smaller increments until the High and low end of the white noise seems balanced. Put the amp settings back to the way they were and BAMM! done...
Play around with it. Some times I'll try micing the loudest part of the hiss...
What ever works.

As for taking my time or Overdubbing?
Sometimes the above works, but then I'll find tune it with different mics or if its a real LOUD Hi-GAIN guitar, I'll mic the cab off axis. Placing the mic close to the grill, with the mic following the angle of the speaker cone. Of course I use Dynamic mics when doing this. Ribbon mic? Come back about 3 feet, straight on. Move around a bit until it's cool. Watch your volume. Depending one the Ribbon mic, the louder the amp the farther back you'll have to pull the mic.

I try to keep the "Proximity" Bass build up, out of the guitars. Try and be careful with the 100-300hz range when tracking. Use a frequency analyzer while tracking or a phease meter when using more than 1 mic.

But my guitar tones suck... Sooooo?

Most people don't ever talk about this, but I have great luck using noise reduction software on guitars....

There is an art to this by the sounds of it....no pun intended but I like the pun anyway
I think getting my listening ears on is really going to help here...I'll put my pre-conceived theory aside for a bit, and aim at just getting a good sound at source. 8)

 

[BTLG]

I don't know that it needs saying, but I will anyway. The tone of the amp/instrument is the most important part of the signal. After that it's the mic. After that it's the mic placement. After that it's the mic pre.

You should, in theory be able to get a pretty decent sound with your setup. You may even want to try that GT67 and scrap the 57 altogether. Tube mics can sound great on electric guitars. Other than that, I'd just move the mics until it sounds good.

 

[tunetown]

Plenty of info here.

http://www.badmuckingfastard.com/sound/slipperman.html

Cheers

 

[Hemmick Reef]

Thanks all.

I have been experimenting with recording in my 'home studio' 3x2m room (rather small), and just outside the room on the upstairs landing.

At other times I have just played downstairs in the living room (not recording), and thought wow the amp sounds good today, or I should say sounds good in here! I need to get that sound closer to my computer.

 

[tunetown]

You could also buy one of these

http://www.palmergear.com/pdi03.shtml

I use one when recording at home and it works a treat.

Cheers

 

[Plec]

That Slipperman article is brilliant. I have done intense guitar recording for a long time, and I thought I got it down pretty much. But I still learned a few new apporaches from mr Slipperman.

Basically.. If you're doing heavy stuff.. the point at which you have cabinet involvement is critical! This isn't really as loud as you would think. High gain guitars tend to sound better at moderate levels due to the fact that a lot of pre-amp gain gets really mushy the more the poweramp section comes into play. If you have a 5150 the sweetspot for the power amp is around 2 - 2.5 on the master. After that it gets very mushy...

IMD has a great point with the \"Butch Vig\" trick. I use a somewhat similar method but a bit more elaborate. In this way you find the perfect spot for ONE mic IF your goal is to capture a naturally balanced guitar tone. So it's not as experimental..

* Get yourself a sample of pink noise or a pink noise generator.

* Feed this signal through the clean channel of your amp. (If you know how pink noise sounds cleanly, adjust the tonecontrols on the clean channel so that what you hear coming out the speaker resembles your reference for pink noise as close as possible)

* Turn the volume of the amp down very low and crank your mic-preamp gain up so you have a somewhat usable signal.

* Put on a pair of headphones cranked up pretty loud and then start to sweep the front of the speaker cone with your mic until you find the spot and angle where you capture the most balanced combination of noise.

What does this accomplish?
Well, a guitar speaker has a lot of peaks and dips in it's frequency response, and in this way you are feeding the amp ALL frequencies so you can asses exactly which blend you will get independent of volume. Say you have a clean guitar sound and the player is doing some jazzy, bassy stuff... then all of a sudden he breaks into a solo that features higher strings and higher frequencies. If you have the mic in \"the wrong place\" you might get some very interesting results in the high-end of the guitar while your rhythm tone was just fine.

So this technique levels out the playing field. Once you have miked the guitar amp \"technically correct\" like this.. it' all up to the amp after that. It gives you perspective on WHAT is the mic/speaker doing and WHAT is the amp doing. Instead of hearing a sound and not being sure what's out of balance... the micing or the amp settings.

 

[imdrecordings]

* Get yourself a sample of pink noise or a pink noise generator.

* Feed this signal through the clean channel of your amp. (If you know how pink noise sounds cleanly, adjust the tonecontrols on the clean channel so that what you hear coming out the speaker resembles your reference for pink noise as close as possible)

* Turn the volume of the amp down very low and crank your mic-preamp gain up so you have a somewhat usable signal.

* Put on a pair of headphones cranked up pretty loud and then start to sweep the front of the speaker cone with your mic until you find the spot and angle where you capture the most balanced combination of noise.

Plec,
I just thought of something... What are you using to send your Pink noise?
Why not put some Pink noise on a iPOD or cd player and just plug that into an amp... That would be great. I'm doing it! Thanks. I never thought about using Pink noise. Pink covers all frequencies, yes? So that would make it better than white noise (amp hiss) and possibly easier to use. hmmm?

 

[Plec]

I'm running Nuendo, and you have a testtone plugin that generates white, pink and brown noise plus sine, square triangle waves... so I basically feed that through a re-amp box to get it to the right level for the amp. I don't see why you couldn't use a cd-player or iPod.. you might get some extra noise there that you don't want, but don't know if that makes a difference. Try it and see if it works out for ya!

Pink noise, white noise, brown noise... they all cover the whole frequency range but have different amplitudes at different frequencies. White noise contain all frequencies at the same amplitude. Pink noise contain all frequencies but with levels that make all frequencies similar in amplitude to the EAR. You hear pink noise as balanced from the low-end to the high-end while white noise sounds a lot brighter.. although it's technically balanced it's not how the ear hears it.

 

[lhama]

I was sort of tired of the sm57, and started to search for something to compliment it with. I found a Sennheiser e906... That is a very sweet microphone for guitar amps.

 

[BTLG]

Whatever happened to the (sometimes flippant, yet reliable) advice of 'move the mic around until it sounds good' ?

 

[imdrecordings]

Whatever happened to the (sometimes flippant, yet reliable) advice of 'move the mic around until it sounds good' ?

Come on! Who has any time to take their time?
Not me. 8) ha!

I always loved that responce.

 

[Plec]

Whatever happened to the (sometimes flippant, yet reliable) advice of 'move the mic around until it sounds good' ?

Yeah basically.. if you have the time. But doing that with a guitar amp blasting forces you to make a move... go into the control room and listen... make a move... go into the control room and listen etc....

As you know.. moving a mic as much as 0.5cm in front of a speakers makes quite a drastic change... and so going through 20-30 moves like that too find a sweet spot might take you 2-3 hours for one mic. Using the nosie method you can pretty much guess how the guitarsound will be translated in the control room, so you might get 2-3 hours experimentation done in 2-3 min after you get some experience with the method.

 

[BTLG]

I don't want to sound like a layman, but the noise method is a little too scientific for me.

2 ways around the \"move the mic and go to the control room\"
1) Headphones - it works, just takes some getting used to and you know
your headphones.
2) An assistant engineer - not something we all have the luxury of all of the time

I also think it's really just a matter of experience. Eventually you just kind of learn where to put the mic.

 

[imdrecordings]

I don't want to sound like a layman, but the noise method is a little too scientific for me.

2 ways around the "move the mic and go to the control room"
1) Headphones - it works, just takes some getting used to and you know
your headphones.
2) An assistant engineer - not something we all have the luxury of all of the time

I also think it's really just a matter of experience. Eventually you just kind of learn where to put the mic.

True. I felt the same way, until I tried it. There really is nothing scientific about it. More of a Zen thing... (and I don't mean that shit band BUSH)
Keeyah!

 

[BTLG]

Not to be a Debbie-Downer, but the idea of placing it where you have the 'best pink noise' signal, I can see where it's going. At a certain level, distorted guitar is basically noise. On the other hand, guitar is such a lo-fi instrument, and I feel like giving a beginner something like that for a reference technique could stifle experimentation. It also doesn't account for changes in tonality based on spring verbs and effects pedals.

What I would suggest is this:
- setup a session in your daw
- record various mic positions and combinations (and make sure to notate which track is which)
- take pictures if you have to!
- don't get frustrated
- check, and decide what you like the best.
- have fun

sure moving the mic slightly makes a difference, but how drastic it is is really up to your perception (and I think .5 cm is quite an exaggeration). What's your point of reference for a guitar sound or what a 'sweet spot' is?

Anyone who's spending 2-3 hours making 30 mic moves to get a halfway decent guitar sound really needs to rethink their approach and look at the big picture. Either that or they may have some kind of neurosis or deeper issues to get in check.

IMD - I guess 'scientific' was poor word choice. I meant that it seems a little to anal.

As always, YMMV

Matt Carter
Legacy Recording Studios

 

[Plec]

Not to be a Debbie-Downer, but the idea of placing it where you have the 'best pink noise' signal, I can see where it's going. At a certain level, distorted guitar is basically noise. On the other hand, guitar is such a lo-fi instrument, and I feel like giving a beginner something like that for a reference technique could stifle experimentation. It also doesn't account for changes in tonality based on spring verbs and effects pedals.

Sure moving the mic slightly makes a difference, but how drastic it is is really up to your perception (and I think .5 cm is quite an exaggeration). What's your point of reference for a guitar sound or what a 'sweet spot' is?

Well... the thing is taking into account for changes in tonality based on whatever, is exactly what this method is designed to do. You make a decision based on hearing all frequnecies coming through the amp. The idea is if you get a too bright tone or a too bassy tone or too (xxx) due to something else than the micing, you adjust that on the amp or the fx processor at hand.

.5cm moves is another indicator on how exact the method is. If you are doing high-gain guitars, which are close to noise... moving the mic such a small amount makes a huge difference on how the sound fits into the whole picture.. not just the guitar sound itself. Equally... when positioning the mic with pinknoise you get that same "positioning resolution" . If you are doing clean sounds that are not spewing out a lot of different frequencies all the time... where you put the mic might not be as sensitive, but at the same time... you never know where the player is going so he might surprise you with a change in tonality in the middle of a take... and by noising the amplifier you've already taken such things into account.

I've not been able to use the headphones-sweeping-mic-while-guitar-plays method at all. And I don't know how this could be effective in any way. The acoustic leakage you have with an amp in the room while you're wearing headphones trying to get a sound is not workable.. at least not for me. Even putting noise through an amp at minimal volume with cranked micpre gets you some "spill" in the headphones from the acoustics while setting up your mic... so doing it with an amp blasting 100db is beyond me.

 

[BTLG]

A couple of additonal points to clarify my stance though -

1) most professional guitar players know their setup, know their sound, and how to attain it. After that point I feel it's the engineer's responsibility to capture the sound.

You wouldn't go dicking around with The Edge's or Pat Metheny's amp settings without losing a finger AND a client. It'd be akin to telling Herbie Hancock that he's hitting the keys too hard.

2) most professional engineers know their mics and how to place them. They also understand the value of making decisions and knowing when to say when.

I'm not saying any one way is right or wrong, and I also understand that we're not always dealing with professionals. However I still think we should all strive to be professionals at whatever it is we all do.

The 'headphones sweeping' technique has worked for me in the past when dealing with airy clean guitars, and I've also never been careless enough to try it when I'm recording guitars loud (which I don't think you always have to do).

Matt Carter
Legacy Recording Studios