Question about Recording Guitar Tube Amps

Hey again, Charles....

I would guess it's a mic/eq problem. If you LOVE your guitar sound when you're standing next to the amp, you should be able to capture it with a single mic on the cab. Lots of people - Petrucci and many others for example - still use a single 57 on their cabs.

I personally have a couple of 57's, but I never use them on a guitar cab unless I have to. I never HAVE TO. But if I were you, I'd probably try the 57 closer to the edge of the speaker over using the 609. My gut tells me that the 57 will capture the low end better than the 609. I have both mics, and I actually prefer the 609 over the 57 if I were forced to use either on a guitar cab. BUT, the 609 has always seemed to have a little crisper high end to me.

I record tube amps all the time. I personally have my Mesa Mark IV, Mesa Triple Rec, and an old 70's Marshall JMP. Many of my clients come in with Mesa Triples, Duals, Heartbreakers, etc. But I've also seen everything from Peavey, Tranor, Splawn, Bogner, etc. But my signal chain is different from yours. My go-to mics right now are a Royer 121 and/or a Beyer Dynamic M160. I often prefer one over the other....sometimes prefer them together. Other times I place an AT4047 in front of a cab and it's right. At any rate, any of those mics will go through a Daking preamp - and I add ZERO EQ or compression.

I belive you gotta get it right straight through the mic and pre without any EQ.

And when it comes time to mix, it is extremely rare that I do anything but a HPF notched where it needs to be for the song. Once in a blue moon I have to kick up a little bit of a high shelf, but that's actually pretty rare.

Have you tried different volumes? Try uber loud....and try everything in between there and uber quiet. I have a certain decible level that I keep all guitars at in my particular room....any louder than that and it all turns to crap. Took me a while to realize that...but have had success after success since I discovered the magic volume threshold!

I'd suggest losing one of the mics for a while.....take phasing and filtering out of the equation at first. Then try mic placement and amp volume.....see what you come up with.

i've eschewed the mic, for using the Palmer PDI-09.

works great.

fizz, typically comes from your choice of gain, and eq.
fix it til the fizz goes away.

Also, there's nothing wrong with using an omni or bidirectional mic at the position where you are standing when the cab sounds great.

I am having a band tonight for tracking guitar. I will try the tips you have offered and see if that helps. Thank you.

The band tonight is an old school style death metal band. We tracked drums last week and will be doing guitars today. I will use the Peavey XXX for one side of rythm guitar and the Peavey 5150 for the other. I will probably use the XXX for the lead solos, but switch to a different channel.

One tip that I can't wait to try will be moving the mic back a few inches instead of being right up against the grill cloth.

I have clients all weekend so it may be a few days before I can report on my results. But as soon as I can I will.

Thanks,
-Charles

Thanks man, but if have to mic amps. If I use any kind of direct anything, my clients could simply do that themselves and they would not need me.

ok, cool.
i understand that sentiment, i really do.

but, if they had all your gear, they'd be doing it themselves already.

also, the time it takes to master understanding a PDI-09, what it sounds like, how it translates to a good sound to disc, doesn't take as long as mastering micing techniques, for sure..

but once you have that down, then you can spend that extra time you saved messin' with guitar mics for hours, and spend it on drums instead.

just something to consider, if you're talking time versus money.

You may be on to something here. I recall not having this problem a year ago. Hmmm. In fact I have been using the XXX for about 3 or 4 years and I have never changed the tubes.

I recently acquired the 5150 so I am unaware of the last time the tubes were changed on that. I think it is about time I retubed them all. Oh yeah, we just got access to an ENGL Powerball for a little while too. Maybe I can check that out too.

Thanks

ORIGINAL: josh2473

Hey Sylvan,

Have you changed out the tubes in the amps? Tubes are like strings on a guitar. They don't last for ever. Although, I own the 5150 and it does produce a little bit of fizz. That is usually caused by boosting the Treble and Presence knobs and it could also be triggered by the type of tubes you have in it. Example, some tubes will have more bass and treble response then other tubes. By the way, if you are playing through the your amps everyday, tubes will last about 1 to 2 years.

No matter what, the 5150 is way less noisey than my Legacy amp. I usually use Behringer B-1 about 1 or 2 inches away from the grill. I have found that placing the mic close to the edge and turning the mic a little to the cone works best for noisey type amps.

Joshua Melton

I will add this to my list for this evenings guitar tracking. Thank you for your input. It really helps get me back to reality. Sometimes I get so caught up in trying to be perfect that I forget the obvious stuff.

ORIGINAL: MelodicJimmy

In the first post, you mentioned the XXX and 5150. While great sounding amps, Peavey amps (especially the high gain ones) are known to be inherently "fizzy." So, I would guess that it's not your mic placement as much as it is just the tone of the amp itself. Try turning the treble on the amp down before you record. It might sound a little too "round" in the room, but maybe it'll take the fizz away on the recording.

Check out Slipperman's Distorted Guitars thread over at the Womb... answers to be found within.

Hey Charles - can you post a couple of MP3 examples somewhere so we can hear what you're describing? That might help us to fine-tune our responses. Mike's question about how it sounds in the room is a valid one. If you hear it in the room then it's probably not a signal chain issue.

This link should provide the answers to your quest. Its pretty funny too.

http://www.scribd.com/doc/2067256/Slippermans-Guide

Randy

ORIGINAL: rsp@odyssey.net

This link should provide the answers to your quest. Its pretty funny too.

http://www.scribd.com/doc/2067256/Slippermans-Guide

Randy

now that was a great read, thx

Recorded metal guitar never requires as much gain and distortion as you might think in order to sound great in the finished mix.

 
I was trying to get the other guitarist in my band to understand that concept while tracking hs guitar last night,  if you have too much fizz in the top end it just sounds thin & ****ty, back the gain down a bit & you get more meat!  I can always boost the highs to get more fizz, but when there is too much at the source.... you can't cut that **** out with chainsaw because when you are done getting ride of the "crappy part", there's nothing left to work with!!

Yeah I have been reading that post since I found it on gearsluts a couple days ago.....  Funny as hell and informative.  I actually found this post because I searched to see if anyone had mentioned it here.