Obviously lots of options here with different mics and placement, etc. Just wondering what techniques you guys are using and what your 'do to' setup is. My SM57 has been retired due to old age and being dropped too many times by careless people. I picked up an AUDIX i5 just to try something different. The research I did seemed overall positive on it. Have to say I am a bit disappointed. To me it just sounds dull. Planning on heading over to Sweetwater today after work and picking up a new SM57. I'd like to try a Senheiser but my budget prefers I stay SM57. I realize I have been guilty of not spending enough time on mic placement on the cabinet. As I consider things I can do better in the studio for 2013, this is one of the areas on my list. Pay more attention to the detail of things like this. More attention up front and less trying to fix it later. Danny hit on this in a different post the other day and it really reinforced what I was wanting to do. So interested to hear what you all do and your opinions on the sound differences or mics and placement. Dave

Start by making sure the cabinet is placed somewhere that helps it sound it's best.

It seems, that some times, people are as casual about the placement of their guitar cabs as they are about the placement of their reference monitors.

If the speaker cabinet is up against a wall... you are going to be fighting against that from the get go... there may be no best place to put your mic if there is a comb filtered mess warbling away down there.


If you get the speaker cabinet out off the wall and sounding good... then you are going to find that placing the mic isn't as critical as some make it seem.


It's the same theme; don't record stuff that isn't up to snuff.


It's just taking the idea all the way back to the source. Make sure you have a good sounding source and all the techie stuff after that seems to work without extra effort.






Also try to make sure you actually listening to the speaker and not the room... if the cabinet is down on the floor and you are 6 feet tall... you're listening to the room not the speaker.


The mic just hears what it hears. Guys like us??? we hear what we think we are hearing and sometimes that's totally different from what is actually going into the mic. 


Learn to recognize the difference. Figure out what you are hoping for and go in that direction.


Do you like the sound of the room? move the mic back off the speaker? Are you figuring out what the speaker sounds like? Do you like that? move the mic in towards the speaker.


etc.




Have Fun.




best regards,
mike

All good points Mike. My amp sits in my isolation room. Approx 12x14. hardwood floor with large carpet in middle. All walls except the double door are built at different angles and have Auralex on them. Bass traps as well in corners. I just went down there and did the 'clap test'. Found spots ranging from very little slapback to just a small amount by the door. When I sit out in the large studio room and play, depending on where the amp is positioned, I definatly get a totally different sound. Have to say I really like the sound that the room imparts on the over sound. I've been thinking about a close mic on the cabinet and my condenser back somewhere in the room to get that 'room' sound.

This is a pretty good article on mic'ing amps.

SOS Guitar Amp Mic'ing

HA! Makeshift, I just read that article this morning!! Thanks for posting that. It was very informative. Unfortunatly some of the wav file examples did not seem to work. Just played one short note. That article is what prompted this thread.

i use a Palmer PDI-09, mostly.





line level out, zero mic bleed!


absolutely clean, 3 different 'tone' settings (cab filters)......


i can mix this with close mics or room mics.....


close mic: Shure SM57, near the edge of the cone, tilted towards the center off axis slightly.


room mic: Shure KSM44, in any of it's 3 modes (OMNI when the room sounds killer.)








if i mix the palmer track with a mic track, i get the 'room' effect from the room mic.


if i mix the palmer by itself, i typically will use slight delays, or sometimes reverb, to put some room effect back into the equation.




the great thing i've found with this setup, is that i can dictate how in your face the guitar tracks will be at MIXDOWN.
i'm not locked into the room sound, if i find later, that it just does not work with the mix i want.same thing, if i want a super dry track 'spacey' and huge, i can add delays and reverbs at will, and totally tweak it.

I primarily mic my 4 x 10 cabinet.  I keep it off the ground on a small sturdy table. 

I spent an entire afternoon a couple of years ago playing with amp placement and mic placement in the room I track in.  I started by narrowing down which individual speaker (s) sounded best to me by ear. Next I played with different mic's and mic placement on the chosen speaker.  Up, down, left right, forward and back, angled and not angled.  I would record little clips and then kind of "blind test" them to the best of my ability.  I figured out, through these test, where the mic should sit, to get just a good basic recorded amp tone.  I can just walk up the the amp now and place the mic pretty darn close to my sweet spot within a few minutes.

I also learned how moving the mic changes the sounds and tones.  Example, moving further away from the speaker gives you more room.  I try to keep this in mind when recording and think of what sound I am going for with the song, prior to hitting the record button.  The basic thing I was going for though, was finding a spot were I could get a pretty good all around tone quickly, when I had to get something down fast.

What mics are you using Mike. snicker.. sorry,

you can hear the palmer in action in the songs forum right now.....

Hi Dave-

Great question. Similarly to Mike, I've spent time recording and taking notes of what sounds good for what purpose. For example, I mic clean tones a bit differently than I do dirty tones. I just found for my room that one method sounds better than the other for a given situation. I've documented most of the setups, and can recall them from notes. I've been playing mostly with either an i5 or 57 about an inch in from the edge of one 12" cone, and a ribbon about two feet off the ground and three feet from the cabinet. The dynamic mic usually stays in the same place, but I've been switching between ribbons and LDC mics for clean and dirty. Something else that seems to have produced some easier-to-mix results is that I point my cabinet at the door in the studio and leave the door open into the next room. The next room is pretty large and carpeted with nothing but a pool table in it. It seems to help clean the sound up quite a bit.

Thanks for starting this thread.