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  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

Hi Dave,
 
You got some good advice all across the board on this, but I'd like to mention something that always seems to get missed in mic'ing cabs that is of the utmost importance to "me" at least. And of course I'll share a few other things while I'm on this subject. :)
 
One of the worst problems people run into with this is, they never truly know what their amp and cab sound like because the cab is on the ground blowing at their knees. You can't even bend down on one knee and hear it correctly to know for sure. Most times you think the bass in the sound is enough where in reality, if you were to raise that cab to ear level, you'd probably throw up.
 
So in order to get a good sound, one must create a good sound BEFORE you even put mic's on your cab or in your room. Start by raising the cab to ear level and listening to what you "thought" was a good sound all these years. 9 times out of 10, you're gonna get sick to your stomach and make changes to your sound in full. You can't do this properly with a cab that's blowing at your knees. It just doesn't happen especially if you're using high gain sounds. The cab has to be raised to hear it.
 
Once you establish a good sound at ear level, the next thing to listen for is how much bass you probably added to the sound. When it's at your knees, it sounds like you have more bass in the tone than you really have. When it's at ear level, you may think you need to crank up the bass even more because now the cab has a thin, trebly sound. Don't fall into the bass trap! Guitars need less bass than people think. The same with bass guitar....if you can feel bass, you're using too much. The object is to HEAR the bass in your tone to where it rounds things out.
 
When that is all done, then you can experiment with mics and mic placement. At least NOW, what you'll be hearing is a true representation of what your rig sounds like. Ever notice what you mic isn't what your rig sounds like? If so, having it blowing at your knees was the problem the entire time. So you should now be able to get a nice tone with just about any mic you use when placed in the right spot.
 
When mic'ing your cab, start with a low volume on the amp if possible and wear a set of headphones. Put the mic on each speaker in your cab and move it around while playing. Try each speaker in the cab to see which one ends up being "the good speaker". Once this is done, crank up your volume and go into your control room or wheever you are and see what it sounds like coming through your monitors. If the sound is harsh and trebly, move the mic away from the cone...try 45 degree angles at 2-6 inches away, try a complete 90 degree angle....there are all sorts of things to try.
 
I like to use Sennheiser 421's along with my 57's. The relationship these two mics create on a cab is well, to me pretty incredible. One without the other is like a bird lost without his/her soul mate. I've also been experimenting with the Royer mic's and have come up with some really great sounds. They are expensive, but they really give you some cool sounds to play with. That said, I wouldn't say it improved my tone by $1200.00 (R-121) or $1700.00 for an R-122. Owning a studio, I have to have loads of different mic's for each situation...so I get forced into some of these purchases to leave my options open.
 
Another thing I like to do is to run an SM-57 on every speaker. I know that sounds nuts, but if you think of it realistically, if we have a 4x12 cab, the sound that cab is giving me is not due to 1 speaker, it's due to all 4 sending out sound. So, in a sense, there's no way I'll reproduce the sound of this cab with one or two mics really.
 
Another cool thing I like to try is...walk around the room with a mic and play while dropping the mic in the spot where you stand and the amp sounds good. Like for me, I like 25 watt Celestion Greenbacks. The Greenies are very focused and sound bad after about 8 ft away. However, those babies were made for mic'n so I usually find a great spot about 2-4 ft away and put the mic where my ears hear the best sound and then turn the mic on angles until what I hear there, is what I hear standing right in the room. This really works well for me as another mic to add to the ones I may be using at close range. The cool thing there is, you get a little delay at 2-4ft that you don't get when you close mic and this can thicken up the tone.
 
So keep some of this stuff in mind. It can really be helpful and assist you in getting the right sound. Most guys think they either suck at mic'ing or the mic sucks...when in reality, it's their tone that needs work and they find this out when they bring the cab up to ear level. This gives you a whole different set of options and sounds once you set it up this way. Best of luck! :)
 
-Danny

That's great advice as always Danny. I actually discovered this by accident several months ago.

I have an old Laney Linebacker Pro head with a 4 x 10 cab that I never use but can't bear to part with. I also have a trusty old Marshall JCM600 head and matching 4 x 10 cab that I use for recording and my live stuff.

Anyway about six moths ago I rearranged the small square room that serves as my studio and decided to create a bit more space by stacking amplifiers.I put the marshall half stack on top of the laney half stack, so when I'm sat down the cab is at ear level, standing up it's almost there. (I'm a short-arse )

When I started playing through it first time I wondered what the hell was wrong with it, it sounded what I can best describe as very "brittle". I was beginning to think a valve was on it's way out or something.

Anyway, after a while it dawned on me that it was because of where I was hearing it from, sorted out the tone and learned a lesson on the way - stacks are good.

The reason the bass sounds better when you pull the speaker of the floor is that the floor is acting like one of those walls that I mentioned will mess up your sound with the early reflections.

Pulling the speaker up off the floor gets you a 3dB boost in bass.

Any speaker. 




It's easy to figure out once you get in the habit of listening... then you move the speaker around the room till you think it sounds it's very best.

Hence the advice in post #2:

"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."




best regards,
mike

Tracking with a DAW now-a-days is a nice thing cause you can have as many different things set up at once and record them all just to see which one you like better or even blend 2 or more different tracks together to get a different tone.

Sometimes Ill have an I5, D112, SM57, and who knows what else along with a DI off of the Line6 all being captured at once.

I say why not if you can

I was testing vocals on 2 mics for the past 2 days.

It was difficult to take one away and start thinking about getting a keeper take.

Finally, I just had to do it because I was spending to much time scrutinizing nearly identical tracks and I finally realized the performance only sounds great when you are working one mic or the other. Treating the pair as one big mic wasn't happening.

It's different because you don't work a mic with a guitar amp... but it was a thought process I just went through and it's at the top of my mind.


best regards,
mike

Danny, you always have a much better way of describing methods than I do, but your process is pretty much what I do with mic'ing an amp.  Other than I don't have all those cool mic choices. 

I actually set my amp up on top of the air hockey table in the room and I generally sit on a stool while playing, so ya the speakers are at ear level.  What a difference that makes.  My main mic is almost always a 57.

I will dial in just a little more bass if the guitar tone is for a solo; rather than a rhythm track.  I play a lot of solo's off the neck pick up on my LP and I am going for a mellower tone.

mike_mccue


The reason the bass sounds better when you pull the speaker of the floor is that the floor is acting like one of those walls that I mentioned will mess up your sound with the early reflections.

Pulling the speaker up off the floor gets you a 3dB boost in bass.

Any speaker. 

This may be true on paper in regards to the scientific explanation, but it's the furthest from the truth in reality as far as what my ears tell me. A cab on the floor gives you the impression that there is more bass than is physically there. If you raise that speaker to ear level and use the same amp settings, rest assured you hear LESS bass even if you turn up the bass knob. The tone is trebly and harsh because it was eq'd at floor level and your ears are not able to hear the harsh high end that is really in the tone.
 
The floor is definitely making a difference in the bass response, but only because the highs are not hitting your ears. AND you don't GAIN any bass by raising it that your ears can physically hear. Do the test yourself. If you gain low end from a cab being raised to ear level compared to the sound of the low end you hear blowing by your knees, you have stumbled upon something that no one else has. 
 
This is even more apparent in a high gain or hard rock situation due to the overtones brought on by distortion. Of course cleaner tones will still react with more bass on the floor than they will raised...but the over tones are not as blatant as when you're going for a rock sound. When you raise a cab to ear level that had a rock sound dialed in, it sounds nothing remotely close to what you thought you had when the cab was at your knees. Even cabs on casters that are blowing at your knees....it's not as much the floor resonating that is causing this as much as it is the highs never reaching your ears. Science may say otherwise, but trust me, it's definitely not the case when you allow your ears to call the shots. :)

-Danny

So you like the Royers?

Yeah for some things they really sound cool. It depends on the cab though really and of course the sound going into the cab. I don't like them as much on my Greenback cabs, but for those vintage 30 cabs (I still can't believe people actually like them uggh...what a horrible, raspy sound) or some of the Mesa cabs or Genz Benz I have roll through here, yeah the Royers add a little something extra that isn't in the cab to begin with which (in my opinion) the cab needs and mic literally helps to control the raspiness in those speakers. I believe Van Halen used a Royer on the new album along with his 57's. They help to produce a somewhat darker tone which is really good for classic rock and some high gain rigs where the speakers you use may bring on some rasp.

I actually prefer the cheaper Royer 101 believe it or not. I find that the more sensitive and pricey a mic is, the more it doesn't seem to do a guitar sound justice. Especially with light gain hard rock/metal or blues sounds. It's almost like we don't need the extra clarity these big pricey mic's can give a guitar sound IMO. I think this is partly why 57's have been so important. You can bash the diaphragms with volume and when that happens, it actually enhances the sound in a good way. Do that to a pricey mic and well, the sound isn't very good most times unless you're mic'ing up a super clean electric. That's just been my personal experience though. Every one will have a different story and experience with this type of situation though, due to there being so many variables in what makes up a good guitar tone really.

-Danny

One thing I've been finding with the Royers and AEAs is that I can push the highs with a shelf... using something as simple as Sonnitus... and the highs sound incredibly smooth and silky.

It's like having a hardware pultec kinda vibe baked into the signal. At first, someone may not hear it or go looking for it yet when I have needed to push the high shelf I have been surprised to find out how far I can push it as it just seems to sound really good. 

Sometimes I plan on doing it because you can end up with a nice sound.

I'd never push a condenser that hard, primarily because they already have a lot of presence but also because the hi frequency sound isn't as smooth and silky. There's just more of it.


Someday I want grab a pair of the Beyer Dynamic M160s to mix it up a bit.


best regards,
mike