mic placement and such

[shreder75]

my cover band recently recorded our demo in my band mate's basement studio..while it doesn't sound that bad, I'm VERY not happy with how my guitar sounds...

commin' outta the amp, standin' right by it? thing sounds NASTY...love the sound...really raunchy, but not out of control....in the mix? buried and sounds like the mic was a mile away...

using a shure sm57..

where do you place your mic when you record?

I'm going to take the mic home with me after practice on friday and start recording on my PC..I don't have any killer software but my new pc came with some interesting sound software..so I'm gonna plug the mic into the computer, place it in front of my friggin' cab and see what sounds best...if for nothign else, just to finally post some clips of my new tube amp =) probably be looking for comments on tweakage as well...i.e, too many mids, not enough lows, too much gain (if there is such a thing..hehe), whatever...

[Jimbojsr]

Re: mic placement and such

Try placing the mic at the lower corner of the speaker cone, up close to the felt/grille of the amp. Also, if it doesn't sound good in a band context, you might want to mess around with the EQ; sounds that are killer when you're practising ain't necessarily the best when you're playing with other people. Try upping the mid to let your sound cut through the mix more, or turn some other guys down...
EDIT -actually, now I think about it, there IS such a thing as too much gain! Some of the best rhythm players (AC/DC included) got their sound from sheer volume, rather than gain. Worth a shot, I suppose. Let us know how it turns out - or stick an MP3 up.

[shreder75]

Re: mic placement and such

I was putting it off the cone, but parallel to the ground...so you're saying maybe (this is just an angle to get the idea down), put it at a 20 degree from the horizontal centerline of the cone?

yeah, I thought it had enough mids in it..I have the mids around 2 o'clock or so..but my amp's got a contour knob..which acts like a mid scoop..and I only had that around 9 o'clock or so..so it was really scooped...so I put that to around 2 o'clock or so to get those mids back...and I think it'll sound better in the mix that way..and it's not flubby or anything (the fine balancing act with mids...too few? don't cut through...too high? lose focus and tight attack, but it cuts through)...

we'll see..i'm gonna fart around with it...I won't really know until we finally hook up to the dude's PA and see what it sounds like from there...

thanks, man

as far as gain goes, I've been messing with that as well....I don't have a 'lead and rythm' channel per say..just gain 1 and gain 2..I was using gain 1 as the rythm and gain 2 as the lead with the gain turned up to around 1 30 (o'clock) or so...I've found that gain 2 is more saturated while gain 1 is a bit less so, but more articulate...so I turned the gain on gain 1 up a bit, and turned the gain down on gain 2 and I'm using gain 2 as my rythm and gain 1 as my lead..if you can follow all of that..LOL...I think I'll have better results with that....

[Jimbojsr]

Re: mic placement and such

hehe, well, if it sounds good live... depends what you play as well - are you lead or rhythm? is it big chunky chords, widdlywiddlywiddly solos or arpeggios? Gain 2 should really be for lead, and gain 1 for rhythm - but if ya get a good noise out of it, go for it.

[shreder75]

Re: mic placement and such

I'm lead and rythm and we're a cover band...we play a little bit of everything..but even the wimpier songs, as I like to call them, we do fairly chunky..but when it comes to lead playing, I'm a neck surfer with a smattering of arpegios in there..hehe