Amp recording tips for recording a brighter tone

[GreatOz]

Good day,

I'm trying to get a better sound out of my amp for recording, but it sounds really dark.

I have the two mics, an SM57 and an e906, about an inch or so away from the grill on speaker cone center and am having issues with it getting it to sound brighter.
The amp itself is already set quite bright as it is, it's piercing in the room.

The clean channel sounds great with a good overall balance, it's just the drive channels that sound dark overall.

The amp is a Fillmore 25 head with a 1 x 12" that has a Celestion V-Type as the speaker. The same speaker sounded great with the Blackstar and both amps can sound great in the room, just not the Fillmore in the recording for some reason.

I can attach MP3s if necessary, and you'll hear what I am talking about.

Anyone have any good tips for recording a brighter overall tone?

Thanks,
GreatOz

[80's_Thrash_Metal]

Are you using a mixing board, or a straight usb interface?
if you're using a board, drop the bass and edge up the treble....

what software are you using to edit? You can really adjust the eq there to brighten it up some.


You can try (amp) eq - dropping the bass out quite a bit. Although it seems bright in the room, the mic/software can often times "hear" things differently in a mix.


Try moving the mic to exactly the center of the cone, and turning the amp down a touch, to lose some air movement and maybe ooomph/low end.

Make sure the amp isn't in a corner (bass trapping) of the room.

couple small adjustments can add up.

The sennheiser should be a little brighter than the Shure

[Adieu]

Mesa amp right? Iirc most of their EQs are wired interdependent, so bass and mids affect treble too

[dave74]

If you record at higher volumes it might fix itself.

Close-micing cabs at lower levels where the speakers are not being pushed is different.
You might just need to run mids higher than what it sounds good in the room.

Are you adjusting the amp while wearing headphones, so that the room sound is blocked and it's all mic that you're hearing?
Is the cab setup in another room or right with the amp?
How do you set the mic distances, I mean do you phase-align them or just set them both at an even inch from cloth?

[TwilightOdyssey]

Hi GreatOz,
Can you clarify a bit by what you mean when you say you are having trouble getting the guitar to sound 'loud and bright'? Compared to what? Are you recording overdubs to backing tracks? Can you post an example?

A very useful technique is to use reference recordings when mixing. What references are you using?

Are you using the 57 and the 906 at the same time? There may be a phasing issue. There's really no need to use two nearly identical dynamic mics on a single amplifier in any event.

[Clint 55]

Use a condenser mic. To get a medium sound with the set of dynamic mics I was using, I had to literally set my amp to glass shards eq. I'm like this is ****ing ridiculous. I get that dynamics are good for capturing a rock band at full volume and compressing it into something produce-able, but for me just wanting a clear sound at regular volumes a condenser works perfectly. I can get a variety of sounds simply by moving the mic placement a few inches.

[GreatOz]

I'll provide sound clips later, but for the moment, I can give a bit more context.

To answer a few questions (not in the order listed here):

I am using just an audio interface to record the mics, no big studio board or anything.

I am using an attenuator and recording at conversational levels.

Not completely sure about the phase correction thing, but both microphones are very to each other on the center of the cone. As I understand it, running it this way is supposed to get the sound bright and should actually be piercing and correct the phase thing. I was using them at the same time, but both signals even separately had the same issue of being rather dull sounding; keep in mind the amp was set to piercing in the room. I was expecting the recording to sound very similar. I'm defining "piercing" as that sound that makes your ears recoil and you want to cover them. That harsh and brittle sound guitars in general are known for. I think it's somewhere in 3k-5k.

I am not using a reference track, I'll try that as well in the future.

Amp head and cab are in the same room.

Here's a picture of how the microphones are set up.

Thanks for the help guys.

I'll get those sound clips to you later today around lunch time.

The "cab" is just an old Line 6 with the speaker replaced (Celestion V-Type, a typically bright speaker) and a 1/4" jack hooked up to the speaker.

[GuitarStv]

Usually if you're struggling to capture the sound of the amp it means that your mics are in the wrong spot. First thing I'd try is back the mics off the speaker a little bit more. When you put a mic close to a sound source it causes something called 'proximity effect'. This creates a pretty large bass boost. The proximity effect should be completely gone about 3-4 inches from the source, but play around with positioning (3-4 inches from the speaker grille isn't necessarily 3-4 inches from the source).

Are you recording with both mics at the same time? Depending on placement this can sometimes lead to phase cancellation issues which sometimes makes stuff sound weird. Try soloing one mic and then the other to see if that improves the sound. If so, you know what the problem is (and there are many different solutions to phase issues that can be googled).

The other thing you can try is turning the amp up in volume. Many guitar amps are designed in such a way that they produce more high frequencies at higher volume. Often an amp at conversation levels will sound darker than the same amp/same settings at gig volume. Some amps have a bright switch to try to recreate this effect at lower volume (although that can make for some totally different issues).

[Mincer]

I always have the opposite problem. My Mesa records too bright, so I am always trying to make it darker.

[GreatOz]

I'll definitely try recording it louder and backing off the mics a bit more. The issue has to do with the recording sounding literally nothing like what I am hearing. I really don't want to use a condenser mic to record in the room because the room isn't treated and because those two mics should more than handle getting a sound that's pretty close to the original anyway.

The idea was to set up the mics so they sound very similar in the recording to what I'm hearing with my head level with speaker.

[GuitarStv]

I'll definitely try recording it louder and backing off the mics a bit more. The issue has to do with the recording sounding literally nothing like what I am hearing. I really don't want to use a condenser mic to record in the room because the room isn't treated and because those two mics should more than handle getting a sound that's pretty close to the original anyway.

The idea was to set up the mics so they sound very similar in the recording to what I'm hearing with my head level with speaker.

You could also try moving the whole amp a couple feet one way or another (especially away from a wall if you've got it up against one). Bass frequencies bounce off walls and will set up nodes in an untreated room that can enhance or dramatically cut bass frequencies at certain locations . . . and a mic only 'hears' what's happening in exactly one spot.

You've got two industry standard dynamic mics, it should be possible to get great recorded sound out of them.

[GreatOz]

Speaking of phase issues, what do they normally sound like?

[GuitarStv]

Speaking of phase issues, what do they normally sound like?

Generally just kinda strange and hollow.

[Bill Dennis]

Good day,

I'm trying to get a better sound out of my amp for recording, but it sounds really dark.

I have the two mics, an SM57 and an e906, about an inch or so away from the grill on speaker cone center and am having issues with it getting it to sound brighter.
The amp itself is already set quite bright as it is, it's piercing in the room.

The clean channel sounds great with a good overall balance, it's just the drive channels that sound dark overall.

The amp is a Fillmore 25 head with a 1 x 12" that has a Celestion V-Type as the speaker. The same speaker sounded great with the Blackstar and both amps can sound great in the room, just not the Fillmore in the recording for some reason.

I can attach MP3s if necessary, and you'll hear what I am talking about.

Anyone have any good tips for recording a brighter overall tone?

Thanks,
GreatOz

Start with 1 mic and get that right.2 mics complicate the process with phase concerns. If you want brighter, I would start with the 57. Point it directly at the point where the dust cap meets the cone from 1-2" away. That should be bright as hell. If its not you need to look elsewhere for the issue.

[GreatOz]

The lead line is freshly recorded on my lunch break; Strat was recorded last night, but I didn't have an issue with it.

I'm just wondering if it's my amp tone or my mic placement, but I'm overall just not impressed with this sound. The Strat which is clean I actually like the sound of, while the McCarty on lead is just meh to me. It's just the overdrive/lead tones that I'm having an issue with.

Is the recording "bright" sounding to y'all? It might be the amp tone I'm using being more crap than the mic placements, not sure yet.

To me, the tone just sounds fizzy and kinda dark, but not in a good way. Note, this was recorded at conversational volume. The same sound in the room is piercing to my ear, but not in the recording. In a sense, I suppose that's not a bad thing, I just don't care for the recording sounding so drastically different than what I hear.

Ignore my sloppy playing, I would normally polish this, but not on my lunch break lol.