I spent the day miking up a guitar amp. I tried all my mics in all sorts of different combinations and positions, and with the amp at different settings. Not that I really have many mics, but I tried them all, all day long. Then I played back what I had recorded and messed about with eq and panning and various combinations of different tracks with the different mics. Then I went back to the mics and moved them, and altered them etc, and listened back again, trying new mixes and combinations. This took me all day. I was alone.
Every single one of the tracks, in every combination, sounded absolutely shit. I felt like crying.
Let me say that - unusually for me - I am not asking for any advice, or even encouragement. I know what I've got to do. Keep trying. Save up for more mics and better preamps. Get better at it. Learn from mistakes.
And that is what I'll do. I didn't do any today because I was at a funeral. But I'll be back on Monday, trying again, or my name's not run joe, run, dammit.
That's all. Just sharing.
Yesterday....
2Just out of curiosity, how'd the amp sound in the first place? Was there anywhere in the room where it sounded the way you want? These are kind of obvious-sounding questions, but the point is that a lot can be fixed by proper sound at the source (the amp itself) and mic positioning.
Good luck!
Good luck!
Yesterday....
3something i used to do when all my amps were shit and all my mics were shit was this:
take an empty cardboard box from a case of soda pop or berr.
lay it on the floor so it's as short as it can possibly get. which is the height of one soda can.
orient it so the width of the case is perpendicular to the amp you're micing. the box should be somewhere in the neighborhood of 4' away from the amp, but you can mess with that later. so it's like 4' away from the amp, and the longest dimension of the box is perpendicular to the line you would draw from the box to the amp.
cut a hole in the side of the box that is facing the amp, this is the area where the handle would occur on a normal case of soda. cut a hole that's maybe 8" wide, and goes from the floor all the way up to the top of the box, one soda can height.
cut the same hole in what you could call the back side of the box. so now you've got some sort of an opening that would allow air to move in that straight line from the amp through the box...
you'll need something to reinforce the box, to keep if from caving in when you set the mic on it. if you have foam, use that. otherwise, use a can of soda or whatever you want. just try and allow for airflow through the box.
set your shit mic (sm57 if you're lucky) on the cardboard box, so the element is hanging over the edge, above the opening you cut in it.
voila! your very own super-cheap, ghetto-style mic that takes some kinda advantage of the boundary effect or something. about 4' away from the amp, you'll need a fair amount of gain and everything unless you're super loud (which we always were), but you'll get a sort of sense of room in there, too, just from being that far away from the amp. depending on your room materials and size and everything. don't add any reverb except with the amp, if you want it.
hell, if you have a boom stand, you could just use that. but i did this a long time back, and i liked the result. give it a try if you've run out of other ideas. it might not suck.
i also wanna submit this... based on the fact that you have a funeral to attend today, i think it may have been your mindset as much as anything else. it coulda been the best guitar sound ever, and you might've still thought it sucked. lotsa stuff can suck when somebody dies. i hope everything's goin okay for you.
best wishes
scott
ps - if you wanna go nuts with it, set up 2 57's as a stereo pair in xy config. or just use the one mic. and avoid eq if you can!
take an empty cardboard box from a case of soda pop or berr.
lay it on the floor so it's as short as it can possibly get. which is the height of one soda can.
orient it so the width of the case is perpendicular to the amp you're micing. the box should be somewhere in the neighborhood of 4' away from the amp, but you can mess with that later. so it's like 4' away from the amp, and the longest dimension of the box is perpendicular to the line you would draw from the box to the amp.
cut a hole in the side of the box that is facing the amp, this is the area where the handle would occur on a normal case of soda. cut a hole that's maybe 8" wide, and goes from the floor all the way up to the top of the box, one soda can height.
cut the same hole in what you could call the back side of the box. so now you've got some sort of an opening that would allow air to move in that straight line from the amp through the box...
you'll need something to reinforce the box, to keep if from caving in when you set the mic on it. if you have foam, use that. otherwise, use a can of soda or whatever you want. just try and allow for airflow through the box.
set your shit mic (sm57 if you're lucky) on the cardboard box, so the element is hanging over the edge, above the opening you cut in it.
voila! your very own super-cheap, ghetto-style mic that takes some kinda advantage of the boundary effect or something. about 4' away from the amp, you'll need a fair amount of gain and everything unless you're super loud (which we always were), but you'll get a sort of sense of room in there, too, just from being that far away from the amp. depending on your room materials and size and everything. don't add any reverb except with the amp, if you want it.
hell, if you have a boom stand, you could just use that. but i did this a long time back, and i liked the result. give it a try if you've run out of other ideas. it might not suck.
i also wanna submit this... based on the fact that you have a funeral to attend today, i think it may have been your mindset as much as anything else. it coulda been the best guitar sound ever, and you might've still thought it sucked. lotsa stuff can suck when somebody dies. i hope everything's goin okay for you.
best wishes
scott
ps - if you wanna go nuts with it, set up 2 57's as a stereo pair in xy config. or just use the one mic. and avoid eq if you can!
LVP wrote:If, say, 10% of lions tried to kill gazelles, compared with 10% of savannah animals in general, I think that gazelle would be a lousy racist jerk.
Yesterday....
4Cheers. You guys are the best. I'm gonna learn, learn, learn. Thanks for the tips. I'll let yas know how it goes. Monday.
Yesterday....
5Last bit of advice -
If you're really interested in learning how to record something, set up a system for your learning.
As dry an approach as it may seem -
Approach your experiments in recording using the scientific method. Keep all of the variables the same and change just one thing at a time. Take notes and document what you find. Correlate recording samples with your notes - such as saying "Take one" right before you play a part, and marking in your notes what "take one" was (ie. "sm57 4 feet from cabinet, directly on-axis to speaker cone, three feet above ground, no baffling, volume and tone set at x, plugged into console with eq flat, trim at 2 and levels set to 0"). On "Take 2", keep it all the same, but move the mic to 4.5 feet. Then 5 feet on "Take 3", then 5.5 feet...
This is tedious at first, but you develop a theory for recording. Without a theory that you can test and measure and grow, you're subject to blind luck and the hope of chasing a "magic moment" in recording. Screw that. The above approach will guarantee that you learn something well over time. In addition, you'll understand how small changes provide different effects to the sound of your recording.
If you're really really interested in teaching yourself how to record things well, keep your notes in a binder in a way that you can reference them later. I made a little 'experiment form' for myself that includes relevant varibles, a reference to a sound sample, the result of the experiment and a place to try to guess why. Over time, this helps me learn.
This process works better when you supplement your experimental knowledge by reading. Look for stuff that matches your discipline for learning. In other words, posts on message board that describe something as "sweet" with no theory as to why this is so should be discarded. Something that helps explain the proximity effect with directional microphones, on the other hand, would be right up your alley.
I take pleasure in knowing that this is not Phil Collins's approach to recording music.
= Justin
If you're really interested in learning how to record something, set up a system for your learning.
As dry an approach as it may seem -
Approach your experiments in recording using the scientific method. Keep all of the variables the same and change just one thing at a time. Take notes and document what you find. Correlate recording samples with your notes - such as saying "Take one" right before you play a part, and marking in your notes what "take one" was (ie. "sm57 4 feet from cabinet, directly on-axis to speaker cone, three feet above ground, no baffling, volume and tone set at x, plugged into console with eq flat, trim at 2 and levels set to 0"). On "Take 2", keep it all the same, but move the mic to 4.5 feet. Then 5 feet on "Take 3", then 5.5 feet...
This is tedious at first, but you develop a theory for recording. Without a theory that you can test and measure and grow, you're subject to blind luck and the hope of chasing a "magic moment" in recording. Screw that. The above approach will guarantee that you learn something well over time. In addition, you'll understand how small changes provide different effects to the sound of your recording.
If you're really really interested in teaching yourself how to record things well, keep your notes in a binder in a way that you can reference them later. I made a little 'experiment form' for myself that includes relevant varibles, a reference to a sound sample, the result of the experiment and a place to try to guess why. Over time, this helps me learn.
This process works better when you supplement your experimental knowledge by reading. Look for stuff that matches your discipline for learning. In other words, posts on message board that describe something as "sweet" with no theory as to why this is so should be discarded. Something that helps explain the proximity effect with directional microphones, on the other hand, would be right up your alley.
I take pleasure in knowing that this is not Phil Collins's approach to recording music.
= Justin
Last edited by Justin from Queens_Archive on Fri Sep 17, 2004 5:45 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Yesterday....
6Just to be absolutely clear, one way to get good mic positioning is to play (or have someone play--that makes it easier) and go around the room with one ear stopped up, so you can hear from one point the way the mic will (the binaural imaging of both ears just complicates this, so put a finger in one ear). Wherever it sounds best, that's where you put the mic. Have at it!
Yesterday....
7It's good to have the "obvious" things pointed out sometimes.
Justin, noted. Thanks. Maurice, noted. Thanks. TMH, noted. Thanks. I'm gonna have at it like a muthatrucker.
I'm also about to buy a new mic. I can't decide between an AT 4040 or an M88. I think I'm gonna go for the M88.
Justin, noted. Thanks. Maurice, noted. Thanks. TMH, noted. Thanks. I'm gonna have at it like a muthatrucker.
I'm also about to buy a new mic. I can't decide between an AT 4040 or an M88. I think I'm gonna go for the M88.
Yesterday....
8i find it difficult to tell how close a post-microphone guitar tone is to what i'm going for unless i hear the drums as well. so try laying your test recordings over some drums and other instruments. it might help you get a better sense of how the tone fits in. just an idea
Yesterday....
9Maurice wrote:Just out of curiosity, how'd the amp sound in the first place? Was there anywhere in the room where it sounded the way you want? These are kind of obvious-sounding questions, but the point is that a lot can be fixed by proper sound at the source (the amp itself) and mic positioning.
Good luck!
This is probably the crux of the problem (did I spell crux right?
No amount of mic technique is going to help you if the amp sounds like crap to begin with (although crap is in the ear of the beholder). One man's garbage is another man's treasure. Same with the guitar.
I get very suspicious about that, if after I've tried the few tried and true methods of recording an amp I still am not getting the sound I want, I almost invariably blame the amp (or guitar) and suggest an alternative. I know my thinking is good because the same miking techniques I choose to employ work like a charm on most amps that come through my studio. I get a few where they don't work and so we'll switch amps to solve the problem.
Every so often ya just get that magic combination of crap that defies description or help. Instead of agonizing over it, find a better amp and move on. Good luck!
Would like to hear other viewpoints. Good thread.