Theres a lot of info and some great books out there on the subject, so definitely do so. In some short circuit conditions this might lead to lethal accidents. Sometimes with bass, angling the mic and letting the speakers sound kind of drift past the diaphragm produces a great sound. The sm57 is the most universal, cheapestbest bang for your buck, toughest microphone you can find anywhere.
I have tried so many dynamic mics over the years, and always come back to the shure sm57. Explore free books, like the victory garden, and more browse now. This serves to reduce extraneous noise, including room reverberation, and is commonly used when. Using a sm57 on acoustic tends to be pretty dark and it wont be very sensitive for soft finger picking. Assuming youre using a dynamic microphone such as a shure sm57, here are some general rules and guidelines to keep in. Using proper mic placement is one of the ways you can achieve that. How to mic your electric guitar amp home recording. From the desert island shure sm57 to a vintage coles 4038 ribbon, theres something for everyone. Sheesh, nothing like making a difficult task even more challenging. In close miking, a microphone is placed relatively close to an instrument or sound source, within three to twelve inches, producing a dry or nonreverberant sound. You place a single mic 2 to 12 inches away from one of the speakers. Usually the mic is placed directly in front of the speaker, but it can be higher.
Microphone placement is critical to getting a good sound, so you will need to experiment some. Hell go through different microphone possibilities, different micpositions, different options for blending and as always, youll get to hear every result. How to record a really good stereo electric guitar. A comprehensive guide to the dizzying world of electric guitar pickups. The only way i could answer that question was to put the different techniques into. Most engineers will choose a brightsounding condenser mic for these applications. In this arrangement, were using two atm650 dynamic microphones. Mic placement on your guitar amp is an art that has a huge influence on your tone. Why do people use a microphone to record an electric guitar. This placement is good for clean guitars when you want lots of highs and mids.
I put two mics in front of speaker, experimented with room mic, rear mic and never achieved wide stero amp guitar sound. Example of a good two mic technique for electric guitar amp. Because condenser mics dont sound that great on amps. How to mic guitar amps and cabs in the studio the hub. There are several classes of microphone placement for recording and amplification. Again, experiment with microphone choice, placement and isolation, to minimize the undesirable and accentuate. Thus, a shaped response microphone designed for voice works well. If youre recording an acoustic guitar in stereo always think about phase. Electric guitars and amps often use effects like distortion for longer sustain longer sounding notes. Ive personally used my c414xlii to record electric guitar, acoustic guitar, vocals, percussion, ukulele, and more for tv commercials, records and movie scores with great success. When it comes to recording electric guitar, jay graydons views on mic choice are pretty clear.
Although audio engineers have been recording electric guitars for many. The importance of mic placement for guitar amps with. If you want more low end, bring the mic closer to the guitar or switch polar patterns. Others like to put the microphone on a stand and point it at the speaker, typically offset from the center of the speaker a bit. While an omni microphone would rule out the sm57s cardioidcontribution to the measurements, it was a mission of this project to begin to quantify typical recording practice, based on the most common electric guitar starting point. Theres nothing that beats the sound of an electric guitar playing through a miked amplifier. Under the bridge of the guitar there often is a grounding cable, which makes you part of the electric circuit when touching the strings. Best microphones for recording electric guitar the gear page. For now, though, im just going to keep this on a basic level. Essentially a highquality miniature microphone that mounts inside the body of your guitar in terms of sound at least, microphone pickups are the best option by far because they have the widest frequency range, and are great at preserving the natural tonal balance of the instrument. Mic placement when recording electric guitar can vary quite a bit, especially when you start getting creative with your micing techniques. Best microphones for recording electric guitar discussion in.
The shure sm57 has long been a standby as a workhorse dynamic mic and is a popular choice for close miking guitar amps. Place a condenser microphone approximately six feet away, pointed at the amp. Guitarists like jimi hendrix revolutionised the sound of the electric guitar by using distortion at high volumes to create sustain that allowed him to play long notes that simply cannot be played on an acoustic guitar. The bracket that attaches the microphone to the guitar seems a little frail to me, but it hasnt given me any trouble in the three years ive used it. This book features a series of interviews with expert players, guitar technicians, recording engineers, record producers, and gear manufacturers to give you an inside look into the business of guitar tone. Getting a great sound every time you record book with cd recording the electric guitar. Then there are various specs that confuse neophytes and old farts alike and can be as difficult to decode as a japanese book from a native english speakers perspective. Guitar cab mic placement and general tones gearslutz. Microphone techniques for electric bass recording dummies. You can research microphone placement for guitar amp recording and likely find many tips. Place a condenser mic at about a 45 degree angle from the front of the speaker cabinet, about 8 to 12 inches away. Any mic will work ok for both acoustic guitar and electric guitar amps, but there are trade offs. Microphone positioning the spot between the fret board and the sound hole is a good starting position to mount a microphone.
When using a condenser mic in a close placement, its advisable to check the spl sound pressure level rating of the mic to make sure that it can handle the volume that is coming out of the amp. While many of us will record our electric guitars straight into a daw and use guitar amp and effects modelling to create the sounds we want, theres just something about recording a proper guitar amp in a live room, particularly a fullfat valve amp as with recording an acoustic, however, micing up an amp is a process that requires a bit of. Place a dynamic microphone an inch or two away from the speaker of the guitar amplifier. The ultimate guide to acoustic guitarpiezo pickups for. The above guidelines can be used in just about any recording application and will help you deliver a sound that goes way beyond the normal cookiecutter this is where to put it mic placement. Popular microphone techniques for vocals, guitars and. Fab examines the process of recording an electric guitar amp. Guitar cab mic placement and general tones ive just spent about 30 minutes reading through all the related posts but i wanted to ask my own questions. Here are a few tips to take your sound to the next level 1. This great book of interviews is, in my opinion, one of only a handful of truly.
You can drive nails with one and then give it to your lead singer. For these recordings, i used my prs 5 guitar similar to the prs 509 into a 40watt fender 57 custom twinamp driving my own personal circa1985 mesaboogie cabinet the one that i used on the road with the oak ridge boys loaded with two 12. All the questions of exactly how an instrument makes the sound it does are backburnered. For instance, sometimes an electric guitar run through a 5 watt amp with an 8inch speaker can sound bigger than a 100 watt marshall stack. Learning to play the guitar an absolute beginners guide. How does microphone placement affect your recorded guitar tone. Where the microphone is placed with affect the sound quite a bit, so it is more a matter of taste than doing it right. If you read about guitar recording at all, or visit online recording forums where electric guitar is discussed, someone will surely say, mic placement is critical, moving a mic even a halfinch will make a huge difference. But that said, there are a few triedandtrue methods that will almost always yield good results. See also the main list, books about getting guitar sounds. Mic placement for the electric bass is similar to the guitar.
I find that placing the wa87 microphone directly in front of the sound hole exacerbates this issue. If you plan on recording lots of guitar amps, you may want to invest in an additional microphone. The science of electric guitars and guitar electronics. The sound im after has been best achieved via dual miking a guitar cabinet when having been and different studios, but now im trying to perfect this method myself. Eliminate micplacement guesswork with the shavering. If the pro0blem is thin, id first try pointing the 57 a bit more towards the outside of the cone, then adjusting the tone settings on the amp, then moving the mic closer or farther, then adding a 421, then would come the condensor. Try positioning two dynamic microphones on one speaker. Dynamic mics like the shure sm57 and the sennheiser md421 are classics for electric guitar amps, but they arent the best for acoustic guitar. But dont worrytheres a goto mic thats used to record guitar amps in multimillion dollar studios every day.
This position represents most of the elements of the guitar sound we want to capture low end as well. Advanced session recording course director darren schneider explains the basic mic techniques for recording electric guitar. If you are recording an amp with multiple speakers, experiment with each one to see if one sounds better than the others. To show how drastic a difference there is, here is a frequency graph of two identical shure sm57 mics on the same sound and same performance through. The importance of the mic position on the speaker cone is something many people clearly dont grasp. First, place your preferred mic in the center of the driver about three inches back. In the old days, the only way to record an electric guitar was by placing a microphone in a position where it could pick up the sound of the guitar amp. In my article about looking at electric guitar rigs as a kind of vocal or any other acoustic instrument, i got at the idea that sticking a microphone in the area where the noise comes out is a simple and effective choice. Any advice on the best microphones for recording electric guitars. There are several multimicrophone techniques that can help refine your guitar sound while recording. If your grille cloth isnt superthick, shining a flashlight directly into the speaker.
How to mic a guitar amp like a professional youtube. Then, trace that edge in a circle to find its placement in the cabinet. The c414 xls and xlii models are updates to the original c414 that retains its classic sound but takes advantage of the latest technology. I tried a lot of technics to get really good stereo electric guitar sound, but so far im not satisfied. The ultimate guitar tone handbook is your definitive guide to discovering that great, elusive guitar sound and making sure its recorded well. By focusing on things like placement and angles as well as listening to a few different microphones and analyzing the impact of these variables. Cranking it up to eleven, sonic scoops justin colletti shows you how to mic electric guitars, using one, two, and even three microphones at a time. Electric guitar recording tips with bob horn and erik reichers. To add room ambience, place a condenser with a cardioid pattern about ten feet from the front of the amp and about six feet high, pointed toward. The importance of mic placement for guitar amps with sound.
I used this cabinet because of the metalgrate grille that makes it easier to see the mic. A comprehensive guide to the dizzying world of electric. Lets get into some microphone placement techniques. Theres a lot of info and some great books out there on the subject, so definitely do so some research. Guitar amp microphone placement zzounds music blog. Since im using it on two dimensionally similar guitars, i never need to readjust the bracket. Today, many guitar amplifiers have line outputs that will facilitate sending the signal from the amp directly to your recording interface. In these cases, place the microphone very close to the loudest part of the instrument or isolate the instrument.
The key is to listen critically to how mic placement is impacting the. So the measurement microphone was a 57, and the stated results are for the whole system, not just the amp. The sound coming off the speaker cone changes drastically depending on where you put the mic. Microphone choice and placement secrets for recording.
Mic placement when recording electric guitar can vary quite a bit, especially when you start getting creative with your mic ing techniques. This was all easily verified by actually looking at the book for a few minutes. Many novice recordists fall into the pitfall of recording an acoustic guitar by placing the mic directly in front of the soundhole. How to mic an acoustic or classical guitar how to mic. Lots of people use condensors for guitar amps, usually in combination with a dynamic like, say, a 57.
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