Mic Placement?

[dethmetalanimal]

i have a 1x12 combo, a single SM57,a audiobuddy preamp, and use n-track studio software. i'm trying to get a heavy tone. where should i put the mic? i keep moving it and moving it, but i always seem to get a thin fizzy tone when i play back what i've recorded.

[Kiwiburger]

Get the cab up off the floor and closer to your ears. Very probably, your mic isn't hearing what your ears are hearing.

 

Unless you like to listen with one ear glued to the cone, you are probably listening with two ears, both 90 degrees away from the cabinet. In other words, you are hearing the room, more than the cab. The room probably has some bass boost due to nodes, especially near the walls or floor, or corners where you get a triple whammy from two walls and the floor.

 

Except your mic isn't hearing that if it's right up by the cone. And unless you want a big boomy room sound, you don't want to put your mic in the corner - so: you have to get the sound you want coming from the cab.

 

Put it up on a chair or something. You ears will probably now be hearing more of that thin fizzy tone you don't want. So adjust the bass if you need more, and the treble & presence if you need less. Also back off the gain - you need less saturated overdrive than you think when recording, and it's noisy anyway.

 

Place the SM57 close to the cone, on the outer edge. Angle it 45 degrees inwards. Try that for a start. It should suck a lot less. Move closer to the centre if you want it more in your face.

 

If you have some good isolation earphones, you could experiment further back. Mic placement gets a lot more critical then, but you can get some more interesting textures. Two mics can get really interesting - but there is something wrong if you can't get a good basic tone with an SM57 on the cone.

[rickenbacker198]

I totally agree with Kiwi

 

Sometimes I like a 57 touching the grill, dead on straight into the center of the dust cap it totally depends on the amp and speaker used.

 

Here is a tip.

 

Put the headphones on, mic the amp up and turn it on loud enough that is begins to hiss(static noise) .

 

Now dont play anything!

Just move the mic back and forth accross the speaker listening for the changes in sound.

 

This can assist you in finding the position best suited to what tone your after.

[where02190]

Try where the cone meets the surround, square with the grill, about an inch from the grill.

 

Also, try other 57's, yours might be damaged.

[MarkGifford-1]

 

Originally posted by dethmetalanimal i have a 1x12 combo, a single SM57,a audiobuddy preamp, and use n-track studio software. i'm trying to get a heavy tone. where should i put the mic? i keep moving it and moving it, but i always seem to get a thin fizzy tone when i play back what i've recorded.

 

 

What kind of amp is it?

 

How is it set?

 

Any boxes in front of it?

 

MG

[dethmetalanimal]

 

Originally posted by MarkGifford-1 What kind of amp is it? How is it set? Any boxes in front of it? MG

 

 

 

 

thanks guys i'll have to give all this a try after i get back from work. i have a XXX. there aren't any boxes in front of it. the settings are:

 

bass 8.5

mid 6

treble 6

gain 4

volume 4

master volume 3.5

reverb 5

[sweet]

I agree with Kiwi also.

 

I would knock out the verb all together, you can add that in N... maybe. Experiment with that.

 

I also would second the comment about backing off the gain, but being that you only have it on 4... hmmm... that's not much really.

 

The comments related to putting the mic just off center, are because as you move the mic away from center the tone warms up considerably, and becomes less "raspy".

 

Lastly, I would say that you should turn up the volume when recording. IMO, you want to record a nice, full sound, you should try recording at higher volume to get the amp really bumpin' (90's hip hop reference ). Especially if its a tube amp

[Phil O'Keefe]

Place the SM57 close to the cone, on the outer edge. Angle it 45 degrees inwards. Try that for a start. It should suck a lot less. Move closer to the centre if you want it more in your face.

 

Mic placed closer to the center of the dustcap (IOW, speaker center) = brighter, mic placed closer to the edge of the cone (near the surround) = darker / bassier. I do agree with Kiwi's post and suggestions... I usually start with the positioning he suggested, and then work from there, adjusting the positioning and angle until I get the tone I'm after. And as Mark suggested, don't be afraid to adjust the amp controls either - IMO, you should reach for the amp controls and adjust the mic placement long before even considering using EQ at the board while tracking.

 

[cousinit]

Search the other recording forum and their is a post about using two mics, one dynamic and one condensor.... The post goes into detail about mic placement, phase and mic combinations etc, etc..... I experimented using a 57 with a studio projects B1 and it made the guitar sound fuller........

[dethmetalanimal]

first off thanks alot to everyone that replied, i haven't been recording very long and i only know what i've learned through trial and error. alright i moved my amp onto a chair, that helped alot. i moved the mic around ALOT. i also took some of the suggestions on changeing my amp settings (new settings listed below). i know i'm getting a much better tone than i was, but i think it can probly get better even yet. i put a short clip below. it's nothing special. i just wanted to know if i'm at least headed in the right direction, tone wise.

 

new settings:

 

bass 8.5

mid 6

treble 5

gain 4

volume 4

master volume 5

reverb 3

 

 

clip

[sweet]

I think that sounds pretty good. I'd have to hear your first attempt to know if it got better (or at least my version of better

 

I'll tell you what I did when I came to this point. I sampled about 4 or 5 songs where I like the guitar sound. I looked for parts where there was just guitar. I put those in a line on one track and tried different tones with my recording.

 

Basically a way to do some comparisons quick, were I could tweak EQ and stuff on the fly. I had to realize that I was listening to/comparing myself to a fully produced commercial release but still, it helped me to see whether I was on the right track in many cases.

 

HTH... good luck m/

[dethmetalanimal]

here's something from a couple days ago

clip

[ArrMatey]

if I can advise you anything for your next buy, get a condenser mic.

 

The last recording was nice but it sounded a bit too nasaly. I think a position between clip 1 and clip 2 would give you a good sound with good mids and mid highs without too much of the metal zone-like buzzing.

[sweet]

 

Originally posted by dethmetalanimal here's something from a couple days ago clip

 

 

Wow. Huge difference. After you get mic placement and amp settings that you like, if you feel like a little EQ might help, try a hi pass at about 50 or 100Hz, and a low pass at about 10K. I've also cut at 900Hz. That seems to really clear up the tone for me.

 

Just thoughts.... take 'em at face value.

[CN Fletcher]

If you get the amp to sound great in the room [up on a chair or road case] then it's just a question of transferring the sound from the room to a storage medium... which you can make more difficult than it really is if you think about it too much.

 

To kinda paraphrase a previous post in this thread... if I can advise you anything for your next buy, get a ribbon mic.

 

Best of luck with it!

[dethmetalanimal]

ok i've been thinking about getting a second mic anyway. so what kind of condenser mic should i get? i don't know anything about them, really. i guess i'd want something it the quaility range and price range of an SM57.

[Dogbreath]

I'm with Fletcher...get a ribbon mic.

[Kiwiburger]

Ribbon mics aren't for everyone. I can see tears before bedtime over that one. Ribbons are very fragile, and need to be treated with uttmost respect. They are also low output and require a very good preamp - more so than an SM57.

 

Zillions of pro's use SM57's on guitar cabs with excellent results. A ribbon mic would be nice if you have all your other {censored} sorted (like excellent monitors and preamps) and just want to spend, spend, spend for that extra edge.

 

In which case you could then buy one from Fletcher

[Daniel Smart]

With all due respect to the venerable Audiobuddy you need a better preamp for a ribbon.

 

Also, in my experience you also need a better preamp for a condenser on a loud guitar amp - or you're going to need an inline pad before the mic input.

 

Sounds to be like you're on your way to mastering the '57 on distorted amp' sound. Whether you like that or not is a different matter

 

Sounds a bit boxy to me - probably symptomatic of an acoustically bad room getting in the way.

 

-Daniel

[CN Fletcher]

Nonsense Kiwi... you can get a Beyer M-160 for pretty low dollars and they're the balls for recording guitar [there was an English pop group a few years ago called Led Zeppelin where a lot of the guys that worked with them, like Glynn Johns and Andy Johns and Chris Huston, and more than a few others threw a Beyer M-160 in front of the speakers and rolled tape].

 

Yeah, you should definitley explore getting a better pre-amp than the "audiobuttbuddy"... but not all ribbon mics are fragile [in fact, I've blown more ribbons by not paying attention when I went to put the mic back into the box than anything else... I even use ribbon mics on {censored} like drums!!]... and as long as we're rolling with ribbon mic misconceptions... you can indeed use them with phantom power all day long as long as the phantom power is wired correctly, and in the case of things like old RCA mics, that the output transformer on the mic is also wired correctly [which in this day in age I would say that 99.998973% of all RCA mic's are indeed wired correctly].

 

...and not back to our regularly scheduled pogrom...

[Kiwiburger]

US$600 is still a lot for somebody on an AudioBuddy & N-Tracks budget.

 

At that price, I would like to get one for myself - but I doubt it would make the journey to New Zealand. As you say, you can break the ribbon just putting them back in the box. I think that sort of qualifies as slightly "fragile"? I bet the FedEx guy doesn't know what 'fragile' means either - but he's gonna give the box a good shake just to find out ...

 

We have a Royer agent in NZ - would the cheapest Royer be worth a look at - compared to this Beyer?

[Eric Dahlberg]

As long as we're talking ribbons, the darker, bassier sound of the cheap Chinese ribbons like Nady, et al, ought to give the guy exactly what he's looking for. Stick one of those up next to the '57, mix to taste, & he should have no problem thickening up the tone more than he ever could with just a '57 alone.

 

Don't get me wrong, I personally prefer the sweeter, brighter tone of a Royer, but check the guy's sig! I highly doubt Dimebag was looking for a sweet, chimey tone when he recorded "Walk".

[CN Fletcher]

The mic I was referring to about popping the ribbon putting it back in the box is the Coles 4038 which comes in a box that has a clamp down lid that is fairly large and is held in place with lots of foam rubber... so, if you forget to put a something around the mic to catch the wind blast created by closing the lid of the box then you run the risk of popping the ribbon.

 

If you put one of these mics directly in front of the hole on a kik drum you'll also pop the ribbon due to the wind blast... but if you put the mic like 18 inches [1/2 a meter-ish] off the center of a kik drum you can get an AMAZING kik drum sound [as long as the drum is well tuned, etc., etc., etc.].

 

I toured with Beyer M-160's that I used on guitars for years... they got thrown into the same mic case with the Sennheiser MD-421's and the Shure SM-57's on a nightly basis... this is with union stage hands all over the planet heaving the mic case onto the truck with all the other cases... and the airline baggage handlers throwing the {censored} around with all the other {censored} on the tour... not a single problem... so will it make it to New Zealand? I've had them in Auckland as well as Wellington and Christchurch so I'd have to say that the answer is "yeah, they'll make it without a struggle".

 

As for $600- USD being a lot for someone with an AudioBuddy & N-Tracks... yeah, you're probably right about that... sorry, I'm one of those idiots that does this for a living so my tools are a big priority in my world... but I can certainly understand the other side of it.

[Phil O'Keefe]

you can get a Beyer M-160 for pretty low dollars and they're the balls for recording guitar [there was an English pop group a few years ago called Led Zeppelin where a lot of the guys that worked with them, like Glynn Johns and Andy Johns and Chris Huston, and more than a few others threw a Beyer M-160 in front of the speakers and rolled tape].

 

I love the M160... IMO, it's THE "under-rated" ribbon mic. Great on guitars, saxes and even for drum OH's. And you can easily score one for well under a kilobuck.

 

BTW, I believe a semi-unknown guitarist named Jimi had one in front of his amp on some pretty classic recordings. At least that's what some semi-obscure engineer named Eddie has said...

[Kiwiburger]

Thanks Fletcher and Phil - much appreciated. I'll try to add one to my collection.