miking front and back of a combo amp

Nola

Well-known member
hey guys.
quick question about miking an amp.
i was having a hard time finding a pleasing sound from just one mic, so i put a shure 545 about 2" on the front grill 10 degrees off axis, and then a ribbon mic in the back behind the speaker. when i mix them together they sound good. the ribbon on its own is thick and the shure is pretty good but mid-rangy and a bit thin.

so i did this for the rhythm guitar part that i laid down today. my question is this: if the song has 3 or 4 rhythm guitars or doubled guitars and sometimes all are going at the same time, am i best miking the other tracks with just the Shure? i'm thinking while what i did sounds good, it will get muddy if each guitar has the shure and the ribbon.

Also, how would you handle double tracking if you used two mics on your first rhythm track?
Oh, and I haven't noticed any phase issues with this technique -- is it prone to phase problems or no?

Thanks!
 
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You might get phases problems from the two two mics on the same guitar part, but if it sounds good it sounds good. If you are planning on blending several guitar parts, I find it works best if you capture distinct tones from each one. As you are only working with one amp, you might want to experiment with different mic positions and combinations.

What was the trouble you were having getting a good tone from the one mic? You might want to spend an hour or two experimenting on different mic positions. Try the mic directly on-axis, starting where the dust cap meets the speaker cone, then move outward toward the edge of the speaker by increments. I used to position my mic off axis, but found it didn't really add much and just introduced another variable.
 
What was the trouble you were having getting a good tone from the one mic?

hey robus,
Mostly I just thought it sounded too thin and brittle.
The tone was good, but i didn't feel like the mic matched what i heard in the room. Just playing the amp sounded fantastic. Through the mic it was good but not as good. I'll try to go fully on-axis tomorrow. It sounded "spikey" to me on-axis so i went off just a little. I imagine some of that is guitar and pickups
 
To be honest it's rare I have managed to get a great sound from using a front and back mic on a guitar cab.

I prefer a very distant microphone mixed in with the close mic, but obviously distance is crucial and it must be perfectly in phase which isn't easy, it takes time, 9 times out of 10 just a single well placed mic sounds better.
 
Generally, with two mics, you will get some phase issues unless they are in the exact same spot. It may or may not be detrimental to your sound. Use your ears. You can zoom in on the wave and align if necessary.

I track old Fenders, and mine can be a little brittle.. that's just their sound (depending on circuit and speakers). Is the other instrumentation in there? You may find what sounded brittle solo sits nicely in the mix with other instruments. Don't start getting super obsessive over the sound of one instrument until everything's in there, if it's not already. And be mindful of your mic position- keep it away from the dust cap and closer to the edge of the speaker, etc, yada yada.
 
If it floats your boat, and you like it - do it again. Me, I can't see me being that picky to even try the second mic. (Unless the first one didn't cut it, when I'd probably try something else.
 
My favourite is still an SM57 (or 421) and a Ribbon on the front of the cab and close together, then a distant mic if I am after that sound.

Alan.
 
My favourite is still an SM57 (or 421) and a Ribbon on the front of the cab and close together, then a distant mic if I am after that sound.

Alan.

what if there are multiple guitar parts. do you do the 57 and ribbon on all of them?
 
You're just tracking now. What does it hurt to track them both. You will make your decisions on what to use when mixing, no?

Exactly, track the 2 mics to different tracks, when mixing you may want to blend the 2 depending on the required sound, pan the 2, take one mic out completely, etc, etc.

Alan.
 
If you have 2 mics exactly the same distance from the cone they WILL be out of phase (why we need speaker baffles innit!) . If the sound is good, not lacking bass then I suspect one of the mics is wired OOP to standard. OR! You are using the wrong side of the ribbon!

Dave.
 
If you have 2 mics exactly the same distance from the cone they WILL be out of phase (why we need speaker baffles innit!) . If the sound is good, not lacking bass then I suspect one of the mics is wired OOP to standard. OR! You are using the wrong side of the ribbon!

Dave.

I think you should re-read this, Don't you mean that, if you have 2 mics exactly the same distance from the cone they will be In Phase. If the sound is out of phase it will be because the mic is wired out of phase or the ribbon mic is pointing back to front.

Alan.
 
I say experiment with it, if it sounds good go with it, a lot of the techniques used today came from people trying different ways of doing things, if you have the same distance between the front and back mics, they should be in phase.:eek:
 
Their polarity will be opposite (unless one mic or cable is inverted already) from being on opposite sides of the cone and "there will be phase issues".
 
so you are saying the push pull of the coil will be an issue?

Basically, yes. A part of the wave the pushes at the front mic will pull at the back mic. On top of that the front and back of the cone are different and so there's no place in the back that closely matches what the front gets. Combining the audio from the two mics can have interesting tonal results. If I were combining them I'd invert the polarity on one mic (probably the back one) and nudge it back and forth to see if there's an interesting phase interaction.
 
Basically, yes. A part of the wave the pushes at the front mic will pull at the back mic. On top of that the front and back of the cone are different and so there's no place in the back that closely matches what the front gets. Combining the audio from the two mics can have interesting tonal results. If I were combining them I'd invert the polarity on one mic (probably the back one) and nudge it back and forth to see if there's an interesting phase interaction.

Just to clarify,

If the mics are next to each other on the same side of the cone they will most likely be "In Phase"

If the mics are equal distance but one in front and one behind then they will most likely be "Out of Phase"

You can pretty much tell if the mics are out of phase as the sound will be thin and defuse. If then by switching the phase on one mic the sound becomes full then you are now in phase, however there are partial out of phase situations where the mic is not 180Deg out of phase a little out of phase, so if you are not sure experiment my changing the distance of one of the mics to see if the sound improves or gets worse. There are no rules really, if you get the sound you want then it's right.

I often talk about my own bands last album, we tracked live in the studio (Guitar Bass & Drums) no over dubs at all except vocal, so I could not use any distant cab mic even if I wanted to. As it is a 3 piece band the guitar sound was extra important as it is out there on it's own, so I had a Ribbon, a SM57 and a small Omni (senheisser ME20) all close miked (across the 2 x 12" speaker cabs) and recording to different tracks. By blending or turning on/off the 3 mics, and not the same for every song, I got a very open full guitar sound. I did this as I only had one shot at it and options are best. I was also engineering and playing bass live at the same time so I could only monitor on playback.

Guitar cabs are a piece of cake, now lets talk about drum mic phase LOL.

Alan.
 
Basically, yes. A part of the wave the pushes at the front mic will pull at the back mic. On top of that the front and back of the cone are different and so there's no place in the back that closely matches what the front gets. Combining the audio from the two mics can have interesting tonal results. If I were combining them I'd invert the polarity on one mic (probably the back one) and nudge it back and forth to see if there's an interesting phase interaction.

That makes sense, I know in my DAW (cubase) it has a phase button where you can knock one out of phase. I still it would be fun to play around with to see what happens. Thanks Boulder.:thumbs up:
 
Just to clarify,

If the mics are next to each other on the same side of the cone they will most likely be "In Phase"

If the mics are equal distance but one in front and one behind then they will most likely be "Out of Phase"

You can pretty much tell if the mics are out of phase as the sound will be thin and defuse. If then by switching the phase on one mic the sound becomes full then you are now in phase, however there are partial out of phase situations where the mic is not 180Deg out of phase a little out of phase, so if you are not sure experiment my changing the distance of one of the mics to see if the sound improves or gets worse. There are no rules really, if you get the sound you want then it's right.

I often talk about my own bands last album, we tracked live in the studio (Guitar Bass & Drums) no over dubs at all except vocal, so I could not use any distant cab mic even if I wanted to. As it is a 3 piece band the guitar sound was extra important as it is out there on it's own, so I had a Ribbon, a SM57 and a small Omni (senheisser ME20) all close miked (across the 2 x 12" speaker cabs) and recording to different tracks. By blending or turning on/off the 3 mics, and not the same for every song, I got a very open full guitar sound. I did this as I only had one shot at it and options are best. I was also engineering and playing bass live at the same time so I could only monitor on playback.

Guitar cabs are a piece of cake, now lets talk about drum mic phase LOL.

Alan.

I have an issue with my 10 inch tom and my snare because they are so close together, I close mic all of my drums, I am still playing around with it. I have also had the same issue in live applications where you have several mics lined up right next to each other, such as back ground singers, we used to knock every other mic out of phase.
 
I think you should re-read this, Don't you mean that, if you have 2 mics exactly the same distance from the cone they will be In Phase. If the sound is out of phase it will be because the mic is wired out of phase or the ribbon mic is pointing back to front.

Alan.
Hi Al' I think you just clocked the post's title?

Dave.
 
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