Thin Guitar Sound with SM57 and Vox Cab

A

Alexrkstr

Member
For some reason the reproduction of what I hear when recording is not as "sweet" as when I play it. It could be microphone placement or something else but this is my setup:
- Guitar: PRS Signature Limited (humbucker pickups)
- Mesa TA-15 head with a Vox 1x12 open back cab
- SM57
- Digi 003
- ProTools

Any tricks or positioning techniques to make the sound a little "fatter" and more accurate would be greatly appreciated.
 
Experimenting with placement is the thing to do, I suppose.
The distance from the cab, the angle, and what part of the speaker you're pointing at etc

Close micing a cab is incredible volatile; By that I mean millimetres can really change the sound.

Also keep in mind that you're hearing the cab from (presumably) a few meters back and probably about a meter higher than the mic is.
If you stand up and the amp is on the ground, you're off axis by about 45 degrees, so get down on the amps level to hear your tone, or angle it up so it's pointing at your head.

If you're monitoring with headphones whilst recording, everything will sound massive because you're going to hear the real amp sound bleeding through. As soon as you playback the recording, that real acoustic sound is missing. Maybe that's putting you off?
 
Good point. I'll give it a try. I might be hearing very different things.

Does it make sense to track a condenser mic as well in the room?
 
Sure. Some people like to do that.

There's a belter thread on gearslutz that's nothing but photos of amp/cab/mic setups.

The number of 57+md421 combos is unbelievable. I'm just saying though. I can't recommend it first hand.
 
Alexrkstr said:
Good point. I'll give it a try. I might be hearing very different things.

Does it make sense to track a condenser mic as well in the room?
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I always track with a variety of mics at once on a cab so I can dial in whatever works best for the song later. HOWEVER, that's not to say that you can't get a stellar recording with just an SM57! :D

But back to my original statement, one of the mics I always have set up when tracking electric guitar amps is a condensor as a room mic. I know the room that i track guitars in, so I've learned the best spot for it and the best height/angle for it to be. For my preferences, I set it to cardioid, and engage the high pass filter (mine is set at 80 hz roll off). Just less rolling off with plugin eq's later. Gets you that much closer to the final sound going in. Watch for phase problems with the close mic(s) though - if it's out of phase don't just try flipping the phase because it may still sound phasey (things aren't always 180 degrees out of phase)! Rather, get the placement right so the phase is spot on going in. Use a phase scope and have your monitoring in mono when checking for more accuracy, especially if your ears can't hear it.

You can do omni or figure eight on a room mic if you want more off axis stuff and not the direct source, or point the cardioid pattern away from the amp at a wall. But I prefer it maybe a foot or two higher than the cone, maybe 10 feet away, pointing down towards the cone to grab some bare floor reflections on the way (and not allow ceiling reflections), with a packing blanket behind the mic. Works for me anyways...every time.

Funny thing is, any guitarist instantly LOVES the sound of the close mic (or a combo of close mics such as 57/421 said Steen), blended with the room mic. Why? Probably because it sounds closer to what they are used to hearing. I think of it like micing drums, you don't just use close mics as that is not what your ear is used to hearing. You use overhead and/or ambient mics further away to get a more natural sound when blended. Close mics for attack/punch/detail, far mics for space and a more natural sound.

Just some stuff that works FOR ME, and I'm sure millions of others. Great on guitar leads/solos especially btw. Depends on the style...metal guitars? Probably not. Indie/roots rock? Crank up that room! Maybe ONLY use the room?! :eek: Goodbye room reverb emulation plugins! :)

Good luck! :)
 
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Also try closing the back of the cab with something. I have an open back Fender that tends to sound then. I cut a piece of plywood and got some velcro to close it up with. It can help. If you don't feel like doing carpentry you can get a similar effect by backing it up against a wall. Stay away from corners though.
 
You can also put a second mic behind the cab.

Another technique, if you really want a thick, powerful tone, is to double track the guitar part. For the first part, record with the SM57 up and center to capture a brighter sound, and for the second part record with the SM57 off to the side or back a little to get a more subdued tone. As others have mentioned, different mic placements will give you different frequency responses, but recording the part twice will also give you subtle timing differences that will help the guitar sound "bigger".
 
Some good suggestions.

Something else is to re-visit the sound coming from the guitar/amp. Do you have too much gain dialed in? Do you have enough low end and low-middle dialed in? Is the high end too hyped? Maybe the sound is a bit too thin to begin with.
 
I often use an SM57 and a LDC both close up. I try to have them at the same distance to avoid phase issues. I sometimes use a 421 instead of the 57, and very often use a ribbon in there as well, even having a omni added to the cluster of mics. I don't often use room mics unless I am after a particular open guitar sound, sometimes I add a room mic if recording solos.

Having said all of the above, I can usually pull a very good guitar sound with just a SM57 (I have been doing this in live sound for years), up against the speaker cloth, if placed towards the speaker centre you get more tops, out around the speaker edge more lows, so try around halfway from the centre to the edge 1st. Also try pointing the mic directly at the speaker or say 45 degs and even 90 degs for different variations in the sound. You should get the sound you want without touching the eq.

I should say that you need to have your guitar tone set up correctly, remember you don't need big low end boost on the amp (that guitarists seem to like) as you will get mud.

I have attached a photo of my own bands session, we had a Senheisser ME20 omni, a fat head ribbon (both these behind a pop screen due to the ribbon having no inner mesh so protecting it from wind blast) and a Senheisser 421, the 421 was swapped with an SM57 depending on the song we were working on. No room mics and screening due to tracking the band live Guitar, bass and drums. Guitar sounds great on the recording. The guitar amp has one open back box and one closed back, both single 12", just for something different. I should add that the speakers in the cabs are offset not in the centre if you think the mics are right out to the edge.

Alan.

guitar-amp.jpg
 
[SUP][/SUP]I have found micing the guitar cab much easier since I got headphones with better isolation (I use Sennheiser HD280s; headphones specifically for isolation for drummers are good). This enables me to sit in the same room as the amp & cab and move the mic around and play to hear the difference of the actual sound going into the interface. Another way is to have the cab in a different room and a second person moving the mic or monitoring.
 
jonny deep said:
[SUP][/SUP]I have found micing the guitar cab much easier since I got headphones with better isolation (I use Sennheiser HD280s; headphones specifically for isolation for drummers are good). This enables me to sit in the same room as the amp & cab and move the mic around and play to hear the difference of the actual sound going into the interface. Another way is to have the cab in a different room and a second person moving the mic or monitoring.
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That's fantastic advice and rings true with me. I can't really get isolation where I am and my guitar tones definitely suffer over it.
I know it can be worked around but man, life would be so much easier if that amp was in another room.

Incidentally, why hasn't someone invented a remote control 360degree gooseneck......All that running back and forth to tweak the mic could be a thing of the past. ;)
 
I use pink noise thru a guitar amp and headphones to find the best mic placement.
Once you are familiar with how pink noise sounds it's extremely easy to hear where positiong the mic results in a thin sound or full sound or extra bassy or whatever and you don't have to be playing. Just turn on a pink noise generator and move the mic while listening thru the cans.
 
Lt. Bob said:
I use pink noise thru a guitar amp and headphones to find the best mic placement.
Once you are familiar with how pink noise sounds it's extremely easy to hear where positiong the mic results in a thin sound or full sound or extra bassy or whatever and you don't have to be playing. Just turn on a pink noise generator and move the mic while listening thru the cans.
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That's a great idea - what do you use to put the noise into the amp?
 
jonny deep said:
That's a great idea - what do you use to put the noise into the amp?
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I have an old Goldline handheld RTA from decades ago. It's pretty cool looking ...... every once in a while I'll see one used in a sci-fi flick as prop ..... a flux capacitor sensor or whatever. :D
But it's just a RTA.

Anyway it came with a white/pink noise generator with an RCA out so I use that.

I bet there's a pink noise app for your smart phone you could use.
 
Lt. Bob said:
I have an old Goldline handheld RTA from decades ago. It's pretty cool looking ...... every once in a while I'll see one used in a sci-fi flick as prop ..... a flux capacitor sensor or whatever. :D
But it's just a RTA.

Anyway it came with a white/pink noise generator with an RCA out so I use that.

I bet there's a pink noise app for your smart phone you could use.
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Yeah, I figure it's easy to get a pink noise source, but I wouldn't have been sure about putting a hot signal like the headphone out of my phone into a guitar amp that usually gets a guitar output.
 
jonny deep said:
Yeah, I figure it's easy to get a pink noise source, but I wouldn't have been sure about putting a hot signal like the headphone out of my phone into a guitar amp that usually gets a guitar output.
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Use a line out from your interface. It's hotter than instrument signal, but it's not hot enough to blow shit up.
 
Greg_L said:
Use a line out from your interface. It's hotter than instrument signal, but it's not hot enough to blow shit up.
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yeah ..... it's not real critical as to how loud you have it because you're not setting the amp's tone or needing to get it up to tube distortion volumes.
You're simply moving the mic to get the most accurate pickup of the pink noise and as long as you've got a good grip on how the pink noise should sound it doesn't really matter how loud it is.
 
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