Ideal room characteristics for metal guitar?

[24tracks]

Sorry is this is a loaded question. I'm probably just clueless.

If I'm not mistaken, Steve Albini uses a medium-ish dead-room to record loud guitars and such.

I've heard some people just put the cab in a closet, but in every way I can imagine, it would seem there would be way too much low end trapped in there.

What do *you* think would be an ideal room for recording very loud/trashy guitars? (Hardcore, punk, metal)

I know enough not to scoop mids right away, and to roll back on the distortion, and to double/quad track, but curious about the room.

 

[miroslav]

What do *you* think would be an ideal room for recording very loud/trashy guitars? (Hardcore, punk, metal)

For recording Punk & Metal guitars...does it really matter?





Just kidding...

You can record any kind of guitar in any kind of room...just work the situation.

 

[Chibi Nappa]

You can record any kind of guitar in any kind of room...just work the situation.

...As long as you are monitoring in a treated room while you do it. But yeah. I keep a 100 ft snake in the house and record guitar wherever. I'm sure I've used every room by now.

 

[Ronan]

I like to record in a decent size room but you blankets, foam and such to deaden the reflections. You get the focused high end without the low end problems you mentioned.

 

[miroslav]

...As long as you are monitoring in a treated room while you do it.

Of course...your monitoring needs to be fairly accurate so you know what you are getting down...that applies to everything you record.

But I think some people over-think, over-worry the room thing when tracking.

IMO, the main thing to consider is the amount and type of reflections you are getting...and that is easily controlled with a simple "tent" over the amp/mic rig.

 

[moresound]

Seems the room factor would only apply if your going to distant mic the amp along with close micing of the amp.
And with that you can get pretty creative .

 

[Sonixx]

If I'm not mistaken, Steve Albini uses a medium-ish dead-room to record loud guitars and such.

I'm not familiar with Albini's metal guitar recordings. Can you possibly list some?

But, if you are close micing a loud cab, I'm not sure how much influence the room will have.

 

[24tracks]

Thanks for the replies and info.

So, doing an amp "tent", as I've seen mentioned before, doesn't make the sound too boxy?

I imagine people blowing gaskets if anything like that was done for vocals, but I suppose guitars compensate by being way louder than a normal human...?

I'll hopefully get to try this out pretty soon.

 

[24tracks]

@ Sonixx: He did the work on "the fear is what keeps us here" by Zao. Gave it a very interesting sound, compared to any of their previous works.

 

[miroslav]

Thanks for the replies and info.

So, doing an amp "tent", as I've seen mentioned before, doesn't make the sound too boxy?

Not on any I've done...I usually make a decent size tent...then of course I always add my room ambience later on with an external reverb unit.

I've also done 'em without a tent...

As long as you're not in some echo-plagued environment...it's not hard to get decent guitar sounds (AFA the room is concerned)...
...how you set up the mic(s) and the amp is what counts.

 

[Farview]

I have a small-ish room with a 4x12 cab in it. Almost everything that gets recorded here goes through that cab in that room. I have theater curtain and a few bass traps in there. It sounds great.

For the most part, if you have the amp at a decnt volume and you have the mic right on the grill, it doesn't matter much.

 

[Farview]

The easiset way to make sure you have a good guitar sound is to have the cabinet in another room and the head in the control room.

Don't bother listening to the cabinet in the room, listen to it through your monitors. That is the sound that is getting recorded, so tweak the amp until that sounds good.

It doesn't matter what it sounds like in the room, nobody is in there to listen.

 

[Sonixx]

@ Sonixx: He did the work on "the fear is what keeps us here" by Zao. Gave it a very interesting sound, compared to any of their previous works.

thanks and I checked them out.

Why is your interest directed at the room in this case with micing heavy gtr?

What amps and speakers do have available?

You may find this interesting... here's a reamp I did for a guy sometime ago. The speaker really makes this difference.

 

[DrewPeterson7]

I remember seeing this in a John Petrucci interview:

"Well, I think I’ve found the secret, at least for me. I recently played a solo on Marty Freidman’s new record and I played a solo on Derek Sherinian’s new record just yesterday. In both instances I walked into the studio and told them I needed my cabinet and my head [Editor’s note: John used a Mesa/Boogie Road King head and Traditional Rectifier 4 x 12 cabinet] and two microphones, and got a guitar sound in five minutes. This is what I do. First of all, the cabinets are usually closed back, so there’s no need to mic the back. They have Celestion Vintage 30’s in them, and they’re the smaller Traditional Rectifier cabinets, not the big ones. I think the cabinet should be in a fairly big room. Anytime I’ve ever tried to put a cabinet in a closet or a small room, it just doesn’t sound right. There are too many weird reflections happening in that case. The speaker cabinet needs to have some sort of throw, like when it’s in a big room. You can put a baffle in front of it if you need to, like maybe ten feet out front, but otherwise I think it needs to breath, for whatever reason. I use a [Shure SM] 57 like this [Editor’s note: John showed mic position to be on axis, about an inch and a half radially outward from edge of dust cap in center of cone, close mic’d, almost touching grill cloth]. You never want to put the microphone in the center of the speaker; it’s just way too bright. Then you can fool around with how much off center you go. Obviously, the further away from the center you go, the duller the sound gets. Also, I use a Sennheiser MD421. That’s the second mic, and I position it the same way. You can either place it on the same speaker or on a different speaker. Then, you just blend the two of those. Usually, if you have two faders, the 421 is sitting below the 57. So the 57 is the basic sound, and the 421 is a little darker and it’s very fat."

From here:

http://www.musicplayers.com/features/guitars/2006/0306John_Petrucci.php

Anecdotally speaking, while I haven't done a purely scientific comparison (and it would be difficult to do one), I have noticed that when I have my amp oriented facing the long way in my room I seem to generally be happier with the tones I get than when it's oriented facing across the short way. It seems room reflections, even in a loud, distorted amp with close mics, do play something of a role in a guitar sound, though it's tough to say for sure how much.

Either way, my advice would be the same - experiment until you get something that works.