EQing guitars?

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I say put the mic in its' case, and power up your Boss GT-8. I'd say it would rival any sound Chessrock gets with his "slap up a mic" and hit "record" method he uses. No...not a POD...a GT-8 ...by Boss ....the stomp box people.....

thank you, thank you. mic'ing gtrs is soooo old school!:rolleyes::)
 
I was being very general...trying not to get into the delay/early reflection/ room sound of moving the source further to the left or right (further away) of the mic,..and trying to show that just like you said..the sound will get duller or what have you.



So you have your awesome tone A... your complimenting tone B...pan one HL..the other HR... eq to seperate even more..appearing to make them sound even further apart (not yet beyond boundaries)...

Then delays/verbs/split harms or whatever your choice of voodoo is to get as far apart as possible before mastering.

I actually would love to hear more experienced engineers tricks on how they get that beyond the speaker sound....a new thread should be started, it would be a great thread to learn from.

-LIMiT
 
bkkornaker said:
can you show me? this will be an interesting learning curve for me........I never knew mic placement on an amp .........could exceed the sound coming out of my studio monitors past the "Hard left/right" points, making it sound wider than my monitors can produce.......

this is gonna be cool!!!!!
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I think (but am not sure) that binaural recording does this as it creates a 3d effect. Best noticed with headphones though. 2 SM 57 mics facining opposite directions about 6 - 8 inches apart to simulate ears.

Pan one hard right and hard left. Try it. Crystal clear sound, sounds 3d.
 
NTK88 said:
I think (but am not sure) that binaural recording does this as it creates a 3d effect. Best noticed with headphones though. 2 SM 57 mics facining opposite directions about 6 - 8 inches apart to simulate ears.

Pan one hard right and hard left. Try it. Crystal clear sound, sounds 3d.
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I do some binaural recording with those little mics that go in your ears. Well, I did, don't do much of it anymore.

2 mics faced like you said can produce a pretty similar, and 3D sound. But it works much better with omni mics.

Also, having the effect of your head, and even more so, your ear canal, makes a pretty significant difference from my experience.

I wouldn't recommend binaural recording for an actual mix though, only for a live performance or maybe percussion/shaker type stuff in the background (which can sound really cool if you do it right).
 
chessrock said:
That post has been brought up so many times, I'm going to barf.

If your amp sucks ... it sucks.

Get used to the idea.

Slipperman is a genius. Seriously, he is. He's the only guy I know who has managed to create such a huge buzz from such a gigantic mob of idiots who hang on his every word ... over something so elementary.

I swear to God ... I'm going to start a freakin' thread just like Slippy about making a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. :D What was that ridiculous quote he made about the magical point of "cabinet-speaker engagement"? ? Holy Crap! ! ! :D WOW ! ! I'll tell you what. If you buy my Peanutbutter Sandwich-making manual, I'll tell you all about the magical point of peanutbutter-jelly-bread engagement.

And then I'll throw in the magical "milk" point of engagement along with it. But only I'll take at least a few more chapters to describe it. :D That thread by Slippy is one of the most useless ways I can think of to waste your time on. But if that's your thing ... go ahead and knock yourself out! Give me a call when you find your magical point of "cabinet-speaker engagement." Then I'll tell you your tone sucks, and you need to use a different amp!

.
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Ahh, no offense, but when you can get anywhere near the heavy guitar sound that Slippy gets, I will listen to you exclusively.

The recordings (I have some he sent me) are very well done. Probably better than all of the current crop of studios out there except for the really top ones.

True he drags out the thing for miles, but he definately knows what he is doing.
 
I don't think people are walking in to Slippy's studio hauling in $300 Crate or Peavey amps with nearly-blown tubes either. :D

A certain amount of perspective is needed. Really good amps with really good guitars and players plugged in to them ... tend to have the effect of making the engineer look much smarter than he is. The opposite also tends to be true.

.
 
chessrock said:
I don't think people are walking in to Slippy's studio hauling in $300 Crate or Peavey amps with nearly-blown tubes either. :D.
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you actually have no clue what clients bring into "Slippy's" studio... why does everything seem to reside in the extremes and wow, you really seem to be one angry dude...

i have several amps just for this purpose. usually my amps will fit the bill as good or better than a client's, but when the client's amp is not up to par, mine are available.

just this last weekend my Princeton Reverb got a lot of action.
 
danny.guitar said:
I do some binaural recording with those little mics that go in your ears. Well, I did, don't do much of it anymore.

2 mics faced like you said can produce a pretty similar, and 3D sound. But it works much better with omni mics.

Also, having the effect of your head, and even more so, your ear canal, makes a pretty significant difference from my experience.

I wouldn't recommend binaural recording for an actual mix though, only for a live performance or maybe percussion/shaker type stuff in the background (which can sound really cool if you do it right).
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For songs where its just guitar and vocals it sounds amazing, also when done properly an entire band recorded in binaural sounds sweet. Clean guitar and light drum playing is a must though, so a slower quieter song is best suited. Check out the song "Of The Girl" by Pearl jam or "Soon Forget" also by Pearl Jam.

http://tools.wikimedia.de/~gmaxwell/jorbis/JOrbisPlayer.php?path=BinauralPaper.ogg&wiki=en
 
Sonixx said:
you actually have no clue what clients bring into "Slippy's" studio... why does everything seem to reside in the extremes and wow, you really seem to be one angry dude...
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I just do that stuff for dramatic effect. We're all primates, and I'm just one of the louder monkeys in the cage. :D It's a message board and I like to have fun with it; and I've been known to drunk-post from time to time.

And no, I don't know exactly what people bring in to Slippy's studio down to the exact make and model, but I can say with confidence that ... well, let's just say that his level of clientel isn't the type to haul in Crates or Peaveys with blown tubes. Unless it's for some sort of effect (or possibly as a joke). You can trust me on that one.

.
 
chessrock said:
I just do that stuff for dramatic effect. We're all primates, and I'm just one of the louder monkeys in the cage. :D It's a message board and I like to have fun with it; and I've been known to drunk-post from time to time.

And no, I don't know exactly what people bring in to Slippy's studio down to the exact make and model, but I can say with confidence that ... well, let's just say that his level of clientel isn't the type to haul in Crates or Peaveys with blown tubes. Unless it's for some sort of effect (or possibly as a joke). You can trust me on that one.

.
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And then you have me who is too cheap to go into a studio and would learn how to do it myself, and uses a $500 solid state crate cab/head and a $300 jackson guitar. When we do record we are going to borrow a friends marshall head/amp and gibson so that we can use the different amps heads and guitars. The crates dont sound too bad, but they are limited where they sound good, if you know what I mean.
 
tocs said:
How should i EQ distorted guitars parts?

usually when i record guitar it will sound really muddy in the low end and i have to find what frequency it is and take a few dB off.

if i've got two guitar tracks each one panned hard(well, 70 percent) left and right how should i eq it so that the two guitars aren't fighting against each other?

Do i cut some frequences in one guitar and boost them on the other?
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Certainly, you can change the settings on your amp, maybe change your mic position if you're doing something wierd with it (like mic'ing the edge of the speaker :D) or move the cab if you've got it crammed in some small space that is mucking up all the low end.....and you might overcome all of the muddiness that you're fighting with without having to EQ anything. Just a thought. For an example, once I stopped trying to record a roaring cabinet in a closet - my sound tightened up alot. :D I also started adjusting the amp to suit what I was capturing with the mic instead of what I thought sounded best standing in front of the cab.

As far as seperating the two guitars...I'd say it all depends. When I've got two guitar parts going on I usually just rely on panning to keep them seperated. I don't worry about using differing tones. This is true wheter we're talking about totally different guitar lines, or two guitars playing the same lines. But if you're looking to make the guitars sound totally different for whatever reason - you should track them that way. Different amps, different mics, different pickup, different something. ;)
 
If the sound eminating from the amp is the sound you want to record then placing a mic - be it 57 or whatever - anywhere in close proximity to said amp will yield a recording with the sound you wanted. Yes there are subtlties than can be taken advantage of, but if it doesn't sound right, where you place the mic ain't gonna change that. Said another way - changing mic placement to improve a bad sounding amp is a lot of work for naught. I think everyone can agree that is basically true, eh?
 
My friend came over with his AT2020 and SM57. If you're not getting the sound you "hear" with an SM57 right up on the amp then you're probably hearing what you want to hear. :D

I experimented with mic placement using the SM57 and there wasn't a whole lot of difference between them except it sounds best (to me) in close proximity to the amp. The angle seemed to have some effect too, but not to the point where one little inch makes or breaks the record.

With a small SDC omni mic though, mic placement makes a much bigger difference. Which is why I probably noticed it so much using the MSH mic. But with the SM57 it was just plug & play.
 
Mic placement, the tone and pick up of the guitar, and the the eq on the amp all equal each other. Neither is more important, but the the sound from the amp has to appeal to you or the guitarist before it goes on tape. You can have an amazing tone and sound from the guitar before it goes on tape, and throw a mic in front of the cone and push record and it comes out like shit. So you have to know you mic's pickup frequency, and you have to know your micing techniques for it to come out the way you want to on tape. I use a E906, and if needed an I5. I take about an hour with the guitarist getting his rig exactly the way he wants it, then about another hour with just the micing.
 
chessrock said:
If you seriously have to move a mic to the outter edge of a speaker cone in order to have a usable guitar tone ...

... Holy shit. Fuck me. That must be one seriously FUCKED UP sounding guitar cab.

And you should do yourself a favor and run out to the nearest junk yard and ... no, that might actually be a cruel thing to do the poor unsespecting junk yard workers.

So how about you just burn that piece of crap guitar amp of yours and do the world a favor? Seriously. If you honestly can look me straight in the face and say ... "Chessrock, I get a slammin' guitar track ... as long as I move it to the very outter rim of the fucking speaker" ... then seriously. I'll give you like a thousand bucks.

Give me that magic speaker of yours that only sounds good in that 1/10th of a centimeter squre inch or whatever of space ... and I'll send that little, tiny bit of usable audio space to the fucking Smithsonian institution. Right next to Jimmy Hendrix's ashes or whatever :D .... And no. I'm not trolling. Do I look like I'm trolling? ? :D I've never been more serisous about anything in my fucking life. If you listen to nothing else I've said in my sad existance, I hope you can at least consider an ouce of what I'm saying to you about this subject.

.
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Sorry dude, but I'm gonna have to come in for the pwnage, because your arrogance and egotistical nature make me very upset. Here's the little piece of information that's going to ruin your very small, very demented world.

Shure's SM57 product information sheet: (The very mic you yourself have claimed is the 'standard' for mic'ing guitar cabs).

idiot.jpg


I certainly see different tonal qualities with different configurations. Don't you think that if it was so simple, they'd just put: "Aim at speaker"???

Please refrain from sticking your foot in your mouth. You apparently don't know how sound frequencies work, and you really don't know as much as you think you do....Thank you very much for not being such a douchebag in the future,

-Joel
 
Oh, and just to rub more dirt in the gash I put in your pathetic arguments:

Read the top how it says this: (I'll cut and paste for those who just want to skip to the added pwnage).

"Some of the most common applications and placement techniques for the SM57 are listed in the following table. Remember that microphone technique is largely a matter of personal taste - There is no single "correct" microphone position."

Damn that must hurt. Sucks to be you dude,

-Joel
 
Something to point out:

Sounds like you have a short in your instrument cable or XLR cable. It cuts in and out during the recording.

Moving on:

The best thing to do if you have studio phones is to stand behind the amp and move the mic around, listening for tonal qualities...these mics are pretty decent as far as proximity effect is concerned. I think you could EQ that and make it sound very well. Like many before me have said: There isn't really a "right" way to go about recording. Just move everything until you think it sounds good. Most people make the grille eat the mic. I normally record with multiple mics: One up the grilles ass, one about 2 ft back, and a very far back room mic. If time permits, I'd usually re-amp it instead using some other mics and mix to taste.
 
When i listened to your guitar track, it seemed that the lows were really prevalent. Depending on what kind of sound you are going for depends on the type of eq'ing you do, and the mic placement. If you want less mud and more clean highs put the mic on the far edge of the cone, and aim the degree away from the middle of the cone. With eq you can do a numerous amount of different variations. What i would first try is kicking out the bass from 200 hz, to and below, then boosting the mid from 1 to 2 k or 5 k. You are going to get a much cleaner and present guitar sound. Experiment with eq's but don't over use them, try to get a good sound from the start
 
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