Guitar amp close mic suggestion <$400?

  • Thread starter Thread starter santiu
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santiu

Rock-scientist
Hey all. Looking for suggestions for a mic to close mic guitar amps. Amps similar to a fender twin custom are what I'm mic'ing. Guitar is a hollowbody PRS. Lots of Mid's :)

also would want it to be useful on quieter (relatively) low watt tube amps.

thanks for any suggestions (p.s. I have an SM57, looking for alternatives)
 
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Many will leap in and say a good ol' SM57, and it works for lots of people. Personally, I've had my best luck with the following- Sennheiser e609, Sennheiser MD421, Shure SM7b, AKG C2000B. The first three are all standards. The last one, C2000B, is the mic that no one but me (as far as I know) uses for cabs, but with about $12,000 bucks worth of mics in the house, that's the mic that sees the most duty on cabs. No one has figured it out, but in blind test after blind test, the C2000B has beaten out a whole lot of mics that cost a lot more, are intended for cabs, and which are considered studio standards for that application. I have no real explanation, but I can tell you it's a great cab mic. It's a very versatile entry level condenser that I used to use for lots of stuff. As my mic cabinet has grown, it has been replaced for almost everything except cabs and hand pecussion/rack toms, where it is still my #1 choice. And it's not just me. In blind tests, a wide variety of guitarists have preferred electric guitar tracks done with C2000B over a ton of other mics. It still surprises me.-Richie

P.S.- oops, I see you have an SM57. I think SM7 or MD421 will do what the SM57 does- better. C2000B does something that none of the above do. If you are looking for something different, do it. You can get them bew on ebay for $150 or so. Look for one with the H100 shock mount, which is one of the most versatile shock mounts out there.
 
If you have a chance to try out a ribbon mic on an amp, you should.
 
ribbons for guitar

I will say this: I always heard about the fabled 57 being the ultimate mic for recording, and then when I was going into these ProTools studios in the 90's I wound up being very unhappy every time with the guitar sound. Strangely enough I was much happier with my 57 into my tape four track. Slowly a consensus started building in the guitar community that it was a problem with digital...

Later I tracked onto 2" tape with high end API preamps and my guitar sounded sooo good with the 57. I asked the engineer if he had any other mics that he would recommend and he said the 421 and a ribbon mic (can't remember which one, maybe a Royer). I prefered both the 421 and the ribbon for my sound and so did everyone else in the room including the engineer. Then he recommended using a combination and used the 57 a few feet back and the ribbon about 6 inches away. The sound was what I always wanted.

Recently I got a pair of Fathead mics and have had great success with them in combination with a 57 with the 57 much farther away. Be careful for speaker extrusion causing gusts of wind that can cause your ribbon to pop so use a pop filter (seriously!!). Through my Onyx preamps on 24 bit digital, it sounds great. Later during tracking I use Colortone from TriTone digital to add a tape or tube tone to the guitar buss. This adds some of that tape or tube smack that I loved. The Fathead costs $159, the metal pop filter $24, the 57 cost me $70 used, my Onyx 16 channel mixer with Firewire was $1000 which comes into less than $80 per channel including AD conversion.

This is extremely low budget for this kind of sound and I tell you, for guitar tone, I totally kill every one of those studios I recorded in at $50/hr, back in the 90's for guitar tone - except the one with the 2" tape, the high end analogue equipment, and the room of collectors guitars and guitar amps. If I got to record somewhere else, I bring a ribbon mic.

The 57 sounds amazing through really nice preamps (Bono's voice for example was recorded with a beta 58 mic by Daniel Lanoix but try it with cheaper, or really transparent sounding preamps onto digital and it's not that great most of the time. Of course, it all depends on you, your guitar, your amp, your room, and your style. For my setup and style the 57 is better as a second mic.
 
If you've got quality preamps (high end preamps even better such as the Great River NV series or the Manley Mono series), then you'll get incredible value out of an SM57 or an i5.

My fave guitar amp mic is the AEA R92.
 
Ribbons

Absolutely use a ribbon, the depth of the signal sounds amazing on analog and digital. The Beyer M-160 is absolutely legendary for electric guitar, the only problem with it is that if you've got a really really loud amp, it'll break up, but it's fine up to about 30 watts (30 REAL watts). Eddie Kramer used nothing but these mics on all the guitars on the first two Zeppelin records and all the Hendrix records (according to his interview with him in Howard Massey's "Behind the Glass"). If you're looking for a mic not to distort, Old Shure ribbons like the 315 and the 330 will take that abuse and sound great.
 
antichef said:
If you have a chance to try out a ribbon mic on an amp, you should.
Click to expand...

My absolute best luck with cab mic'ing and my best recommend for it is.....

(snare roll)


RE20 + Apex 210 ribbon.

But Fathead will work, as will the Apex 215, or any better ribbon.

But if you can only put one mic on the guitar cab, nothing beats the RE20.
 
I'm really liking the sound I'm getting with an SM57 and a Karma K-6 together.

Might be neat to try miking the strings since it's a hollowbody, too. Maybe a Naiant.
 
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