Looping guitar thru several mics.

[davidcatpi]

I have an SM57, MD421 and R77 ribbon mic. I was planning to do some "exploratory" recording by looping riffs thru those 3 mics independently into audition, with variations on distance and on/off axis placement. Do I need to worry about any "phase" issue or any other kind of problem related to multi-micking an amp or am I free to go and start mixing the takes and see which combinations sound nice?

I mean to record with one mic at a time.

 

[mjbphotos]

If you are recording with one mic at a time, but want to combine tracks, you could have phase issues - specially with different distances from the amp, but the biggest issue will be lining up the tracks exactly.

 

[Elton123]

I would recording using all three at a time. find the best combination and placement of all three if that is what you want. Do various takes with different placement and get the best source sound. Then go in and play with levels on the individual mics. All of this will change based on the room, the amp, the guitar, style of music, role in of the guitar in the mix, etc Then when you are all done, just put a 57 in front of the amp and call it a day. Ha

 

[davidcatpi]

Yeah, using audition I can zoom enough to see the track's waveform clearly so lining them up is not an issue. What I noticed is that all the takes that goes from center to edge of speaker and 1" distance from grill to 8" (ribbon mic) were coherent or "in phase" I believe since they didn't look like cancelling each other. To test my theory, I phase inverted one of the tracks and it made everything go weird sounding, like in a box or something. I will upload a pic in a moment. I'm still trying to understand this phase business.

 

[davidcatpi]

Here's a comparison image taken from audition. The green clips are takes with the mics off-axis and centered. The blue clip corresponds to the SM57 at the edge of the speaker. Notice how, after trimming and aligning them, wave's highs and lows appear to be "in-phase", at least that's how I think it works and it happens on all the clips. . Is this ok?



Now, here's a *.rar file with Audition's session, with all the clips named and trimmed. I made it that way so I could move R77's edge clip, for example, and pair it with 57's and 421's clips taken at 2/4's and 3/4 speaker lenght, respectively.

sdrv.ms/16f2JdH

copy/paste on browser, it's on skydrive but I still can't use the Link Feature. Hope it is not much of a problem.

The idea is to start mixing clips and experiment with track's levels, 1 - 2 or 3 mics, in-phase/phase-inverted tracks and whatever you can think of before hitting the EQs.
I put high and low pass filters on all the guitar tracks, along with some preset reverb.

This is my first time recording, constructive criticism and important info that I might be overlooking is welcome Don't mind my guitar playing, imma little off tempo here, just a small riff.

 

[YellowDwarf]

David,

I'm going to ask you something an experienced engineer told me (repeatedly): what do your ears tell you? Your ears will tell you if there are phase issues, not your eyes.

 

[witzendoz]

I would record all 3 of these mics to 3 separate tracks, then mix then together to get the sound you want. On the last album I recorded the guitar was record with a ribbon, sm57 or 421, and a SDC in omni (a good trick if you have to close mic to add openness). all at the same distance (close) on different speakers of the cab, (but could have been on the same speaker), by using different combinations of the mics and even panning them to different sides we got a great guitar sound. The reason I close miced only was that we tracked the guitar, bass and drums live so close miced to minimise spill. Just check the mics are in phase by flipping the phase and using your ears.

Alan.