Loud or Soft Volume while recording guitars?

[zenabi]

When mic'ing my cabinet with sm-57s and a condenser mic should I have the volume up considerably or down low for the mics to pick up that beefy, heavy sound I get from my amp? I mean, what results have you managed to get? I have been toying with these things to try and get that heavy Nickelback/Staind type of tone. I have it in my amp but not in my recording. Nothing has really worked real well for me yet. -Zen

 

[David Katauskas]

What amp do you have?

 

[scrubs]

The real answer is whatever sounds best. Some amps sound best when you really push them. Others crap out at very high gain. I generally record at low gain, but then, I don't do a lot of heavily distorted guitar. Get an amp sound that sounds good in the room, then work on mic placement to capture the best aspects of that sound.

 

[zenabi]

Amp

What amp do you have?

I have the Marshall 9200 Dual Mono Block, JCM 900 1960 4x12, ADA MP2 Preamp, TC Electronics G-Major. This is my basic recording rig. -Zen

 

[AGCurry]

A lot of successful recordings of "heavy" guitar have been done with very small amplifiers at high gain.

 

[LRosario]

Experimentation is the only way...


-Throw one of those marshall lunch box amps under a trash can...see what that sounds like.

-Or rig up a line of daisy chained rigs....see what that sounds like

-Or throw the amp in the water...see what the sounds like. (not very advisable)

-Try low gain, high gain or no gain.

-Try it with a pop filter (oh yeh, for guitars)

-Wrap the amp in something (news paper, tin foil, etc)

The main purpose is to just continue trying any crazy thing you can think of until you hit a Eureka moment


My next interest is trying to rig up some kina home made parabolic-like mic using a pot and a regular dynamic mic...then stick it in front of a guitar amp and I'll see what that gives me.

 

[FALKEN]

yeah I had one of those "eureka" moments once while tracking guitar and I'm not telling you guys what it was. I'll just say it was in a dorm room and I didn't have any mic stands. Anywayz, you probably have to crank that marshall to get a good tone. I used to record with my fender twin on a low volume and using stomp boxes for recording and it sounded just as big as anything. I got the best sounds having the mic pointed up at the speaker from the ground. most of getting that sound is going to be your choice of distortion. I got pretty close to that kind of sound using a z-vex fuzz factory, on recording. switching that for a marshall shredmaster or a microsynth would change the sound completely. also, on those types of records, the lows are usually cut pretty good.

 

[Omniscient]

I have a Masrhasl DFX250, Crate halfstack and a 50w Dean Markley practice amp. I actually use the small Dean amp. I don't know why but I love the sound it gives if I lean it backwards so it's facing up at like a 40 degree angle and stick the mic facing level at it.

 

[Chibi Nappa]

You can get good results from both loud and soft amps.... But when I record "loud" guitars, you better bet the amp is f'n loud! It doesn't have to be, but that's the way I likes it!

 

[Feanor IV]

Interesting topic..... Is there any good book (or ebook) with techniques on micing guitars?

 

[mud]

If your lookin to get the sound meaty then i'd consider multi tracking the guitars much like korn and others do. Just get the guitarist to record 3+ versions of the track all played the same with a slightly different mic position and then pan them out n leave one central, the more you track the guitars the larger the sound will be.

 

[MessianicDreams]

i've found it's much better to have the amp running at a considerable %age of its max output..i'm not talking about gain here, but actual master volume.

i think it's better to track with a small amp running at 75% than a big amp running at 10%. it just..sounds better!

i heard that for a lot of Led Zep Page used small practice amps in the studio, rather than his live rig. i think it's just a question of actually getting the amp to run hard.

EDIT: if you want that real big, heavy, "wall of guitars" sound, than do just that. track loads and loads of guitar parts all on top of each other, this isn't really an effect you can fake. i was reading the article in Sound on Sound about the new Darkness album and the produce said that in some songs there were as many as 120 different guitars playing simultaneously..i'm not suggesting you do that (nor that the Darkness is what you're aiming for) but it's just an example of how people achieve that "heavy" sound. make sure that when you're listening to the amp, it's got that heavy sound to it..from there on capturing the sound is a question of layers/mic placement.

 

[mud]

Oh yea, and that reminds me, an amp on full wack in a small room will sound like a wall of noise boardering on confusion. Get those guitars tracked over n over, use different amps if possible or just adjust the amps eqs n such. But dont duplicate the tracks as you'll just increase the volume and dynamics of the same sound in area's where you dont need it.

 

[up-fiddler]

I have a Masrhasl DFX250, Crate halfstack and a 50w Dean Markley practice amp. I actually use the small Dean amp. I don't know why but I love the sound it gives if I lean it backwards so it's facing up at like a 40 degree angle and stick the mic facing level at it.

If it were me and I liked the live sound I would continue to use this setup and just keep moving the mike until you find the best location. Don't be in a hurry. Be thorough and get exactly what you want. Once you have it you can duplicate the procedure in the future any time you need it. (Besides, it's fun to play around with! ) Hope this helps, DAve.

 

[MessianicDreams]

try double mic'ing the cab. one mic is on the cone in a position which sounds good, and the other you move around until it sounds good. try doing this while listening in mono with the phase reversed..you'll be very surprised!

try doing this as well but with the amp spitting out pink noise, and move the mic until you get a nice replication of the pink noise..