Mic'ing Guitar Cabinet: Can't Get What I Hear

[blinder]

Okay, I know this topic has been discussed to DEATH... but I haven't found anything that can enlighten me as to what the hell I am doing wrong.

I have spent hours upon endless hours playing with an infinite combinations of mics, positions, rooms, and tone sources. I CANNOT GET ON "tape" what I am actually hearing!

Basically right now, my setup is a Marshall JCM2000 head plugged into a Marshall 2x12" cabinet. When I am just playing it sounds EXACTLY what I want on "tape." I mean, the depth, warmth, tone, feel.. .its all there.

But when I stick a mic (and sometimes mics) anywhere near the fscker... it sounds like fizzy fuzzy weak sh!t!!!

I have a MD421, Shure 57, an a AT 3035. The 421 comes pretty close but not close enough to something I would be happy with.

I have tried putting the mics right dead square and a few inches from the front of the cone, I've tried, putting the mic off axis, both close and far (up to a few feet). I've tried using two mics together (putting one out of phase 180 degrees).. I've tried putting mics in strange positions... along side the cabinet, I've tried everything and inbetween and HAVE NOT had ONE SINGLE satisfactory sound that didn't sound fuzzy, fizzy yucky and blah.

I've tried just "living with it" and tried "fixing it in the mix" (yeah, you just *know* who successful that was... NOT). I've tried compression, outboard EQ... everything.

I want to state first... that when I am just playing and NOT recording... the tone I am hearing is EXACTLY what I want... so the whole rule of "starting with something that sounds good" has been achieved here. The room the cabinet is in is a pretty "dead" room, but not devoid of reflection... i've tried putting the cabinet up on a chair... having it sit right on the floor... have it sit on some heavy blankets... I've tried draping blankets over the thing.

As you can see... I have spent a HUGE amount of time on this... and I'm just ready to throw everything away and take what I left of my sanity and take knitting or some shit.

I hope someone can at least provide some guidance that would be of some help... because right now... I'm completely lost.

 

[Farview]

You are doing it backwards. You put the mic in front of the cabinet and listen to the monitors and dial in the sound. If the 421 is the closest, you have most likely turned your midrange down too far and the gain up too far.

 

[HangDawg]

I can almost guarantee that you have the gain set too high. It's just the way it is. Turn it down. Way down. Like, below 5. Start there. When you do get close. Very small adjustments will make huge differences. It's taken me about 2 years to finally get a decent heavy guitar sound.

I'll also add that the sound in the room will probably sound like complete ass. It doesn't matter what you are hearing, it's what the mic is hearing.

 

[PapillonIrl]

Very good suggestions...another couple of things to try.

Put an cheap omni (behringer make one for 40 dollars) where your ear is when you are listening to it. Sound like you remember ?

Get a pair of these http://www.remoteaudio.com/hn7506.htm and use them to position your mic while some plays. An inch can make a difference.

Also.

READ THIS AND LEARN.

I can't stress this enough: READ THIS.






It all began as a simple and innocuous question...

And then Slipperman got involved.

Little did anyone realize that this would gradually turn into the educational epic bloodbath of the decade.

If you still can't record monster guitars after this, then nobody can help you.







Here are the links:

Part I:
http://recpit.prosoundweb.com/viewtopic.php?t=4095

Part II:
(Mainly a compiling of Slipperman's posts from Part I with some banter).
http://recpit.prosoundweb.com/viewtopic.php?t=7486

Part III:
http://recpit.prosoundweb.com/viewtopic.php?t=9419&postd ays=0&postorder=&start=0

 

[blinder]

You are doing it backwards. You put the mic in front of the cabinet and listen to the monitors and dial in the sound. If the 421 is the closest, you have most likely turned your midrange down too far and the gain up too far.

huh, interesting. i usually have the mid set around the 12 o'clock area, sometimes a little over, sometimes under.

but i will play more with the gain... i have... but i guess i just don't make small enough adjustements.

Thanks

 

[blinder]

I can almost guarantee that you have the gain set too high. It's just the way it is. Turn it down. Way down. Like, below 5. Start there. When you do get close. Very small adjustments will make huge differences. It's taken me about 2 years to finally get a decent heavy guitar sound.

I'll also add that the sound in the room will probably sound like complete ass. It doesn't matter what you are hearing, it's what the mic is hearing.

Yeah I just need to be more "ginger" with the gain tweaking... i tend to, through being incredibly frustrated, make radical adjustements and not "small tweaks."

Heh... yeah... just that everything i've ever read said "you need to start with a decent tone."

So when I finally got that and then couldn't get it on tape... i was ready to start throwing things around the room

 

[mattamatta]

If you have the sound you like, you should be able to get at least somewhat of a replica of it if you just put the mic where your ear is... try that. If you like the way it sounds when you stand next to it, that wont be the way it so unds down on the floor. There's no reason you cant put the mic at head level facing wherever you feel sounds best. Or get down toward the floor and listen with your ears to find a spot you like, and then put the mic there (dont put your ear right next to a cranked amp though..... let the mic do that, it can handle higher SPL's than your ears, and it's replaceable). Always listen to the sound through the system from your monitors or phones or whatever you use while tracking.

 

[Raw-Tracks]

Quite often I will find that when recording, you need less gain/distortion than you think you do. As others have suggested, try backing your gain off a little.

That suggestion was cheap, this one is not: A while back I was fortunate to try a Royer 122. Previously, I have never been 100% happy with any electric guitar recording I have done. The Royer took away everything I had always hated about recording electric guitar. Maybe you could rent or borrow one and see what that does for you.

 

[Farview]

Heh... yeah... just that everything i've ever read said "you need to start with a decent tone."

You fell prey to trying to get a fully produced sound out of the amp cabinet. The sound you hear on your favorite CDs is not what the guitars sounded like in the room they were recorded in. After all the processing they ended up sounding like that. If you start out with a 'finished' sound it gets screwed up when you put a mic in front of it. This is why Crate amps sound great in your bedroom but don't record worth a damn. (distorted)

'Starting out with a decent tone' is different than starting out with the end result. Guitars need to be more midrangey and less distorted than you would think. Once you get used to it, you will be sickened by other people mid scooped, over distorted sounds.

BTW. I think your amp has a mid scoop button, do you have that pushed? On that amp you want to use the 'classic' EQ, The 'classic' gain might not be quite enough for you but try it anyway. You need to go for crunch not smooth.

 

[HangDawg]

I think alot of guitar players don't know what a good tone is. I recently did sound for a band and when I was checking the 1st guitarist, there was this god awful low resonance coming from everywhere in the room. It was the strangest thing I ever heard. I though the PA was feeding back somehow. I pulled the masters down and asked hime to play again. It was still there. I walked up on stage and had a look at his amp. Yep, sure enough. Gain 11, Bass 11, Treble 11, Mid 0. I didn't even have to look to know that the other idiot had his exactly the same. Freakin morons.

 

[Cloneboy Studio]

As a fellow guitarist I can concur that 90% of guitarists have assy tones. In fact, they tend to LIKE assy tones on albums, which makes it worse. Trying to get guitarists to turn up the mids is an exercise in impossibility.

So you have to trick 'em:

For one, don't let them in the iso room w/ the cabinet. Tell them that the mics are sensitive and you can't afford them getting moved. Set them up to play in the control room.

Stick your mic(s) on the amp and listen to the playback in the control room. Hrm... sounds fizzy and crusty and like total butt.

Explain to guitarist you are going to 'adjust the mics'. While you are adjusting mics, adjust the amp's settings to something sane (typically by reducing gain, adding mids, taking bass down to about 3 or 4, rolling off highs no more than 7 or 8)--you may have to adjust whatever fx pedals they have in their chain. If there is anything labeled "Digitech", "Arion", "DOD" or "Korg" in the signal chain unplug it with extreme vengeance. Keep adjusting mics or amp until the guitar wanker is happy in the control room.

Eventually you will dial in the sound that they like by "moving mics" on them.

When you are done with the session you may want to point out to the guitarist where the knobs were really set to hopefully end the reign of crappy guitar tone.

 

[tollbooth]

fizzy end result thingy

yeah - guilty - also fellow guitarist and it took me 20 years to discover the mid control for recording and another 5 to finally have my BASS PLAYER (!!!!!!) turn my gain down in the studio and yell "Try that!" but then she had just been on some session work with a suitably hallowed session guitarist somewhere.

she was right though.

i find this approach particularly important when recording backing guitars oddly enough. they always seem to be the ones where you notice it most. as a true alumni of the apologetics school of lead players, i can vouch for ANY sound we get on a solo, no matter how odd - it was 'deliberate'. i listen to stuff i did in the 80s and wonder why i didn't get sprayed with mosquito repellent for how thin and buzzy my solos were!

oh the things we suffer and learn.

have fun and really hope it works out for you.

paul d
reformed thin guitar player - now chunky and loving it

 

[chessrock]

The main problem is simple volume.

A lot of times, you have to really crank the amp's volume in order to get the tone you want. And when something's blaring that loud, of course it's going to sound great.

Only problem is once it's tracked and played back at more pedestrian levels, it's kind of a let-down.

You have to isolate your cabinet somehow and monitor at a normal level to hear how it's really going to sound when you track.

 

[fitZ2]

I concur with Slippy.

 

[Stratoman79]

Wow, great stuff guys. I'm so glad I found this message board!

 

[grinder]

Since nobody else brought it up, try getting your speaker cab off the floor. Put it up on something solid that won't vibrate or resonate.

 

[tollbooth]

vibration isolation

doh!!!!

yeah - grinder makes a good point - i even flippin' do it myself and forgot to mention.

i have a cool little device from auralex calledthe GRAMMA
(http://www.auralex.com/sound_isolation_gramma/sound_isolation_gramma.asp)

which is basically a heavy composite board platform mounted on thick acoustic foam (i.e. nothing that you couldn't probably make yourself!) - but if you are using it a lot, the GRAMMA is pretty robust. i use one on stage to stop the bass player and drummer from trippping my spring reverb all the time.

but it does make a big difference to what's going on.

i use MoPad isolators under my monitors as well and was utterly staggered at the difference they made straight away.

 

[HangDawg]

You can add some of the extra fuzz to the sound without being to thin by.

1. Track the guitars as mentioned above with fairly light gain and more mids than you would expect.

2. Do another track at almost full gain. Maybe change mic position as needed.

3. Blend the second track in under the first. Just don't add too much. You'll want the first track to be dominant.


This should produce a nice fat and somewhat buzz saw (for lack of better term) guitar track. I used this for 1 song on a album I'm recording right now. I wanted something different for the 1 track and this came out really nice. If I get a chance, I'll post a small clip later this evening.

 

[knightsy]

That Slipperman stuff is crap. Do you really want to be like all these "engineers" who over compress everything and make it sound small? This guy is one of those responsible for mixes sounding the way they do today! Do you really want to head down this path?

Of course you do.

 

[chessrock]

That Slipperman stuff is crap.

I know your post was tongue-in-cheek and all . . . but honestly, I really don't get a whole lot out of the Slipperman post.

It's very entertaining, don't get me wrong. The dude's a silly man, and he's obviously very knowlegable.

But I think the guy tends to over-complicate things. If you honestly went thorugh all of the guy's recommendations, you'd spend all goddamn day getting one decent take. For a good real-world approach, just start with a great amp, dial in a good workable tone, and stick a 57 on the grille.