mikeing guitars (duh)

  • Thread starter Thread starter bigballsworth
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bigballsworth

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first off, how the fuck do you spell the action of recording a sound with a micrphone? micing, miking, kigeing, whatever)



Ok. I'm not asking a question about HOW to mic a guitar (amp) but rather, if it really needs to be done. Until recently, miking an amp was pretty much out of the question cuz i only had a 424mkIII and/or a computer with 2 soundcards. Well, I didn't really have anything resembling a proper monitoring system so miking an amp was uselss if i wanted to stay on beat and all that madness. So anyways the stars aligned and now i (or we if youinclude all the ppl) have a formidable number of mics and like a (psuedo)monitor. I'm rambling cuz i'm bored, but the point is, I've heard alot of people around my age with roughly all (probably a little less) of my newfound resources who tried to record and mic'ed their amps. All of their's sounded honestly like crap. Part of it was they probably don't have a great amp, some that they didn't take the time to get a good sound out of the amp/into the mixer. Some of it might be noone mastered it. blah blah blah blah.

The real question here is, How many albums get away with not micing, anyone got some examples of both techniques (on their own recordings and preferably some "real" tracks)?
Can you definently tell a difference between a non-miced and mic'ed guitar?
 
You would most certaintly be able to tell the difference between a DI'd guitar and a mic'd up amp. You could however try using a POD. I've heard they are very good. I don't have a personal opinion though until January.............. Need the Money!
 
ok neil i'm sure YOU could hear the difference. could i? i dunno...How bout some specific examples of the two. (Or is not micing so unheard of that it has never happenend before?)

I'll try to get some of my old recordings up and see if ya'll can tell the difference but the quality in general there sucks....oh well
 
first off, how the fuck do you spell the action of recording a sound with a micrphone? micing, miking, kigeing, whatever)
Click to expand...

You mic a guitar amp.
They are miking several guitar amps.
How many mics do you have?
 
Yeah, well, I actually did poorly in most HS english classes. I really didn't learn a whole lot until I went to college and it was on my dime.

Why couldn't you mic up your guitar amp without a monitor system when using the four-track? You don't want the monitors bleeding into the mic to begin with so you wouldn't have used them anyway.

Even though I had a monitor system when I was four-tracking, I always had phones on when doing anything with a hot mic.

I never run a guitar direct. It's always miked. And by the way, you don't need a zillion watt Marshall stack to record electric guitar. I use a 15 watt Marshall that's no bigger than a breadbox and it sounds fine.
 
There is a definite difference between the sound of a guitar DI'd and miked. DI typically has a colder sound in comparison with the use of a mic. Either approach can produce quality results, provided the engineer spends time either experimenting with mic placement or in the case of DI, manipulating the amp or amp modeler (factory presets on modelers tend to be crap right out of the box. It takes time to really get the most out of an amp modeler). It also depends on the song you are recording and the sound you are trying to achieve. Many people here have had very successful results combining DI and mic sounds together, perhaps because certain tones deficient in one is captured in the other.

As for good sounding professional recordings, most of the time the guitar was miked since the studio provides a decent room to mic in. There are exceptions though. The rhythm guitars to Zeppelin's "Black Dog" were recorded direct. No one to my knowledge has ever complained about the guitar sound on this track, which suggests to me that it's more about the guy behind the desk than the approach used.

Cy
 
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