Miking my new amp

AND THEN things may change.
I had mic positions marked on my set up and had some decent tones that passed muster in this thread BUT on my last project everything was "dark". Same mic, same signal chain, same spots on the cloth etc but something, somewhere had changed and so, eventually, did my mic position. I blamed the interface, the speaker, the mic & the guitar but it was placement that made a difference - different placement that is. The problem was tat having solved the problem & marked the spots, used everything as a "standard" set up. I just assumed all was fine & didn't LISTEN. Now I have a tweaked set up & know I need to listen before recording important "keeper" guitar tracks.
 
Large swings in humidity will affect the sound of an amp. Even when you don't move anything, you can still get different results just because of things like that.

It's part of the fun of using actual amps, speakers and microphones.

To the OP, yes the speaker will break in and not be quite so edgy. Most of the time, you will get extended lows which will balance the highs better.
 
Well now you've done it, B_H. I was in my local GC this afternoon and noticed the Vox AC-15C1. Never paid much attention to them before, but because of this thread I sat down with a Mexican Strat to try it out. The Strat was badly needing a setup and wouldn't stay in tune. The amp sounded beautiful. I mean, really nice. Half an hour later I walked out with the amp. So now you've got company.

A spent about an hour trying different settings, mic positions, and a couple of different guitars on the normal channel. Initial results seem good to me. I'll put some clips up on Nola's Small Amp Thread this evening if I get a chance. I've got the house to myself all day tomorrow, so other will follow I'm sure.
 
Robus said:
Well now you've done it, B_H. I was in my local GC this afternoon and noticed the Vox AC-15C1. Never paid much attention to them before, but because of this thread I sat down with a Mexican Strat to try it out. The Strat was badly needing a setup and wouldn't stay in tune. The amp sounded beautiful. I mean, really nice. Half an hour later I walked out with the amp. So now you've got company.

A spent about an hour trying different settings, mic positions, and a couple of different guitars on the normal channel. Initial results seem good to me. I'll put some clips up on Nola's Small Amp Thread this evening if I get a chance. I've got the house to myself all day tomorrow, so other will follow I'm sure.
Click to expand...

Haha you are such an amp slut.
 
I like this amp. The reverb is sexy. It almost sounds like a delay.

Here's what I've got. Both clips were on the normal channel, tremolo off, reverb about 9:00 position, tone knob straight up, master volume and channel gain about 2:00 position. It was loud. Of course I was in the next room listening on monitors. It's an SM57 on axis, about 1/4 inch off the grille cloth. I didn't use a flashlight to check the dust cap location, just eyeballed it judging from the back of the speaker. I'd guess I was a couple of inches out from the seam. No effects but the amp reverb. The only other thing to note is that my mic signal passes through an external preamp and an ART Pro VLAII compressor on the way in.

Here's a Tele, bridge pickup. Clean but with a nice breakup. The song mix follows with a little lead part thrown in, same settings.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0BzqJIqBR8uJeT1NhVWxQMHgzRzA/view?usp=sharing

Here's an SG, bridge pickup, driving it harder:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0BzqJIqBR8uJeZW04bnJwd1hGRlE/view?usp=sharing
 
Last edited:
Robus;
Toward the end of your first clip the odd distortion that I'm talking about hits. High pitch fizzy sound I'm not fond of.
It's all over the SG clip.
Whenever I try to push the thing at all past clean that fizz shows up.
Okay. Next chance I get I'll post some tones. I'm running the amp as dark as I can and using the rhythm pups pretty much exclusively and nothing I've done sounds like what you've posted. I can get those kinds of tones in the room, but not in the box.
My next step will be to do some other checks with the 57. I had two and sold one because I wasn't using both. One was from GC new and the other from a pawn. The GC (new) one was light and sounded bad (assumed it was a knock-off). Maybe I accidentally sold the wrong mike :eek: If life had no mistakes, what would we ever learn?
 
I'd be surprised if GC was selling bogus microphones. Still thinking your mic is not the issue. I'm not hearing anything I don't like in those clips. Those bright harmonics in the distortion is the sound I associate with Vox, though I haven't played them much. Maybe the Vox heads can chime in... ;) What sounds are you looking for?

I'm tracking guitars for a new song this afternoon, so I should have more tones later.
 
Nope, correct. Checked the 57 with straight vocal yesterday and everything was clean and clear. No bottom end drop.

I've got the tone boost treble 100% off. I've got the Tone Cut knob 100% and EVERYTHING sounds extremely bright like a strat on steroids...
Got the mike tight to the grill (without touching) and I've run from the middle to the outside and get crap. I'm pointing at the middle of the speaker (top to bottom middle, not center). Not clipping, not bad gain staging, not getting any usable tones.
I wanted a nice, clean, (in a Vox world) Tom Petty-ish sound. Dire Straights' Sultans clean. I can achieve the sound in the room, but when I mike it, I've got to turn all the treble off that I can, switch to rhythm pups and still it's too bright. Same with dist sounds. I can get a nice, chimey, saturated sound in the room, but in the box it's got no bottom (like I've got the HPF on) and most of the distortion just isn't there. Tried cranking every know in desperation and got the expected fizzy, ugly tone which recorded with no bottom and sounded poorly distorted.
I liked the tones in those clips as well. Wish I could record something like that.
 
B_H, I'd guess you're killing it by boosting the tone cut and cutting the treble. It needs some high end. If you're finding it too bright, try using your guitar controls. Crank it up so that you can dial back the guitar volume to get your clean tone. Use your guitar's tone knob to take the edge off. Try the normal channel. It's darker and I'm liking it better. It controls very nicely through the guitar. And fewer knobs, so harder to screw up! The clip below is actually pretty dark.

Something else to try is playing with the balance between master volume and channel gain. I haven't investigated all the combinations yet, but it seems to sound okay keeping the two at the same level. It sounds nice quiet, but where I would start tracking would be 12:00 and up.

I spent a couple of hours working on guitar tracks yesterday. The clip used the SG neck pickup and about the same settings as before. Normal channel, master and channel volume 2:00, tone cut straight up, reverb 9:30, tremolo off. SM57 on axis, 1/4 inch from the grille and right at the seam. Mic signal through external preamp and compressor. Guitar soloed, then centered in the mix. Guitars left and right are DI through the speaker emulation of a Hughes and Kettner TM18. Bass is a Fender P.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0BzqJIqBR8uJeRTl4N2wtMU1CcW8/view?usp=sharing

There is a tube rattle that I need to sort out.
 
Okay. Again, I have to rethink. I'm thinking putting a Tube Screamer in front of the signal to get more dist, and you're saying crank the amp (it's too loud to stick my ear in front of for more than a few seconds at a time now), but I've just been pushing full volume in and playing with the different pickups and tone controls on the guitars...there are volume knobs there, too! :) I'll keep playing. Haven't had a day off in a while. Think I'm off Monday. I'll try to get something recorded and pushed here then...
The amp sounds very nice with everything straight up (Master, Cut, Normal, Boost, Bass, Treble) Pushing almost any of them full up (except master) makes the sound a bit wonk. I can cut or push the treble/bass/boost moderately and get nice tones from there, but the normal just introduces unpleasantness...well, not with the Hamer. Almost anything sounds good with it. My poor Mockingbird hasn't been touched since I got the amp. Maybe I should pull it down. When I'm trying to get tones, the LP and Hamper are easiest because they don't cost 1/2 an hour to retune...

Side note: I watched Running Down A Dream a couple weeks ago and was surprised by the number of different guitars they used into their Vox amps and got great tones. But that probably has as much to do with the pedals before the amps as the amps themselves. Those guys can afford some nice stompers.

Anyway, enough babel. I'll post some tones sometime Monday. Maybe what I'm getting is what I'm supposed to, but my ITB does not sound anything like Robus' Guess I'll post it and see. :)
 
If you think it's too bright, a tube screamer will make it worse. That's one of the reasons people use the tube screamer, to get more edge out of an amp.
 
BroKen_H said:
Okay. Again, I have to rethink. I'm thinking putting a Tube Screamer in front of the signal to get more dist, and you're saying crank the amp (it's too loud to stick my ear in front of for more than a few seconds at a time now), but I've just been pushing full volume in and playing with the different pickups and tone controls on the guitars...there are volume knobs there, too! :) I'll keep playing. Haven't had a day off in a while. Think I'm off Monday. I'll try to get something recorded and pushed here then...
The amp sounds very nice with everything straight up (Master, Cut, Normal, Boost, Bass, Treble) Pushing almost any of them full up (except master) makes the sound a bit wonk. I can cut or push the treble/bass/boost moderately and get nice tones from there, but the normal just introduces unpleasantness...well, not with the Hamer. Almost anything sounds good with it. My poor Mockingbird hasn't been touched since I got the amp. Maybe I should pull it down. When I'm trying to get tones, the LP and Hamper are easiest because they don't cost 1/2 an hour to retune...

Side note: I watched Running Down A Dream a couple weeks ago and was surprised by the number of different guitars they used into their Vox amps and got great tones. But that probably has as much to do with the pedals before the amps as the amps themselves. Those guys can afford some nice stompers.

Anyway, enough babel. I'll post some tones sometime Monday. Maybe what I'm getting is what I'm supposed to, but my ITB does not sound anything like Robus' Guess I'll post it and see. :)
Click to expand...

Dude, don't put your ear in front of the speaker! I'm sure whoever suggested it meant doing it briefly and not too loud, but still. Why subject your eardrums to those SPLs? Anyway your eardrum is not the diaphragm of an SM57 or vice versa. The frequency sensitivities will be different. You won't "hear" what the mic "hears." Your monitors will give you the best indication of what the mic is actually picking up.

What kind of pickups are you using? The front end of this amp seems quite sensitive. That SG you heard has Duncan Seth Lovers, low-output PAF-style humbuckers. I've got them screwed down pretty low too. With the volume and channel gain at 1:30-2:00, those pickups pummel the preamp. I had to turn the guitar volume knob way down to get anything close to clean. The lead snippets in the last clip were recorded with the guitar volume rolled back, and there's still a fair bit of hair on the tone. The tone also gets darker as I roll back the guitar volume, which works well in balancing out the inherently bright tone of this amp.

I guess all that was by way of saying, you shouldn't have any trouble getting distortion out of this amp. Just turn it up. Loud and clean is going to be the challenge, obviously within the limits of what a 15 watt amp can do. I haven't tried any pedals in front of this amp yet, well apart from delay (no loop, unfortunately).

You mentioned sorting out rattles and vibrations. What were you hearing, and what did you do about it? There's what I take to be a tube rattle that you can clearly hear in that clip. I don't hear it in the mix, so not a deal-breaker. But it will have to be sorted. I haven't yet had the rear panel off to investigate. The joys of a combo amp!
 
The Hamer has some Black Seymour Duncans (don't know the model, damn near 10 years ago...), the LP and the Mockingbird are stock. The Hamer sounds good all over the spectrum, but not recorded. The LP is trickier, maybe a little less volume from the pups will help. :) Something new to try.

The rattles were from other items in the room that suddenly told me they were loose when I first pumpted the volume. :D Veddy nice! That's not the problem. I get great tones to my ears, I just can't get them through the mike to the track. I'll see what comes out on Monday. :) It could very well be that I'm a deuce guitar player that uses a fingernail for a pick 98% of the time and has very large meat hooks that don't always do what the brain wants...or at least that could be part of it.

"Your monitors will give you the best indication of what the mic is actually picking up." Exactly the problem. What comes out the speaker is great. What comes out the monitors is crap...
 
BroKen_H said:
"Your monitors will give you the best indication of what the mic is actually picking up." Exactly the problem. What comes out the speaker is great. What comes out the monitors is crap...
Click to expand...
Exactly his point. Ignore what comes out of the speaker, concentrate on what comes out of the monitors. It kind of sucks with combo amps, since you can't put the cabinet in another room...
 
Farview said:
It kind of sucks with combo amps, since you can't put the cabinet in another room...
Click to expand...

I do, actually. Granted it's more convenient with a head/cab when the head can go in the control room and the cab elsewhere. Even with a combo, to me it's worth a few extra steps when dialing it in to be able to hear exactly how the guitar will sit in the mix as I'm tracking, and at levels that don't fatigue my ears.
 
Right, but with a head, you can just twist the knobs in the control room, instead of listening, walking, twisting, walking, listening, etc...
 
Okay, gonna try this, and have to admit there must have been some kind of user error going on, but not sure what because this morning, same amp, same guitars, same mike placement, same DAW, same interface gave me some decent tones...
Dominance and Submission
Les Paul Rhythm Master 9:00, Tone Cut 1200, Reverb 9:00 Normal 5:30 (dimed)
Les Paul Treble Same settings
Hamer Treble Same settings with echo and compression
All three mixed
Sultans of Swing
Hamer Treble Master 12:00, Tone Cut 1:00, Reverb 9:00, Bass 3:30, Treble, 7:30 Boost 1:00, Normal 10:00

Sorry for the sloppy playing. ;)
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top