Problems with sm57 guitar recordings..

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Goku13

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Well, everytime I mic up any of my amps (either a fender twin or a Crate gx something or other), the recording sounds little like the actual sound. Although it IS a high gain sound I am recording, the end result is usually overly gritty, very scouped out sounding, shrill and generally, the opposite of what the amp actually sounds like. I have been micing off axis just a little, aiming anywhere between the cone and the edge of the speaker, about 1/2 inch or 1 inch away from the grille. Help?
 
Although an SM 57 is a good mic, you can't expect wonder from it recording your guitar.

I would advice you to take a look at your room an dtry several adjustments there: how does your amp sound when it's on a chair? Does it stand with it's back against a wall? In which part of the room is the amp? Try to dampen some reflecting walls.

When you say you don't want to change the amp settings, and you tried several postions of your mic this is the way to expermient I think.
 
Goku13 said:
Well, everytime I mic up any of my amps (either a fender twin or a Crate gx something or other), the recording sounds little like the actual sound. Although it IS a high gain sound I am recording, the end result is usually overly gritty, very scouped out sounding, shrill and generally, the opposite of what the amp actually sounds like. I have been micing off axis just a little, aiming anywhere between the cone and the edge of the speaker, about 1/2 inch or 1 inch away from the grille. Help?
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The mirophone will "hear" your amp somewhat differently than you will hear it in the room. Mostly due to the fact that most of us don't put our ears right up on the grille when we listen to one. :D

Your room also "hears" your amp differently, and does certain things to the sound of it. Normally, when you're listening to your amp, you're not really listening to your amp -- a lot of what you're hearing is reflected sound off your walls, floors, and ceilings.

First off, you have to back up on the gain/drive. I know, I know, it's a painful thing for most guitarists to have to do, but keep in mind that the recording process has a way of exaggerating the amount of gain it's kicking out, so you have to compensate for the differences in the ways your mic is hearing your amp and the way you're hearing your amp in the room.
 
Cool, thanks for the suggestions. I figure I just need to fiddle with the amp/distortion pedal settings.....I think it is interesting the difference between how I hear the amp vs. how the mic hears it when it is up next to it so close..oh well. Someday I will get to experiment more....right now i live in a townhouse with shared walls, so cranking up the fender twin ain't gonna happen haha.
 
the key

is you have to do lots of test recordings with different mic positions. sometimes i also fail miserably. so i will move the mic.
or use a different room or record in a bathroom or a hall or a deader space or a livelier space depending on what sounds best. this is where the ART/SCIENCE of audio engineering comes in. engineering of this nature is what seperates the pro engineers from the rest of us. sometimes ive been able to rescue
my mistakes by reducing the grit in the upper mids. by carefull
application of eq. sometimes i run a track through a plug in
like simulanalog.org which is a free amp sim program.
sometimes ive had good tracks facing an amp into some sort of acoustic padded box and micing from behind the amp.
sometimes as the other poster said on a chair.
sometimes i record both a miced amp plus another track
at the same time going through a pod type device.
but ive proved one thing to myself over the years about sm57
recording. if its not sounding correct then i'm doing something wrong and i go back to fooling around with mic positioning.
because i have had good tracks ive obtained often by luck !
 
:D

Yo Goku+13: [My natal day is on the 13th]

Here is an idea you might think about.

I have this neat little G-Kruger amp that I use in my studio. This little jewel has a by-pass that eliminates the speaker but the amp does its thing to the input/sound.

I used this GK one day when a friend stopped by to add a bass track to something I'd recorded. Since I don't have the perfect "room," I ran his bass into the GK and by-passed the speaker and the enhanced bass went directly to the recorder -- it worked out great.

The GK does cost a few pezzutos; however, maybe one of your amps has a speaker/by-pass?

Then, as I mentioned to DarkAngel, a good mic pre is also a big asset to good results.

Green Hornet


;) :D :cool: Happy New Year
 
The 57 is a great all around mic. Never have too many of them. But heavy guitar isn't my favorite application for it. Check out a Sen e609 silver. I think you'll like it a lot. They are only like 99 bucks on musicans friend.
 
Put it more on axis

Im my opinion, if you feel it is too shallow or scooped out sounding, place it more on axis about 2 finger widths apart. The 57 is probably the most used mic in the history of electric guitar recording. The 57 is a great mic because it has a nice little boost at about 5k, which is good for a lot of applications because in studies, 5k stands out to the human ear.
I feel that if you just mess around with your settings on your amp (more bass, less treb), your eq's in your mix, and your placements, you should find something cool.
But all that said, my favorite mics for cabs are the 57, sennheiser 421, and even the 414 condenser by akg.
 
i would wager the crate won't record very well at all, to begin with.

the suggestions given here are good ones. give them all a shot.

you didn't say whether you were using a lot of distortion on the guitar (unless your "high gain" comment was it and i missed it).

if you are using distortion, use less. a lot of distortion sounds good live, but usually pretty crappy when recorded. a little distortion goes a LONG way when recording. if there's one thing that's great at thinning out a guitar sound when recording, it's too much distortion. turn down the gain.


wade
 
have you thought modelling? my experience is that when i want a decent guitar sound quick it's great to DI the guitar from your effects or from your amp line out and playing with it once you have it down. maybe record the part clean and then run it from your recording device to your amp and mic it. that way you can have the track down and can experiment for hours on end without the burden of having to play. then once you've found a position that works you can re-use it.
 
Ever thought of building some baffles??? When I was in rec school I liked the sound of the cabinet totally surounded by baffles basically enclosing the cab, as apposed to the actual room it was in. This works especially well in my home recording since my basement is less than perfect sonicly.

Pat
 
First of all you may not get the results you want out of the amps you are recording. Garbage in ==> Garbage out. Now if you are using a quality 4X12 100W combo head and cabinet, use Aaron Carey's technique with a stereo pair of 57's and you can't go wrong.

https://homerecording.com/bbs/showthread.php?s=&threadid=64239

Scroll down to the Pipeline audio post by Aaron Carey
 
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