Question about micing amps...

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go fight x kill

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i dont know if this is the right place to ask this or not, because im not sure what category it falls under. but i was hoping to get an answer anyways.

ok, recently, i bought a yamaha aw16g digital mixer, and i recorded some guitar stuff. the mic i used was a shure sm57. and when i played the guitar it sounded fine, but when i recorded it, it sounded muddy for some reason. can anyone give me some tips on how to make it sound more like it does in real life before i record it?

any help is appreciated.
--tyler
 
Where did you place the mic.... mid to outer cone will be kinda muddy, center will be bright, somewhere in between is best.
What preamp did you use? Any EQ? Did you roll off everything under 120hz or so like you probably should?
SM57's sound muddy/boxy anyway. Try a better mic too.
Paul
 
i put the mic in the middle of the top right speaker..
 
how fast is your computer. THat might have something to do with it
 
You may be confusing the sound you are hearing while standing in front of the amp with how it sounds right in front of the speaker where the mic is. Try listening through headphones and adjust your amp to suit. You may even try angling your amp toward you so you can hear more of it and less of the room. Some folks around here don't like SM57's on amps, but there have been literally thousands of hit records made with that very mic. It can be done.

Blessings, Terry
 
You should be able to get a decent signal with your 57. Try 2-4" away from center of speaker and work your way out until you hear what you want. If you still don't like it, try a mid sized condenser
 
You should have someone sweep the SM57 across the speaker while you monitor with headphones or in another room, that would help. It sounds like a placement issue. Hell, the sound you want might be 4 feet back with the SM57 or another mic!

War
 
Never could manage to have my amp the way I like to play by myself and have it record good. A lot of people like that chunky sound and to really feel the guitar and it just doesn't translate well. If you can't pull it off with mic placement try adjusting your amp and maybe lowering the volume if it's very loud. If the amp is in a corner I would move it. And like everyone said... You have to monitor it from another room if at all possible. When I am setting my self up I use an extra long guitar cord. Not ideal but it works for me.

Just my thoughts.

F.S.
 
I've found that every amp/speaker set up has its sweet spot as far as volume goes. Try messing with the volume and eq controls on the amp as well as messing with microphone placement. Don't be afraid to turn the bass control way down and the mid control way up if you need to. Electric guitars are mostly about mids, anyway. If your amp has two speakers, one sometimes sounds better than the other.

I've had great success with close miking with my SM57, putting the microphone on an angle and pointing it at the cone somewhere between the centre and outer edge, adjusting for clarity and brightness (the closer to the centre, the brighter and clearer the sound). This has been mentioned above, but it's good to know.
 
mic placement?

Mic the amp at the back if it is an open faced tube amp. That is where I always mic my amps. If I am not wrong I think the live recordings on my website are mic'ed with a 57.

you can hear the sound on my website mp3's
 
go fight x kill said:
when i played the guitar it sounded fine, but when i recorded it, it sounded muddy for some reason. can anyone give me some tips on how to make it sound more like it does in real life before i record it?
Click to expand...

Unfortunately, what you are hearing "in real life" as you put it, from your vantage point, is almost always going to be different from what you'll get once it's recorded. You see, a microphone just hears things differently than our ears do.

What it's going to take is experimentation, and probably lots of it. Most of the ideas presented so far are all valid, but unfortunately, there's no one right answer. You may need to move the mic around . . . you may need to pick the amp up off the floor. You might need to switch pickups . . . or you might need to play with the treble/mid/bass and gain controls on your amp. You might try mic'ing the back of it . . . you might try mic'ing the side or the bottom of it. :D

It might even be that your amp just doesn't record well. I've known many amps that sound deceptively good while they're being played in the room, but just don't seem to track very well in a recording situation. It happens. My prefered method is that of least work and least resistance. In other words, I just choose an amp that I know records well . . . and I stick whatever dynamic mic I have lying around, put it on the speaker, and there's my sound.
 
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