How
To Mic An Electric Guitar
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by:
Brandon Drury
With modern music (especially pop/rock music) production
demands are greater than ever. The average listener
expects the recording quality of your music to be
the equivalent of those amazing productions you often
hear on the radio. Since this discussion could take
weeks and weeks and page after page, I've decided
to narrow the focus of this guide to recording the
electric guitar.
With any recording, getting the source right is 99%
of the ballgame. This means that a great singer with
great tone will sound good through pretty much any
microphone. This means that a great sounding violinist
with a great sounding violin in a great sounding room
will sound this way through any functional microphone.
Granted, some microphones will impart their character
onto the source (for better or worse), but with any
operating microphone a great musician will still sound
great.
So with the guitar (and anything else you intend to
record), it's important to get the instrument doing
exactly what you want before you even bother putting
a mic in front of it. You should walk around the room
the amp is setup in to hear exactly what is going
on. You might find sweet spots in the room. You may
try actually moving the amp in a few different places
in the room.
In my first recording room (which happened to be very
small and very unideal for recordings), I noticed
that moving an amp just a few inches had a dramatic
effect on the low end coming out of the amplifier.
I later learned that this was quite normal for small
rooms with no acoustic treatment. (Just a side note,
if you are planning on doing treatments for your room,
skip the foam stuff. It probably won't help. In many
instances, it will make the problem worse. Try a search
for "bass trap" or visiting www.recordingreview.com).
So exeriment greatly with the amp before you get serious
about microphones.
In fact, I recommend that you mess with the tone quite
a bit just to see. You could always settle for the
tone already on the amp, or you could push the highs
up too high to see where they end up. You could pull
the highs down too far to see where the tone ends
up. Eventually, you'll find a middle ground that keeps
your perspective out of the way.
The type of guitar you use makes a big difference
on how the amp will sound. This is no secret. However,
many people get in a rush when recording and think
that adding some sort of effect or plugin on the computer
will get them what they are looking for. If you find
that you are not happy with a given guitar, maybe
you should try plugging in a different guitar just
to see. Try doing something off the wall or downright
wrong. You'd be amazed at what kind of recordings
you could get with a Telecaster through a Mesa Boogie
Rectifier. I've heard success stories of acoustic
guitars running through cranked Rectifiers.
When you have a tone that you are pretty confident
about, it's time to pull out the mics. There are a
few methods to trying out mics. You could slap every
mic you own on the amp to see it it's happening for
you. The problem with this approach is mic placement.
Did you take the time with each mic to make sure you
found the best sounding spot on the amp? You could
do this with each mic, but the spot that just sings
for each microphone will probably be in a different
spot for each mic. I tihnk your time could be spent
better.
If you are just starting out and have no idea what
mic would be best for a given job, start with an SM
57. They are cheap and everyone has one. If you don't
have at least one, get one used off of Ebay or something.
In the meantime, grab whatever dynamic you have and
give it a try. There are a number of SM 57 clones
that are essentially the same microphone. Even if
they are not the same mic, try them. You never know.
One trick to help choose the best spot to place the
mic I read in a forum years ago. It said to unplug
the instrument cable from the guitar amp, crank the
amp up to very high levels, and put the SM 57 (or
whatever mic you are using) in front of the speaker.
Next, run the mic through some loud heaphones with
good isolation. Then, with the headphones on, start
moving the mic in front of the speaker. You will be
amazed at what you are hearing. You will hear all
sorts of changes in the tone simply from moving the
mic around. The users of the forum recommended putting
the mic on the brightest spot. I have not had much
luck with putting a mic exactly at the brigthest spot
because it can get a little bit too fizzy at times,
but feel free to try it and see what works. The brightest
spot may be perfect with a darker sounding amp.
My favorite trick when recording guitar amps is to
use two different microphones on one speaker. You
have to be aware of phase cancellation. (If you are
not familiar with phase cancellation, check out my
website, www.recordingreview.com.) However, when you
get the mics in phase, you will have much more control
off your recordings. I find that what I'm looking
for when mixing is much different when I'm tracking.
Sometimes I wish I could go back and change something
on a tone. One rememedy for this is recording the
two mics from one speaker to two seperate tracks that
will allow you to blend them differently to create
different tones on the recording.
I start out by placing one SM 57 on the cone. This
means I put the mic in the dead center of the speaker.
This sound is almost always fizzy and thin. With very
few exceptions, I've found it to be a crappy guitar
sound. As crazy as it may sound, that's exactly what
we want. We want a track in the mix that is bright,
thin crap that we can use as much or as little as
we feel the mood for.
The second mic should sound the opposite. We want
it to be big, meaty, and full of chunky low end. This
mic ends up in different places with every amp that
I use, but most of the time it can be found 2"-3"
from the first mic in any direction. Sometimes angling
the mic towards the edge of the speaker helps, too.
This mic should sound a little dull by itself.
Now record both mics and see what you get. Listen
to each mic by itself first. Then listen to both of
them together. Assuming you like the sound that each
mic makes (Remember, you want one to be too bright
and the other to be too dull) you will experience
one of three things.
1) The sound will be extremely thin sounding as if
you rolled off all the low end with a parametric equalizer.
This means the mics are almost totally out of phase.
The solution is to push the phase button on your preamp
or mixing software. This is what you want. You want
the combined sound of the mics to be so thin that
it isn't usable. Then when you push the phase button
on one track, the tone comes to life. This is what
I always go for.
2) The sound will be big and full. This sound almost
means good things. If you push the phase button, it
should sound like what you may have experienced in
#1. If the tone totally dissapears and all you can
hear is some fizz, you've got the tone down. Push
the phase button back to your big guitars again.
3) The sound is weird. You are not sure what it sounds
like. It's not bad, but it's not right either. Pushing
the phase button only changes the tone in the mids
and does not have make a big impact on the low end.
In this case, some other frequency is out of phase
and the low end is in tact. You need to use your ears
on this one. I usually don't like to leave the mics
like this. I go for #1 or #2. However, many great
engineers use phase cancellation as a way of eq'ing
the amps. This is highly advanced engineering, and
not for the faint of heart However, if you stumble
on a sound that you really like, by all means, go
with it.
Well that gives you food for thought. You'll notice
that we didn't talk about different microphones. The
truth is if you master the techniques above, you won't
have too much need for more mics. If you want to expand
your mic collection, go ahead. There are a number
of mics that work great for electric guitar amps.
Check out my website for details.
About The Author
Brandon Drury has owned www.echoechostudios.com for
years and has recently started a recording website,
www.recordingreview.com
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