Heads And Cabs Separated In Studio Room? How's That Working Out? A Report.

Have you tried two mikes and a plexi partition in front of the far mike?
 
Oh Les, your tone controls are your guitar volume knob and your hands. *face-palm* The effects of anesthesia must still be wearing off. :biggrin: I haven't adjusted the tone controls on my amp in a year.

I use my guitar controls too, of course!

But I always set up my amp for the particular guitar I'm playing, and if I'm playing out or at a different studio, I set the amp controls for the room, and even the microphone. Even if it's just tweaking the presence, the gain, the volume for the session or gig, etc.

And I'm messing with amp settings during a session (or gig), too -- it's why I have my amps next to me in the control room.

A year between fiddling with your amp controls? No way I'd be that guy - I need those controls every bit as much as the ones on my guitars. ;)

You know, I was thinking, Les...you need a Vela. I imagine that it would sound fantastic with the DG30 and would be a stark contrast to what you have now. You should go get one. Go ahead, we'll wait...make it a sea foam green one, too. Not an antique white one, that's what I want.

I love the Vela. It's a very, very cool guitar, and when we were all at the factory event, I really thought they were outstanding.

I was particularly smitten with one of the gold ones.
 
Have you tried two mikes and a plexi partition in front of the far mike?

I haven't, for a few reasons. First, I don't recommend plexi partitions for recording. They are good at blocking sound from an audience perspective at live shows, and that's why they were developed, but for recording, they are far too reflective, so they're going to bounce sound back out of phase to the close mic, causing phase cancellations. For recording, it's better to use absorptive partitions (gobos), and that's what most studios, whether major or project, use. Go to most major studios in the world - I've booked a bunch - and you won't see plexiglass partitions near amps, or anywhere really, except as line of sight windows higher up than the speakers and drums so the players can see each other in a live recording setting.

I had Real Traps make me some very effective gobos that I use with my amps, and I also have used ASC Quick Wall traps.

Second, when I use two mics, one of them will usually be a ribbon mic. One of the cool thing about a ribbon is that it is a figure eight mic, meaning that it picks up sound from the front and back, with nulls on the sides of the mic. I can control the amount of room with mic placement and with gobos. So I can pick up sound on the opposite side of the amp with the ribbon as part of what it does. I use either a Royer 121 or a Rode NTR. I actually like the Rode more, even though the Royer is kind of an industry standard at this point.
 
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