The Mic-adontist Is In...Maybe

[László]

I've been reading a bit on Glyn Johns, the great British recording engineer whose list of album credits is absolutely insanely great. I mean...Zep...Beatles...Who's Next...Rolling Stones...Dylan...many others.

One of the points he makes about miking drums made me think about miking guitar amps. He said in an interview that if you put the mics too close to the drums, they can't capture the the resonance of the kit, because a drum kit is meant to have the sound to essentially bloom and project into the room. There's a distance at which you can capture this, and distances that are too far, and too close.

Well, he's right of course, and that being the case for a drum, it's equally true for a guitar cabinet.

Come to think of it, I'd never record a trumpet or sax with the mic in the bell, I'd always pull it back to capture the expansion of the sound into the room. Same with a double-bass.

But I've always close-miked guitar cabinets, mostly with dynamic mics and lately, ribbons, and combinations of the two. It's easy. It's a no-brainer. Find a good spot on the speaker, and go. But...there could be something better.

A typical guitar speaker is 12 inches in diameter. If my mic is picking up about two square inches of that speaker, and almost none of the resonance of the cab, it seems to me that I'm probably missing something important in that guitar sound that might matter, right? And a guitar speaker is a cone. A cone is designed to project sound some distance, like a megaphone! And to have the sound expand as it "explodes" into the space of the room.

In other words, sure I'm getting a lot of detail and oomph, but at the cost of context and lots of other factors.

This thing of sticking a mic against the grill of the amp is a creature of the 70s. So I went back and looked at pictures of studio setups of famous 60s sessions, and sure enough, the mics are usually a bit farther back. No, they're not "room mics," they're just placed to capture more of the sound of the cabinet. From the pictures, the mics appear to be 1-2 feet back from the cabs, depending on the mic and the session, of course. 1-2 feet seems to be about the norm for many of these old pictures...and they got really good guitar sounds, in some cases, iconic guitar sounds that we really don't hear much any more.

In many cases, the mics are condensers. It's unclear of course what settings were used; were they set in omni patterns? Cardiod? Figure 8? I dunno. But I'm gonna find out.

Yesterday I watched Pete Thorn's new video on using load boxes and impulse responses from speaker cabs, and he's right, they sound very, very close indeed. But here's the rub: A guitar cab in a room doesn't sound like your ear is two inches from the speaker grille! There's a point at which it blooms into the room, and it seems to me that without that special bloom and resonant quality, well, we all may as well just go ahead and stop miking cabs.

Sure, we'll all sound alike. I dunno. I don't want to sound alike. I want some personality injected into my recordings!

I gotta be meeeeeee......

So I've decided that I'm going to spend a couple of days learning how to really find the sweet spot, the way I do with an acoustic guitar, and capture a better electric guitar sound. I'll make some recordings, and report back, hopefully with some good clips.

I might fail. But there really isn't much of a downside, since I already know how to do the close miking thing, and I don't have a project this weekend.

 

[Dusty Chalk]

So two points:

1 - This might be okay if you have a good room, but I don't. And digital technology being what it is, there are some quite good reverbs out there for recreating that "in the room" sound (I'm particularly fond of IR based reverbs for this). So, for those of us who don't make a living this way, seems like a reasonable compromise.

2 - Depends how you monitor the resultant recording. Someone played me some guitar through a Kemperer, and I was immediately repulsed (semi-pun intended). But in hindsight, I think the problem was that I was hearing two rooms -- the one being modeled in the Kemper, and the actual room -- he was playing it back on some very nice midfield monitors. I'm going to have to revisit the whole Kemperer thing with that in mind.

If you're talking the 60s and 70s, they did a lot of monitoring with the LS3/5a, which are explicitly nearfield monitors (they just don't go loud very well at all).

So keep that in mind, is all I'm saying. Don't make the mistake I made.

3 - I've heard your recordings. I'm not sure you have much room for improvement.

Okay, three points.

4 - Besides, if one knows what one is doing, one can use the proximity effect to good...er...effect.

Okay, four points.

5 - (Okay, 5 points) I remember reading an article that said punk was famous for using that close-miked guitar cabinet sound, so they recorded that album (I think it was a pop punk album -- Green Day?) close-miked. It's a sound, just as not-close-miked is a sound. So from the perspective of a recording engineer, one should practice both, so that one knows which to utilize in which circumstances.

Okay, that last one may have been your point, and I'm just doing that thing I do where I think I know a better way to say it, but not really adding anything to the conversation, so...carry on.

 

[László]

The points you make are excellent and well-taken.

First, I have a truly good-sounding room.

Second, what I'm talking about is not room miking. It's close-miking the way I record acoustic guitar, that is, find the sweet spot where you capture the projected tone of the instrument and also get the mic in focus; this will vary from mic to mic. As an example, when I record my Tonare with a single LD condenser like a U89 or 414, it'll be about 8-10 inches away from the instrument. However, when I use SDCs in stereo using the Dutch NOS technique, it's about two feet back. Etc.

In both cases I'm not trying to get much room sound, just get a nice sound picture of the instrument. The NOS (stands for Netherlands radio system in Dutch) gives me tremendous detail but also depth of field like a focused lens. Both techniques take a bit of extra reverb well.

These are the kinds of things I'm talking about.

Incidentally, I'm very familiar with the monitors you're referring to! They're the old BBC spec monitors made by Rogers and Spendor, etc. Had a set of the Rogers in my own room for a test back in the day, powered by a big Krell amp. Sounded very good, but at the time I was into the speakers that they were using at Air Studios (George Martin's facility), and they were using B&Ws. I liked them a lot better, though of course, they were a newer and larger design. In any case, that's what I wound up with when I first set up a serious room in the late 80s.

But those LS3/5as weren't spec'd by BBC or made until the mid 70s.

In the US the most common studio monitors at the time were JBL 4331 bookshelves and very large Altec speakers with the blue center mounted horn tweeters. Guys used to hang them from ceiling beams with chains when they weren't soffit mounted!

The thing about sticking a mic on the grille is that it made overdubbing and layering for big sounds simple. But these days I think folks are interested in something more organic, and I think there's very little room interaction when a directional mic is only a foot away from a loud guitar amp in any case. And room pickup is easily controlled with a hypercardioid mic if it's an issue.

 

[John Beef]

I also read about Glyn Johns recently. Must be something in the air. I have been planning our next album and how to record it, and there are some things I'd like to try. Thinking about which songs would be best served by typical close-mic drums and guitar amps, and which songs might be better served by 4 mics around the kit and some room mics for the guitars.

A 15 year old Rode NT1 close mic'ed on the guitar cab has been the mic choice in all my previous recordings. I have tried many other mics up close and the NT1 just works. However, I switched from a closed back 4x12 to an open back 2x12 about a year ago, and not only am I trying to figure out which cab to record with, but how to mic up the open back cab should I go that way. The cab has two different speakers in it which work together to get the sound I'm hearing several feet away, so I would want to capture the sound of both speakers. The open back 2x12 fills the room with sound whereas the 4x12 was very directional.

 

[László]

I also read about Glyn Johns recently. Must be something in the air. I have been planning our next album and how to record it, and there are some things I'd like to try. Thinking about which songs would be best served by typical close-mic drums and guitar amps, and which songs might be better served by 4 mics around the kit and some room mics for the guitars.

A 15 year old Rode NT1 close mic'ed on the guitar cab has been the mic choice in all my previous recordings. I have tried many other mics up close and the NT1 just works. However, I switched from a closed back 4x12 to an open back 2x12 about a year ago, and not only am I trying to figure out which cab to record with, but how to mic up the open back cab should I go that way. The cab has two different speakers in it which work together to get the sound I'm hearing several feet away, so I would want to capture the sound of both speakers. The open back 2x12 fills the room with sound whereas the 4x12 was very directional.

I'm not a believer in miking the back of a cab. Most folks don't listen to a backwards cab, they listen in front. So I'd use an omnidirectional mic set up a bit farther in front of the amp, that will pick up plenty of the sound of the cab in the room, and maybe blend it with a closer-in mic. Of course, you'd want to pay attention to phase cancellations in either case.

YMMV, of course.

A ribbon would work very well instead of the omni mic also, because it will pick up a lot of detail and it's a figure-8 pattern.

 

[Dusty Chalk]

Second, what I'm talking about is not room miking. It's close-miking the way I record acoustic guitar, that is, find the sweet spot where you capture the projected tone of the instrument and also get the mic in focus; this will vary from mic to mic. As an example, when I record my Tonare with a single LD condenser like a U89 or 414, it'll be about 8-10 inches away from the instrument. However, when I use SDCs in stereo using the Dutch NOS technique, it's about two feet back. Etc.

In both cases I'm not trying to get much room sound, just get a nice sound picture of the instrument. The NOS (stands for Netherlands radio system in Dutch) gives me tremendous detail but also depth of field like a focused lens. Both techniques take a bit of extra reverb well.

Ah, you're right, I missed that, thanks for the amplifying (snicker) data.

You know, my room doesn't sound that bad, I think I'll give it a try.

 

[alantig]

Oddly enough, I just read a column about this.

http://www.premierguitar.com/articl...tarist-two-mics-are-sometimes-better-than-one

Interesting ideas. I have not checked out the audio/video content.

There was a recording engineer/producer at the last couple Experiences. He showed a technique he used that I've used a fair bit as well. Two mics, about 45-degree angle between them, but at the same point on the cone. So it's close-miked, but one essentially off-axis. Blend to taste.

The best part of all this?

There's no right answer.

Or, more accurately, there are millions of right answers.

It's all what sounds good to you. And that's bound to be different for all of us.

 

[László]

It's all what sounds good to you. And that's bound to be different for all of us.

I'd say that's very true.

Except of course, if I think it sounds good, Everyone Must Obey.

 

[sergiodeblanc]

Since isolation isn't really too much of a concern if you're just recording guitar, I say have fun and move that mic around! I would however keep that 57 against the grill just in case a "magical" guitar performance happens.

I've never had much success with the Glyn Johns mic technique for drums, usually because the drummers I've had to record weren't always as skilled at controlling their hits as they kinda need to be to make proper use of that technique. It was okay for some indie/garage rock stuff, but most of the time I had to default back to close-mics and a room mic.

Speaking of room mics... My favorite positioning for one was to take it as far away as the cable would allow, and then point it absolutely nowhere near the source. Stick it in the corner of the room pointing towards the ceiling... magic.

 

[László]

Since isolation isn't really too much of a concern if you're just recording guitar, I say have fun and move that mic around! I would however keep that 57 against the grill just in case a "magical" guitar performance happens.

I've never had much success with the Glyn Johns mic technique for drums, usually because the drummers I've had to record weren't always as skilled at controlling their hits as they kinda need to be to make proper use of that technique. It was okay for some indie/garage rock stuff, but most of the time I had to default back to close-mics and a room mic.

Speaking of room mics... My favorite positioning for one was to take it as far away as the cable would allow, and then point it absolutely nowhere near the source. Stick it in the corner of the room pointing towards the ceiling... magic.

Yeah, it's fun experimenting with room mics, though I actually blend in very little of them. I kinda like the sound of a drier kit, a la Roger Nichols, whose work is under appreciated. Then again, for most of the ad work, I just wind up triggering samples or just using samples in the first place.

For a "real" track, I'd definitely keep the 57-against-the-grille reference, but truth is that I have very, very few magical takes.

OK, more like none. More like, I'm lucky if a take sounds like the guy on guitar (that would be me) had a clue that it was even a guitar.

 

[sergiodeblanc]

Yeah, it's fun experimenting with room mics, though I actually blend in very little of them. I kinda like the sound of a drier kit, a la Roger Nichols, whose work is under appreciated. Then again, for most of the ad work, I just wind up triggering samples or just using samples in the first place.

For a "real" track, I'd definitely keep the 57-against-the-grille reference, but truth is that I have very, very few magical takes.

OK, more like none. More like, I'm lucky if a take sounds like the guy on guitar (that would be me) had a clue that it was even a guitar.

Oh, I'd never use much of the room mic either. It'd just be that tiny bit of room that would glue the whole thing together, especially for a drum kit. I'm sure you're not surprised to hear that when I work, my personal preferences don't get taken into account too often. It's usually more about making that sweaty dude dripping on my sofa happy.

I'm sure you get magical takes, I've heard your work. Besides, it's always those damn scratch/placeholder takes that I've recorded poorly and have to find a way to fix that wind up in the track.

 

[László]

Besides, it's always those damn scratch/placeholder takes that I've recorded poorly and have to find a way to fix that wind up in the track.

So true. And I often record them in the middle of the night with software and get a sucky sound and can't duplicate what I did, and so I'm stuck re-amping. Which is not as good as just playing through the amp.

However, I got this nifty Mesa Cab Clone load box, and it sounds pretty darn good. So now I can at least get the scratch tracks through an amp, and then use a guitar cab impulse response, which often works out.

Of course, since buying the Cab Clone, Suhr has come out with a reactive load box that is actually probably a better choice. It never ends, really...

 

[László]

The Mic-adontist screwed up his back dinking around with pedals and pedalboard wiring yesterday and this AM, and will not, repeat, will not be scheduling a recording session to test out his mic technique theories.

The Mic-adontist is a total f*^& up.

 

[justmund]

Get well soon Les

 

[sergiodeblanc]

Ouch!

 

[Boogie]

Dude...don't make me come over there. I'll turn this thread right around, little mister. Take better care of yourself.

 

[Tosca]

The Mic-adontist screwed up his back dinking around with pedals...

Damn Les...you're having a rough year. Hoping you feel better and your luck/karma/health improve quickly.

 

[Dusty Chalk]

Yeezh.

I hope you feel better soonish.

 

[rugerpc]

Jeepers, Les.

Time to buy a new rabbit's foot!

 

[László]

Oh I'm OK, this is nothing like what I went through before! It's just soreness.

I overdid it with bending over the pedal board for hours rearranging pedals while the board was on the floor, so then I carried it upstairs it to put it on a table to work on it, and it's heavier than what I should be lifting, let alone carrying on stairs, so I put a lot of strain on my incision, too, and my back went into spasm to compensate.

To make matters worse, I carried the heavy (not heavy for you guys, but heavy for a person who's had surgery recently) guitar cases up and down into the studio and back testing the connections and tones with various guitars, and then after all that effort, I suddenly heard what I thought was a ground loop. I heard this hum...which...uh...caused more screwing around, until I finally realized that it wasn't even hum, it was low frequency mechanical noise leaking into the studio because my wife was doing simultaneously doing a few loads of laundry. Never noticed that before because she isn't usually doing that when I'm in the studio!

So...more trips up and down the stairs with the guitars, and more work on the pedal wiring - gaaah! - before I figured that out...and...torture for my back.

However, I spent tonight with some meds and my trusty "zapper," one of those transcutaneous nerve stimulators (I have a really good computerized one that I got from a doc who specializes in back problems), and finally I feel pretty decent.

So I set up mics, and tomorrow I'll do some testing.

If it doesn't work on Day One, it'll surely work on Day Two.