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.
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.
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