software

I am starting to do some home recording and i was wondering if anyone could give me some tips for mic placment?

mainly for clean electric sounds. Im using a fender vibrochamp and a sure sm57.

thanks,
edm

This is an easy one... The SM57 is the perfect choice. Angle the mix maybe 30 degrees from the grill cloth about an inch away from it, and position it between the middle of the speaker and the cone itself, aimed towards the cone at that 30 degree angle.

thanks! i will give that a try. i'm also going to try mixing in another mic too.

peace,
edm

this is the kind of thing that is perfect for experimentation ... try a bunch of different positions and see what YOU like ... then let us know

some of my favs include:
about 8quot; in front of the cab - lined up halfway from the edge of the speaker to the center of the cone pointing straight at the grill ..

at the edge of the speaker, against the grill, pointing 'down' the angle of the speaker towards the cone

about 4 feet out from the speaker - poiting right at the speaker - at ear level when playing (hey, it sounds good to my ears there, shouldnt the mic hear it just as well there ? )

i also sometimes mic the back of an open back cab and blend some of that in selectively

have fun
t4d

T4D- We used almost exactly your close and mid setting along with a long setting on a great recording that was far enoguh back that it's neve been digital Idea was applying the micing that David Bowie used on a number of vocals over the years-

The close mic was always on- The mid distance was lightly gated and the far was set with a pretty high threshold-

It was a pretty big room so the sound was pretty spectacular and would have taken a log of bus channels, reverbs delays and gates to reproduce it artifically-

The song had pretty drastic dynamic changes between vs and chorus and the effect was spectacular- On the quite sections, only the close mic picked up, it had no delay and little verb- On the louder parts the mid distance mic would kick in and on the loud sections all 3 mics were on- So on full the room created 3 delays and reverb sounds.

Of course there was a lot of phase cancelation as part of the effect, but as the 2nd and 3rd mics came in we got a very analog big sound and there was a bit of randomness as the gates weren't keyed to track timing.

Just about impossible to reporduce, but when recording you can come up with a lot of sounds if you use your imagination-

well, I used to angle it off axis of the cone with about 7 or 8 inches off the grill but lately I've gotten way better results pointing it dead center and only 5 inches or so away.

woah, zionstrat, any clips of that sound? It sounds terrifying.

It's on 1/2 inch somewhere in the basement from 20years back- Much easier to describe than to get moved to mp3

I keep watching for current projects that might do well wiht this technique and may have found one recently- Will post if we use this technique.

My 3 favourite mics for guitar right now are:
BLUE The Ball, which is an inexpensive ($200) phantom powered dynamic mic. It has the clearest midrange in any mic up to the $2k range.
BLUE Baby Bottle, incredible mid-priced ($500) condenser mic. There's a new model that's replaced it, but I don't recall the name.
AKG 414 ($1k) great close range guitar mic!!

The SM57 is a venerable mic, but I find it to be a bit ragged sounding when you layer multiple tracks up.

twilight-
you nialed on 414-there are now many versions, but all of them provide excelent hi end clarity, but don't saturate on bass - used them for drums ohead, strings and of course vox-

BTW, not all the modles are expenseive, but the same capsul is in the C3000 makign it one of the most affodable, but really good sound mics out there- no polar patterns, but still good-

also agree with blue- use a baby botle on cls gtr and very very articulate

I use an SM 57 for my recordings. About 5-8 inches away, and a little bit of center from the speaker. But this is something you must try out for yourself. Don't be afraid to try different mic's and placement. Good luck!

I like SM57s for that purpose, too, but I usually use 2 of them, one close and one about 4-5 feet out. For a time, I was using a small Shure condenser, too, pointing into a port in the cab for some extra tone option.


Originally Posted by TwilightOdysseyMy 3 favourite mics for guitar right now are:
BLUE The Ball, which is an inexpensive ($200) phantom powered dynamic mic. It has the clearest midrange in any mic up to the $2k range.
BLUE Baby Bottle, incredible mid-priced ($500) condenser mic. There's a new model that's replaced it, but I don't recall the name.
AKG 414 ($1k) great close range guitar mic!!

The SM57 is a venerable mic, but I find it to be a bit ragged sounding when you layer multiple tracks up.

Wow... seriously? sm57's are all Sneap uses for guitar and he layers four tracks of just about everything(excluding leads of course). Different strokes for different folks I guess.


Originally Posted by InstituteOfNoiseThis is an easy one... The SM57 is the perfect choice. Angle the mix maybe 30 degrees from the grill cloth about an inch away from it, and position it between the middle of the speaker and the cone itself, aimed towards the cone at that 30 degree angle.

I've played around a bunch with mic placement and this is the setup I came across as working best for me.
I also like the distant mic method sometimes. I'll go 4-5 feet back, angle the cab up a little and point the mic straight on at the cab.