Andy's guitar EQ when mixing

[Metaltastic]

I definitely have placed the mic there quite a bit. I get closer to dustcap for a bright tone and farther away for more lows and mids, obviously.

I'll sometimes spend hours getting two mics to phase in a cool way. For instance i'll take a 57 and place it til its bitching then put up a 421 or beyer 201 and go for some great low end. Then i'll flip the phase on the 421 and see whats leftover in the frequencies. Because what is there when you flip the phase is whats missing when its not flipped. Then i'll basically just move the mic until it sounds so tiny and horrible that i cant bear to listen to it anymore. Then i'll flip the 421 or whatever im using back in phase and BAM its usually a way beefier version of what i had going on with the 57 before.

Its really something i've focused on doing more in the past few years, before i would just put up a few mics and make them all sound great on their own and not realize that i probably had some phasing issues in there once i started blending them all. Now i really try and use the phasing to my advantage, and i really make sure thats its not noticable at all when the guitar is solo'd. I'll put an eq on the guitar and just crank the HELL out of some random frequencies and just sweep through the spectrum... phasing tends to show its face more when you start eqing. If i can crank the eq and not hear anything major, i should be cool.

Hope that makes sense.

Ha! That's pretty funny, and also quite clever (the "reversing the phase and moving mic 2 to sound shittiest" strategy, I mean). Definitely gonna have to try that soon, thanks!

 

[J.DavisNJ]

I definitely have placed the mic there quite a bit. I get closer to dustcap for a bright tone and farther away for more lows and mids, obviously.

I'll sometimes spend hours getting two mics to phase in a cool way. For instance i'll take a 57 and place it til its bitching then put up a 421 or beyer 201 and go for some great low end. Then i'll flip the phase on the 421 and see whats leftover in the frequencies. Because what is there when you flip the phase is whats missing when its not flipped. Then i'll basically just move the mic until it sounds so tiny and horrible that i cant bear to listen to it anymore. Then i'll flip the 421 or whatever im using back in phase and BAM its usually a way beefier version of what i had going on with the 57 before.

Its really something i've focused on doing more in the past few years, before i would just put up a few mics and make them all sound great on their own and not realize that i probably had some phasing issues in there once i started blending them all. Now i really try and use the phasing to my advantage, and i really make sure thats its not noticable at all when the guitar is solo'd. I'll put an eq on the guitar and just crank the HELL out of some random frequencies and just sweep through the spectrum... phasing tends to show its face more when you start eqing. If i can crank the eq and not hear anything major, i should be cool.

Hope that makes sense.

Mark,

Great tips, thanks for the reply. Yep it makes perfect sense.

So, in a nutshell, you don't generally have the SM57 in the same spot per project? Do you usually end up with it further away from the dustcap?

I ask, because on the 5150 in particular, it seems that the closer to the dustcap I am...the less natural or organic it sounds.

Also, I haven't experimented much lately with more than 1 mic. Maybe I should check it out.

Thanks!

-Joe

 

[axeman720]

Its really just whataver im feelin at the time. Sometimes its really close to dustcap sometimes not so much. It depends on how much hair i want in there, ya know.

Also, i dont always multi mic, some of my fave tones have been a single mic as well. You have to be very conscious of how things add up when layering guitars. Shit can sometimes get too big for sure.

 

[J.DavisNJ]

Its really just whataver im feelin at the time. Sometimes its really close to dustcap sometimes not so much. It depends on how much hair i want in there, ya know.

Also, i dont always multi mic, some of my fave tones have been a single mic as well. You have to be very conscious of how things add up when layering guitars. Shit can sometimes get too big for sure.

Yep, I hear you. Lately I've been avoiding using another mic (except maybe a ribbon), to get the SM57 sounding pristine on it's own.

Also, my 5150 could afford to have some new tubes. Also, I want to have the bias mod done.

Cheers

-Joe

 

[J.DavisNJ]

Also, one last thing...

Do you guys always start with tracking drums first to see how the guitar will sit in the mix?

-Joe