Could anything good come from mic'ing up monitors?

[Rhys Llewellyn]

I just got to wondering...

I know the obvious answer to this is "try it", but I can't right now and am just curious if anyone else has tried or if it's even worth it.

So say I've recorded a guitar track directly recorded from a Pod XT Pro, I solo that track and pan it hard right and stick my SM57 in front of the driver (or somewhere between tweeter and driver) of my monitors (6" drivers I think) and really crank it do you reckon it'd do anything to "liven" up the recordings since there is physically air being moved and some amount of room ambience too?

I'd probably try and blend the two together, but figure this may cause phase issues?

Basically, I have quite a few nice mics and never get to use the things since pretty much everything I record is virtual to some degree!

 

[Jarkko Mattheiszen]

It's absolutely possible, but if you can crank a monitor, why not just mic a cab?

 

[Rhys Llewellyn]

It's absolutely possible, but if you can crank a monitor, why not just mic a cab?

Well, sadly since my gigging days got put on hold for a while I ended up selling my live rigs.

I'm now pretty much just a solo studio player writing my own stuff and make do with a Pod and my studio monitors.

I do have a Celestion G12T (I think) but that would require an amp to drive it. I probably could improvise something there but yeah, I was thinking more in terms of convenience and even though it's only a 6 incher flapping (there's a good quote! lol) I was just wondering if it could still deliver something "organic" to the mix.

 

[professorlamp]

one trick I read a while ago on here for getting a decent room mic for programmed drums is to blast the drums out of your monitors and put a mic up in your room and record the results, mix to taste. Never tried it myself but it sounds pretty nifty

 

[Rhys Llewellyn]

one trick I read a while ago on here for getting a decent room mic for programmed drums is to blast the drums out of your monitors and put a mic up in your room and record the results, mix to taste. Never tried it myself but it sounds pretty nifty

I actually thought about this idea too as I was typing my first post.

I live in a very old house with odd angles and what I reckon could be a nice acoustic space. I definitely want to give this a try when my SSD drums finally download.

 

[Jarkko Mattheiszen]

one trick I read a while ago on here for getting a decent room mic for programmed drums is to blast the drums out of your monitors and put a mic up in your room and record the results, mix to taste. Never tried it myself but it sounds pretty nifty

Anssi Kippo of Astia Studio fame has a PA system for this exact use

 

[SimonTaddio_Qc]

I have a long hallway at my place and saw here sometime ago someone recording a reverb track with a sm57 in the hallway while playing the track from monitors, so I decided to give it a try, and once I time-aligned the recorded reverb track with the track I had, I was honestly really surprised of the result. I have no doubt I would have got way better results if I had messed with it a bit more, but just doing it as I thought sounded great already, so the potential is there really.

Honestly, after watching The Making of Classic Album: Dark Side of the Moon this weekend, I'd say "things that you can't do" doesn't really exist, it's all in the way you do it

 

[Dimaura]

one trick I read a while ago on here for getting a decent room mic for programmed drums is to blast the drums out of your monitors and put a mic up in your room and record the results, mix to taste. Never tried it myself but it sounds pretty nifty

Its intrestig this got brought up.

On lots of the older hip hop/rap albums people would take the drum machine track. Play it out of a set of 12"s (like the ones for car audio) loud as hell and mic it farther out in the room. Then, mix it in to give more of a live feel.

 

[chrisrivalry]

The guy from Helmut or whatever I think? does that with his guitars... could be completely wrong I just remember reading someone from a band like that did that.

yep.

that's all.

 

[waltz mastering]

Godsmack recorded their first album with a lot of re-amping through a pa.

 

[RedDog]

Anssi Kippo of Astia Studio fame has a PA system for this exact use

Phil Spector (Of "Wall of Sound" fame) had chambers

Op, I think you should give it a shot. Report back with your results!

 

[Uros]

I sometimes think how it'd be cool to get say a 4-piece band (2gtrs, bass , drums) to record, and where every player is in a separate room, where their instruments are mic'd up. So, they are playing at the same time, like a real band; track is rolling. On top of all of that you also have another room where whole band's mix ('live mix') is blasting at the same time through PA, which is also mic'd, to get some sort of 'gel'. It'd be really cool to try it out, but you'd have to use like 5 different, acoustically treated rooms

 

[GarethSE]

I used to mic up my monitors to make feedback loops a lot...

 

[The Front Studio]

I sometimes think how it'd be cool to get say a 4-piece band (2gtrs, bass , drums) to record, and where every player is in a separate room, where their instruments are mic'd up. So, they are playing at the same time, like a real band; track is rolling. On top of all of that you also have another room where whole band's mix ('live mix') is blasting at the same time through PA, which is also mic'd, to get some sort of 'gel'. It'd be really cool to try it out, but you'd have to use like 5 different, acoustically treated rooms

Sounds like a great idea. If only we had the rooms :/

one trick I read a while ago on here for getting a decent room mic for programmed drums is to blast the drums out of your monitors and put a mic up in your room and record the results, mix to taste. Never tried it myself but it sounds pretty nifty

Seriously I'm going to try that right away!!!

 

[cent73]

On top of all of that you also have another room where whole band's mix ('live mix') is blasting at the same time through PA, which is also mic'd

Don't you think it'd be too much trouble? Much easier to reamp thru PA the whole band later on as you could play with miking, settings, etc. at will then.

 

[Uros]

Sure, it's easier and better that way of course; sounds like an upgraded version comparing to mine . My main point is to mic PA, in order to have recording as if the whole band were playing in the same room.

edit:I forgot what I was thinking about
What I originally meant is to have aslo guitar&bass cabs in that room (or one speaker per every instrument), and only drums sum to go through PA. Point again - to have a recording as if the whole band were playing in the same room. Bleeding and all of that jazz.

 

[sys_fail_you]

I sometimes think how it'd be cool to get say a 4-piece band (2gtrs, bass , drums) to record, and where every player is in a separate room, where their instruments are mic'd up. So, they are playing at the same time, like a real band; track is rolling. On top of all of that you also have another room where whole band's mix ('live mix') is blasting at the same time through PA, which is also mic'd, to get some sort of 'gel'. It'd be really cool to try it out, but you'd have to use like 5 different, acoustically treated rooms

http://www.electrical.com/studios.php

http://www.electrical.com/booking.php

 

[heshian46]

one trick I read a while ago on here for getting a decent room mic for programmed drums is to blast the drums out of your monitors and put a mic up in your room and record the results, mix to taste. Never tried it myself but it sounds pretty nifty

Did this with some programmed overheads. Set the monitors up in the live room, set up mics in a few locations that sounded good and blended to taste. Worked quite well actually, helped remove the "roboticness".