Gtr head+cab- same room or split up?

[evolutions_end]

Hey all

didnt know weather to put this in equipment or production, so feel free to move accordingly.

When recording guitar with the traditional head and cab set up, do you have the head in the same room as the cab, or seperated so you can change settings on the head without having to change rooms?

Im trying the latter of the 2 (seperated), but my room the cab is in is a good 20 foot away from the control room. Ive managed to score a rather long (unbalanced) lead from a live rig to run between the 2 rooms, but with the head and cab in the same room (and the guitarist in the control room), i had an incredible amount of noise, hum and hiss. bringing the head into the control room solved the problem. 2 days later, i used a different head and cab with the 2 seperated and the noise was unbareable.

with the 2nd set up of a different head/cab, i had alot of noise (with the 2 seperated). putting them both in the same room solved the problem.

So is it different for every situation, or would buying a long, balanced TRS lead solve every problem? does any of this make sence? lol

Cheers fellas

 

[Metaltastic]

Well the signal coming from an amp's speaker output is unbalanced, so using a TRS (balanced) cable won't make any difference; that said, it's SO fucking hot and so fucking low impedance that it doesn't matter, you should be able to run it for 50 ft. or more without any noticeable loss in tone! (I have a 40+ ft. 13 gauge speaker cable that I use for all my recording, and it's never failed to deliver!)

 

[Machinated]

i have it in the same room - a lot of the time when changing settings im moving the mic position slightly too (at least to start with for a while) so it wouldnt really save me any time from getting up to change the sound a bit.

i guess its different for everyone though....

 

[Metaltastic]

Yikes, doesn't that hurt, Ed?

 

[Machinated]

Hurt what?

I make such slight adjustments to mic positions when honing in on a tone

 

[Metaltastic]

Hurt your ears from being in the same room as a blasting cab

 

[Machinated]

Earplugs+headphones=win.

I only monitor guitar sounds through speakers though - too important to risk judging on phones and cocking up!

 

[Metaltastic]

Oh I agree, but do you re-amp and then listen back? I dunno, I definitely prefer having the cab in another room and the head next to me so I wouldn't have to deal with taking the plugs/cans on/off all the time, and just deal with occasionally running down to move the mic! (which I usually can nail in a couple of tries anyway so it doesn't become much of an issue) And of course being able to tweak the settings while hearing the effect they have through the monitors. But to each his own!

 

[Machinated]

Yeah - reamp then listen back.

to be honest, when I'm using the 6505 the settings are usually pretty standard and I'll spend most of the time getting the mic in the right place. I usually spend a couple of hours getting the mic position and settings right.

 

[evolutions_end]

(I have a 40+ ft. 13 gauge speaker cable that I use for all my recording, and it's never failed to deliver!)

Hrmm...where do i find such a creature? and you say you get no electrical interference?

 

[colonel kurtz]

you really shouldn't get any sort of noise/interference when running a standard speaker cable from a head to a cab, even if the cab is hundreds of feet away. there's a reason why there's no shielding in speaker cables, and that's because they carry enough juice to not pick up much shit from other sources. if you're getting a lot of noise in your speaker cable runs, you're either running them parallel to power cables(big no-no), or have some shitty grounding going on.

 

[Metaltastic]

Yup, the sheer amount of power and low impedance mean it's very resistant to any sort of interference, so just find a place that sells good bulk speaker cable, get like 40+ feet of it (make sure it's 14 ga or thicker, meaning lower numbers) and a pair of jumbo TS connectors (ideally Neutrik) and solder 'em all together, it's the easiest thing in the world!

Or, most major cable manufacturers sell long speaker cables, if you feel like spending like 3 times as much (in that case, I'd go Planet Waves, I love their stuff and it's on par quality-wise with Monster without as ridiculous prices)

 

[Exocaster]

I've never had an issue with long cable runs. Usually these days I stuff the cab in the live room and run... I think it's a 30' speaker cable from my old band's PA system from the head and 50' mic cables back to my input rack.

I'd rather have the shorter cable run from the guitar/pedalboard to the head.

 

[nwright]

I have the amp heads in the control room, cabs in the tracking room. I've found that I can get the position of the mic rather quickly these days, and then use the amp's controls to craft the tone more.

I used to be the kind of guy who would leave my amp settings as they were live and then go back and forth all the time moving the mic, so I think I was the opposite of most here. I used the old adage "it sounds so good in the room", and I tried to capture that with the mic, so I was always moving it. For me, utilizing the amps controls was like a revelation compared to constantly going back and forth repositioning the mic.

 

[Metaltastic]

I have the amp heads in the control room, cabs in the tracking room. I've found that I can get the position of the mic rather quickly these days, and then use the amp's controls to craft the tone more.

I used to be the kind of guy who would leave my amp settings as they were live and then go back and forth all the time moving the mic, so I think I was the opposite of most here. I used the old adage "it sounds so good in the room", and I tried to capture that with the mic, so I was always moving it. For me, utilizing the amps controls was like a revelation compared to constantly going back and forth repositioning the mic.

Can't possibly +1 this enough, especially with an amp as sensitive to tweaking as the Rectifier! It's a case of things in the room being so much less apparent than under a mic, so your tone could sound slightly muffled, bassy, and yet harsh when mic'ed up, but it would still sound decent in the room because the details are just kinda mushed over; however, once you tweak the amp settings a bit for a better mic'ed tone and compare them in the room, you hear the improvement, though it's still a lot more subtle!