GUITAR recordings -- HELP!

[Folk666]

Hi! my band is recording these days.

For the guitars we are using:
MESA DUAL RECTIFIER
MARSHALL cabinet 1960
SM57 and/or SM 58
the guitar is a ESP LTD
pro-tools

we are searching a heavy-sharp guitar sound (in the style of SINERGY's last album guitars or something similar)...but we are having great problems.

Even if the sound is near what we'd like..it is DIRTY and quite crunchy...

ANDY could you give us some good advice? What are we missing?? What mic whould we use (57 or 58?) and how should we position it??

THANKS!!!!
David

 

[Genius Gone Insane]

Search this forum and you'll find more than enough info on all that mic placement, etc...i don't think there's much difference b/w 58 and 57 except the grille....one thing to think about is that you might have too much gain dialed in, creating that dirtiness. If you play tight and with less gain, it'll sound better. Just be sure to play tight!! with that setup you'll definitely be able to get a solid sound...have you changed tubes recently????

 

[Folk666]

Hi thanks for the info
The Mesa is pretty new...didn't change the tubes since 10 months or so...but it's quite new isn't it?

We were also recording with low volume out of the cabinet....

 

[Hammer Bart]

We were also recording with low volume out of the cabinet....

Is it loud enough to sound good in the room?

 

[Obscura]

Try putting a tubescreamer in front of the amp. The Boogie can sometimes sound loose and unmanageable without a little extra juice going into it. As someone else suggested it's also a good idea to back the gain down because when you start adding guitar tracks things can get very dense and messy. You should be able to find a bunch of posts by Andy about combining the tubescreamer and Rectifier, along w/ Jeff Loomis' settings. Good Luck.

 

[deconjoe]

I record with dual rect through a Marshall 1960 to a 57 (which I believe anyone on here will tell you is THE mic to use). I have NEVER had a problem cleaning up the sound on a Dual Rect, I would say yeah turn down the gain and turn up the amp... I record with my amp pretty loud.

 

[SymbolicSV]

tube amps sounds better loud ¡¡¡

 

[Leper_/-\ffinity]

What about the environment in which the amp is standing when you mic it?! Would it be better to put the amp into a walk in closet and mic it so that there is no reverb (filled with clothes) or does it not matter since the mic will be so close to the speakers anyway?!

 

[Obscura]

Some people, like James Hetfield, used to build a sort of tent around the cabinet and thought that it brought out some frequencies that were important to their sound. I think unless it's big empty room with tons of reverberation it doesn't make much difference. My cabinet was mic'd up in the drum room at the studio we recorded in with one close mic and one a couple of feet from the cabinet. It didn't seem to matter that it was in a pretty large room. If you want to see a picture of how it was mic'd you can follow this link:

http://www.holyterror.com/starkweather/index2.html

I hope the link works properly. I'm enormously computer illiterate. I don't think there's any doubt though that a Shure SM57 is the holy grail for micing up most amps. It's also nice to sit in the control room and have someone with headphones on twist the mic position around a bit to find the sweet spot. Good Luck.

Shit, the link didn't quite work. If you click on it and go to 'progress' and then scroll down to the bottom of the page there is a studio update link with photos of Wild Studio, Pierre Remillard's crazy studio in the wilds of Canada. T

 

[Obscura]

Shit, the link didn't quite work. If you click on it and go to 'progress' and then scroll down to the bottom of the page there is a studio update link with photos of Wild Studio, Pierre Remillard's crazy studio in the wilds of Canada.

 

[ATGuitar_NInja]

In my experience if you want beefy tone a warm room and simple mic setup are great. Get one SM-57 or something simlar a tube amp of some kind and a 4x12 cab. Put the mic right on the edge of the speaker cone of the bottom right speaker with the mix more towards inside of the cab. Set the mic parrallel to the screen surface and make sure you are in a room with a decent warm tempreature at least 60 degrees F (not sure about the celcius conversion for I am a lazy American) The warmer the room the better. Dual micing in my optinion is pointless unless you really want some natural reverb/ambience, otherwise it will just make things needlessly muddy. But you can always take each mic and pan them hard left/right on the mixing board and later just take whichever mic you want and seperate the channels into mono files.

Oh yea and you really don't need the amps loud for recording purposes. Jst in a nicely warm room with a good practicing by yourself volume.

Another note. Don't put mics on the cone, but the edge is fine, and in short the mic will pick up more bass closer to the inner edge of the cone near the magenet and higher tones the further towards the outside edge you get.

 

[Jay H]

Why a warm room?! Doesn't make much sense to me...

Anyway, Rectos are quite muddy. They have this big tone, but not a fimr chunk, if you know what I mean. I suggest you use the vintage channel instead of the modern. Use little gain - at 1 o'clock or less. Even if it sounds quite thin while recording, you will get the feel of plenty of gain later when dubbing.

I also suggest using a tube screamer or EQ (graphic preferred) between the guitar and the amp. That will help you clean up some frequencies. Espcially the low-mids (250-500 Hz) has a tendency to make things muddy.

Is it a LTD with EMG-81? The 81 is great for firm guitarsounds.

I also suggest you try micing up the cabinet with an extra mic and blening these two.

Don't EQ before the mix. Keep it raw while recording, and EQ and compress monitoring.

 

[Leper_/-\ffinity]

I am actually going to be micing a Laney tube combo amp which is only fitted with 2 10' speakers with specifically an SM58 due to limited funds right now, how will this affect the sound?! Should I move the mic closer to the center of the cone to get more bass response out of it because of the smaller speakers or anything else that I should do since my setup is a tad bit different?!

 

[Jay H]

Combos are OK, but they tend to sound small - I don't know if it's just me... And maybe I am the only one here who DOESN*T favor an SM57, but rather goes with an MD421 and MD509. These mics are killerr. Brendan O' Briend also swears to the 421 for guitar.

I think you will get enough bass with an SM58. I would never do guitar recordings with that one, if it was for pro use, but of course if you're on a budget, you learn a lot by making the best of what you have.

 

[ATGuitar_NInja]

Not exactly sure about the science behind it but I've noticed my amp sounds considerably better in a room that is warm. Warm air for some reason just makes the bass thicker and the over all tone will crush.

 

[Leper_/-\ffinity]

Yeah, this definitely isn't for pro use, Id just like to get the best possible sound with what I have for more of a demo.

 

[DURBANS]

In my experience if you want beefy tone a warm room and simple mic setup are great. Get one SM-57 or something simlar a tube amp of some kind and a 4x12 cab. Put the mic right on the edge of the speaker cone of the bottom right speaker with the mic more towards inside of the cab. Set the mic parrallel to the screen surface and make sure you are in a room with a decent warm tempreature at least 60 degrees F (not sure about the celcius conversion for I am a lazy American) The warmer the room the better. Dual micing in my optinion is pointless unless you really want some natural reverb/ambience, otherwise it will just make things needlessly muddy. But you can always take each mic and pan them hard left/right on the mixing board and later just take whichever mic you want and seperate the channels into mono files.

Oh yea and you really don't need the amps loud for recording purposes. Just in a nicely warm room with a good practicing by yourself volume.

Another note. Don't put mics on the cone, but the edge is fine, and in short the mic will pick up more bass closer to the inner edge of the cone near the magenet and higher tones the further towards the outside edge you get.

You forgot to say at what distance of the amp grille should the mic be placed, that could be really useful for me.

Oh, is this particular setup a common way of doing it? I mean, is it like some kind of standard procedure (mic placement)? I ask this because I will be recording my band's cd soon and I just bought an sm57 and I will be using a 5150 and a Randall RH100 for rhytms.

 

[Folk666]

At the end we realised that something was wrong with that Mesa.
We tried other heads and we got a very good and heavy sound...

nothing wrong with the Mesa sound...but that one has got some problems most probably with the tubes..!!

Anyway thanks for replying!!!

Cheerzzz!! :hotjump:

 

[Ermz]

An SM58 has the exact same circuitry as the 57. The only difference is the grille/cover on the 58. I don't think that would have too much of an adverse affect when it comes to micing guitars.