First off, thanks for this shootout. Super enlightening to really hear that the cabinet is the single biggest difference when your pulling high gain tones. I can definitely hear not so subtle differences in the distortion response but it really is small potatoes compared to the cab choice.
Second, you are amazing at recording and mixing high gain guitar tones. Consistently every time, awesome tone thats appropriate for the mix it lives in. I find it very inspiring, well done.
You really seem to be favoring the 57 421 combo. What is the blend between the mics like ratio wise? Do you eq the signals separately and then sum them into a mono buss or ? Like how do you treat them to achieve this result? Do you shoot to get the cut all from the 57 and more of the meat from the 421? Do you find yourself placing them where they might be a bit extreme on their own but work together well?
A couple other more general questions if you dont mind. Whats on your 2 Buss, and Mastering Chain? Do you set the amps tone stack slightly differently for the left and right side or do you Eq them a bit differently? This track seems pretty wide for being the same amp / cab setup.
As noted in the past I have both models of this cab and love them, but I dont pull near these results micing them up. What is putting you off of it? I thought the tones you pulled from the 400 were pretty throaty and badass
Wow Thanks
For the different heads clip, it is 57 and 421. For the different cabs clip, it is a single 57 due to laziness of positioning the 2 mics
I never place the mics using a guitar. Always pink noise.
When using 2 mics I place them both where they capture the frequencies I want, either side of the dustcap of the cone, or sometimes, 2 different cones.
Once I am happy with how each mic sounds on their own, I invert phase of the 421 and adjust its distance from the speaker to get maximum phase which will be the lowest volume when phase inverted.
Once this is all done, I dial the amp into the mix with both mics the same volume.
I sum all the rhythm guitars to a stereo bus and EQ them all together and use multiband on the low end on the bus too to prevent centre shifting.
Balance between the mics is mix dependent so whatever sounds best. Most of the time 57 and 421 are equal volume.
I often use and 57 and m201 too.
If I want more width, I will use TS808 opposite MXR custom badass od or 6505 opposite 5153.
This track is identical everything for left/right.
Static resonances kill stereo width. If there is the same static sshhhh on left and right your brain will decode that as coming from the middle so kill them with notch EQ.
EQ used on the examples below. I took a screen shot in case anyone asked what settings were used.
To be honest, the Apogee Ensemble Thunderbolt has been a revelation. The quality of the conversion and reamp outputs make it easy.
I set up logic with busses for drums, bass, guitars, vocals (and whatever else) going to separate outputs to my Allen and Heath console with Drawmer 1968me bus compressor (usually at 15ms attack, 100ms release).
No EQ on this master. I would normally sweep some cuts but my ears were not 100% after recording guitars. Just a couple of dB clipped with sonnox inflator into limiter with 3-4dB reduction.
I can get a v30 cab to sound the way I want it in no time but the MF400 is a lot of work. Maybe I'm just so used to recording V30s.
The MF400 also has very little excursion compared to my Mesa or V30 Marshall cab which makes it sound less lively, especially on muted stuff.
