Mic'd Cab Always sounds terrible

This might be a little extreme but if the amp/cab have been subjected to extreme temperature fluctuations there might be a small change in performance.

I don't know if this is true or if my ears were fried or what but I left my cab in my car for like a few days and the temperature dropped suddenly and when I went to play when I had brought it in and it was warmer , the cab sounded really weird. So I'd reccomend for safety reasons to keep the temps constant.
 
OzNimbus said:
I've found most that with most guitar players I've worked with,(on the local band scene, anyway) they wouldn't know good tone if it punched them in the face. Turn the gain down. Throw a tubescreamer in front of it.

Cranking the gain way up does not mean "heavy." It just makes things small.
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Hey OZ, appreciate your tips :)

Btw, was I too demanding on myspace? :rolleyes:
 
Not at all! I've just got a really busy week ahead, that's all. I've got 3 separate projects on the go that all have to be ready by Friday.... when a new project comes in. Damn, when it rains, it pours!
 
OzNimbus said:
I've found most that with most guitar players I've worked with,(on the local band scene, anyway) they wouldn't know good tone if it punched them in the face. Turn the gain down. Throw a tubescreamer in front of it.

Cranking the gain way up does not mean "heavy." It just makes things small.
Click to expand...

You're definately right.

I have been learning this through recording.

Basically you sit there and dial in this tone that you think sounds like your favorite albums guitar tone with huge eq scoops or throwing in BBE's etc, but in reallity the tone is just breaking apart and compressing and your losing definition or clarity not to mention headroom or overall volume.

Its kinda weird because your used to looking at your own sound from an individual perspective and recording makes you stop and look at the whole picture.

You have to look at how your guitar is going to fit in the overall mix of things.

When mixing recordings, a solo'd guitar might sound thin or poor but in the overall mix sounds great.

I hear the noise or slight fuzzy harshness being picked up on the mic from too much gain, I will try to listen better for it when dialing in the amp next time.

Its probably something I need to keep pounding in my head before tracking every time regardless of what the guitarist thinks is the ultimate tone.
 
I have similar problems trying to mic my XXX for recording. I think it's probably the room because I either try to record in my tiny bedroom or unfinished basement and the amp sounds pretty bad in both as it is.
 
Yeah, like everyone has said, you need to back WAY down on the gain and put some body back in the amp with some mids. Once you quad track the guitars, they will sound massive without ridiculous amounts of gain.

Also, throw that BBE sonic maximizer in the garbage. Absolutely worthless in a guitar chain if you ask me.
 
have you checked and made sure that you are running an actual speaker cable from the amp head to the cabinent? some people think you can just use an instrument cable, but instrument cable's dont have a big enough gauge of wire to carry the mass of the signal to the cabinent
 
Splat88 said:
Yeah, like everyone has said, you need to back WAY down on the gain and put some body back in the amp with some mids. Once you quad track the guitars, they will sound massive without ridiculous amounts of gain.

Also, throw that BBE sonic maximizer in the garbage. Absolutely worthless in a guitar chain if you ask me.
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AMEN, i get all kinds of crap from the road coming into the studio for recording sessions. everyone around this area thinks its very cool to have as much useless rack crap in their setup.

its amazing to hear them go, "woah, what did you do to my setup, it sounds awesome!" after which i simply reply, "i unplugged everything from your rack"
 
Splat88 said:
Yeah, like everyone has said, you need to back WAY down on the gain and put some body back in the amp with some mids. Once you quad track the guitars, they will sound massive without ridiculous amounts of gain.

Also, throw that BBE sonic maximizer in the garbage. Absolutely worthless in a guitar chain if you ask me.
Click to expand...

I dont care for BBE's.

They sound fine in PA Systems but thats about it.
 
MetalWorks, on that clip it sounds like you've put the mic really far away from the cabinett??!! I love lot's of gain and my playing style never sounded great through a 57. I also tried lots of different mics...57, beta57, 421, i5 etc and cabs like marshall, mesa,l gt75, v30, different micing teqniques...amp sounded great in the room but like shit when recording through a mic...

So....ever heard Destroy Erase Improve and Chaosphere by Meshuggah...pretty rad guitarsound, eh? They are produced by this dude Daniel Bergstrand. He allways use a Neumann TLM193 for guitars. Sounds less fizzy then a 57 and pics up bottom way better... This mic sounds alot more "Aaah" then "Iiiih"....oh, and allways put some preboost like OD808, TS9, TS808 in front of your amp too.

The TLM193 is kinda dark like a ribbon, but have those condensor qualities...I love this mic...! Don't get the TLM103 cause it's a little cheper...totally different mic!

I bought one TLM193 yesterday and guess what...my Rectifier finally sounds the same when recorded as when listening to it in the room....even MarshallV30 cabs sounds dark and "evil" with pretty high gain settings.
 
Blackcom, I speak for a lot of people on this board when I say that I don't exactly have a grand and a half to throw out on a microphone. I think I also have quite a bit of backing when I say that if you can't get a 57 to slay, you're doing something wrong.

That aside, if Metalworks would rather put down that kind of money than spend more time learning to mic cabs, it's his call. Just keep in mind that if everyone bought everything another board member recommended to them, we'd all be recording ESPs through OD820s into our Engls mic'ed with MD421s and C4ing the results in Logic on our new Mac Pros. Scary thought.

Jeff
 
Don't have a problem getting a working sound with a 57 if I back of the gain....but I think it sounds a bit boring this way....I think the problem with higher amounts of gain is the the 57's lack of ability to handle this kind of sound without sounding fizzy rather then the sound from the amp itself.

Low amounts of gain - 57 works well.
Higher amounts of gain - 57 craps out and starts to sound thin and fizzy..change the mic. The 57 is not a transparent mic, but a very colored one you know...might be some of the 57's characteristics causing the problem too.


...then I might be totally wrong too.....
 
Blackcom, first off the more gain you use the smaller your guitar is going to sound - you want dynamics. You want transients. You want life. If the 57 starts 'crapping out', I'd seriously wager that either you're using too much gain or you haven't spent enough time trying to figure out what part of the speaker sounds good and when - I don't think I ever leave a mic in the same place when I twist the knobs any more than a 'minor' tweak, and I wouldn't recommend trying to get all of your studio time out of one mic position when most of the time it's your knobs being twiddled to change the tone. It's also really hard to hear how this stuff will work in a mix - if you can't at least put up a bass and drums, you're not going to easily figure out what goes where, and mixing guitars soloed has unpleasant results in most cases I've heard it.

Jeff
 
Yeah, I realize what you're saying is true..less gain + 57 will work well....but I just went with the "if it sounds good, do it"-thingy while reamping my tracks. Maybe my taste is a little different. Did not sound small at all, though... ....also, I think some amps might handle more gain better then others...
 
I noticed that the preamp on my recorder wasn't being run very hot, that affected the sound immensely, wild.

Less gain, lower master volume, mic it right crank up that pre, and let the fader attenuate.

I blasted my new Orange and it was just a thick output tube compressed rectangle across the board and sounded not so good, but when I brought down the volume, it was much nicer, so I adjusted the mic and it sounds wonderful.

I like to leave EQ pretty flat on amps but the EQ on an amp is better than a software EQ since a physical EQ changes it's efficiency with heat, and has a slight phasiness that makes things musical, amp EQ is usually better than a plugin, it depends on what you're going for.

A good pre will do you well, but isn't a must have unless you think sound difference is justifying the expense.
 
blackcom said:
MetalWorks, on that clip it sounds like you've put the mic really far away from the cabinett??!! I love lot's of gain and my playing style never sounded great through a 57. I also tried lots of different mics...57, beta57, 421, i5 etc and cabs like marshall, mesa,l gt75, v30, different micing teqniques...amp sounded great in the room but like shit when recording through a mic...

So....ever heard Destroy Erase Improve and Chaosphere by Meshuggah...pretty rad guitarsound, eh? They are produced by this dude Daniel Bergstrand. He allways use a Neumann TLM193 for guitars. Sounds less fizzy then a 57 and pics up bottom way better... This mic sounds alot more "Aaah" then "Iiiih"....oh, and allways put some preboost like OD808, TS9, TS808 in front of your amp too.

The TLM193 is kinda dark like a ribbon, but have those condensor qualities...I love this mic...! Don't get the TLM103 cause it's a little cheper...totally different mic!

I bought one TLM193 yesterday and guess what...my Rectifier finally sounds the same when recorded as when listening to it in the room....even MarshallV30 cabs sounds dark and "evil" with pretty high gain settings.
Click to expand...

so how about some samples of that mic? can you record your mesa with a 57 and an TLM193? let us compare and hear the difference too :kickass:
 
Actually I still find my amp to sound like shit. TLM193 makes it a little better, but the guitars still have no "depth". Turning the gain down makes the sound a little cleaner and tighther in the low-end, but still any Marshall, Mesa, Engl cab with my Rectifier will still sound like pure shit. The mids will be really plastic and thin with no depth at all and the treble will be fizzy.

I also tried other amps like 5150 and had the same problem. It's like this curse. I've also tried lots of different pedals in front of the amps. When I have other guitarists play on my setup is sounds just as fizzy, thin and shitty.

Andys guitars has this "AAAAH" voicing over them. Mine has this "IIIIH" voicing over them.

Here's my dilemma:

-I turn down the treble and it sounds like there is a blanket over my amp.
-I rise the treble and it sounds ultra thin.

-I've tried micing each my cabs 32 different places and it all sounds like variants of the same shit. I tend to place the mic on-axis where the cone meets the dustcap. I've tried backing the mic off an inch too.
I also tried Andy's Nevermore settings on my Recto with no luck.
 
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