Mic'ing a guitar cab with 2 mics

[DanLights]

I have a question about mic'ing guitar cabs. I heard from someone the idea of close micing with a 57, and using a second mic (condenser) as a room mic, further away. How is that dealt in the mix? as far as quadtracking or dual tracking? would dual tracking mean the close mic and condenser on one side, second close miced and second condenser on the other? same panning, or separate them as if they were quadtracked guitars, like 100 75 75 100 or something?

or just buss each mic pair and blend with volume, then treat as a single track?

thanks in advance!

 

[punkrockacademyfightsong]

if you're going to put the mics at different distances from the source you're probably going to run into phasing issues. Of course you could align the room mic tracks to the close mic tracks to get them in phase with each other.
What I usually do when I double track is 1 close mic (or usually 2 close mics in Fredman style) and one condenser mic right next to the cab aimed into the room (in the direction the cab is facing) Since it's at the same distance of the source you won't be likely to get much phasing problems. I do usually have to invert the phase on the room mic track, since it's aimed in the other direction than the close mics.
In a mix I usually have the mics like this:
git 1: close 100%L, room 100%R @ -9 dB
git 2: close 100%R, room 100%L @ -9 dB

sometimes I don't have them panned so wide. Then it's more like this:
git 1: close 90%L, room 80%R @ -9 dB
git 2: close 90%R, room 80%L @ -9 dB

I usually don't use room mics when quad tracking because I think it gets too dense and full but for heavy rock stuff I do often quad track the choruses and some other parts that need it. Then I usually do something like this:
git 1: close 90%L, room 80%R @ -9 dB
git 2: close 90%R, room 80%L @ -9 dB
git 3: close 100%L, room 95%R @ -12 dB
git 4: close 100%R, room 95%L @ -12 dB

listen to the second song on my site to hear what I mean: http://www.xpzsound.nl/mp3/ (Tenement Kids - Strain) the extra guitars kick in at 0.35, you'll hear the effect then.

 

[darthjujuu]

^ awesome tips ^

 

[DanLights]

thanks a lot man, exactly the kind of answer I was hoping for! So not a good idea to use the more distant room mic then, too hard to fix the phase issues I would get?

I listened to the song, sounds really good and the quad-tracked guitars in that part do make a difference and fit pretty well. I don't like the vocalist though, music sounds great

 

[GarethSE]

try a condenser on the cab as well just as a close mic
any time ive done this, shits sounded really, really open and huge. used it with my last band, which was all weird avant-garde shit but the close miced tracks sounded like amp did in the room, which was cool

 

[darthjujuu]

how would one combat phase issues with a close mic and then a condenser on stereo (i forget the term for it...not cardiod, not omni, but the either side setting) a few feet in front of the amp? I'd imagine the distance from source 1-3 ratio wouldn't apply since most of the sound would be reflecting off the live room walls. or would this not sound as cool as i think it may o_0

dodo, do you just set your condenser to cardioid? or are you using an SDC?

 

[GarethSE]

my condenser doesnt have the option to choose
but it's cardoid, yeah.

 

[Metaltastic]

how would one combat phase issues with a close mic and then a condenser on stereo (i forget the term for it...not cardiod, not omni, but the either side setting) a few feet in front of the amp? I'd imagine the distance from source 1-3 ratio wouldn't apply since most of the sound would be reflecting off the live room walls. or would this not sound as cool as i think it may o_0

dodo, do you just set your condenser to cardioid? or are you using an SDC?

A couple of things - first, the pattern you're thinking of is figure-8, and also, most condensers are only one polar pattern, but the ones that are switchable usually have carioid, omni, and figure-8 (and occasionally like tighter/wider carioids). Also, SDC's can have multiple polar patterns, the difference is they come with multiple easily-swapped capsules with the different polar patterns (AFAIK there aren't any SDC's that can have different polar patterns with the same capsule)

 

[Full_Tilt]

I haven't mastered the whole mic placement mic choice issues but a few years back I recorded a valve state of all things with a single AKG C414 close miced slightly off axis which resulted in a really gravely husky but full tone for Death Metal that Ive never managed to improve on with 57's or a combination of 57's and room mic. It was just easy to mix , I think my Daw eq ended up pretty flat .
However I think this was probably a one off happy accident a combination of amp combo, pedals (eq -comp), guitar, and room clutter.

I use 57's and akg c3000 these days. I may dig out that 414 again though.

 

[acappa]

I always use fredman, and for me, for metal IT IS THE TECHNIQUE
I use a 400€ presonus pres, and 57´replicas from Thomann (30€ each)....and results are awesome. You can check it in www.myspace.com/distanceofficial the song is called Infinite Blackout.
Other things: I use different tweaking if its a solo riff, I mean when one of the guitars sounds alone and for rhythmics, for the last I take care with the amount of gain, when you quadtracked everything adds up and always put the off edge mic higher than on edge´s.
Byezzz