Missing high end

[Salvation 13]

Hi,

I've been trying to get a good guitar tone for our upcoming demo,
and it seems that wherever I put my 57 there's a serious drop (30 dB)
at 6500 Hz. Anyone else had this problem? How did you solve it?
Currently I have the mic pointing straight towards the edge of the dust cap about an inch away from the grill. I use a ISP Decimator too, could that be stealing the high end?

 

[cornerarea]

Could be the decimator or then could not be. Try it with the decimator on and off.

Try experimenting with the mic positioning. Listen to the speaker with your ear an inch away from the grill. Place the mic where it sounds good (and enough hi-end) to your ear. With or without earplugs

 

[Frank'nfurter]

Where did you use the Decimator? In line with the 57 or on the input of the amp?

 

[carl@laruso.com]

yeah man... I have a rocktron hush and i believe they were designed by the same brains as the decimator... anyways if the noise reduction (not the gate)on the hush is on at all it effects the high end like crazy (esp on high gain) and is best to be avoided.

Basically if you have vaguely placed your 57 correctly and are having massive frequency discrepencies like you describe it's more than likely something in the signal chain..... remove things one by one till you find the offending link.

hope that helps mate...

YO.

C
-----------------------------------------------------------
www.carlbown.com (Production)
www.laruso.com (Band)
www.myspace.com/laruso (Myspace)

 

[Razorjack]

Could be the decimator or then could not be. Try it with the decimator on and off.

Try experimenting with the mic positioning. Listen to the speaker with your ear an inch away from the grill. Place the mic where it sounds good (and enough hi-end) to your ear. With or without earplugs

Don't put your ear near the speaker whilst it's being played, with or without ear plugs you will do damage to your hearing.

 

[cornerarea]

Don't put your ear near the speaker whilst it's being played, with or without ear plugs you will do damage to your hearing.

You'll have to sacrifice your hearing to get a great guitar sound

 

[Razorjack]

You'll have to sacrifice your hearing to get a great guitar sound

Don't joke, I haven't heard silence for over 4mths...no guitar sound is worth that.

 

[Sinister Mephisto]

Don't joke, I haven't heard silence for over 4mths...no guitar sound is worth that.

Yeah. It's really something that could screw you over as a producer. You might start hearing things wrong, or out of balence. Definatly not a good idea.

 

[Brett - K A L I S I A]

Don't joke, I haven't heard silence for over 4mths...no guitar sound is worth that.

Wow Andrew, seems that this is really getting on your nerve eh ?
Don't worry, I've heard that Dan Swano was almost deaf from one ear (is it true ? I'm not even sure, maybe some kind of Urban Legend). Plus, it's Mozart's Year

 

[Salvation 13]

Thanks for your replies. I'll try today without the Decimator, it is propably the cause. No matter where I put the mic or what mic I was using there was always a huge drop in volume at about 6-7kHz.

 

[Razorjack]

Wow Andrew, seems that this is really getting on your nerve eh ?

Last night I wasn't in a great mood, added to the fact that I've got 6 stitches in my gum from a visit to the dentist and it hurts like hell!!

 

[Sinister Mephisto]

Wow Andrew, seems that this is really getting on your nerve eh ?
Don't worry, I've heard that Dan Swano was almost deaf from one ear (is it true ? I'm not even sure, maybe some kind of Urban Legend). Plus, it's Mozart's Year

That explains the guitar sound on Resurrection through Carnage.

 

[Salvation 13]

Hmm. I tried recording without the Decimator. The frequency curve still looked like this:

Here's a link to a song that I recorded with those settings:
http://www.soundclick.com/util/downloadSong.cfm?ID=3471684&key=022ED914-0

(And no, I didn't scoop the mids even if it looks like from the picture. Actually,
they're on almost full).

Any ideas how to get the missing high end? I've tried moving the mic around,
playing without the boost, without the decimator, changing mic's, and still the
result is always the same. Or could anyone tell me if I'm just chasing something that just isn't there? How high does a guitar's frequency curve go anyway?

 

[Hammer Bart]

I don't think it's odd that there's little there past 5k. Guitar speakers don't really produce that range. This is the frequency chart of a celestion vintage 30 (from the celestion site):

I hope this helps man.

 

[EtherForBreakfast]

Have you tried a different mic?!?!

 

[Salvation 13]

Yep, I tried with a 57, a Rode NT1A and a MD421 and ended up with the same result. Thanks Hammer Bart, you're propably right. Now, I'm off for a beer.

 

[EtherForBreakfast]

Salvation - sorry did not see your screen cap there. Hammer Bart is right on. Your screen cap pretty much mimics the response of the speaker graph.

BTW - Where in Cubase do you go to get that screen of "inspector" ?

I'm working on switching from Sonar to Cubase.

 

[Salvation 13]

It's a free VST plugin. You can download it here.

 

[cobrahead1030]

what are you using for a preamp?

 

[Salvation 13]

I'm using the pre's on my Firepod.