Not sure about this tone (5150 II)

[Apsu]

So I finally got around to getting my 5150 Mk II (original, woo!) stack out of storage and setting up for some recording again. I have some new mics and a new cab I'm not used to, been trying out various approaches to see what's going to be usable for the room I'm working in. I like how the amp sounds in the room (a lot!) but I'm still toying with mic positioning. I made up a cheesy metalcore riff to test with, but I think I'm getting too much proximity effect from miking right on the grille (< 1cm), seems to be woofing hard centered around 132Hz. I tried dropping the post and resonance a bit but the tone just wimped out instead of not woofing.

I haven't gone through the steps to re-place the mics farther back, and the room treatment is unfortunately minimal at present, so the less room bleed the better is my thinking. Anyhow, I can easily just cut out the woof and it cleans up fairly nice, but I can't help feeling that's not the best approach; I'd rather the dry signal right off the mic(s) be awesome(r). Maybe one of you guys can recognize immediately what I should focus on tweaking first, so I don't spin my wheels with false starts if they're unnecessary.

So, clips:
Dry mix off the mic's, simple hard panning, zero EQ or processing
MC Dry 1.0
And a cut version with some comp and limiting for a quick compare
MC EQ+Comp 1.0

Any feedback would be appreciated, even if you just want to tell me metalcore sucks (I mostly play thrash and death metal, so I'd be inclined to agree with you if you did )

EDIT: Also, in the dry track, there's a slight fuzz in the tone that sounds like reverb.... am I correct in assuming that's exactly what it is, due to not having my cab in a closet under blankets or such, getting room sound bleeding back in the mics? It's definitely not something the reflection path emphasizes when I'm playing the cab in the room -- but then a microphone isn't an ear, so hey.

 

[slayer666metalica]

Not gonna lie, that's a hell of a lot better tone than i'm able to get out of my 6505+ right now.

I need lots of work with mic positioning, but I think both of those clips sound fucking badass.


I have no truly professional advice for the 132hz woof though, but imo that sounds fucking rad dude! keep it up!

 

[Apsu]

Not gonna lie, that's a hell of a lot better tone than i'm able to get out of my 6505+ right now.

I need lots of work with mic positioning, but I think both of those clips sound fucking badass.

I have no truly professional advice for the 132hz woof though, but imo that sounds fucking rad dude! keep it up!

haha, thanks. I am pretty happy with the base tone, definitely. And it's honestly not that hard to pull some great clarity and bite out of the Mark II heads, you just need to not be afraid of the mid and presence knobs, that's where all the amp's tone is, and YMMV with mid-sensitive speakers like V30's into a mic with honky presence like an SM57 -- in other words, the usual setup easily ends up muddy or woolly.

My settings here were plain SLSMG into red channel: pre 6ish, low 6, mid 5, high 8, post something-not-deafening-but-still-loud, reso 6, pres 8. It's going into a mint 5150 Mk I cab with the Sheffield's, and a pair of on-axis AT M4000S's (almost identical curves to SM57's, bit less honk) around 5cm apart, with one dead-center dustcap. Just some basic blending of the two mics easily deals with the usual angsty bite of the 5150 cab, to my ears at least. Just remember to carefully check for phase issues every time you touch a mic, no matter how small the move

 

[zakky]

it sounds a bit harsh

 

[Apsu]

it sounds a bit harsh

By itself, sure. But that will surely change once a heavy bass, drums and vocals are in with it. I appreciate your feedback but I'm really just looking for information on taming the woofiness and whether or not the diffuse fizz is room reverb, as those seem to be positioning/room treatment/mic technique issues. As I mentioned, I can cut a lot but the less the merrier. Thanks for listening though!

 

[ScootBaloo]

I agree that the sound from the mic should be as good as possible so you
dont have to do much post processing. To my ear, the clip that was processed
has a worse tone than the unprocessed clip.
You do have an issue with woofing though, and I am assuming that you cant
remove it by lowering the 'low' or the 'resonance'. The woofing might
be occurring in the cabinet or the mic but I don't think it is due to reverb.
It sounds like cabinet woof to me.
- Is there any direct reflections back to the mics in the room ?
- Try recording at a lower volume, is the woof still there ?
- If you solo each of the two mic's do they both have the woof sound on them ?
- What does it sound like with a SM57 ?

 

[Metaltastic]

Dude, I gotta say, in the original I can definitely hear the ~130 Hz "whoomp" in the palm mutes, but that's easily tamed with a Multiband Compressor (I use ReaXComp for that purpose, works great for my needs!), and otherwise, I really prefer it, the EQ/comp'ed one sounds to me like you went a bit too far with one or both of those tools, as it's a bit hollow and harsh IMO, as was mentioned

 

[Metaltastic]

Oh, but a touch undergained IMO

 

[Apsu]

Definitely appreciate the replies, guys. I had some more time tonight to play around with it and I have to agree, sans woof the original has a better tone. Your questions gave me some ideas, so I tried changing up a few things. First of all, only the off-center mic was getting woof. Tried adjusting the cab position, lowering the volume a bit, dropped the resonance a bit, swapped out the off-center mic to make sure it wasn't the culprit and compared to a 57. Turns out a combination of cab position, resonance setting, volume and proximity of the off-center mic were the culprit. Each was fairly minor on its own, but it was just overemphasizing the proximity effect farther out on the cone. I didn't DI the original and haven't bothered redoing the same or a similar test to upload, but I definitely stomped the resonant peak of the woof without killing the bottom end, and any remaining chugga thud is obviously a job for a multiband.

Thanks again, it helped to get some opinions and ideas to figure out this new room/cab setup:Smokin:

 

[Djabthrash]

Dude, I gotta say, in the original I can definitely hear the ~130 Hz "whoomp" in the palm mutes, but that's easily tamed with a Multiband Compressor (I use ReaXComp for that purpose, works great for my needs!), and otherwise, I really prefer it, the EQ/comp'ed one sounds to me like you went a bit too far with one or both of those tools, as it's a bit hollow and harsh IMO, as was mentioned

+1 to that

once you fix that woofiness i think the tone is almost mix-ready and good-sounding.

 

[Apsu]

+1 to that

once you fix that woofiness i think the tone is almost mix-ready and good-sounding.

Cool. And yeah, I was honestly just listening back on headphones and just slapped a few cuts and eyeballed the threshold of a compressor on it. My main goal was to show the woof cut as an easy contrast to show it wasn't *mud*, just a resonant peak. Listening back later I noticed the contrast also wasn't so great by itself, lol uke: