Recording Indirectly

[Leper_/-\ffinity]

Ok, I have a preamp and a condenser mic to go along with it, and I also have a dynamic mic. I want to get a little better quality recordings for some upcoming stuff, so which of these would I use for guitars?? I know I can use the condenser, as long as I keep it fairly far away from the amp, because of it's sensitivity, but also, I wish to know how loud guitar tone needs to be for studio quality recordings?? For anyone that has ever recorded in a studio, how loud was the amp cranked??? Thanks.

 

[NocturnalSun]

hmm... I don't know any specifics. I indirectly record through a cheap computer mic but it's surprisingly very good but not pro-studio quality. You can hear the sound of my indirect recording at www.freewebs.com/nocturnalsun. I have plenty of mp3's up. You usually wanna keep the waveform amplitude about halfway from the highest or a tiny bit above it. A tiny bit below it if you plan on overdubbing 2 tracks or more. I normally put my amp at about 3 - 3 1/2 (on scale of 1-10) and keep it about 5 or 6 feet from the mic. But that's just my mic. I really have no idea how to help you besides that if it helped at all. I have a fairly weird setup some would say. I have my amp up on my bed, facing the mic at my comp about 5 or 6 feet back with no special gimmicks. I do post-recording work to clean up the sound and get it right. hmm... wow I really can make a whole paragraph of text and manage to not help the topic one bit. sry man

 

[97reb]

If you have the option, Dynamic - close range on the amp/speaker if it is capable (don't get it too close if it can't handle it- maybe point it into the cone at an angle). In addition, the condenser mic could be used at a much further distance for a "room" sound. It depends on the inputs you have on your mixer or recorder, but it would be great to be able to mix the amp sound, the miced amp and the room mic sound, then double that by re-recording the same guitar part for some fat sound. Never done it, but I have been all over the place on the web, many, many sites for mucho info. I'm ready to do it all, just need the money for the gas/ the gear/ the killer rig! For more info and forums try guitarnoise.com if the peole here don't givfe you all the answers.
And if any of you take any offense, KMA. The more info ya know, the better ya are to rock and roll.

 

[Leper_/-\ffinity]

Thanks, you guys both helped out. Yesterday I actually recorded a few minutes of a cover Im working on, and I used the condenser to get the room sound, and I really like the sound. It puts like a natural sounding reverb on the guitars, and I like it very much, but when Im completely done, maybe Ill throw in some dynamic mic recordings over them like reb said. Thanks again.