"Shavering"

[iekobrid]

Never heard that term before.


http://digital.premierguitar.com/premierguitar/201012_1/#pg53



' Plug in your guitar and dial up the tone you want. Important: when you have the tone you want in the room, unplug your guitar! Choose your mic and plug it into your preamp. Turn off the studio monitors and plug in a set of headphones. Now, turn the gain and the master volume on the amp all the way up. You should hear strong hiss coming from the amp. '


' Now, very slowly, move the microphone around the speaker. You'll hear the tone of the hiss change as the mic moves -- it will sound vaguely like an electric razor (thus Olsen's "shavering" name). Experiment with angling the mic, moving it in and out, and so on. You'll quickly begin to hear the differences each of these changes makes to the tone of the hiss. '


' Olson moves the mic until he finds the spot on the speaker where the mic picks up the brightest sound. Other engineers look for the hiss to sound the same through the mic as it does... in the room. Others look for a "balanced" hiss with a neutral tonality. Still others look for the spot on the speaker where the hiss is darkest in tone. '

 

[RedDog]

Interesting read, man. Looks like I gotta new trick to try.

 

[BLUElightCory]

I've never heard the term "shavering," but Butch Vig has talked about using this method on guitars for quite some time. There are TONS of cool tricks like this in the Guest Mod subforums over at Gearslutz.

 

[chrisrivalry]

didn't slipperman also have something similar to this in his guide? that pdf page was a bitch to read by the way

 

[ze kink]

Hmm, I've only ever done this with two mics and the phase flipped on the other one, when I've either tried to find a combination that has either the most annoying fizz I'd never want in my tone or complete silence. I guess it's also a more popular usage of this?

Still pretty interesting, especially the "hiss sounds the same in the mic as in the room" part.

 

[amarshism]

A few people use pink noise for this.

 

[Tommy Gun]

I've been using this method micing guitar cabs since day one. It's just how I learned to mic a cab. On the subject of bright vs. dark vs. neutral, it depends on a number of things, but my rule of thumb goes:

V30's = Neutral/Match the room

75's = Darker, but not much

GB's = Brighter, but not much

50's = Bright

 

[RedDog]

Look at what I just found from Andy Sneap, at the bottom of the GUITAR labeled section:

Before I had the IBP, I would turn up the amp with no guitar connected so I could hear the white noise from the amp through the speakers. Then I listened with closed headphones, one mic in each ear (same level is important) and moved one of the mics a little bit at a time until the noise seemed to be in the middle.

http://noise101.wikidot.com/pro-tips

You think he's talking about Fredman style micing? I know Mr. Sneap favors a single 57. But his approach is definitely shavering to combat typical phase issues.