(speculation thread) Optimal micing

[ahjteam]

Hi guys,

I've been quite bored here at parents summer cottage, it's been nice to see the family, but also quite frustrating not to be albe to "do anything" if you know what I mean. Music related. I was just pondering about quite a lot of stuff because I have quite a lot of extra time on my hands here, which is also kinda nice. But what I have been wondering is that as some of you might know, that the optimal micing is that you don't need to do any processing after it's been tracked, to prevent unnessecary saturation/distortion/etc from compression/eq/whatever. Some of these that I've been wondering is especially with guitar and drum micing, but I'll state the guitar micing thing here...

What people really seem to endorse on this forum is "one SM57 to the center of the cone in front grille and then highpass at 60-120hz, multiband compressor for the low mids and lowpass at 12khz", which I really don't fully understand. It's one of these "we'll fix it in the mix" things.

The highpass I understand fully, it is to give room for the bass-region instruments like bass guitar and kickdrum, but others not so much. The purpose of the multiband compressor is to tame the wild lowend, which is caused by *drumroll* the proximity effect.

OK, but why don't you just take the mic a bit further away to tame the proximity effect, because thats what is causing it; The mic is too close to the cabinet. The sound does NOT change that dramatically if you take it 1-2 inches away from the cloth, it just tames the proximity effect.

Then the lowpass (aka highcut) to tame the fizzyness.. This one I'm not 100% sure about, but usually the fizzyness is caused by wrong settings on the amp. Usually too much treble, prescense and/or gain. If this is not the case, then I was thinking that if you would try to put a popfilter (that you use for vocals) between the mic and the cabinet, that would propably do exactly the same thing; remove some of the higher frequencies from entering the microphone.

Would some nice person like to test these for us, for the Andy Sneap forum community? To test this it really takes only a few minutes if you have the stuff already laying around, so it really shouldn't be much of a hassle. Record a short clip of guitars with palm mutes and what not, then reamp them to the amp with nice settings, first use the normal SM57 to the cloth micing setup and then take the mic a bit further and then try with added popfilter in between while the mic is a bit further away and see which you like the most.

 

[Torniojaws]

I find that if I pull back a 57 even a little, it loses the in-your-face quality and sounds a little distant. Maybe the volume affects it too. Amp fizz (except that caused by ridiculous settings, like Treble and Presence at 10) is caused by the actual design of the amp, so there's not much you can do about it but completely change the amp components, which may also affect the "other" stuff in the amp sound, making it no longer sound like it does/should.

The 12 kHz low pass is because that is just about the limit of what a guitar cab speaker outputs. There is no meaningful information above that frequency in pretty much any guitar speakers.

The actual limit is as low as 5 kHz, but the cabinet design also adds higher frequencies I presume: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guitar_speaker

Here's Celestion's specs for V30:

http://professional.celestion.com/guitar/products/classic/detail.asp?ID=4
http://professional.celestion.com/guitar/products/classic/spec.asp?ID=4 (Frequency range 70-5000Hz)

Edit:
And an afterthought, the 10+ kHz is probably for the Nyqvist frequency (2f = 2*5k = 10 kHz).

 

[ahjteam]

of course if it loses that in-your-face aspect or it turns distant sounding, then you should just turn it a bit louder or turn up the gain on the mic preamp. compensation is the key.

but you are right about the fizz, it's usually because from the design, but often it is also from the settings. I've tracked a VERY muffled rhythmguitar sound from Framus Cobra, almost no prescence and treble, because it's very fizzy sounding by nature, but it fit very well to the mix (we had some Randall combo as the second guitar)

 

[006]

Not trying to be a dick but...I wonder why the pros over the last few decades haven't simply pulled the mic back an inch or two...I guess the same can be explained with drums. If you want as little room sound as possible you would close mic the drums. If you pull the mic an inch or two back from, let's use the snare in this example, the snare then you really do get more of a not-so-direct sound. And the drummer hitting harder (the equivalent of turning the amp up) would not make it sound like it is still close mic'ed, it would just sound louder, and still have the room in it. Also, the opposite method, which would be simply turning the mic's gain up, would equally amplify every nuance the mic is picking up already. So if there is a little bit of room sound, when you turn the mic up the room sound gets amplified equally along with the source you are trying to mic, so that doesn't really work out IMO. That's my take on it anyway, based on experience mic'ing drums, even though I think I suck at it, I've done it enough to know that much

A little illustration I did quickly:

Now that is assuming the source is something like a snare drum, where if you move the mic back away from it, it's pickup pattern allows a wider range of pickup past the source the further out you go. True, with a cabinet you have a huge cabinet taking up more space than a snare, but pulling the mic back still produces a less in-your-face sound, not to mention picking up signal from other speakers which introduces more problems than it is worth, as opposed to simply doing a good low-pass to get rid of some fizz, hehe. I really don't think anyone simply mics the speaker and that's it. It always undoubtedly needs some EQ to make it work with everything else. Sure, sometimes it's a simple hi/low-pass with maybe some other small boost or cut, but it will always need something.

And, for the record, I have been contemplating putting together a mic'ing tutorial for the forum with lots of pics and audio clips. Showing what it is when people go "between cap/cone, half-inch off the grill" etc. I know when I first started out I had no idea what any of that meant, shortly after I learned. Also showing the same riffs reamped through the same amp settings, just moving the mic around and doing 45 degrees, etc. so people can really hear what the mic position makes the end result into.

~006

 

[smy1]

Make that tutorial, bro!

 

[ahjteam]

006, being a dick is fine, as long as you have some valid words behind you, like you had but then again we might have to look at the terms. "in your face" means (in my books, in this context) that something that it is near or very close to you and if someone is speaking to "in your face", they are so close to you you that even the hair on your face moves from each breath. When you look at the the definition of "proximity", you might get a deja vu... But the thing is that the multiband compression that I spoke about earlier removes that overly violent in-your-face action, so why not just do it by slightly moving the mic just a little bit away, if not just by few millimeters?

On the snare subject... I, my classmate and my roommate actually did a distance test on a snare drum a little while ago. We used same mics and same preamp (SM57 and Focusrite Octopre), all mics pointing at the same angle to the middle of the top head, but then just changed the distance. When you took the mic far enough, it actually picks more of the bottom head than the tophead. I have the picture of the micsetup somewhere, but its not available right now, but here is the sound example:

http://ahjteam.com/upload/snare_distance_difference.mp3 (~340kb) in series of 4 hits: above the drum, above the rim, behind the rim, 10cm from rim, 20cm from rim, 30cm from rim

But if you ask me, that my ideal sound would be something between "behind the rim" and "10cm from rim", because its a nice mix of what I usually use as top+btm micing. so prolly about 5-7cm from rim.

When I have time (and get a reamp-box), I will do the comparison on guitar amps for ya

PS: And if the fizz or whatever is the problem in the sound, why not try to just change the whole mic? We also tested with different mics and I noticed that Röde NT5 worked almost better on the top than SM57 on snare, but then again, it might not when the whole kit is being played. But then again we got some nice founds when we did the test... The t.Bone cheapo bassdrum mic (t.Bone BD200, costs like 25-30 euros or something) worked helluva nicely on the bottom head with SM57

 

[006]

Yeah, it makes sense that more bottom snare gets in the mic the further away it is since you would be getting more room and less of the direct top snare. Didn't check out the clips as I'm at work right now, but I will check them later if I remember.

~006

 

[ahjteam]

more room and less of the direct top snare.

But then again, we get to the question that is it really nessecary to get the direct signal instead of the roomier signal? You can put the triggers in there if you don't like the miced sound and that way you can also get that very-in-your-face -snare if nessecary... The close micing method on drums is most propably in fashion nowadays because of the amount of control you get (less bleed etc), but you'll add reverb in the snare anyways if you mix it like 99% of the other guys. So if the liveroom sounds good, why not use the natural room verb instead when you would also most likely need to process it less that way?

 

[006]

Control is exactly it man! While the room may be excellent for drums in every way imaginable, you still want the direct sound as opposed to the room sound for the control. Most cases, IMO, you want a good sounding drum room for the OH, ride and hats, since these days sample replacement is as commonplace as....something really common LOL...the room is still very important for the cymbals, since it's a little impractical to try and replace those. For me, I like to use artificial verbs because I can use what I want on each individual drum, instead of having to work with the verb from the room and/or using artificial verb on something that will have to fight with the natural verb from the room. That's just me though, I'm sure everyone has their own reasons. If it were for rock, I'd definitely be taking advantage of a good sounding room and probably not even end up using samples to reinforce anything.

~006

 

[ExecutiveRob]

OK, but why don't you just take the mic a bit further away to tame the proximity effect, because thats what is causing it; The mic is too close to the cabinet. The sound does NOT change that dramatically if you take it 1-2 inches away from the cloth, it just tames the proximity effect.

I see what you're getting at... But... If you've ever tried the trick of turning the amp on with no guitar plugged in, cranking the volume on the amp up, putting your ear to the speaker cone and then listening to the different tone in hiss as you move about slowly, then it's obvious that the further back you move the less "specific" you can be about the tone.

Moving further away allows you to hear the character of the whole speaker cone, moving back further still lets you know what that amp/speaker/cabinet sounds like in that particular room.

Now I'm not saying that you're idea is incorrect... I usually go for the mic(s) a few inches back more than "normal" - but that's the sound I like... at the moment.

Regarding the high pass thing - If you just high pass it before you record it, then you don't have to fix it in the mix! It IS the mix!

Rob

 

[ahjteam]

Regarding the high pass thing - If you just high pass it before you record it, then you don't have to fix it in the mix! It IS the mix!

Well if you choose to activate the highpass filter on the mic (for example MD421 and many many many condenser mics have a lowcut switch on them) or the preamp instead of doing in the DAW after tracking, I say its part of the tracking, not mixing.

 

[GuitarHack]

.......
OK, but why don't you just take the mic a bit further away to tame the proximity effect, because thats what is causing it; The mic is too close to the cabinet. The sound does NOT change that dramatically if you take it 1-2 inches away from the cloth, it just tames the proximity effect.

With all due respect, I disagree. It makes a BIG difference. The "Proximity" effect mainly effects the very low end. Moving the mic further away (even 10mm) to compensate for this results in a much less full/solid/"in your face" (whatever you want to call it) sound over the whole frequency range, not just the low end. I can not explain this to you in writing. It is something you have to actually do yourself to hear the difference.

As for the fizz, the amp settings used to achieve the desired "brightness" of the guitar tone unfortunately bring with them the fizz. I can dial in an amp tone with no fizz but it would be so dark that it would be unuseable. A pop-filter is for minimizing plosives, not hig-end fizzies. Also, if someone tells you that they can mic the Dustcap area of a V30 and not have to EQ it, then their finished tone will have a shit load of fizz in it or they are some kind of wizard. That's where the fizz lives! (at least in the Mesa Cabs I have owned). I have mic'd enough positions (impulses) to know where the fizz lives and where it doesn't. If nobody does your experiment before I get a chance to do it then I will try and create some examples.

If I am covering other peoples responses, sorry I haven't read them all, it's late.

 

[Jaymz]

...or they are some kind of wizard

+1

 

[JBroll]

I no longer think that the 'idea' mic position is the one that requires minimal postprocessing. Everything is a creative tool, and using your EQ/comp/transmogrifier/transient assfuckulator/whatever as an assistant (and nothing more) is either (1) damn wasteful if the unit is good or (2) a soon-to-collapse straw house if the unit isn't good. I'm now firmly in the throw-the-fucker-somewhere-and-let-it-lay camp, with a couple of ants and a discarded cola can, finding that fucking around with things after the drums and bass already have been set up and the mic has been slapped somewhere up-close and random is too much fun for words.

Also, the i5 always sounded to me more 'in your face' at a foot away than the 57 did right on the speaker. After I yanked the 57's transformer out it got a bit better, but I don't think it likes me anymore.

Jeff