Fab examines the process of recording an electric guitar amp. By focusing on things like placement and angles as well as listening to a few different microphones and analyzing the impact of these variables.
This video will help you cut the grease out of the guitar recording process. He even pits an SM57 against an original AKG C12 to fascinating results.
Parts of this site and some files are only accessible to pureMix Pro Members or available to purchase. Please see below our membership plans or add this video to your shopping cart.
00:00:07 Good evening children!
Today, in our continuing education
for unemployed adult series,
we're going to talk about
how to mic an electric guitar amp.
00:00:16 It seemed appropriate.
00:00:18 In this case, there will be no actual
live guitar player to keep everything safe.
00:00:22 What I did instead is extract a part
from a record I just did.
00:00:26 When I record a guitar
for a production,
I tend to record the amp,
and a DI.
00:00:31 The DI gives me a safety.
00:00:33 That allows me
to rerecord the guitar later,
without the guitar player in the room,
so I can choose my own amp.
00:00:39 That's the whole point.
00:00:41 Now, in this case,
the part you're gonna hear
was recorded with this Les Paul,
into this Little Labs Redeye,
which is both a DI,
and a reamp box.
00:00:51 I used it as a DI, straigth into a 2108
from Universal Audio, into Pro Tools.
00:00:56 And then, I'm taking the track
from Pro Tools - line level,
through my patchbay,
through a cable,
back into the Redeye
in Reamp mode,
coming out of the Reamp,
into the amp.
00:01:09 Because of this setup, I'm able to listen
to only differences between microphones
because the amp is the same,
the guitar is the same,
even the playing is the same,
because it's the same part every time.
00:01:19 I can really focus on what
the microphone does to the sound.
00:01:22 First up, a venerable Shure SM57.
00:01:25 It's a hundred bucks, and it's used
on more guitar amps
than anything has been used on anything
ever, in the history of mankind.
00:01:32 What we're gonna do is use the 57
to explore the different possible
positions for a microphone
in front of the guitar amp.
And then we'll try other mics.
00:01:41 I put it there because I felt like it.
00:01:43 No rhyme or reason,
I've seen people put it there,
let's listen to how it sounds.
00:01:48 First, let's listen to the DI.
00:01:50 It's right here, and it sounds
a little bit like this.
00:02:05 It sounds like a DI.
I'm gonna send it to the Reamp box,
which is channel 3 here, today.
00:02:11 And I have this track here
for the 57.
00:02:14 I'm gonna put it on Record.
00:02:16 2108 feeds the converter,
feeds this track. Here we go!
Ok! So that's not bad,
but that's not great, it's in between.
00:02:50 It gives us an idea of what the amp
sounds like,
but it's not necessarily a very pleasing
sound for a guitar,
it lacks a little bottom, right?
That's normal, because we're pretty
far away,
and it's a dynamic microphone,
it is what it is.
00:03:00 What I'd like to do now
is get closer to the amp,
put the microphone where
most people put it...
00:03:06 dead center in front of the amp.
00:03:08 If I go to a club, that's usually
what I see.
00:03:10 I see the engineer putting
the microphone straight on the amp,
if it's not hanging from the cable
from the top of the handle,
but we don't do that here.
So let's do that.
00:03:18 Let's take the previous track off record,
we have this new track here.
00:03:22 I'm gonna solo it, so I only hear that,
and listen to it.
00:03:52 That's cool! A lot more bottom,
and obviously a lot more presence.
00:03:55 It's kind of fun to compare
the two of them. Check it out.
00:03:58 If I position myself here,
where the groove starts...
00:04:01 This is what we had before.
00:04:09 And this is what we have now.
00:04:18 Bringing the microphone closer
brings a lot more bottom,
which makes sense.
It also brings a lot more clack.
00:04:24 What other options do we have?
A lot of people like to put
the microphone on the edge of the cone.
00:04:29 To do so, they have this little
flashlight trick.
00:04:33 Let's do that. We're gonna move
the microphone from the center
to the edge of the cone
of the speaker of the amp.
00:04:39 So, the idea is simple...
00:04:42 instead of having the microphone
being hit straight on by the cone,
let's move it to the edge.
How far of the edge?
If you have a flashlight,
you can shine it here,
and then you can find
the edge of the cone...
00:04:54 more or less here,
and put it there.
00:04:56 Now, if you don't have a flashlight,
you can also feel for it.
00:05:00 But it's fun
to do the flashlight thing.
00:05:05 Alright, let's take the old track
off Record,
put a new track on Record...
00:05:11 solo it, listen to it.
00:05:38 Isn't it amazing how much
of a difference
this much of a distance makes?
It's pretty wild.
00:05:44 This is what we just recorded.
00:05:52 And this is the center position.
00:06:01 Night and day, right?
One is really bright and clanky,
and has a kind of like a muddy bottom,
and the other one has even more bottom,
but is all muffled.
00:06:10 Some people like to use angles,
meaning, instead of facing the microphone
straight at the amp like this,
put it in an angle like this,
so that in theory,
it doesn't get as much
transient energy coming from the cone.
00:06:21 At least, that's a theory, so let's move
the microphone and check it out.
00:06:25 By the way, for those of you
who are wondering,
this is a Gibson G20T
from the mid 50s,
and it distorts when you look at it.
00:06:33 Let's see what this sounds like.
00:07:01 Let's compare!
Before, straight onto the amp.
00:07:13 With the angle.
00:07:21 The angled one has a little more
bottom, is a little thicker,
and has less transients.
It's a really subtle difference.
00:07:28 Is it gonna make a huge difference
in the session? No.
00:07:31 But it's interesting to see what it does.
I'll play it again, check it out.
00:07:34 This is straight on
the edge of the cone.
00:07:43 And this is with the angle.
00:07:52 The point here is that
none of these two sounds
are working for this particular mic,
with this particular amp.
00:07:58 It may work with a bigger amp,
it may work with a different mic,
a different guitar, a different player,
or on a different day, with the exact
same setup, there's no science to this.
00:08:07 The idea is that you're gonna pay
attention to what's going on,
listen, and form your taste
on what is a good sound.
00:08:12 My taste tells me
this is not a good sound.
00:08:15 But since I'm paying attention,
I say: Ok...
00:08:17 the microphone in the middle gave me
all that presence and that clack,
but the bottom was not good.
00:08:22 This gives me a muffled sound,
but a really interesting bottom,
so what if I did something
in the middle?
I'm gonna take the microphone,
and put it at an angle
in between the center
and the edge of the cone.
00:08:36 Here we go!
Ok, that's pretty rockin',
let's compare.
00:09:08 Edge, angle.
00:09:17 In between the edge and the center,
angle.
00:09:27 We're starting to get a hybrid
of the two positions.
00:09:29 As a reminder,
we started all the way here.
00:09:38 And then here's the center take.
00:09:45 And this is the in between with the angle,
the last one we just did.
00:09:55 This position is a clear winner
over the other ones.
00:09:58 Now... since I'm a curious human being,
and I don't like to not know,
what would it sound like
if we left the microphone there,
but put it straight on the cone,
with no angle?
Let's try that.
00:10:10 The good thing at Puremix is that
we are not detail-oriented at all.
00:10:14 We have nothing better to do.
00:10:15 Let's move the microphone one inch,
and see how it feels.
00:10:44 It's amazing the difference an inch
can make actually. Let's check it out!
This is the one with the angle
and the same position.
00:10:56 And this is without the angle.
00:11:05 More transients, more presence,
a little more high end.
00:11:07 It's not night and day, but it's
the difference between having to EQ,
and not having to EQ.
00:11:11 And grown men try to not EQ.
00:11:14 Let's compare the difference
between no angle, slightly on the side,
and no angle, straight in the middle,
I think that's very educational.
00:11:21 Check it out.
00:11:22 What we just did, which is
in between center and edge, no angle.
00:11:32 And this is center, dead center.
00:11:42 Listen to the bottom of the riff,
to the... (riff singing)
Listen to that part.
00:11:46 That's what gets most affected.
00:11:48 First, in between the two positions.
00:11:56 And then, dead center.
00:12:05 This much difference.
00:12:07 Same angle, same microphone,
same player,
same riff, same amp,
same preamp. It's crazy.
00:12:14 So what's to take away from this?
That's pretty simple.
00:12:16 If you're far away from the amp,
you get no bottom.
00:12:19 The closer you get to the amp,
you get more bottom.
00:12:22 If you're straight in the middle,
you get that weird bottom,
a little bit of a heavy transient
happening.
00:12:27 The more you move away from the center,
the darker it gets,
the more bass-heavy it's gonna get,
and the more uneven it's gonna get.
00:12:33 Which could work, if you have
a super bright amp, for example.
00:12:36 And then, as you get closer to the center,
you get a hybrid of the two.
00:12:39 Using angles is a good trick
if you find a spot you like on the cone,
but you wanna be able
to fine-tune the tone a little bit.
00:12:45 Use more angle to get less transients,
a little more bottom.
00:12:49 Now, that's all one microphone.
00:12:51 Can we get a better sound
with a better microphone?
Let's try it!
What defines a better microphone?
Let's do it like they do it
in the catalogs.
00:12:59 The most expensive one
is the better one.
00:13:01 So what's the most expensive microphone
one can get these days?
A 47, or a C12.
00:13:06 I happen to have both,
let's try the C12,
because it's heavy, and it's fun,
and it looks good.
00:13:11 I'm gonna put the C12 in the exact
same position
I just put my 57,
and compare.
00:13:17 This C12 is a very heavy microphone,
which is put on a very heavy stand.
00:13:22 The reason why we put the heavy
microphone on a heavy stand
is so that it doesn't drop,
because otherwise, everybody cries.
00:13:29 Check this out.
00:13:31 I called the track C12 Same Spot.
00:14:01 Interesting, isn't it?
As a reminder, this is what the 57,
in the same spot, sounded like.
00:14:15 C12...
00:14:23 That's a lot of bottom!
It's a lot of boominess,
it's a lot of... almost plosives, like
if somebody would have said a P,
or a T in the microphone,
because it's so close,
and it's freaking out.
00:14:33 In this particular case, actually
the C12 is not cutting it.
00:14:37 There's something I'd like to show you,
which is kind of fun. Check it out.
00:14:40 What would happen if we high-passed
all that stuff at the bottom?
Let's use our trusty...
00:14:47 Sonnox filter.
00:14:49 I'm gonna high-pass the bottom
to get rid of all that...,
all that stuff that's freaking out
the capsule there.
00:14:55 And then, I'm gonna make it
a little brighter,
just for kicks, maybe a shelf at 2k,
or something like that.
00:15:01 And this is what it would sound like.
This is the C12.
00:15:10 And this is the 57 in the same spot.
00:15:19 Again, C12 with a little EQ.
00:15:28 And the 57.
00:15:36 As a reminder, there's a $14,900 difference
in prices between these two microphones.
00:15:42 Is it worth it?
I'll let you decide.
00:15:46 I think that we should try
two more microphones
that no guitar amp miking video
would be complete without.
00:15:52 A Sennheiser 421 dynamic microphone,
a classic,
and the Royer 122 ribbon microphone.
00:15:59 You can use a 121, I have a 122,
you now have to listen to the 122.
00:16:04 I'm gonna put the 122
a little further away from the amp,
because from experience, I know
that if I put it right up the amp,
it's gonna sound bad, a little too thick,
a little too dark.
00:16:13 I know it's not an exact, exact A/B,
but that's not what we're doing,
we're just trying to figure out
what sounds good.
00:16:19 I'm going to put both tracks on Record,
I'll start with the 421, and then,
I'll switch to the 122.
00:16:26 Here we go!
Let's compare the 421 to the 57,
they're both dynamics,
they should sound similar, right?
57.
00:17:13 They have nothing to do
with each other.
00:17:15 The 57 is punkier, more aggressive,
less polite,
the 421 is actually a better rendition
of what was in the room,
it doesn't have as much color.
It's more even.
00:17:25 Your choice is gonna depend on
what kind of record you're gonna do,
what mood you're in, and as always,
what you had for breakfast that morning.
00:17:31 Let's listen to the 122.
00:17:41 Now, that's fun too!
That's a lot more vintagy,
and a lot more crusty.
00:17:45 As a reminder, this is what the 57
sounded like that far away.
00:17:56 122.
00:18:03 Obviously, the 122 is a better microphone
for distance miking on guitar amps.
00:18:08 It's a figure-eight, but I don't hear
that much room.
00:18:11 The other one is a cardio. I actually
hear more distance than I do on the 122.
00:18:15 Go figure.
00:18:16 The point here is not to do
a microphone shootout
to find out which one is the best
on a guitar amp.
00:18:21 That does not exist,
as far as I'm concerned.
00:18:23 What exists is this: I have this mic,
I have this amp,
I have this guitar player with this guitar,
I have this mood.
00:18:29 If I put the microphone there,
this happens.
00:18:32 With this parameter, now I know that
if I go further to the edge,
it gets darker and fatter.
00:18:36 If I go this way, it gets thinner
and further away.
00:18:38 If I go in the middle, it gets clanky.
00:18:40 If I use an angle, I get a little less
transients, a little more bottom.
00:18:44 The combination of these factors should
help you get a better guitar sound,
out of any guitar player, any guitar,
any amp,
any microphone,
any breakfast.
00:18:54 As a conclusion, let's listen again
to a sample of what we recorded today.
00:18:58 57, far away.
00:19:07 57, middle position,
no angle.
00:19:17 The price is right!
C12, with the EQ.
00:19:27 421.
00:19:35 And 122.
00:19:45 Et voilà!
Once logged in, you will be able to read all the transcripts jump around in the video.
Equipment & Software
Shure SM57, Sennheiser 412, AKG C12, Royer-122, Little Labs Redeye, Vovox cables and a really nice Gibson G20T.
Fab Dupont is a Grammy winning NYC based record producer, mixing/mastering engineer and co-founder of pureMix.net.
Fab has been playing, writing, producing and mixing music both live and in studios all over the world. He's worked in cities like Paris, Boston, Brussels, Stockholm, London and New York just to name a few.
He has his own studio called FLUX Studios in the East Village of New York City.
Fab has been nominated for Grammys 6 times, including two Latin Grammys and has received many other accolades around the world, including Victoires de la Musique, South African Music awards, Pan African Music Awards and US independent music awards.
Parts of this site and some files are only accessible to pureMix Pro Members or available to purchase. Please see below our membership plans or add this video to your shopping cart.
"distorts when you look at it " hahaha
great video! I really enjoy your calm approach on things Fab.
Thank you :)
Aledes
2014 Dec 25
Woww great video thanks!!!
RoKh
2014 Apr 02
Fab,
My home guitar recording setup consists of http://www.sweetwater.com/store/detail/SilentSisTan/ and http://www.sweetwater.com/store/detail/SilentSister/ hooked up to http://www.sweetwater.com/store/detail/RockCrusher/. Amp speaker outs connect to the RockCrusher, of course. Do you have any tips on getting great recorded guitar sounds from that setup?
Thanks!
SirChris
2014 Jan 15
This video is well done but only covers the very basics of single mic recording for anyone wondering. I'm hoping that in a future video more advance techniques could be covered like double micing at diferent distances and how to listen and avoid phase issues that arise from dual micing the same source. Even covering different cabs like dual or triple micing a single speaker, 2x12, & 4x12 cabs. That to me sounds like a natural sequel to this video. Hopefully it's being considered.
icarusdoppelganger
2013 Dec 10
thanks for the perspective, from yonder.....
Eric Vo
2013 Aug 01
Good summing of the angle/axis! Listen extra closely at 05:00-05:06 =)
Matteo
2013 Jul 04
Great, but you should better explain the routing between the DI, DAW and amplifier! Beautiful examples of the various microphones.
Thanks.
pshah
2013 Feb 05
Dear Fab! Amazing Videos, I Love them all!
I record lots of guitar and I love the idea of using a DI Routing that you showed us.
One question:
I use Logic Pro as my main DAW, I own a Presonus 16.0.2 Mixer with 12 Xmax Preams, and other basic goodies.
however I cannot route the signal back from my mixer to another DI, & to the amp. My daw/mixer's firewire input/outputs are just not able to route to an aux output at all...
And suggested Gear I can invest in to do the trick?
bigtree
2012 Nov 05
Excellent Tutorial and nicely surrounded around reamping !
Cheers!
bigtree
http://recording.org
dagovitsj
2012 Nov 01
@Fab: great news! Looking forward to the wav-files. Thanks!
Fabulous Fab
2012 Oct 31
@dagovitsj: WAV files coming when Sandy gives us our power back.
Fabulous Fab
2012 Oct 31
@strangedays: we are thinking of making a 'get a good guitar sound' video for different styles. And inviting specialists for every style. It'll be a sec but ti'll be very instructive.
Fabulous Fab
2012 Oct 31
@Rutherford:I reamp everything I can until the artist starts to complain
juancopro-flow
2012 Oct 30
Crazy how one inch makes a difference, "That's what she said, lol" Great video as always. Bless and hope everyone is good over there at flux after SANDY.
dagovitsj
2012 Oct 30
Thanks for a great video! I did a course in recording 6 months ago only micing acoustic guitars in a church with different microphones and recording set ups. It was really an ear-opener, guitars have so many different colors and nuances, and getting the sound you want by placing the mic(s) in the right spot also makes the mixing a lot easier, in my experience! Great to be reminded of that this also is true with amps and electric guitars!
Is it by any chance possible to let us download the wav-files? it's very convenient in the other tutorials here ;)
digilando
2012 Oct 28
Ok Fab: go on this way ! Another great lesson.
But ... instead of recording my guitar with a C12 I'll prefer to have a good breakfast for years !
strangedays
2012 Oct 25
Great video. I appreciate the Mic postioning just wondering on whether you can expand on this by going into gain adjustment, amp eq, and different heads. I always find getting high gain sounds tricky as they can be harsh. Also layering using less gain?
Rutherford
2012 Oct 24
Thanks again for the great vid, worth every penny.
ps Does Fab/Flux reamp many different instruments or primarily guitar/bass/keys tracks?
mirofelber
2012 Oct 24
Great video !!!! ;)
sral68
2012 Oct 24
Hi! A really useful video. It shows how important it is to listen and finetune you mic positions.
ihebrew
2012 Oct 23
Great video as always....some really good insight on getting that great guitar amp sound that eludes us so often
