how to mic amps for sound samples...

[Mark Hammer]

I think youtube demos of pickups using amps is a good idea. I think youtube demos of pickups using PODs is a good idea, and Ithink youtube demos going straight into the computer with nothing other than a USB conversion box is also a good idea. The viewer has to have some sense of being able to subtract what you start out with from what you get when processing is added from what you get when an amp enters the formula. Makes for a somewhat longer video demo, in theory, but quite frankly many of the demos I see have about 70% more wanking in them than is truly necessary. It should be possible to convey an awful lot about a pickup in under 2 minutes if you pick your demo snippets wisely. For marketing purposes, it is also useful to have a link to downloadable MP3 or even WAV snippets on your site embedded in the little more/less text box beside the youtube demo. That way, people can run standardized direct-to-USB samples through a software RTA and get a better sense of where the peaks and notches are for that pickup. Educational.

[David Schwab]

I noticed that those SM57 mics have a narrow frequency range, and according to the Ebay auction 99% of all tunes you hear on the radio have amps recorded with those mics. I have some vocal mics around and tried one of those and liked that alot better. I guess a full frequency mic used up close to the speaker is a mistake. I don't quite get this close micing the amp thing anyway, who listens to amps that way? No one, you always hear an amp from about ten feet away right? In the distance away alot of treble stuff doesn't get heard, and guitars with a full band behind them alot more gets drowned away by drums and bass. So I think the SM57 might be a better idea, close mic and then put one further out for room ambiance. I may end up selling this Victoria Regal II, its a damn nice amp but its just not doing it for me and isn't loud enough when the jams get on the louder side of things. Anyone get any of those Ceriatone amps? Those things sure are a good deal...

Room ambience and delays also causes comb filtering. I like to record my bass samples as flat and dry as possible, and also some with EQ and stuff to show how it sounds in the real world.

Obviously guitar is a different animal, and the amp is part of the tone, but you want a dry sounding recording so people can hear just the sound of the pickup through the amp.

When using two mics you have to mess with them to keep them in phase, and generally something in the frequency spectrum will be changed. If you are making a record, fine.. you want to come up with interesting tones. But I think to sell a pickup, people want to hear it as direct as possible. And then give them something with more ambience.

BTW, I always wanted one of those Johnson J-Stations. I heard a lot of good things about them. But at the time it was out of my budget, so I got a Korg Pandora. It's hard to get semi clean tones from amp simulators.

It's not impossible, but you have to mess with the settings, and still, they aren't exactly like an amp, yet.

This is about as semi clean as I've gotten mine (in the Roland mixer)... still has some nice grind without being too fizzy, and it's not dead clean. I do have a little room ambience dialed in. This riff would sound better if I had a neck humbucker also, but it's just the bridge...

Just for you Dave

Amp sim riff

[David Schwab]

Check this out... This is in the current issue of EQ magazine. It's the recording rig used by Buddy Guy on his Skin Deep CD.

There were seven amps running full out in one room. Two Chicago Blues Box amps, one with a SM57, and the other with a Neumann U67. Those are his main amps, then they added a Marshall Super Lead 100 miked with a SM57, '59 Bassman miked with a AEA R92 ribbon mic, another Bassman with an SM57, '60's Vibroverb miked with Royer R-121 ribbon mic, and a Mesa Boogie combo miked with a Royer R-122 ribbon mic. All the mics were about an inch from the grills. Ten feet from the wall of amps was a Neumann M50.

Do you think it was loud in that room???

[Yves]

You cant go wrong with a SM57

I tend to agree with that when you are recording with the purpose of including this in a mix. But when you are only recording a guitar on its own for demo, you'll get more air and a broader range with a static mic.

Just experiment with placing the mic in different positions.

That's the thing, but I would add experiment with placing the amp in the room first so that low frequencies don't cancel out and you don't get nasty reflections (don't put the amp directly on the floor BTW), then experiment with the mic.
Again this is not meant to fit it a mix, this should sound faithful though natural, so a bit of room ambiance (by setting the mic distance) should suffice

who listens to amps that way? No one, you always hear an amp from about ten feet away right?

And who listen to a snare drum at 3" or so: no one hopefully, but that's recording techniques, mostly for multi-tracking purpose (which mean as well less spill over between tracks and dry sound for further process in the mix). And what you want, I think, is a bit different from this, so you don't need to be that close, but do experiment different places as this can change a lot the outcome and the balance between the room and the direct sound

[JGundry]

SM57's make sense when micing in a band context. But to me for guitar only demos they sound too dry and lack depth. For guitar only demos avoid putting the mic right up to the speaker. 3-4 feet away will add some depth to the sound. Use a condenser mic with a little compression.

But still I think probably one of the best sounding ways to record is to get and Edirol R0-9 or the Zoom which is cheaper and is also supposed to be good and just experiment with placement in the room. The big advantage of this method other than ease is that you will get a stereo recording right off the bat and that will help add depth to the sound. Plus you will have a very cool high quality recorder to grab sound samples of your stuff being used at gigs. The more I think of it makes more sense to buy the Zoom recorder before getting an expensive condenser mic.

And again this was done with a pocket Edirol R0-9 recorder placed in the middle of the room during practice.http://gundrymedia.typepad.com/upsta..._my_baby_7.mp3

[greenfingers]

I may end up selling this Victoria Regal II, its a damn nice amp but its just not doing it for me and isn't loud enough when the jams get on the louder side of things.

Maybe you should of got the Double Deluxe from Victoria. It has more presence to cut through a loud band and is a better at moving air. A very simple amp but a very complex sound.

[soundmasterg]

Dave,

Your front room would give you a great sound, though it would get hard for Suz and hard for the dogs to deal with that for sure. Plus you probably don't want barking dogs on your PF Star samples.

A large diaphragm condensor mic would sound quite good, especially if in the front room, a foot or more away from the amp, and don't use any reverb on the amp. You can get it from micing techniques as long as the room is a bit reflective, and it was always sound better than amp reverb. There are certain smaller mics that would be a good choice too. I'd stay away from dynamic mics like the SM57 unless you want to close mic. For what you're doing with these clips, you could get away with a SM58 clone from Audio Technica and others for a lot less money and duplicate the SM57 vibe.

You could even get a great sound using your micidisc setup in the front room with that small stereo mic. Really depends on just how good you want to get with your sound samples.

Greg

[David Schwab]

who listens to amps that way? No one, you always hear an amp from about ten feet away right?

In a club maybe, but what about someone in their practice (bed) room?

Well the idea is control. You record the amp as isolated as possible, and then also use some other mics for the room or what ever, and mix them together.

A lot of recordings take a DI off the guitar, record that, and then "re amp" it though real amps, and record it again. That way they aren't stuck with the recorded tone of the amp. I think that's a bit extreme, but it's done all the time. I like to get a good tone going onto the recoding medium, be it tape or a hard drive.

But don't forget, unless you listen to the clip with headphones, you are already listening to it in an acoustic environment as it comes off your speakers in your room.

If guitarist complain about reverb of clips, it's probably because some people don't like reverb and also they are used to sitting in front of their amp playing.

You can change the tone of things a lot with reverb and delay, so anything can be made to sound better. A dry recording gives you the naked representation of the pickup/amp.

[cminor9]

I don't like playing a dry amp tone s.

I didn't either until I started playing tweeds. At first, I just gritted my teeth and dealt with no verb because tweeds sound so nice. Now, spring reverb sounds weird to me. I have noticed that playing or recording with no reverb seems to cut through the mix better. A dry tone might actually record better for you, too.

[cminor9]

Just found this on slashdot regarding YouTube's audio compression. Looks like someone found a workaround.

http://tech.slashdot.org/article.pl?...10212&from=rss

Maybe they finally found a good use for a parasitic oscillation (beside annoying the crap out of dogs)?

[Possum]

...

MOst of us are using video cameras that already use an auto level recording mode, it keeps loud sounds from clipping and soft sounds it makes louder, so this has already been done in your digicam...
His example of softly plucked guitar chords isn't what most of us are going to be doing so its not really much of an issue. Cool trick though....

[RedHouse]

Just found this on slashdot regarding YouTube's audio compression. Looks like someone found a workaround.

http://tech.slashdot.org/article.pl?...10212&from=rss

Maybe they finally found a good use for a parasitic oscillation (beside annoying the crap out of dogs)?

Just an FYI, that's not be confused with the digital data compression and bit-rate losses I was attempting to describe earlier, as Audio stream compression and "normalization" are a different thing than that totally.

[Possum]

...

I am betting the worst sound clips on YouTube aren't YouTube's fault, most people don't read the instructions, there is a section on how to get the best quality on their website, then there's those stupid cell phone videos, they should just ban those things outright :-)

[geminimusik]

Well maybe I can share some of my previous experience.

Recording guitar is always hit and miss, even with proper recording gear sometimes it won't be able to capture the sound we want.

But based on my experience, it all start with good setup. Yes it would cost some investment. But those investment would save you alot of money. This setup based on situation that we are not going to do full recording. It's small and simple recording.

Start with proper setup of your DAW ( I assume that this are the current and major system for recording).
- Get the PCI or PCI based if You are on PC with windows, Even on Mac I still recommend this. Since PCI are far better than Firewire. The reason is firewire driver and hardware support is still on debate. PCI is proven. If you are on desktop computer not laptop. Go with this option. My suggestion is get this www.lynxstudio.com and get the L22. If you are on laptop, find the best manufacturer with stable driver support and technical support. I find many of firewire based Audio card failed to work due the CHIP problem. *M-audio, Presonus etc).
- find the software that you are comfortable to work with
- if you can afford good preamp, go get one, not the behringer stuff.
- SM57 and ribbon mic such as royer, crowley-tipp etc
- Get good reference speakers.
- learn the technique from others.
- learn to mix your sound


Here's some resourcefull forum for recording enthusiast.

www.gearslutz.com

cheers
Imam

[David Schwab]

- Get the PCI or PCI based if You are on PC with windows, Even on Mac I still recommend this. Since PCI are far better than Firewire. The reason is firewire driver and hardware support is still on debate.

That's good advice. I have a PCI card in my Mac (M-Audio), so I agree that was always the best way to go, but I have to disagree somewhat with the Firewire issue. Maybe it's an issue on Windows computers, which have issues with drivers in general, especially when it comes to audio. But Apple invented Firewire, so often no drivers are needed for Firewire devices. Currently M-Audio has very stable drivers for their Firewire interfaces on Mac OS X 10.5.4.

The one big issue with using a serial interface, such as Firewire, as opposed to PCI, is traffic on the Firewire bus. If you also have a Firewire hard drive on the same bus as the audio interface, that's asking for trouble! One drive might not be too bad, especially for Firewire 800, but if you have too many devices you will start to use up available bandwidth.

On the Mac side, unless you have a Mac Pro tower (or an older tower such as a G4, G5, etc.) you can't use PCI cards. A lot of people are doing audio on the new iMacs with great success, and of course they have no PCI slots.

I'll be facing the same scenario next year when I upgrade my aging G4 to a new Mac. The 24" iMacs are a damn good deal, and a grand less than the Mac Pro tower, which of course doesn't include a monitor, so that will likely be my upgrade path.

One nice thing is all the recent Macs have optical S/PDIF (TOSLINK) built in, using wither the more standard JIS F05 connectors, or the Mini-TOSLINK connectors, which are often built into the microphone jacks. So if your interface has that option, and even many cheap USB interfaces do, that's the best way to go! (assuming your interface has a stable clock.. we don't want jitter!)

That's how I get audio into my Mac, via coax to the Audiophile 2496 PCI card. My Roland mixer also has optical ports, so when I get the iMac, I just need some new cables. Though I may have to get an M-Audio interface to use ProTools, and also for MIDI connections.

I've got to say the mic preamps in my old Behringer MX 1604A mixer actually sound really good. I think that was the design they ripped off from Mackie. I actually prefer the Behringer pres over the ones in the Roland, which are a bit dull sounding, but I only use the MX for monitoring. But of course a good quality standalone mic pre is a better choice.