How to record smooth higer gain lead tones?

[Dale]

Hello!

I am asking around to see if I can learn some more here. I have historically recorded clean and lower gain blues material when recording. I have been able to get what I want nicely in that area. So I just have not done a lot or recording with distortion and gain. It has not been my thing. But, more recently I have been playing more smoothed Santana like things, or perhaps a smoother toned Via tones. In doing so I have wanted to capture a couple things Iam working on. I have noticed that the sound I am getting from going through the preamp, and micing the cab is not the same tone I am hearing in the room for leads. The rhythms appear OK, it is the lead tone that is not the same. It appears to pick up a fizzy element that is not being heard by me (or others) when in the room with the amp.

I have been doing some reading and have started to try and record more distorted and high gain voiced amps following the advice I am getting there. However, I do not have several tube preamps to run things though (appears to be one of the major things studios do here I guess). So, I was wondering what people here do to record smoother high gain tones.

What advice would you give? (Perhaps it is just that I need to go gear shopping some more here!)

[Gravity Jim]

Yes, high end mic pre's will smoove things out.

But you should experiment with mic placement. You may be picking up a buzz or sizzle in the speaker that your ear can't hear, but the mic is picking up right smart where you have it placed.

What mic(s) are you using? What speaker and cabinet? Where are you placing your mic(s)?

[KevinWaide]

My favorite mics to use when recording are a 57 against the grill, just off center of the cone, angled up and toward the cone itself, then a good ribbon mic behind the amp. Have someone play and walk around until you find the warm spot and place the ribbon mic there.

[Dale]

Thanks! I will give some of these things a try. The microphones I have right now are a SM57 and a pair of MXL microphones I use for acoustic work 990 and 993.

http://www.mxlmics.com/condenser_mic...ser_index.html

I have moved the microphone to the place where the timbre of the hum in the headphones is about as close that I am getting from the amp as I can get. It appears to be about a foot back, a bit above the speaker and pointed off center at about the mid-point of the cone (between edge and center). There is no one here who is going to help with the placement so I can't really do the play and move thing. But, I can try I can try it with a recording playing to match it up. I am thinking of using one the MXL microphones as a room mic to try and see if I can get the "ear" sound as well. Obviously I need to watch for phase cancellation as well in that case.

I do not have a ribbon microphone. Perhaps it and a tube preamp may help as well here. I will add these to the shopping list.

[Dale]

I can't get the link to work for me. Sorry.

[Gravity Jim]

I'm in the same boat... no assistant in my studio.

Just walk around the room while playing. Wherever you feel the amp sounds best, hang the condenser there (where your head was when it sounded good). Record with both the 57 and the condenser (watching for phase problems - you can always flip the phase on the room mic to see), and then mix the two tracks to taste, maybe even panning them hard right and left. You'll be surprised. No matter how many times you read "stick a 57 in it" on the web, that's not how 99% of your great guitar sounds were recorded.

Also, you might try using just a little less gain than you really think you need. It seems to me that high-gain stuff that sounds great while you're playing always seems a hair over-the-top on the tape, but if you back it off to the point where you're thinking, "man, maybe this needs a little more gain," then that's when it records really nicely.

Also, you might not want to add a ribbon and pre to your shopping list just yet. The cheap ones don't sound so hot, and all of them require a ton of pre-amp gain to sound good. I've been thinking about it for some time, and the ribbon/pre combo I'm looking at now would cost me about 1900 simoleons.

[pc]

I agree with the studio pros in this thread, but I'll add my two cents.

I've found in my experience that if close-mic placement is good on a clean or low gain sound, it will sound just as good when the volume is cranked--allowing for level changes on the channel of course.

My favorite mic right now for my amps is a small condenser mic--a Sennheiser e614. It's meant as a drum overhead mic or for certain wind instruments, but I've found that close-miking my amps with it is heaven. The problem was that I couldn't really hear in my headphones what the sound was like because the sound from the amp was drowning out the headphones.

Then I just turned the amp down--way down. I strummed the guitar and let it ring while I moved the mic around the speaker area until I found the sweet spot. Lo and behold, when I cranked the amp, it still sounded fantastic.

For higher-gain stuff I also like to use a LDC, and I agree 100 percent with Jim. I just walk around my studio with no headphones on and find out where my ears like the sound the best, then I stick the LDC there.

As an interesting aside, although Fezz and Jim are totally right that studios do NOT use SM-57s for close-miking amps, allegedly just about every Joe Bonamassa guitar tone on his CDs is gotten that way. He's said that the only sound he really likes is the 57, and despite the resistance and flack he gets at studios, he insists they at least try it his way, which is always how it ends up staying. The interview I'm paraphrasing is a couple years old, so I can't say if the most recent album was done the same way, but the guitar tones are freakin' spectacular on that album, and yeah, very high gain.

[Wilko]

Gravity Jim posted pretty much what I would have posted. Specially the part about using less gain than you think you need.

If you really must use all that gain, IMNSHO, you'll find it very "buzzy" on tape. To get rid of that extra hair, pull the mic away from the grill at least a foot or two. You can get a decent sound that way(if you are playing loud) that will get some room sound and some of the buzzy part will be toned down. You'll lose some of the proximity effect, but that's not sucha big deal as you probably are getting muddy bottom anyway (from that 57) A pop filter will help eliminate some of that buzz too.

[TonsofBlues]

What Jim said. A good LDC or ribbon mic (or two) placed well will really make a big difference. A 57 slammed on the grill by itself will not. I also think that once you get into high gain lead tones, a POD or similar device tends to sound better and at least what you hear is what you get. You also have a whole lot more control over what you get as well.

Check out the middle (@ about 59 seconds in) of this cue: Frank vs. Jimbo

Fezz, was that cut using a POD for the lead? Tasty stuff, BTW

[gtrplr]

I had that problem as well I had trouble with 80's leads.Then a buddy turned me on to a sansamp gt2 I ran it straight to the boards its was great because it had miking settings.
www.tech21nyc.com

[Gravity Jim]

Mr. Fezz suggested a 2-condenser micing arrangement a while back that got really good results on my first try. Since you have a pair of those MXL's, you might try this (with all credit where it is due):

Hang Mic 1 where it sounds good (ear level). Hang Mic 2 behind the amp, about 6 to 12 inches away, at speaker level. Reverse the phase on Mic 2. Record. Be happy.

This worked even on a closed back cabinet. Sweet tone, tons of presence. To be fair, I was going for glassy cleans, but as pc points out, a mic positon for clean tones should work just as well with higher gain.

[Wilko]

57s are known for spikey high mids. Shure uses that as a selling point on their website.

Spikey mids are NOT what you want for smooth overdrive tones.

Here's a joke take I did for the Jam zone using a 57 in the grill of a Celestion Greenback in an 18 watt amp:

Walkways Shred

[Dale]

For some reason I can't get files to download tonight. I am not sure what I am doing incorrect here.

I spent some time tonight doing some recording. I was able to get the SM57 to work pretty well. It ended up about 6-8 inches off the grill, with the microphone slightly off axis, about 1/2 way between cone edge. The kids were noisy so I could not use the room microphone tonight. I need to try the microphone on the back of the speaker as well, though the amp I was using has a partial closed back so it may not work as easily. I am not sure what the speaker is in it.

I was able to get about 3 minutes of a lead over a backing track that sounded good (relative to what I have had before anyway!) so I think I am in the usable range at this point anyway. If I have time to do a mix down I will post a link to it if it if people want to hear it.

[KevinWaide]

Speaking of mic placement (and totally off topic, but what hell :-P), I'm just as anal in a live environment. During setup, I will walk around until I get my amp set to the room, then start moving the mic until the sound coming from the mains is exactly like I hear coming from my amp. Once I get it set, I threaten the sound guy, tell him if he does anything to dick with my sound, I will break his piano playing fingers. If he doesn't know how to play piano, I'll teach him, then I'll break them. :-P That usually gets the point across that I am VERY particular about my sound.

[Jonnda]

Speaking of mic placement (and totally off topic, but what hell :-P), I'm just as anal in a live environment. During setup, I will walk around until I get my amp set to the room, then start moving the mic until the sound coming from the mains is exactly like I hear coming from my amp. Once I get it set, I threaten the sound guy, tell him if he does anything to dick with my sound, I will break his piano playing fingers. If he doesn't know how to play piano, I'll teach him, then I'll break them. :-P That usually gets the point across that I am VERY particular about my sound.

I took a live sound reinforcement class the one year i went to Columbia College in Chicago, where i was warned that my job (if i went down that path) is to make both the artist happy and the audience... and that there are some artists (blues harp players in particular) you don't wanna mess with.
Due to bad experiences on both ends, musicians and sound people don't really get along. A sound man might have to deal with a guy whose sound causes hell in a particular venue, and a musician might have to deal with an incompetent sound man. So it has become a bit of a battle at times. Unless that is they trust each others judgement and compromise if need be, I have seen it happen but it's more frequent when the sound man is a musician.

[KevinWaide]

Yeah, I understand that there has to be a little compromise. If my "threat" is read closely, you'll see that it is light-hearted in nature (if he does anything to dick with my sound, I will break his piano playing fingers. If he doesn't know how to play piano, I'll teach him, then I'll break them.). The only problem I've really ever had with sound guys is when my amp is so loud that it's over the main system. I have had that problem on occasion (with a HRDlx of all things). I'm usually pretty easy to get along with. :-P

[Jonnda]

Ha, good to know. I thought you might be joking, but I have been told by my "professor" two years ago that some people really do get violent. His main instrument is blues harp and he had a few stories to tell about other players he knew.

But yeah good to know your pretty easy to get along with, one can't always be too sure of someone's tone in text.

[refin]

Thanks! It was a Johnson J-Station on every guitar track.

The best mic'd guitar sounds I've ever gotten was with the method Jim mentions above (and not a 57 in sight.).

Aaahhhh,gotta love the J!

[Dale]

I had forgotten how good the J-Station was until mentioned. I have it set up at the office right now. The POD 2.0 was also a bit better at HG tone to me than my XT. But, this may just be my lame ears.

Here is what I came out with at this point. It is really hard given little kids to get a period of quiet that covers my ability to record, so it is a compromise. My skill ... that is another story. The backing was developed in response to my grandmother's passing a few months back. So I titled this noodle accordingly. It is about 3.4 mb.

http://drpietrzak.com/music/mn2.mp3

It is still rough, but much better than before. I can work with this anyway. It is still not the same as amp, but much closer. The guitar was an LP neck with 50th anniversary Seth Lover, played in the neck position. Clean through the Digitech Twin Tube preamp (no effects) double tracked. Lead though the clean channel fo the El Diablo (sounds like the Twin Tube here) using an SFX-03 set to be a bit dark (I like dark). Track is doubled with some echo on one track and none on the other.