Original subtitles

hi i'm mitch gallagher from sweetwater

i'm joined by my stunt guitarist today

this is don carr and we're going to be

talking about five easy ways to mic up a

guitar amplifier let's get

started so before we start looking at

the ways to mic your amplifier there are

a couple things that we need to discuss

even though there are those things that

always come up we're still going to talk

about them so first is you want to be

sure you're getting the sound that you

want in the room before you ever start

placing a microphone so be sure your

guitarist or if you're the guitarist

that you've got the tone dialed coming

out of the amplifier to exactly what you

want to hear because trying to fix it

later no matter how well you make it up

just never works as well as having a

great sound coming out of the amp number

two you need to know where the speaker

is located either in your amplifier or

in the cabinet that you're micking up so

in the case of this z28 mark ii the

speaker actually is centered pretty much

in the cab sometimes it's hard to tell

where the speaker is actually located

they may be off center might be up might

be diagonal so you want to take a look

at that and there are a couple ways you

can do that in this case there's

actually a vent on the top so you can

look down through there which makes it

easy to locate the speaker but in a

combo amp like this you can also look

from the back and see exactly where the

speaker is located if it's a sealed

cabinet you don't have a vent that you

can look through then you need to figure

it out through the front of the

amplifier there are two things you can

try to find the speaker in that case the

first is you can actually feel where the

edge of the speaker is in this case

our 12 inch speaker is right here in the

center so you can actually do it by

touch depending on how far the grill

cloth is from the actual baffle that the

speaker's mounted in the second

technique is to use a flashlight and

fortunately we all pretty much have a

flashlight in our pocket all the time

with our smartphones and you can put

that up against the grill

and depending on how dense the grill

cloth is you'll be able to see where the

edge of the speaker is

and locate it in that fashion so however

you do it you want to find out where the

speaker is in the amp so you can

accurately place the microphone we're

not going to talk a lot about actual

microphone placement in this case we're

going to talk more about microphone

techniques that are very easy to set up

and what i recommend for finding the

exact placement of the mic is use your

ears record some sample tracks play

through the amp mic it up record it into

your daw and sit back and listen and see

what you like best sometimes moving a

microphone just a half inch in one

direction or another can make a huge

difference

and something that many players forget

is the proximity effect that happens

when you place a directional microphone

up on a source the closer you get to the

source the more bottom end you're going

to get as you pull back you'll get a

more balanced even tone so you want to

play with that front back placement as

well two other things we want to talk

about first is to experiment with

different types of microphones dynamic

microphones are pretty much the standard

for miking guitar amplifiers something

like a sure sm57 or a sennheiser md421

are common choices but you can also use

ribbon microphones the royer r121 is a

common choice as is the biodynamic m160

and also experiment with condenser

microphones a neumann u87 is a common

choice or u67

you might try an akg c414 or many other

condensers they're just going to give

you a different sound quality with each

of those types of microphones and

sometimes it's a great idea to blend

them together to put more than one

microphone on the amp and take the best

of each to create a composite sound now

when you're doing that with multiple

microphones our last point is be sure

that you're getting your phase lined up

properly if you have more than one

microphone you have to ensure they're in

phase or they'll be canceling out and

you get strange tonalities and eq things

going on so make sure things are lined

up accurately with all that said let's

jump right into our first miking

technique and that's to place a single

microphone right on the speaker cabinet

in this case i've got it centered right

up on the speaker we're right in the

middle of the cone let's hear what that

sounds like

so you can hear that that gives us a

bright present tone the way i place a

microphone like this is i actually use

two of my fingers

to gauge the distance i'm away from the

grill cloth that gives me just a little

bit more depth in the tone now where you

place the microphone across the speaker

is going to dramatically affect the tone

that we hear let's try one other

position

here we're about halfway across the cone

between the center of the cone and the

edge of the cone and that's going to

bring in a little bit more low mid-range

tone let's hear what this sounds like

you can also experiment with angling the

microphone slightly turning it slightly

off axis as you move around the

microphone the tonal quality you achieve

will actually be slightly different you

may change some of the top end response

or thicken up the bottom end let's try

turning this sm57 just a little bit and

here if it makes a difference

so even just having a single microphone

on your amplifier or your cabinet gives

you a lot of options for getting the

tone that you want to achieve i

recommend spending some time just

experimenting

try different ways that you think might

work experiment with things you think

might not work because they may actually

come out great and remember that it may

be different with a clean tone than it

is with a dirty tone than it is with a

really heavy tone different placements

may enhance different aspects of the

tone and give you the sound you're

looking for now let's move on to a

technique that uses two microphones but

still very easy to set up i've got two

sure sm57s here one of them straight

onto the speaker and the other one off

axis now you can go anywhere from oh 30

to 45 degrees off axis when you blend

those two mics together the different

tonal characteristics give you a bigger

composite sound don

technique number three is another two

microphone technique and this one's a

lot of fun if you have an open back

combo cabinet like this

i've got one microphone in front and one

microphone coming in from the back now

i've got this one to my left and this

one is to my right so they're basically

capturing the same sort of image of the

speaker just one from behind and one

from in front now the challenge with

this technique is to make sure your

phase accurate

let's listen to what this sounds like

because we're really reinforcing the

signal by capturing two different

pictures of that speaker

now let's try another technique that

uses two microphones but in this case

we're going to place the microphones

very differently we're going to place

one mic close up basically in the same

location we've been using but then we're

going to use a second microphone for a

distance miking

now sometimes when we think about

distance miking i think we always assume

it has to be

5 feet back or 10 feet back or way in

the distance but it doesn't always have

to be just pulling back say a foot will

give you more depth when you blend that

with the close microphone and you can

balance those two mics to get more or

less room ambience as you prefer

now in this case my original microphone

is sort of over the cone of the speaker

it's off center and i've got my distance

mic a little more than a foot back and

it's aimed right at the center of the

speaker now let's hear what it sounds

like when we combine these two

microphones

the last of our five easy mic techniques

is to use a distance microphone now a

distance microphone captures more what

you actually hear in the room you're

going to get more of the amplifier

playing in the space so you'll get some

ambience you're also going to get nice

depth out of that you may get some

reflections off the floor you can raise

that mic up if that's a problem you

could try and put it up at your level

where a guitarist might hear it if they

were standing in front of the amplifier

but in this case i just pulled it back

about three feet i didn't measure it i

just pulled it back about three feet

it's going to give us a very different

tone but lets that amp breathe and bloom

out into the room let's hear what that

sounds like

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i hope you've enjoyed this look at five

easy techniques for miking up a guitar

amplifier you really can throw the mic

up listen to it and then the key is to

use your ears listen to what you're

getting move that microphone around

don't be afraid to try different things

you're not going to hurt anything

try different microphone combinations

try different placements you can have a

lot of fun achieving great tones using

simple miking techniques with your

amplifier don thanks for the playing as

always and thank you for joining us here

today i'm mitch gallagher from

sweetwater

so

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