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hi hey dude it's ace here today I am in

metropolis studios in London and it is

going to be about miking up a great rock

guitar sound I mean this basically goes

for all guitar sounds really if you're

talking about live amps could be indeed

could be punk could be anything so we're

gonna start off looking at the Marshall

here I have my Marshall in today so

basically when I get into the studio

what I do is first of all I get my

guitar and I set up the sound okay so I

have my sound set up that I like okay so

you need to get you all kind of sounds

first that's the most important thing

because the tone is very important so

plug your guitar in plug it into the amp

and get the sound you want okay not just

flat with all your EQ is on and see what

sounds good in the room I tend to find

that with the Marshall the way they're

kind of be able to have been using them

for years I will have about well about a

third of the presence in there usually

full on bass because they're not very

vey C amps the old ones I've got about

two thirds middle on there so six on the

middle treble I've got it on number

three I'll back it off a bit for

recording so it's not too bright okay

and then today I'm actually using the

haunts the game is up full because I

want more of a rock tone for myself so

okay start off there's the Marshall

we've set it up with the guitar sound

beforehand next thing to do is to place

the mics in the right place when you're

usually listening to a guitar in the

room from an amp and you've got the

sound that you like you listening to a

combination of it coming out the

speakers it being in the room you being

a bit further away that's the kind of

sound you like so if we were to place

the microphone straight into the center

of the cone of the speaker it's going to

be very harsh that's not really what you

hear if you were to put your ear to the

cabinet and you move your ear around the

further you get away from the center

cone you're gonna find the more it

sounds likely the same to you to be a

like a slightly softer sound because

we're coming out in the bright area were

working away so I found the best way is

to usually

for a start off point is to look at the

cone in the center and then move the

microphone somewhere between the center

and the outside about the middle zone to

start off I'm also going to use two

different mics because I want to capture

two different sounds the first one is an

sm57 which is a classic cheeps brilliant

microphone it captures the essence it

captures the grind and the grit of the

guitar sound it's more top-end in it it

can take a lot of sound pressure so you

could turn the marshall up to full and

an sm57 will take that volume of sound

okay I found that usually a Marshall

around about 6 is about the right

setting it doesn't compress too hard

it's not too loud but it's loud enough

to make the valves work and not be too

fizzy okay so I've got it set to 6 on

here and I have two mics

so we have the sm57 here right next up

here I will use a condenser mic okay so

a condenser mic can actually be any

condenser mic really so I'm not really

going to be too fussed about that but

the what the condenser mic does is it

gives it a softer sound okay more bottom

end a bit more Wooley I suppose so when

you listen back to it it won't be

exactly the sound you're hearing but

then you blend the two together we're

going to show blending as well but I am

gonna position them in the same

positions which is between the cone

center of the cone and the outside of

the speaker so that we get that sound

that we hear in our ears in the room

rather than the brightness of the cone

that that we would associate with it

being just too harsh

okay so the next thing to do is we have

the microphones here we have the amp all

set up we need to see where the cone is

in the cabinet and as you can see we

can't see it because it's got a grill on

it so the next thing to do is to get out

a torch or trusty iPhone turn off the

lights have a look against the grill

here and see the speaker inside and

roughly position the microphones

once we've roughly positioned those

microphones there we will go into the

control room and we'll play the guitar

and then we'll check so we going to

check in the sounder it sounds the same

to us in here in this room that we like

the sound so it does come out the

speaker's through the desk

just gonna go straight through the desk

flap we're not gonna put you choose on

we're not cut any effects on it at all

or compression so we can just compare it

because if you can get the same sound in

this room as you can get coming out the

desk you're on a winner

okay so I think it's about time that we

turn out the lights we find the cones

and do some positioning for sounds right

here we are we are now going to position

the first mic the sm57 the one that can

take the high sound pressure we're going

to position that on the cone so trusty

iPhone in hand or any torch so if I look

through here I can see where the speaker

is now so if I move this I'm going to go

close miking because I want to capture

you know everything coming out really

directed not not much of a room sound so

okay the end of my speaker is here the

center of the cone is about there okay

so let's have a look so just okay so

really that here isn't it let's go let's

go about there so just check that I'm

sure a lot of professionals will say I'm

I'm rubbish but I've seen this seems to

work for me okay let's try that so

that's the that's the first one okay

let's do the second one now which is the

condenser mic we'll lose the next

speaker alone outside of the cone is

their centers about there so I think

we'll go back here let's try just a

rough guess always works as it's fine

you know sometimes you may have a little

bit of phasing problems but your

engineer can sort that out for you if

you were recording in a big place or you

can just switch the phase on your Pro

Tools okay so I'm guessing right this is

just a approximate guess okay there we

go

we have condenser mic on the mid there's

a cone we've got the the dynamic mic on

the other end of it we should really now

just go in the other room and see how it

sounds you can't afford to have the

condenser mic a little bit nearer to the

cone just because it's a duller sounding

mic okay but also you have to put a pad

in

on the condenser mic so that can take

higher sound pressure as well so

remember to do that and don't blow the

mic up okay we're in the control room

now we've set the mics up where we want

to hear them we're going to hear them

back now crew to speakers to see if

we've got the same kind of sound that's

going on in there we've got the two

different microphones the brighter one

which is really direct and we've got a

duller one which is the condenser

microphone was a Bachman Sam so let's

hear what they both sound like together

first of all

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sounds pretty good actually for the

first attempt

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so what we can do now is if we look at

the desk if we let's listen to just the

57 microphone being here is quite bright

bit thinner okay let's listen to the TL

m which is the condenser microphone

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quite dull isn't it

so if I stick them both together they

should sound something like this

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which is great we can also adjust the

mix of them that if we want so if I

wanted to have a bit less base I can

bring it in more

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sounds about right to me at the moment

we'll go and check their speakers and

the cones now see if the microphones

look good to us as well if that's

working the next thing for us to do is

to play it along with a bit of a backing

track so we can see if the tone kind of

fits in the right space of the backing

track right we've come back in we've

tested it on the desk it actually sounds

very very good I'm quite surprised for

the first time happening so it's really

good so basically if you want to do on a

bit more top-end in your microphone once

you've set it like that say say it's

sounding a little bit dull

move it inwards move them in towards the

cone so these would now move that way so

they go towards the cone more brightness

towards the clone cone a little bit more

bottom end move it outwards so away from

the cone the center of the speaker okay

so at the moment that sounds pretty good

so we're going to work with this at the

moment and we're going to go in the desk

and we are going to tweak some levels

and blend them now so we want to get the

sound of this in the room we want that

through the desk so the way we're going

to do it next is take the bottom end

from there the top end from there the

grinder and match them so it sounds good

so let's go in the other side and check

that out okay here we are then we got

the sounds that we like from the amp and

also from the speakers and from the mics

now we're going to check it out within a

track to see whether it actually has the

sonic capability to sound good within a

track as well so let's try this one

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you

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sounds pretty good actually I have to

say so I'm quite happy with that at the

moment you can always put eq's on when

you mix so you can add a bit more top

and middle you can compress it a bit

more but if you long as you've got a

good source sound and a good tone that

fits into the track there's a good

starting point so we'll move on from

there okay we've got our backing track

sounds good coming out here let's see if

we can put a bit of a solo on the top of

it and see how it sounds

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and there you go miking up a guitar in

the studio in one easy lesson

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