Elec Guitar recording, how 2 effects??

[GMaq]

Hi,

Lots of great advice in this thread for all different methods and styles of music..

I record amps live with a band most of the time, my feeling is if you're tracking live without a click then use your effects through the amp, especially time-based modulation effects like tremolo and phasers or even delays etc, if the drummer is playing in time with your effects time settings the band will sound much more glued together than adding them in a DAW, I also like to have all the overdrive and distortion coming from the amp and not added later. I do prefer to play with no Reverb on the amp and use one Reverb bus in the DAW with one kind of Reverb so everything sounds like it happened in the same space. I think the mic being used is important too, after years of Shure SM57's I've come to prefer the sound of Sennheiser e609's. It often sounds good with amps with more than one speaker to mic one speaker in the center of the cone and mic the other with an off-axis mic turned to run parallel to the cone. Then you have 2 slightly different guitar tracks coming from one amp that you can pan and effect differently.

Now if you're recording to a click track or to programmed drums then there are many more options, it may be nice to simply get the tone and drive from the amp and do all the effects with plugins perfectly synced to the click in the DAW. It also may sound nice to use an amp for some tracks and line in with plugins (like Guitarix) on other tracks.

There is no right or wrong really, only what suits the song and sounds good to you..

[finotti]

I'd second (third? fourth?) the DI+amp approach. With a reamp box you can run the same performance through your gear with different settings. That's what I've been doing with my recordings.

I use Radial's ProDI (www.radialeng.com/prodi.php) and ProRMP (http://www.radialeng.com/prormp.php) and they work well.

[Jack Winter]

I've settled on recording eguitar with 4 mics

A e906 and an sm57 (dynamic) in front of the speakers, one on-axis in the centre of the cone and the other off-axis at the rim. Positions of these can be wary and sometimes i even point them to different speakers. Then a km184 (sdc) about a foot in front of the amp, and finally a ldc behind the amp (open cabinet).

Once in the DAW I normally align the wave files so that they are in phase. Playing with the volume of the 4 tracks and possibly with polarity/phase you can get wildly different guitar sounds without using any eq at all. Don't think I'm ever going back to using just one mic for eguitar.

[CrocoDuck]

I've settled on recording eguitar with 4 mics

As a note, it might be interesting to know (for those who don't already) that mixing together different mics sort of equates to create a new single mic with a different directivity factor (which varies as a function of frequency). If you change the delay (phase alignment) between the microphones you literally steer the main lobe of the new directivity pattern, which keeps on evolving as a function of frequency. In few words: it is like you are tuning the spatial pattern with which you record the sound.

This technique is used to create sonars. Sonars are just a linear array of identical microphones. Sum them together and you get something that behaves as a single, incredibly directional, microphone.

[Jack Winter]

I also pan the 2 dynamic mics left/right and leave the other 2 in the middle. Then I reduce width of the combined signal and pan the resulting stereo. Gives a nice living sound, much nicer than just a mono with one mic.

[Jack Winter]

10 feet out would get you ambiance, so a reverb/delay effect.

[glowrak guy]

You've got a fine guitar setup going, very well thought out
and then nicely implemented. Must be great fun to push
the envelopes, even before getting in the box!
I have a somewhat opposite experience, using Fender
usb amps that each output stereo signals, and I don't
have any hardware mics to use.
Maybe I can try some aspects of your setup with
Headcase and Shred softwares,
which have some good mic placement and amp/room abilities.
Getting the rear mic will be tricky. Have you compared the waveforms
from the front and rear mic signals? Maybe people could implement
the differences routing to a surround plugin? http://acousmodules.free.fr/surround.htm
Cheers

[tavasti]

Bit of googling and reading, most di-boxes have 2 outputs, one for guitar effects / amps, and one for mixer / audio interface. So price range starts from this? https://www.thomann.de/gb/millenium_die ... passiv.htm

I've been searching with wrong term, searched 'guitar signal splitter'

Got second hand Behringer DI20, and sounds like it will handle this need. No recordings yet, but sounds promising!

https://www.sweetwater.com/store/detail ... x-splitter

[Jack Winter]

Another question:

Does someone know if there are fun trick for micing a 2x12 cab?
Is there a way with mic positioning to profit from the 2 speakers?

Mic them with different mics and then pan them. Maybe one mic in the middle of the cone and another on the rim, then have fun panning them, should give some 3d aspect. Even add one further away in the front, and another in the back. Or get creative and lets say add a plastic tube in front of one speaker with the mic at the other end, or put it on the side of a wall and record the reflections. Try really weird things, it might suck, but it might also rock!

Stick your amp in your bathroom and use a mic in the living room to record delay/reverb.

Probably would be a good thing to align the waveforms in the daw afterwards, but also the changes in sound from the phasing/delay might be cool!

[CrocoDuck]

Stick your amp in your bathroom and use a mic in the living room to record delay/reverb.

Something similar was even done in one Jimi Hendrix record (don't remember which one). They set up his rig in one studio, set all gains and volumes to full whack, recorded in the studio next to it.

[tavasti]

Btw, my studio is 24x18ft. and i can't confiscate the rest of the house as my family also has to live and sleep somewere.
I'm happy already with this size.

Huge compared to mine I have 2x2m space for everything music related, and that includes big desk with computers & displays.

[Jack Winter]

My question is more about the two speakers. If i mic one (no matter how) i instantly have the sound of the second slightly further away speaker.
Now my question is if there are some fun tricks, to get and control "more effect" with that second speaker (for instance warmer sound or whatever).

Not sure I understand? First of all the 2 speakers will sound slightly different which is already a good start. By using different mics you can get different sounds. When micing the guitar cab, normally you get the most mellow sound at the rim, and moving towards the centre of the cone it gets more harsh. Placing the mic closer gives more proximity effect (more bass) when using cardoid mics. You can also change the frequency response of the mic, by varying how on/off axis it is. A mic behind the amp will be lacking a lot of the highend and sounds very warm.

Also play with positioning the amp along a wall with a mic further away, or put it placed with the back against the wall, free standing, etc, etc.

When mixing you can play with the polarity switch, or delay one channel so you get phase differences between the signals, or delay one channel say a dotted 16th and pan it on the other side, etc, etc

I often record 4 mics and pan them to a bus, then I pan the bus and change width on it.

[Jack Winter]

First of all the 2 speakers will sound slightly different which is already a good start.

For sure. As the two speakers, build in a bigger box, create a warmer sound. That's a known aspect of 212 systems.

What I meant is that the 2 speakers will sound different to each other, not the fact that a 2x12 sounds different to a 1x12.

If i place the mic for the speaker[#1] the mic also catches the sound of the other speaker[#2] which is about 14 inch away from it.

So now my question. Is there a possibility to play with positioning mic(s) on different places in front of the two speakers? To get nicer and different sound effects? (exactly like you too discribed for one mic in front of one speaker, but then double)

I've never thought about this. Of course the sound recorded in front of one speaker will be coloured by the sound from the other one, but on the other hand there is precious little you can do about it And as long as the mics are real close to the cone then I think bleed will be minimal and mic position and angle will change the sound much more than anything coming from the other speaker.

Now if you move the mic away from the speaker you will get progressively more sound from the other speaker, but you are also losing the proximity effect and IME get a brighter sound.

Thus the reason that I mic the 2 cones differently and with different mics, then place one further out in front that gets both speakers with no prox effect, and another mic behind the cabinet.

In the end there aren't really that many tricks, but changing mic and mic position can change the sound quite a lot.

But in the end you have to experiment, maybe you come up with something really cool..! Maybe try to put the amp facing a wall and record the reflected sound, who knows maybe that will sound real nice too.

[tramp]

Maybe try to put the amp facing a wall and record the reflected sound, who knows maybe that will sound real nice too

Or do something like that? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MNzBFgwkU0A

[Jack Winter]

Or do something like that? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MNzBFgwkU0A

Wow, that's awesome!