Recording a Recto......

[ibanez4life SZ!]

Hey guys!

I finally got my little in-home recording setup up and running....

Shure Sm-57 ----> Mackie 400F Firewire interface ------> Apple Macbook (with LaCie external harddrive)

Now.....it is a pretty **** expensive setup....the recording part of it even, interface and mic.....

My problem: I can't seem to get a good recorded sound of my recto......any tips? How do you guys place your mics on the cab? Settings for a good recorded tone?

I expect a lot from the interface and mic, but so far, it is letting me down

All help is great appreciated!

 

[paleamberglow]

you should be able to get a pretty great sound with the SM 57. This is one of the standard mics used in countless pro studios to mic guitar cabinets. You want to make sure the mic is placed pointing to the center of one of the speakers, with about one inch or less of space away from the cab. You probably also want to isolate your cabinet a little bit, try putting it in the closet or putting a makeshift wall / enclosure around it. this will improve the sound greatly. and, don't be afraid to crank it, you want to get a strong, loud signal for recording with a low noise floor. adjust the input gain on your interface until you get it as loud as possible without clipping. I usually try to get it at least above -3 db before I record. hope this helps you out.

 

[ResearchTriangle]

You don't need all that crap. I have a $100 Sennheiser, right up against the cab, into a 4 track analog. If you get the micing right, it sounds monstrous!

 

[ibanez4life SZ!]

That's exactly what I need practice with! The mic placement....

But the setup is here to stay! My biggest problem so far is with channel 3 modern....I can get very nice tones on clean and crunch, but channel 3 just doesn't have the authority I hear when playing aloud.

I'll keep experimenting! Thank you for the help!

 

[Anonymous]

Post removed.

 

[Sixto]

I've found the best way to mic a guitar cab with an SM57 is to point it at the best sounding speaker, a little off-axis. And rather than pointing at the center of the cone, point it so that half the mic is covering the center of the speaker and half is pointing at the cone. You'll also need to be moving quite a bit of air for that mic to capture a good sound. Then, after all of that, EQ, EQ, and EQ some more until you get the sound you want. A good 10band parametric EQ should do the trick. (Waves Q10 is my favorite)

 

[paleamberglow]

one of the first things i do EQ-wise on guitar is put a low pass filter on it, with the cutoff somewhere between 6000 and 8000 Hz depending on what kind of sound I am trying to do. there really isn't much going on in a guitar signal above that range other than noise and pick / string scraping , and if you put the filter on you will get a much warmer sound.

the same principle goes for something like cymbals. in that case you would want to use a high pass filter and cut out all the lows and most of the mids, as the majority of the sound is at the high end of the spectrum, and using the filter will reduce unwanted sound / noise

 

[ResearchTriangle]

I'll post a clip hopefully soon, I have a tape lying around somewhere where I got really great tone through the perfect mic placement, even BEFORE I bought my Sennheiser, and I was recording with a cheap POS $20 mic. Unfortunately I didn't keep track of where the mic was