Electric Guitar Recording: More Than One Mic On A Guitar Amp?
Do More Microphones Make Better Guitar Sounds?
Alright, now that we have that out of the way, let's starting talking about using multiple mics on guitar cabinets. Actually, let's discuss the portions of the guitar recording chain that you have control over.
Guitar Players – This is, by far, the most important piece to the guitar recording puzzle. Changing players often results in a drastic difference in tone even with the same guitar, guitar amp, and settings.
Guitars – The guitar itself obviously has an impact on tone. I must admit that I've used some really cheap guitars and been very happy over the years as long as I run them through great amps. So with that in mind, I don't find guitars that sound “better” too often...just different.
Guitar Cables – Cables do make a difference when recording guitar. I highly recommend George L cables for their sound and price. They will improve your guitar sounds just a little bit.
Guitar Amps – As far as gear concerned, I think the amp is where the money is. As stated above, I've seen $200 guitars through $2,000 amps deliver mega mega pro tones. I've never seen a $2,000 guitar through a $200 amp even come close.
Guitar Cabinets – Guitar cabinets and speakers are not all created equal. Different speakers sound quite a bit different than others. Different sizes of cabinets and construction techniques can also make quite an impact.
Guitar Pedals – Let's not forget that guitar pedals can make a huge difference in tone. If I'm overdubbing guitars, I ALWAYS have an MXR EQ pedal in line before the amp. It's one of those “don't leave home without it” type of deals.
Microphones – Obviously the microphone used has an enormous effect on tone.
Mic Placement – From the engineering side of things, mic placement is the most important factor in recording any instrument, including electric guitars.
Room Acoustics – Almost always overlooked by home recording guys, the acoustics of the room can make a bigger difference to the tone than any gear ever will.
Microphone Cable - Just like a guitar cable, the microphone cable does make a difference. Due to impedance issues, a microphone cable is not quite as critical as a guitar cable, but there is a chance that using a cheap cable will have an adverse effect on your guitar recording.
Microphone Preamp – Obviously, the home recording forums seam to pay quite a bit of attention to the preamp used on a recording. I know the right mic preamp can make a nice difference in your recordings, the difference is usually fairly subtle compared to the factors listed above.
Analog to Digital Converters – Bad converters can reduce the fidelity of your recorded tracks. I purchased a set of pro converters long ago (Mytek AD96s) and the difference is noticeable.
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Okay...Really!! Do I Need More Than One Mic On Guitar Recordings?
Alright, I've beat around the bush long enough. Here's the way I see it. Can you can nail every factor mentioned above? That means you have a great guitar player, playing a great guitar, with a great guitar cable, through a great amp, with the right cabinet, in the right room, using the right microphone, in the right spot, with a good mic cable, the right preamp, and a great A/D converter I guarantee you that your guitars will sound great!
The reality is that it's very hard to get every single factor right in the home studio situation. Usually the room kills us, but at one point or another all of these factors present a challenge. Admittedly, most of these in the list are fairly subtle, but recording is a game of inches. It's just too bad that it costs thousands of dollars to gain a few inches sometimes. This is why I usually recommend that people focus on the big picture. You can get by with a cheaper converter, for example, if you go out of your way to record the best guitar player in town (who happens to have an amazing guitar amp).
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Comment #1
(Posted by Lucas Allmon)
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This article was excellent. However, I would say to not let anyone who is interested in multimic recording to be discouraged at all. Especially if you are like me, with a 4-8-16 track home studio, on your own personal projects, where experimentation doesn't cost you anything but the tape its going down on. If you are recording a paying customer, yeah, maybe you should just adhere to standard mic techniques to generate a clean signal (especially straight-up types of bands like punk). However, I have gotten some excellent results from intentional phase problems and such. Sure, the number of times that it's worked compared to the number of times it has failed isn't very high, but IMO it was worth all the failures to gain those few unique sounding tracks.
Again, awesome article man.
Lucas
www.soundramblings.com
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Comment #2
(Posted by Brandon Drury)
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Good point. I should have mentioned that in the article. I always encourage people to experiment. However, this is only if you have the time to do so. If need your guitar tracks today, I'd slap up one mic and play with the tone of the guitar amp until you get what you are looking for.
If you have no problem redoing this guitars in 2 weeks, then experiment all you want to. As mentioned above, the comb filtered sound can be kind at times, but this is usually fairly rare.
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Comment #3
(Posted by Mag)
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Excellent article... I have been recording out of my home studio for 4 years and have yet been able to create the tone I have wanted when recording in larger / "better" facilities. I use 1 mic on all guitar tracks I've personally recorded. Like you say, if you can start off with a good tone and good mic placement your 3/4 of the way there(at least for me)I find additional mics when not needed comparable to a second set of elbows. Now if I could only nail drums and vocals.
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Comment #4
(Posted by an unknown user)
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Great article
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Comment #5
(Posted by an unknown user)
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if u use just one microphone, you obviously have to record in mono. How to do u turn that mic into stereo then? Just double it and pan each track to a different ear?
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Comment #6
(Posted by Corey Y)
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While I think a lot of the points made in this article are valid and useful, is only one philosophy on recording, not really a guide. Doing research on phase issues and how to correct them, then taking the time to implement those techniques is a valuable skill for any engineer.
If you simply want to make as many serviceable recordings with as little hassle as possible, this is the way to go. If you have a home studio and you want to get the best possible recording, it pays off to go farther. If you're a working engineer and/or a producer and you want to move beyond journeyman status, it pays to go farther.
I will say however, this article is more focused on why you shouldn't do one particular thing. It might be more constructive to focus on what things DO work and how to best play around with them. Those parts of this article were mostly passed over in favor of why it's a hassle to put more time and effort into another technique.
Just my opinion, the author wrote what they wanted to and that's cool.
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Comment #7
(Posted by Chase Steele)
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Very good articule, hit all the right points that MANY engineers overlook a lot of the time these days. I would say ya you can use 2 mics on a guitar if you'd like just becareful with your placement of the second mic, you dont want phase issues!
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Comment #8
(Posted by gugfuf)
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Many thanks for that excellent article. My conclusion was the same as yours, i.e. if you have money and gear spilling from every orifice then maybe it can be done, but get a great sound and mic it so it's true and you can save yourself a whole heap of faffing about. I particularly liked your comments regarding the two shitty guitar tones! I'm definitely in the one mic camp until all that money and gear comes flooding my way. :)
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Shure SM7B Microphone with Switchable Response |
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Universal Audio UAD-1 Project Pak |
