Identical Guitar Speakers Sound Different
No Two Guitar Speakers Sound The Same
You may have caught my recent blog where I finally succeeded in blowing up one of my Celestion G12H30 30 watt guitar speakers. You may have also noted how a big theme in that blog was how I was only set back by a few minutes. After figuring out exactly why the recorded signal was WAY low but the amp was still making noise, all I had to do was move my Royer R121 ribbon microphone from the dead center of one speaker to the dead center of the other speaker. (I've never used a Shure SM57 dead center, just for the record).
The Secret To Electric Guitars Is Not Mega Mic Placement
I know I've wasted endless hours trying to move a mic a cm this way or a cm that way on electric guitar cabinets trying to take a tone that is basically crappy and usable and turn it into something amazing. I'm not going to tell you that you shouldn't be picky about mic placement. That would be 100% untrue. Mic placement is important. However, if you are micing up a terrible sounding amp (or a great amp with terrible tone settings) taking 4 hours micing up the cabinet is not going to do much, if anything, for your guitar cause. The best you can expect from this situation is a well mic'd, crappy guitar sound.
No Time For Mic Placement
Now in my situation where the Celestion G12H30 blew up, I was in a situation where I simply could not spend a long time messing with mic placement. I had to move the mic and go because the session was going to end in about 15 minutes and we only had a small part to finish.
I moved the mic stand around and mic'd up the other Celestion G12H30 speaker. Using a flashlight, I made sure my Royer R121 was dead center on the speaker. When we fired everything back up again, the sound was even better than what I had before!! What??
The Same Model Guitar Speakers Sound Different
Yes, I was quite a bit happier with the guitar tone. How could this be? Well, simple. This particular G12H30 sounded much different than the other G12H30. Is this rare? Not at all. Speaker cabinets sound different all the time. This particular speaker had more midrange definition. It sounded less “spacey” and more like it would cut through a mix. I guess you could call it “clarity” although I seldom think of guitar speakers when I imagine clarity.
Conclusion
The point here is all guitar speakers sound different. This could be because of the way the speakers are manufactured. It could be the way the speaker is mounted in the cabinet. It could be the cabinet itself. If you mic up a cabinet and aren't 100% satisfied with the results even after taking plenty of time to make sure the amp is really smoking (literally), you may try a different speaker.
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Comment #1
(Posted by Blimey)
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The two situations - 4 working speakers in original case, 3 working speakers and a dead one in the second case are quite different. The load on the amp has changed (probably looking at a different impedance for a start if one speaker has gone open circuit) and the acoustic properties of the box (with one speaker sitting there like a passive driver) are also different.
You obviously prefer the response of the box in the second scenario but before you make inferences about the sound of the second speaker you might want to get the first one repaired and reinstall it.
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Comment #2
(Posted by Brandon Drury)
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While you are right that one would expect a different tone to come out of a cabinet with a blown speaker, I found no noticeable tone difference when I replaced the blown speaker.
Besides taking into account my subjectivity in listening, the difference in speakers was greater than the effect the impedance change or the acoustical effects within the box of 3 active speakers and essentially one passive radiator.
Good observations though.
I do want to point out to those who haven't listened to each guitar speaker in their cabinet that each speaker will always sound quite a bit different in character.
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Shure SM7B Microphone with Switchable Response |
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Universal Audio UAD-1 Project Pak |
