Interesting video on recording Slash's guitar tone (mic'ing tips)

chrishill901

Not sure if this has been posted but I came across this yesterday and found the bit about mic'ing up the cab very interesting. I have a load of IRs that include those microphones and I may try an implement that technique into my recordings; I have always struggled to 'virtually' mic up an amp because I have no real world experience in mic'ing up an amp for recording. I usually plump for an SM57 and move it off centre to take away the harshness and i don't take much time on this stage because I don't understand it (and i compensate with EQ after  )



Hope you find it as interesting as I did!

Roland

Sitting in the control room swapping mics was fascinating. The bit that really captured my interest was around 13:00 where he talked about tuning the G string slightly flat. That's always been a grouse of mine.

Modulus_Amps

all of those sound samples with the neck pickup? the bridge pickup must be very bright or the selector on that Les Paul is wired backwards

Good video, thanks for sharing

chrishill901

Modulus_Amps said:

all of those sound samples with the neck pickup? the bridge pickup must be very bright or the selector on that Les Paul is wired backwards

Good video, thanks for sharing

I suspect he had it wired backwards, some people do

Roland said:

Sitting in the control room swapping mics was fascinating. The bit that really captured my interest was around 13:00 where he talked about tuning the G string slightly flat. That's always been a grouse of mine.

Yeah the bit about the G string helped explain a few things for me! I think this is part of a whole series too so i'll definitely be keeping an eye out to see what other little tips I can learn

guitarfishbay

The tuning thing he's alluding to about patience is that people often retune by section, or even by chord/note as necessary while recording.  Guitar tuning is a compromise and not all chords will be in tune - that's before we get to whether or not the guitarist themselves can play in tune, as it is quite easy to put notes too sharp either by too much pressure/slight pulling from fretting hand, or too much attack from picking hand.  Recording guitars to a commercial level can involve a lot of time spent tuning.

It seems pretty interesting so I'll have to give the whole thing a watch when I've got the time to see it entirely.

That's definitely a bridge pickup btw.

joeyowen

What an awesome watch, thanks for the share

benmurray85

great video, i liked it QOTSA one as well. One thing I don't understand though is he has four mics capturing four different sounds and then still EQ's all those mics like crazy on the desk. If he's gonna  do that why not jus throw 4xSM57's up there in the first place! (exaggerating obviously but still....) 

Cirrus

benmurray85 said:

One thing I don't understand though is he has four mics capturing four different sounds and then still EQ's all those mics like crazy on the desk. If he's gonna  do that why not jus throw 4xSM57's up there in the first place! (exaggerating obviously but still....) 

EQ changes the spectral balance, but there's a lot more to sound than just EQ - You could get the best EQ in the world, you'll never get an SM57 to sound like a 414 or MD421 etc... There's also how each mic responds to transients and how the capsules react to very high volume levels. Then there's phase shifts caused by the mic... and also phase shifts caused by the EQ (unavoidable unless you use a linear phase EQ which has different foibles like pre-ringing)

Quite often people have this idea that in the world of digital it's better to get a clean, unprocessed signal recorded and deal with it later, but this is an example of where EQ'ing on the way in makes real, practical sense .Because you want your various mics to be in phase with each other, and EQ'ing changes the phase relationship between the mics. So if You EQ while placing the mics, then you know you've got the sound you want AND the mics are all working together in the way you intend so there's no surprises down the line when you, say, engage a high-pass filter on the room mic at 80hz and lose all your 100hz punch.

benmurray85

@Cirrus I did not know that you could use EQ to counteract phasing issues. 

When I said stick 4xSM57's up there I was talking hypothetically and just trying to reinforce my point through absurdity I guess! Thank you for your answer though. Always interesting to hear and see different approaches. 

I do enjoy that guys videos. Always interesting

Cirrus

benmurray85 said:

@Cirrus I did not know that you could use EQ to counteract phasing issues. 

When I said stick 4xSM57's up there I was talking hypothetically and just trying to reinforce my point through absurdity I guess! Thank you for your answer though. Always interesting to hear and see different approaches. 

Phase shifting is just part of what EQ does while it works. I'm not an expert on the physics or anything, but if you take a simple 6db/oct filter, my understanding is that you'll get 90 degree phase shift at the -3dB frequency. a 12db/oct filter will be 180 degrees, etc. So the steeper the filter, the greater the phase shift.

So an EQ would be a very crude tool to counteract phase issues, but if you could EQ while being able to move the mics, you can set up the whole system including EQ to sound the way you want, including the phase relationship between the mics which changes as you EQ each mic.

For anyone interested in mixing it's an interesting area to think about - say you want a more punchy snare drum at 200Hz. You boost 200Hz on the snare track but now the 200Hz there is phase shifted with 200Hz on the overhead mic tracks, so not only do you get partial cancellation between those channels fighting your boost, the sound is also smeared in time - it gets inherently less punchy.

When I realised that, I started seeing the benefit of EQ'ing tracks together at the bus level. Of course, phase issues are only issues if they're ruining the sound... sometimes it doesn't matter or improves things.

benmurray85

@Cirrus wisdom duly awarded!

colourofsound

"It's fucking loud as shit".

Incredible.