Mic placement

rsvmark · June 2

At the gig yesterday, the sound man asked me how I wanted my amps mic’d…. He did the torch thing to see where the speakers were but asked me how I preferred it.

1. I have no idea
2. I have never had the time, facilities or kit to figure out what my preference would be

So I ended up bluffing it. ‘Just off centre please’ as I seem to recall previous comments on here as being as good as any.

Any thoughts for bluffing it with the sound crew if needed in the future?

mrkb · June 2

Centre is more top end, outer edge is less top end. Closer is more bass (proximity effect).

maltingsaudio · June 2

I always feel the cabinet to see where the speaker is and then mic it off centre/edge . Centre is always too boomy.

In all my time doing this job, there is only one artist who placed his own guitar mic, whilst a fair few have gaffa tape on their amp to indicate where they want the mic to be placed.

From front of house mixing point of view off centre/ edge is best, then we can just add what is missing in the room. My preferred mic is a 906 on a stand, although beginning to love the Beyer TG 151 on guitar cabs bit more detailed than the 906

shufflebeat · June 3

“Whatever you think is best” is also a perfectly appropriate answer, in fact it’s probably what they really want to hear and are just checking if you have strong feelings on the matter.

Often a S/E is looking for an indication that the Talent wants to let them get on with their job with just a few hints on specifics.

Danny1969 · June 3

Think about what else is close by. If you have a 2 x 12 or a 4 x 12 then mic the speaker that's the farthest from the drum kit. You can also slightly angle the mic to get more off axis rejection.

I used to do loads of live band multi tracking and mixing. Drum spill getting into the guitar mics and vocal mics was always a problem and I learnt a lot over those years about minimising spill. This is more important than the small variations between brands of mic for me. I've done thousands of gigs with a Panasonic mic, 906's and 57's. There are differences and I have preferences but rule no 1 is mic the amp for the least amount of spill.

For studio, home tracking etc it's not really an issue

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Mic placement

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