Mics for recording guitars!!

[offy1]

Can someone pls recommend a good mic for recording guitars at home?? Cos my guitar apparently sounds crappy over my Shure Beta 58A, which is a vocal mic, n if i plug my guitar into e mixer n rec, it somehow sounds very 'plastic' n artificial..

 

[soft]

can you list out the equipment that you are using? Amp, guitar, mixer, recorder. Does the guitar sounds good before recording? I mean the sound from your amp. Placement of the mic, signal flow for recording and gain control all makes a lot of difference in the recorded sound.

do you have a sample of your recording? you can link it here and we can at least know what's wrong with the sound.

later

 

[JMguitars]

Shure SM 57 .... cant go wrong on that mike.

In addition, pay attention to the other recording factors as mentioned by SOFT.

 

[offy1]

Thks.. Jus wondering.. Wad's the difference between a vocal n guitar mic.. For example my Shure Beta 58A (vocal) n e Shure SM57 dat u mentioned for guitar rec..

 

[input_output]

guitar recordings from home?
for electric guitars try shure sm57 miked close pointed to the cones. or mix and match.
acoustic guitars try shure sm57 as well, or a good condensor mike.
but i try not to use a condensor mike at home because its too sensitive
heheh. (neighbouring babies crying, car horns and such)
but it all comes doown to wat gear u already have, wat kinda sound ure after and your playing skills..........
my 0.2 cents

 

[soft]

Wad's the difference between a vocal n guitar mic.. .

the difference is in the frequency response. let use an extreme example to illustrate easier. A bass guitar and a violin. The bass guitar gives out more bass frequency and not much high frequency. So in order to capture the sound of a bass guitar faithfully, you want to use a mic that has good low frequency response.

on the other hand, a violin has mainly hi and mid frequency. So the mic of choice would be good on the hi and mid. Excusable on the low's.

what i am trying to say is the mic is not built for a particular application. it is the user who define that the mic is more suitable in certain situation.

 

[offy1]

ic.. thks.. but one thing im not very sure.. If ppl can plug in their guitars into e mixer n rec, adjusting e eq to obtain e desired sound, den y do they want to mic up e guitar?? Pls enlighten me.. cos im quite a newbie when come to guitars.. thks.

 

[soft]

different amp gives different sound. why they do it? because they cant get the 'amp' sound if they plug it directly into the mixer and record.

 

[bernardgoh]

I always like to put my akg 414 and a sm57 for guitars recording. depends on what kinda sound i wanna can.

 

[heclak]

Micing up an amp always sounds better.The sound of 'pushing air' breathes life into the cold electric guitar sound.

And you don't just plug your guitar straight into a mixer.You have to use DI box. The DI box will balance your signal and correct the signal to a proper impedance for your mixer.

The SM57 is an industry workhorse that can be used on everything.However, it depends on what kind of sound you want. It is a go to mic for amps. Place it in front of the cone and point it off-axis[towards the rim of the cone]. Experiment with the placement to get a variety of sounds. However, you can also use a ribbon or condensor on amps and they can give great sounds. Sometimes better.

 

[dhalif]

i like recording guitars with Rodes NT-3 ... somehow it gives a more rounded tone.. i tried 57s too.. not bad.. in the studios i use 2 mics.. 57 and nt-3.. nt-3 to capture the lower ends the 57s the mid range parts..

 

[studio2105]

I have a Line 6 Vetta II combo. I use a combination of SM57 and Neumann U87 to record my amp. Place each mic on either speaker. Additionally, I'll add another track with a Sennheiser MD421. That's my current formula.

 

[fibredrive]

another vote for the 57. can't go wrong. most recorded tracks use that. but depends on what kinda sound you after. even mics have their own characteristics. there's tons of info on the net about mic combi's for recording, and crucially, the placement and room verb you want as well. the thing is, to start off, the SM57 will suit you best.
tremonti blew several ribbon mics while recording his latest album with alter bridge apparently. the chugg from the mesa stacks apparently rattled it too much. zakk wylde's engineer uses a combi of condensers and the good ol' 57 to record his marshall stacks. and if its a 4x12, he actually placed the mic at the top right corner of the stack, rather than aiming it at the cone itself off-axe. its really cool. but this was for the black label society album. could be a different sound they were after? dunno.
anyways, best is, get the 57, and play around with it. got more cash, then start building your mic cabinet...heh.

 

[shouheng]

that was great! informative post man

 

[soft]

in the first post, offy1 mentioned that he already had a 58 so that mean using a 57 might not help him much. it is more of the way he does his recording. Gain structure and mixing technique.

but most important of all, playing, amp and .... playing. :lol:

 

[5stringedsoul]

is there a difference between recording using a mic and thru a line out frm the amp?

 

[gargamelesp]

yes, most of the the time if you do a direct line out, you only get the signal from the preamp and it gets pushed to the soundcard right away, bypassing the poweramp and speaker stage.

The signal would be cleaner and with less outside interference most of the time cause its a direct signal.

However, if you wish to capture the tonal characteristics of your poweramp and cab and wish to experiment with different mic positions, recording thru the mic would be better. But its a more tedious task, which includes making sure the mic dosent pick up the surrounding noise too much