Mic-ing Guitar Amps - GlobalSound.com.au HOW TO!

"I'm looking for some advice on recording guitar amps; especially how you go about doing so during your monthly reviews. What techniques do you normally use and what's your most common microphone choice when recording a review of a new guitar amplifier? I'm always impressed with the accuracy of your recordings and how you seem to avoid microphone colouration of the sound."

The question is; do we want to reproduce a perfectly clear and clean, uncoloured sound, or do we want to use every part of the signal chain to have its own personality in the final sound?

Here's where it gets contentious because many people would argue that individual sounds are totally meaningless out of relevant musical context. Back to facts: when you put a Shure SM57 - the most commonly used mic for guitar amps - on a guitar speaker, it is directly affecting the tone. That's why different people choose different mics to record with. We like the Sennheiser e906 as an all-rounder too. Legendary producer Bob Rock favoured an SM57 and a Sennheiser MD421, mixed on a single speaker. You really do need to try the classics, listen to them and learn their relative strengths and weaknesses. How do we do it for GlobalSound.com.au demos? Sometimes we mic the speakers with any of the dynamic mics mentioned above.

Sometimes Globalsound.com.au might use a pair of condenser mics and keep the amp quiet; other times we might use our Sequis speaker simulator and not use a mic at all. In the real world it's all about environment, available equipment and using gear to enhance your tone, not fight against it, and that only comes with individual experience. Record everything and never stop listening - learn from everythingyou hear. If you do that with an open mind, you'll be a good engineer!

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