Guitar mic samples/clips

Posted: Wed Jan 30, 2008 6:52 pm

Ok, so I'm putting these here because the snare clips are stickies. If this needs to be moved elsewhere, please do so and accept my apologies.

We guitar players are always asking about mics for distorted guitar recordings, so I've recently picked up what I believe to be among the most popular inquiries, so I wanted to share the clips. They are the SM57, the Audix i5, the Sennheiser e906 and the Fathead 2.
Of course, there are more, but I don't have 'em (yet), I have these.

Here's the setup:

*Heritage H-150 (Basically a Les Paul, with kind of old strings btw)
*Guytron FV-100GT (B channel obviously, about 9 O'clock on the volume, so that's about 2 or 3ish)
*Great River ME-1NV preamp set flat (meaning no polarity change, impedance or loading)
*Apogee Duet into Logic Express 8 using an iMac

The mics are set right at the grill cloth midway between the dust cap and the edge, NOT off axis, straight on. Also, no verbs, no EQ, no compression, NOTHING. You even get some clicks, pops and clipping.

So needless to say, this is nothing fancy here guys, I just play 4 bars of 'Two Minutes to Midnight'. I chose that because it's a quick and easy riff to play consistently for distorted guitar needs.

http://homepage.mac.com/shackelmac/FileSharing1.html

And out of the gate I'll answer what will probably be the first and most popular question. The best/closest representation of what I was hearing in the room while playing is somewhere in the middle of the 906 and the Fathead2.
On another note, I DID change the impedance on the Great River (up to 1200 ohms I think) because the folks that make the FH recommend that you run it at 1000 ohms. When I did that it shaved a small amount of woofiness off...kind of tightened it up *just slightly*. Probably the best sound all together, but in the interest of fairness, everything else is equal for all of the mics.

I hope this helps anyone that's interested.

Posted: Wed Jan 30, 2008 10:54 pm

SSHACK,
you guys were jazzed about my comments on the current production values thread? Well let me tell you - you rock, my man!

The 57, naturally, is closest to the actual sound of Adrian's guitar at the beginning of 2 Minutes (it is a fairly thin sound), but aside from that, you actually picked a Maiden song. I was planning on doing another mic comparison (guit-fiddles) in the near future (I was gonna play either The Trooper or Wasted Years - what are ya, readin' my mind?) but you did a damn good job here. I'd like to have heard a little more selection, but don't go breakin' the bank on my behalf!

Thanks for picking up the torch and runnin' with it - Run To The Hills with it, my man!

Posted: Wed Jan 30, 2008 11:20 pm

As can be noted, the 57 is the cleanest of the set without any manipulation. On the last few notes of the runout at the end of the clip there is no 'woofing' and it stays tight throughout.

The Fathead is very interesting indeed and a bit of rolloff at 100hz would make this a very useful mic. I like it and have been sorta looking at the less expensive ribbons. This is one I would consider.

The i5 is scooped in the middle and while it sounds really good, its not a good representation of the tone. GREAT snare drum mic IMNSHO. I use one on the snare and an Audix D1 underneath. BIG WHACK!.

The 906 is much more of a representation of the 409 than the 609. It sounded okay in this trial and I'll have to take your word on the naturalism of the sound compared to the room.

Great job. If you have other mics at your disposal, go ahead and put them up too even if they arent mics you'd normally use in this situation.

Dont ruin anything but its always fun and sometimes very revealing what you get.

The Guytron heads are very very good. I have liked them for a while now. Not really well known but better sounding than the Mesas by a long shot in my opinion. I would put these in the same category as Bogner, Carr, and David Bray Modded Marshalls as far as tone purity.

Posted: Thu Jan 31, 2008 2:09 pm

Ben - thanks man. You're right, Adrian's tone is pretty thin in a lot of places, but man it sits just right in the mix. Dang, I should have thought about Wasted Years...that would have been cool to do. Have at it...maybe we'll trade off. Thumbs Up

I wonder how many layers of guitar Maiden would put down on an average tune, any idea?

Dave - The FH really did impress me last night with this little trial. As I mentioned before, I have a host of different guitars and amps that I'll fool around with for educational/experimentations sake. If you don't mind, I'll keep posting stuff that may be deemed as useful. I wish I had a real 409 to listen to, but from what you and others are saying, the 906 is a pretty good little mic for the money.

In the end and being able to hear them back to back, I was able to determine attributes of each mic and ultimately could envision how and where to use them in a song.

Posted: Thu Jan 31, 2008 2:31 pm

How many guitars? Well, the obvious answer is that they would at least have two rhythm (one by Adrian, the other by Dave), and they also more often than not trade off lead parts, so there's two more tracks. Other than that, I'm sure the total number of tracks and layered parts was determined by the song itself.

I'm all for you continuing to post these. The fact that you (and the rest of us now) can hear the differences between those four mics is a great thing!

If you have an assortment of decent amps I think it would be cool to hear the same mic, same relative setup, on the different amps.

Again, nice job!

Posted: Sat Feb 02, 2008 7:11 pm

Here you go Ben...I picked a Maiden song that doesn't get much love, though I'm sure you can appreciate it (or, at least my attempt/effort).

http://homepage.mac.com/shackelmac/FileSharing1.html

*same link, DUH*

For this one I used the same amp, but used the i5 with the Heritage and then the 906 FLAT with my Anderson strat, just to mix up the tones a bit. I pulled down some of the 5k (on both) and added a little verb.

I'm not very good at the mixing part of all of this and I know that it's probably difficult to give direction when I don't have bass, vox or drums, but anything that you guys can give or advise would be greatly heeded.

Earlier today I tracked (yet) another Beatles tune using a different amp and some clean tones. I'll fool around with the mix on that and throw it out on the Critique forum in a few days.

/Shack

Posted: Sat Feb 02, 2008 9:17 pm

Very cool!
Los'fer Words (Big 'Orra)!!!

I was able to follow the song all the way through.

Thumbs Up

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