Did the amp sound great in the room? If so, even a lowly 57 can get a good sound. If not, you're fighting a losing battle.

Sometimes if the amp is too loud you're going to have a tough time with some condensors. I've never used the two you mentioned, but I find that the sound I'm looking for starts with a 57 or 421 plus a condensor. The dynamic usually ends up being the meat of the sound with the condensor adding tone and sweetness.

Hello Steve, thanks for the reply:) It sounded pretty good in the room I recorded in. The room itself is about 30 feet by 20 with a 15ft vaulted ceiling. I was thinking of picking up a 57 tommorow to try it out. Both the u195 and C42 are bright to begin with so that may be the problem.

Not quite sure why you want to compress an electric guitar that hard - it's a very compressed instrument right from the start. I'd probably track it with a couple of mics - one up close, one further back. I'd probably use a 57 up close and the other mics out in the room more.

Dan Roth
Otitis Media
otitis-media.net

This is the hardest sound to achieve with a Marshall as it is not a really 'overdriven' sound but more of a loud saturated sound.Its really clean as Hell! The best way to achieve it is to get it right from the amp.And close mic with a 57 and put that U195 up in the air away from the amp.I would even go so far as to use two close mics.A 57 and a 421 Sennheiser.Also if you have a wood floor under the amp you might get a PZM and place it out front and get the cabinet off the floor a bit.A foot or so.

If the amp sounded good in the room you might consider using pads on the mics.

If the Gtr/Amp sounds good in the room, meaning that your also a good player. Your hands make the biggest change if the gtr/amp/room are good. After that...a 57 into a neve (or neve clone) straight to tae is all you need.
Move the mic from speaker to speaker until you find the best sounding speaker. This actually is also related to weather it's a top or bottom speaker. If the Cabinet is on the floor, the lower speakers, being closer to a boundary (the floor) can have more bottom. Once you've gotten the right speaker, sweep around for the right spot. On the voice coil will be brightest, the edge more bottom. Also, angling the mic off axis will change the tone. Sometimes on the voice coil but 45 degrees towards the cone is a ticket. If you use more than one mic be aware of phase. The phase between two mics is another form of EQ.
If you got the cash...get a Royer Ribbon. That and/or a dynamic are great. Large Diaphragm condensers are fine but usually blended with one of the aforementioned.

The real sound though comes from the player WAY WAY WAY more than anything else. I've dialed in great sounds and with a tech playin'..handed it to the "guitar player" and watched/listened as it literally turned to shit.

I have found, for best results with my amp setup an AUDIX D6 and an SM57 both pointing at the same spot (as near as damn it) on the best sounding speaker (I use 4 x 10). The D6 cover top and bottom of the freq. spectrum and the 57 mostly mids.

What works so well is that with this way I have eliminated phase issues, (mostly) and I have found using the same guitar with the same amp setting (It is a brown Fender Concert) the sound varies from song to song as it seems to completely capture the guitarist and the guitar part as well as providing a solid sound.

Best of everything methinks!

i got a thd hotplate and it helped the sound of 25w celestions a wholelot.

I want to sincerely thank all of you for taking the time to reply. You've all been a tremendous help:) In terms of the great river, should i use more gain and less output or the reverse? As of right now I've got the gain hovering around 30-35 db with the output nbarely registering at 7'o clock. Using some suggestions here, I put the Cabinet off of the ground by about 2 feet. Its sitting on a tile floor within a large live room with 16 ft vaulted ceilings. Ive been experimenting for about 3 hours this morning with mic placement. The tone on tape sounds like a veil has been pulled over the marshall. I've boosted the presense and overall highs on the plexi but very little presense is showing through on tape.

Okay, not too familiar with the Great River unit, but here are some general thoughts.

First, use pads on the mics if they're condensers and they have them. I'd actually plug one ear and find a spot in the room where the tone is what you want and put a condenser there.

I'd put a dynamic up close against the speaker in the cab that sounds closest to what you want.

No compression, please. Now, does gain refer to a tube stage? If the gain is the front end level of the pre, keep it down so that you're not distorting the crap out of your preamp and use your "output" knob to add gain AFTER the signal's passed thru the preamp. Does that make sense?

Basically, what I'm guessing is that "gain" refers to "drive" and output is your output level, so by cranking gain all the way around, you can get a really distorted signal, but you can trim the output level by turning the "output" knob, is this right?

If it sounds good in the room, try not to add any color to it with your preamp.

Dan Roth
Otitis Media
otitis-media.net

Are you hearing this off the mics the same way you hear it off tape? If it's different you may want to check your alignment.

Originally posted by Fenster:
use more gain and less output

IMO yes. This will tend to saturate the preamp in a good way.