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On my 2 X 12 guitar cabinet, the speakers are quite deep. I wonder if anyone here has any experience taking the grill off and loading a mic much closer to the cone. Is there any benefit to such an approach?

Comments

anonymous Sat, 11/29/2008 - 14:34

Yup.

If you can do it without attracting the wrath of a guitarist then do it.
The sweet spot for me is usually right up near the speaker, to take advantage of the proximity affect which boosts bass response in my sm57. Slightly on an angle pointing slightly off center. And keep shifting it around till it sounds good.

jm2 Sat, 11/29/2008 - 15:21

Indeed, I pulled the grill off and there is a great advantage for the variation of tone and sonic quality. Since I am the guitarist, I managed to attract attention to myself and was furious at me for taking such a risk. :wink: But I then managed to convince me that it was worth the risk. I did take the extra steps of taping the mic in the holder, and generally making sure the risk of accident was low. I have already had a speaker in this cabinet re-coned from an accident.

So far, the sweet spot seems to be much as you describe, right up close (maybe 1.5" away instead of the 5" or so if the grill was on), pointed on a slight angle and aimed at the seam of the center dome and the cone. I am using an EV676 I bought at a flea market for $10. It is not pretty (as it would have been in its earlier days) but it works fine. This is my first time working with this mic, and so far I like it. I just ran a few quick rough tracks to scout things out.