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| Reminder to Check all your cab's speakers when micing! [message #67776] |
Sat, 06 May 2006 09:43  |
Neil
Messages: 1645
Registered: April 2006
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Senior Member |
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I'm recording a demo for this band called Lhasa Vector, and we
started setting up & getting tones last night... kinda
interesting the way we're doing the drums, but I'll get into
that in a minute. Anyway, so we're setting up the primary
guitarist's rig, and we're trying a Marshall 4x12 cabinet, and
also a Mesa 4x12 cabinet... I have no idea of the speaker
models in each, but he says he likes certain characteristics of
both, so can we try a/b-ing them? I say sure, no prob... he has
a Mesa triple rectumfryer head that has two speaker outs, so he
can play through both cabs at the same time & we'll use the
same kind of signal chain on each one to record a couple test
files so he can hear the difference between the two cabinets.
So, we record him playing a bit, each cabinet mic'ed with an
Audix i5 going through a channel on the Focusrite Red-8... the
Mesa cab is definitely somewhat louder than the Marshall - not
by tons, but it's apparent. It's also brighter & tighter.
So, as we're playing back each track & I'm going back & forth
between them: "Here's the Mesa... here's the Marshall... here's
both... 'both' sounds pretty good.", I'm noticing that the
Marshall speaker sounds really "soft" or "loose" - not just
compared to the Mesa cab, but in it's own right. Now, he likes
the way this is sounding, and he's saying he prefers it to the
Mesa... like I said, it's a little softer in tone, a little
less tight, and definitely "fuzzier" (though not "ready to be
re-coned kinda fuzzy".
Anyway, I say: "Let's, just for grins, try something, OK?, I
want to see what another speaker in that Marshall cab sounds
like... so I take the mic off the Mesa, put it on the speaker
right next to the one we're micing in the Marshall cab, and
have him play again... lo & behold, the other speaker sounds
different... not necessarily better, but definitely somewhat
different. I asked him if he'd had to replace any of the
speakers, or had any of the speakers re-coned lately & he
said: "no, never"... bought the cabinet new, has had it for a
few years, and has never had to have it worked on.
Bottom line, the other speaker is a little bit tighter-sounding
& less "fuzzy" than the first one - there is absolutely no
perceiveable difference in volume between them, and the
waveforms are right at the same levels; and in fact, when I
threw one mic out of phase for a second while he was playing,
they nulled to the point where I couldn't hear it at all, but
there's definitely a difference in tone.
In any event, he likes the sound of the combination of the two
speakers, so that's what we're going with, but my point is:
CHECK ALL THE SPEAKERS! I know there's been times when I've
done this, and also times when I've mic'ed up a cab, said:
"He-EEYYY that sounds pretty good right there!" and gone with
it... I wonder if I had checked all the speakers in any of
those events, we might have ended up saying: "DAAAAAMN, that's
even BETTER!"
My only regret at this stage is that the other guitar player
really liked that i5/Mucusrite Red combination he was hearing,
but unfortunately, I only have two i5's, and two channels
of "red". We didn't dial in his sounds last night because at
first he said he wanted to do his parts as overdubs once the
first guitar was laid down, but as we were wrapping up for the
evening, he changed his mind & now wants to do them at the same
time. I have other mics & pres, of course, but I dunno if we're
gonna get something he's happy with now that he's heard that
particular combination... the saving grace might be that
although he's got the same kind of amp head as the first guy,
he'll be using the Mesa cab, and he says his overall tone is
different from the first guy's too... he's trying to fit into
the freqency range between the bass & the first guitar. Since
these guys de-tune a step & a half, that's gonna be a pretty
low tonal range... I'm thinking maybe I wish I had another TLM-
103 at this point, too LOL if he's going that low I might
need something like that for his tone, just so it's not a big,
muddy, mess! I guess we'll find out today (fingers crossed).
Anyway, I said I'd mention the drum thing 'cause it's kinda
different... the drummer loves his Roland E-kit, which he
incorporates with some live cymbals, as well. So we're using
3 live cymbals, plus live hi-hats, 3 e-kit cymbals, and the e-
kit for kick, snare, and 4 toms (one tom pad plugged into the
hi-hat trigger port, with the brain reprogrammed to strike a
floor tom MIDI note instead of a hi-hat MIDI note). We're
micing the hat with an Earthworks TC-30 (tried a Rode NT-5 too,
but the Earthworks won out by a large margin due to being less
midrangey, having a ton more "air"; and also being an omni, and
as a result, picking up more room ambience). OH's are TLM-
103's, and no, you can't hear the "thwack" on the pads at all
once you get the audio from the e-kit going. The downside to
all this is that the e-kit only has stereo outs, so we're
tracking the MIDI output as well so we can go back & re-trigger
individual tracks for kick, snare, etc for mixing purposes.
So, the stereo outs that are being recorded for the time being
could be considered "scratch" drums, I guess. lol
Just thought I'd mention the drum thing too, because I recall a
few months back someone had posted a question about had anyone
done something like this & how did it work out, etc.
Neil
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