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Mic Techniques for Guitar Amps

This recording course will teach you to overcome these issues:

  • Your guitar tone sounds amazing in front of the amp, but not in your recordings.
  • Your guitars sound thin or small.
  • Your mixes don't translate well when you listen outside of your studio.
  • You are having a hard time blending microphones or using multiple mics.
  • The amp sounds flat and lifeless in your recordings.
  • You have noticed some bad clarity of notes and chords.
  • You don't have an expensive ribbon mic but you want a guitar tone that has openness and is three-dimensional.

This course has recording methods that I've never seen explained anywhere else. These are completely fresh insights that I arrived at because of the experiments done for this course. These discoveries are strait from the Creative Sound Laboratory, and I did not read about them or steal them from videos on YouTube. I found that many known recording methods have problems that can be avoided. In addition, there are several methods that are missing a final step in the technique.

New Discoveries and Insights in the Course:

  • How an SM57 can record warm and thick guitar tones, without using proximity effect, and at 12 inches out from the amp.
  • The severity of phase issues between speakers in a cabinet, and how to compensate or avoid them entirely.
  • How to increase high frequencies with long distance mics without changing the amp tone or distance of the mic.
  • How to gain more clarity of guitar chords and notes by a simple adjustment
  • They key strategies in pointing the mic, and angling the mic. Which matters more, and when?
  • A golden rule for placing multiple mics on a cabinet that will allow you to develop your own techniques for recording amps.

Skills You Will Learn in the course:

Single Mic (Lessons 01 - 05):

  • How to pick a mic based on your type of guitar tone, and why exactly you would want one type over the other.
  • How to have complete control of the tone with microphone placement on the grill cloth, open speakers, and distance recording.
  • How to angle a mic properly and a big mistake to avoid when using off-axis placements (45 Degrees, Etc).
  • Why pointing a 57 at the edge of the dust cap (Center of the Speaker) may cause harmonic clarity issues, and how to best point the mic at the same spot.
  • How to close mic a 2 or 4 speaker cabinet so you don’t have issues from other speakers in the cabinet.
  • How to place mics at a distance with 4 speaker cabinet, versus a single speaker cabinet.
  • How to have huge variations of amp tone when recording at a fixed distance
  • How to use an SM57 to get a ribbon-like guitar tone that is warm, open, and three-dimensional.

Multiple Mics (Lessons 06+):

  • 3 Techniques for giant, in-your-face tone, using just two SM57 microphones.
  • How to get multiple mics to blend perfectly
  • What is “Phase” and “Polarity”, and how to check (Through listening) that your mics are properly placed, and which method this does not work for.
  • Why using two mics on different parts of the speaker at once will not blend well, and what to do instead.
  • How to set up the Fredman Technique 2.0, and what unique “Fault” the original technique has.
  • How to set up the classic mic pairing of the SM57 and R121 using a 2-axis alignment, and one very common mistake.
  • How to use extremely bright or extremely dull sounding microphones to your advantage.
  • How to set up and mix room mics for guitar solos, using a second sm57 at close range, or a ribbon at medium range.
  • How to get mics at different distances to blend without phase issues

What is Needed?

  • Most techniques can be replicated with just two SM57s.
  • Several recording methods use a ribbon (Royer R121), and/or LDC (AKG 414).
  • We also use the Sound Radix plugin called "Auto Align" ($150) for a portion of one video, but I also give a alternative technique that doesn't require the plug in.

Course Outline:

  • Lesson 1 - What Makes a Good Mic for Guitar Cabinet? (8:35)
  • Lesson 2 - Zones of Tone (11:52)
  • Lesson 3 - Mic Angle, Position, and Avoiding Multi-speaker Issues (8:38)
  • Lesson 4 - The Nineteen-Mic Shootout and Discussion of Mic Tone (21:22)
  • Lesson 5 - Distance Micing - Single-speaker, and Multi-speaker Cabinets (16:53)
  • Lesson 6 - The Golden Rule of Guitar Amp Recording (8:28)
  • Lesson 7 - Pairing a Dynamic Mic with a Ribbon Mic, Two-axis Alignment (8:25)
  • Lesson 8 - Recording Multiple Speakers at Once (4:40)
  • Lesson 9 - Fredman Technique 2.0 (7:55)
  • Lesson 10 - Using Microphones in the Back of Cabinets (7:48)
  • Lesson 11 - Using Two Mics at Different Distances
  • Lesson 12 - Three Techniques for Giant, and In-your-face Guitar Tones by Using Just Two SM57s.
  • Final Thoughts - Using Two SM57s, Golden Rule, and Concept Review

Bonus - Download the 24bit Audio Files for Critical Listening

  • Download the experiments and listen in your own daw.
  • Follow along with the included photos, labed with the audio file name.

Access:

  • You get immediate access to all the videos.
  • You never expire or go out of date. You have this course for life.

All Videos Downloadable

  • You can download all the videos for offline viewing30 Day Money Back Guarantee
  • I want you to be completely happy with the course. If you are not happy for any reason, just email me within the first 30 days from your purchase and I'll refund 100% of the purchase price for this course.

Price shown below is in USD (United States Dollars).