The Tone Thread

[ShanPeyton]

Yea man. I ended up having a buddy build me an -20db attenuator to put into my signal chain from the mic to my interface. It helped tremdously in terms of not having to put my preamp to 0. I think i just can't find a suitable spot to put the mic.

here is a pic of the homemade I watched him make it. It's just some old XLR cables and a carboard box from a guitar pick up he had laying around.

Frig. I tried attaching the picture but it is too big. I'll resize it on my lunch.

[ocnor]

I'd like to hear a clip of your amp without any extra EQ and the controls set like this:

Bass= 1 O'clock
mid= 12 O'clock
Treble= 1 O'clock
ISF= 12 O'clock

If you could record 1 clip of the amp mic'd and 1 of the emulated out that would be great. I think that it would help to pin down the cause of your tone issues.

[JD01]

I'd like to hear a clip of your amp without any extra EQ and the controls set like this:

Bass= 1 O'clock
mid= 12 O'clock
Treble= 1 O'clock
ISF= 12 O'clock

If you could record 1 clip of the amp mic'd and 1 of the emulated out that would be great. I think that it would help to pin down the cause of your tone issues.

Ok, I'll do it on Thursday night or Friday morning. I should get home on Thursday night.

[WhiskeyJack]

I'd like to hear a clip of your amp without any extra EQ and the controls set like this:

Bass= 1 O'clock
mid= 12 O'clock
Treble= 1 O'clock
ISF= 12 O'clock

If you could record 1 clip of the amp mic'd and 1 of the emulated out that would be great. I think that it would help to pin down the cause of your tone issues.

This post is worthy of a liking function. Good one ocnor.

[Minerman]

I finally got around to listen to these Jdude, & they all have the same boxy-ness you've been fighting forever dude...They're not terrible, but IMHO you need to post-eq some of the boxy-ness out if you can't get it out of the source...

The only amp I ever had any luck using a condenser with was the 1 watt Marshall DSL1-H, using my home-made ISO cab...Even with the low-watt Tweaker & EVH amps, they just couldn't handle the SPL's...A pad would probably come in really handy if you were dead set on using condenser mics though if you were able to attenuate the mic's level...

[Greg_L]

I finally got around to listen to these Jdude, & they all have the same boxy-ness you've been fighting forever dude...They're not terrible, but IMHO you need to post-eq some of the boxy-ness out if you can't get it out of the source...
.

This is probably true. I'm as much a get-it-right-at-the-source nazi as anyone, maybe more, but you may wanna also really focus on EQ tweaks in the DAW to finalize your tone. Hey, that's what EQ is for. Ideally we could all just record and not do anything to it, but sometimes you gotta do some EQing.

[Minerman]

This is probably true. I'm as much a get-it-right-at-the-source nazi as anyone, maybe more, but you may wanna also really focus on EQ tweaks in the DAW to finalize your tone. Hey, that's what EQ is for. Ideally we could all just record and not do anything to it, but sometimes you gotta do some EQing.

Yep, since I started using a 4x12 about 3 years ago, I've always noticed a woofy, low-mid hump in all my guitar tracks...I thought it was just the cab/speaker/mic, but the EVH cab has it too...It could be the way I dial the tonestack in, the guitar, it could just be the way I play, I dunno, but I seem to notch out around 300hz or so on a regular basis...This is kind of a fine line too, as if I cut too much, the tone loses it's chunk...

[JD01]

I finally got around to listen to these Jdude, & they all have the same boxy-ness you've been fighting forever dude...They're not terrible, but IMHO you need to post-eq some of the boxy-ness out if you can't get it out of the source...

The only amp I ever had any luck using a condenser with was the 1 watt Marshall DSL1-H, using my home-made ISO cab...Even with the low-watt Tweaker & EVH amps, they just couldn't handle the SPL's...A pad would probably come in really handy if you were dead set on using condenser mics though if you were able to attenuate the mic's level...

I really don't want to use post eq though, I want to just get it right... Although I'm probably getting a bit OCD about this.

I think ocnors idea is a pretty good one, to kind of go back to the start and see what I get then work out from there. I know Liv Rong doesn't have anything like the problems I have with it either.

[Bubba]

Knackers! Jimi just bumped the old tone thread and Robus responded to him. And people wonder why I dislike the guy.

[JD01]

Knackers! Jimi just bumped the old tone thread and Robus responded to him. And people wonder why I dislike the guy.

haha, I feel some trolling coming on.

[WhiskeyJack]

Knackers! Jimi is trying to fuck a dead horse and Robus is cheering him on.

What actually happened ^^^^

[miroslav]

Knackers! Jimi is trying to fuck a dead horse and Robus is cheering him on.

What actually happened ^^^^

Yeah...that's more accurate.

And now Broken H is bumping it...

[JD01]

This is a bit of a new one for The Tone Thread - certainly hasn't happened often: Acoustic tones.

This is my Martin into a AKG C1000S. I haven't recorded much acoustic so I'm starting with aiming at the 12th fret and seeing how I get on.

On every clip the mic is about 15 - 20cm from the guitar. I don't even know how you're supposed to point this mic so I've tried two things.

Mic upright, hard pick (2mm gravity)


Mic pointing at the guitar, hard pick


Mic upright, soft pick (1mm dunlop nylon)


Mic pointing at the guitar, soft pick



Pointing at the guitar is seems to be much louder and would probably be clipping if I didn't have a limiter on it.

Tell me what you think. Cheers, guys.

[Greg_L]

Those all sound pretty good to me. You've got the mic pretty close for acoustic miking. Back it off like twice that distance. Turn the pre down if you're close to clipping.

[JD01]

Those all sound pretty good to me. You've got the mic pretty close for acoustic miking. Back it off like twice that distance. Turn the pre down if you're close to clipping.

Yeah, it's a really good guitar. I'll mess about with it more later on and in the morning

[ido1957]

This is a bit of a new one for The Tone Thread - certainly hasn't happened often: Acoustic tones.

This is my Martin into a AKG C1000S. I haven't recorded much acoustic so I'm starting with aiming at the 12th fret and seeing how I get on.

On every clip the mic is about 15 - 20cm from the guitar. I don't even know how you're supposed to point this mic so I've tried two things.

Mic upright, hard pick (2mm gravity)


Mic pointing at the guitar, hard pick


Mic upright, soft pick (1mm dunlop nylon)


Mic pointing at the guitar, soft pick


Pointing at the guitar is seems to be much louder and would probably be clipping if I didn't have a limiter on it.

Tell me what you think. Cheers, guys.

Wow - moving a mic and pick type makes quite a difference. What do you mean by pointing it at the guitar? Isn't this a side address mic?
I'm trying to figure out what the difference is.
The pointing at it clips have more bass - well probably more mids/lower, and I prefer them as I could eq out the bottom end to taste depending on the mix.
Definitely a better tone than the direct we used on that tune I posted.

[ocnor]

It sounds really good but I agree with Greg. I'd say back the mic off to about 60cm and see what you get.

[JD01]

This is a bit of a new one for The Tone Thread - certainly hasn't happened often: Acoustic tones.

This is my Martin into a AKG C1000S. I haven't recorded much acoustic so I'm starting with aiming at the 12th fret and seeing how I get on.

On every clip the mic is about 15 - 20cm from the guitar. I don't even know how you're supposed to point this mic so I've tried two things.

Mic upright, hard pick (2mm gravity)


Mic pointing at the guitar, hard pick


Mic upright, soft pick (1mm dunlop nylon)


Mic pointing at the guitar, soft pick


Pointing at the guitar is seems to be much louder and would probably be clipping if I didn't have a limiter on it.

Tell me what you think. Cheers, guys.

Wow - moving a mic and pick type makes quite a difference. What do you mean by pointing it at the guitar? Isn't this a side address mic?
I'm trying to figure out what the difference is.
The pointing at it clips have more bass - well probably more mids/lower, and I prefer them as I could eq out the bottom end to taste depending on the mix.
Definitely a better tone than the direct we used on that tune I posted.

I had to nip out for an hour but I'm back now so I'll post up a couple of pictures.

Really though, even a shite condenser will be better than the guitar DI. I've miked this guitar once before - about 9 months ago with my cheapo focusrite condenser and it sounded alright, was just a little bit of hiss on it.

[JD01]

It sounds really good but I agree with Greg. I'd say back the mic off to about 60cm and see what you get.

Yeah, that's my next test I think.

These are the two mic positions I was using:





And this is a tone with the mic pointing at the 12th fret-ish at about 30m away.



One thing I have noticed is that I keep clipping the body of the guitar with my pick 'cos I rarely play acoustic and when I do I'm normally just messing about finger picking.

[Armistice]

It sounds really good but I agree with Greg. I'd say back the mic off to about 60cm and see what you get.

Yeah, that's my next test I think.

These are the two mic positions I was using:





And this is a tone with the mic pointing at the 12th fret-ish at about 30m away.



One thing I have noticed is that I keep clipping the body of the guitar with my pick 'cos I rarely play acoustic and when I do I'm normally just messing about finger picking.

I do fingerstyle with the mic(s) at about that distance, but that's a fairly healthy strum - I'd tend to move it back a little. I could write a damn book on my "journey" with miking acoustic guitars over the years - you name it, I've tried it... Not to mention that once you get the mic in the right place you then have to keep your breathing noise and incidental movement noise and accidentally hitting the guitar noises under complete control. It's quite the task.

When I was recording The Jongleurs, although I'm used to recording me on acoustic, I'd have to really work hard with the other half of the band sometimes to get good takes because of all these reasons