That Pedal Show – How To Mic Your Guitar Amp: Mic Types, Positions & All That Stuff

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In this episode we take a trip through the basics and fundamentals of micing your guitar amp or cabinet. That’s to say putting a microphone in front of your speaker for the purposes of recording or live work.
We cover three main areas. Firstly, common mic types including dynamic moving coil, dynamic ribbon and a large diaphragm condenser/capacitor. There are others, but these are the common types used for guitar amps.
Secondly we look at mic position across the face of the speaker, and thirdly, mic distance away from the speaker, including a little bit on mixing mics. We even play over some short backing tracks to demonstrate!
We don’t get into audio post processing or EQ: this is just about mics on guitar amps and cabs.

If you mic amps regularly you will know all this stuff already. If you don’t, you might just find it illuminating. Enjoy the episode!

PLEASE NOTE: We haven’t talked about preamps, input gain, signal strength or anything else like that in this video. The principles of plugging mics into a desk/recorder are the same as recording anything else. You need to set the optimum input gain for a decent signal without overloading the preamp. If you would like to delve more deeply into this, including understanding how modern DAWs differ from traditional analogue gear, this is a brilliant article from our friends at Sound On Sound magazine: http://www.soundonsound.com/technique...



Gear in this episode…

• Fender Hot Rod Deluxe - No longer made, link to latest version
UK & Europe: http://bit.ly/2nuCUpj
USA: https://imp.i114863.net/0q2VP

• Sennheiser e906 mic
UK & Europe: http://bit.ly/2tPloz3
USA: https://imp.i114863.net/Oqz7z

• Sontronics Delta ribbon mic
UK & Europe: http://bit.ly/2swi3kk

• Sontronics Orpheus condenser mic
UK & Europe: http://bit.ly/2tP7b4U

• Zoom F8 Recorder
UK & Europe: http://bit.ly/2tP2l7T
USA: https://imp.i114863.net/MOg73

* Why do we have preferred retailer links? Find out here: http://www.thatpedalshow.com/partners

Interesting bits and go-to sections…
- Intro & background: 00:00
- The three things we’re doing today: 2:50
- Moving coil, ribbon and capacitor mics: 4:25 & 5:40 (sounds at 8:38)
- How do you choose a mic? 10:35
- Gain sounds with the three mics: 14:34
- Mic position across the face of the speaker? 15:50 (sounds at 17:00 and 18:48)
- As above, but with a gainy sound: 20:30
- Distance micing and room sound discussion: 24:30
- Polar patterns: 25:48
- Distance micing with a clean sound examples: 27:50
- Square law? 31:20
- THERE IS NO RIGHT WAY! 33:20
- Distance micing with a gained sound examples: 33:48
- How we mic amps for That Pedal Show: 37:45
- The Room mic: 40:03
- Mic positions including some backing track action: 44:03
- Phase?: 47:10



Guitars in this episode
• Fender Custom Shop ’63 Telecaster – watch Dan’s video at http://bit.ly/2dlZJ6K
Collings 360LT with Lollar Gold Foil pickups

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Please visit our preferred retailers!
UK & Europe: Andertons Music http://bit.ly/2cRvIvt
Australia: Pedal Empire http://bit.ly/2mWmJQf
USA: That Pedal Shop https://www.thatpedalshop.com/