Recording - June 2010 - 42

There are as many guitar miking techniques as there are guitarists. Brian Tarquin shares the secrets of three front-line players.

By Brian Tarquin

MICROPHONE PLACEMENT FOR GUITAR
Chris Mahoney: “We recorded the SLO 100 through my Soldano 2x12 closed-back cab with two different mics, the Royer R-121 Ribbon and the RØDE NT-2. We discovered this combo about three years ago while recording my first record, Rebirth. The Royer is the only mic that lets me hear the amp the way it sounds in the room. There have been so many times where the amp sounded great in the room and flat in the control room. From there to an API Preamp to a MOTU HD192 to the computer.” As we see, seasoned guitarists take their time getting the right sound. Also, once the guitar is in the track, post-tracking eq and compression can help a great deal. One other thing that helps

Finding the right mic placement when recording guitar through an amp or acoustically can be tricky. Many elements come into play, such as room acoustics, amplification, mic type, and of course the musical style of the player. For example, the approach will differ from recording an aggressive acoustic guitar player compared to a subtle jazz player using a Gibson L5 archtop. I found that playing in the room first and then walking around to see where all of the sound transients come from is the best way to evaluate your sound, especially when recording an acoustic guitar. Below are some example miking scenarios from three pros in the business.

Marcus Nand: “I used a Takamine nylon string cutaway and a Godin Grand Concert. The flamenco ‘rumba’ rhythm needs to sound organic so the only way to really do that is to mic a real nylon string or flamenco guitar. It takes me ages to get a guitar sound; I just move the mic around until it is right. I have no technique for that and it’s really just trial and error. I doubled the rhythms and hard-panned L-R to get that fat Gypsy Kings type of sound. You can actually quadruple-track that type of rhythm to make it sound great, especially if the takes are loose and there is space in the track. I sent them to a group track and compressed the group.” Robin Trower: “We went to Intimate Studios in London. I recommended it to Jack Bruce because I like the acoustics in the room: wooden floor, not too dead—very good for guitar and drums. We used a Shure SM57 a few inches from each combo. I used 2 Cornell “Plexi” 18/20 amps—these are the 20 watt 1x12 combos. I would split from my pedals, one clean and one more overdriven.”
42
RECORDING JUNE 2010

is the order in which you record; I find that the guitar melody or lead parts are much easier to record when you have all of the basic rhythm tracks done. Miking electric guitar amps—a few famous picks 1. Marshall Cabinet A good way to approach this is to first close-mike it with an SM57, slightly off the cone on one of the 12-inch speakers, whichever of the two you may prefer. Now stand back about 6–7 feet and place a large-diaphragm room mic, like an AKG 414 or a Neumann TLM 49, and point it level to the Marshall logo in the middle of the cabinet. I found that it can be interesting to hard-pan each of the mics, for example left-57 and rightAKG 414. You can also keep them both at 12 o’clock and blend them together slightly. You will get the bright mids from the 57, but get a much fuller room sound from the large-diaphragm mic.

Recording - June 2010

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Recording - June 2010