I had some folks in the comments give me some pushback to what I said regarding the 3:1 rule (which is good I like the pushback). I made a response video explaining the intricacies of the 3:1 rule and how it applies to the situation in the video; recording a guitar cab with two microphones. See below for the vidya. Cheers homies kzfaq.info/get/bejne/o9t5Ztpz1cCthKs.html

In my old band, The ANONYMUS, the keys player had a Farfisa Compact Deluxe going through a master volume, silver face Twin Reverb. It would slice you in half! It was gloriously plainful.

You nailed it about mic placement. I reckon the idea of smashing a 57 up against the grille came from live sound guys trying to eliminate bleed from other instruments on stage. And it works because to the audiences' ears they are getting the direct sound from the FOH blended in with the amps stage volume. So in theory a 2 mic approach with one close and one further away recreates what you would actually hear at a live show. And that is why that approach always sounds good. And just like you said as well, a close mic doesn't mean pressed up against the grille. The low mud proximity effect from a super close mic is garbage when compared to the actual blooming of the lows via a distance mic. Another disadvantage of getting that close is that in the mix the guitar always sounds super close. Very hard to tuck away in the verses because there is literally no air between the amp speaker and the mic. And something else I never thought of until I heard Steve Albini mention in it a video is since the sound is coming from the entire area of the speaker, you need to get far enough away from it to allow all the sound waves from the surface of the cone to merge. Inside of that said area is just a bunch of phasing issues from one side of the speaker getting to the mic before the other etc. Top and bottom as well.

I always love a late night video

Thank you Mario you are a treasure when it comes to record and produce tech. I Love you and your presence ❤️🙏🙏🙏☯️👍🎸

Soloing the guitar like that, shows how good your guitar playing is. That riff at 20m09s always gets me. Your new stuff sounds fantastic, thanks for sharing brother!

Thanks Mario, I just got into recording guitar and this is all really going to help!

These guitar tones are genuine organic 3-D and Alive. Reverb is love,reverb is liiife. Twangy and Tangy bangy and clangy. Organic,real simple real good.

hey man just wanna say thank you for this vid . i love the more practical and home-musician perspective and approach you provide . i’ve been really struggling with micing amps since it gets so incredibly complex but this vid is a lot more helpful for someone like me just making music with pretty much just an amp and laptop. thanks man this was great !!

I’m also rediscovering the fact that going straight to tape like Mario does is amazing! I have a machine (ATR60-16) that I just brought out after years of idleness. Between it and the mixer needing some cleaning, working the controls, I have rediscovered that going to tape allows you to hit it very hard and get great sounds not possible in the digital world. These old machines really made well. The precision of the transport is a thing of beauty!! Thanks Mario!

Your mixes sound great. So much character!

As Stav describes in his book Mixing With Your Mind, the peak of the bloom of any sound source is where you want the microphone, full even spectrum of frequencies, plus distance = depth.

I didnt know how much I needed this jesus christe

The proximity bass boost of an SM57 equals the high-end lift level at ~2" from the source. At the cone center, that's also equidistant from the entire cone surface of a typical 12" guitar speaker. Moving it forward does increase bass, but also reduces the harsher upper-midrange a bit. Moving it back starts to create some midrange cancelation due to the change in the side and center cone distances. Those distances even out again at some point when moved further back.

Before I clicked on this video, I asked myself, "I wonder if he knows to pull the mic away several feet from the amp?" and surely enough, you nailed it! 🤠 Make sure nobody is home (or if they are, that they are OK with extreme volume) and CRANK THE P*SS out of the amp volume, then bring the mic back at least 3 feet, maybe even 4 feet to capture the entire amp with one mic capsule, and you're golden! In 2002, during my first recording session ever, when I didn't know what I was doing, I did this by instinct and later got several compliments on how the guitars sounded. I never forgot that.

Future star! Music is brilliant!

great point of view, it goes with your music !

Sounds pretty damn good. It almost is like the 60's but you totally nail the like, "80's garage revival" Pandoras/Tell Tale Hearts kind of sound.

I switched from an sm57 to an EV C09, no low end its all mids. No need to hipass filter.🍻

Awesome video mang. Cuz you always have the sickest guitar tones

great Mario!

Fantastic. Another home run!

Just stumbled on your channel, love your teaching style think this can really help my recordings ! Subscribed!

Mario….you’re priceless! I’ve used a few of your suggestions with excellent results. Thanks!

Great piece of Garage ! Along with the excellent advice 👍😃

100% agree. One of the reasons famous studios were famous was because of the room. I have used your mic setup for years. If your only gonna mic the cone , just use an IR.

This is all great advice

Thank you for your unapologetic and informed opinions. Takes on recording like this are provocative to me.

Great video! 🤘❤‍🔥🔥 I also can't understand why people are so obsessed with sm57 directly at the grill cloth. That rarely works fine unless you set bass knob on 1-2. 2 microphone technique is nice. I've tried it in the past and it worked great. Also it is nice to turn the further microphone away from the amp to get more room sound and less direct amp sound.

Subscribed at “back this fucking microphone up”

Master vol may have a push/pull too..ours does. More tonal options 🎉

Excellent whos line reference.

In my experience, I've found there are two signal chains in recording electric guitar. The one that starts with a guitar and the one that starts with a microphone. They both end up at the circuit breaker in the studio's electrical box. Everything should be on the same circuit but I've found power strips and line conditioners are individual circuits. So amp gets plugged directly to outlet. Pedals on strip to same outlet. Mixer, interface and computer/recorder on their own power strip.

Is that little bird figurine in front of your space echo a weed pipe? We need your album on vinyl homie! Press that shit up!

Another awesome video thanks for sharing. What is the ideal room to record a loud combo amp?

Great job as always Mario! Finally got around to listening to your new album, and I loved it! I’m sure you’ve gotten this before, but your vocals are super reminiscent of early-White Stripes Jack White. P.S Any tips to get a more vintage sounding acoustic sound?

Amps all like "why you gotta get all up in my grill?"🗽🛸😆

Would you consider doing this same format for bass? Helpful video. Thank you

Opening with a Q.I. reference (as a North American?) Nice! There aren't too many of us aware of that in this hemisphere. I love and collect vintage EV mics. My RE-15 is my favorite mic of all time. Their new ones (ND series) are really good, too. We have some common, niche affinities.

Amp 1. Low pre amp gain. Recoup with master volume 2. Amp EQ: focus on mid and don’t boost the bass too high 3. Mess with trem and reverb 4. Find amp master sweet range Mic 1. Omnidirectional helps with proximity effect (not overpowered by bass) 2. Move a few feet back if you want room sound 3. Ribbon mics are figure 8 and can control room vs amp sound (but have intense proximity effect) Mic placement 1. Distance around cone doesn’t matter too much. Just put somewhere between cone and dust cap 2. Back mic up a few inches from amp 3. Second Omni mic 2 feet from amp 3b. 3-1 rule of 2 mics

57s right up on the grill and my half stack go brrrrrr

15:14 Claiming you can compensate for mic placement with amp eq is silly. When you change the eq of the amp, you change the gain structure and by doing so change how the amp distorts. When you change mic position around the cone you aren't adjusting the gain structure of the amp. You should set the amp's optimal tone, and then use the mic placement as a physical eq.

It's easier doing the mic away from the amp in a home studio with just one person playing anyway ! I think studios did the close mic because of spill from other players in the same room ?

Dynamic mics do not necessarily have proximity effect, it is the directionally of a mic that creates proximity boost. An omni dynamic will have no proximity while a cardioid, super cardioid, hyper cardioid, or bidirectional mic of any type will. The SM57 is a cardioid dynamic so it does have a proximity boost but that is easily taken care of with a bit of eq if there is too much low end for you when close mic'ing. There is nothing inherently wrong with close mic'ing unless you don't like the in your face kind of sound it produces. If pre 1970 mic techniques are what you are after you may want to put a little distance between the mic and the guitar cab but if you are recording at very low volumes you may want to close mic to avoid having too roomy a sound. I have watched a few videos on this channel and in spite of there being a lot of good info there seems to be a few rather basic errors about recording.

Royer R-10 a few inches away. 15w-30w tube amp of your choice. My two cents. A decent condenser mic a little further away as a second mic gives more dimension. I also find the UAD Ruby as a very accurate replacement for a real 60’s Vox AC30 which I have used for many years. Crazy but Beatles early guitar recording featured a small diaphragm condenser mic pointed at the baffle board between the speakers to compensate for the proximity effect.

11:00 - I like those electrovoice omni's too BUT I can never understand how they are as omnidirectional as they are (not completely...at least not on the ones I have?!) When only the top of the mic capsule seems to be open to the outside world via it's grill and everything else around the capsule is solid metal! ya would've thought that that would block all the ability to capture sound around the Microphine🤷‍♂️

I can confirm your approach. I setup a Sennheiser MD419 around 1.5 ft away from my vintage Dynacord amp and it just did magic things to the sound. Combined it with a ribbon for blending some room sound into the recording was great too. As you said, finding the "right" mic positions for recording an amp or any other sound source is very subjective matter and depending on your style of music/sound. But I like having some air between an amp and the microphone(s).

The volume in your recorded music is all over the place, and sometimes the high treble hurts the ears and it’s made worse by the strong reverb. On the upside, the music is cool and the voice recording sounds awesome. Thanks so much for uploading and sharing your music and ideas.

Mic podition on the speaker is literally the most important part lol. Fixing it later is a nightmare

Great video as always, keep em coming! Maybe one day I'll get off my ass and make a video talking about some of my pile of tape gear. As for guitar cab micing, I have to say the two mics in that arrangement strikes me as... really weird. I'll have to try it. Nonetheless I totaly agree that I can't stand a 57 against the grill cloth and never could (even though weve all done it), especially recording through these old tascam desks to tape both of which add a low end bump of their own. If you want to try a dynamic mic, I HIGHLY recommend a senheiser 609 which can sound much clearer and less muddy 6 inches away. Basically my go to now. If you're trying to record in the same room as a drummer it works great. I often use it on my Champ and you would never know listening back it was this wimpy little amp, it can sound huge. Also really recommend condensers if you want crystal clear. I saw a jack white using blue bottle mics on his weird RCA amps he was touring in like 2017. I've really wanted one of those mics ever since then for that reason (the $300 version, not the 9k version he had). Just seems crazy to me to put a condenser mic on a 100 watt modified RCA amp from the 50s to go play like lollapalooza and shit, so I loved it immensely. Anyway, it ended up inspiring me to use my akg 214 also on the champ or my Ampeg gemini. Usually with a gretsch 6120 and it captures all the really bright Gretsch transient twang beautifully. So highly recommend, would probably be a cool sound on the Tele too.

I hear what you're saying & all but in my experience gettin' a good sound as close to source as possible is always more preferable than rescuing that sound afterwards using EQ or studio trickery Etc Don't get me wrong, as a studio nerd, I bask in my knowledge and abuse of studio trickery but nine times out of 10, surely the more you get it right in the first place makes for far less hassle later on down the line and things like fine tuning with mic placement IS a worthwhile endeavor? I can imagine situations, yes, where you're recording a band and no one seems too sure of their equipment and everyone is in a rush and you just need to put something down quickly then maybe, yes just do what you can and rescue it afterwards but otherwise, for me, there's a lot of throwing out the rulebook for the sake of it in this video compared to your other fine uploads Just MY 2ç

If only those garage rock bands knew that the dial tone is a 440 hz A note.

I just bought a modded 1979 Twin, and it sounds incredibly dirty. I love it. The only thing that sucks is my friend was playing into it tonight while I was at work and blew the amp fuse. I’m gonna call the shop I bought it from tomorrow. But yeah, if anybody can help me out with that I’d appreciate it!

Mario, What does produce the actual sound of an electric guitar? Not the amp, the speaker(s) in the room....

You're gonna poke your eye out with that guitar. 00:2:48

I like to back the microphone about an inch and half from the grill cloth. Gets rid of most of that proximity effect with a nice detailed sound

Mike placement on a Marshall 2x12 cab makes a huge difference. Also, I am with you on backing up the mic. I record about 4 to 5 inches from the grill. Jimmy Page also recorded using space. Try reamping a DI signal. This saves me a ton of work and allows me to change the amp later.

Nice. Sounds legit.

You seem to know this, but it's not obvious in what you say in the video : proximity effect is only due to the microphone pickup pattern not the technology. Figure of 8 mics have the most proximity effect, then cardiod mic and finally omni mics have no proximity effect. The technology of the mic (condenser, ribbon, dynamic, ...) doesn't change this. Still, your guitar recording techniques are interesting for your style of music. Thanks.

Can this be renamed to Bedroom Quickies?

I am more relieved than salty. I have yet to try this, but yeah- I spent all this money on my ideal guitar into my idea amp, then I put an SM57 right up on my cab and its muddy and sounds small and boxy. Another issue im having is that my guitar in the mix is either too loud or inaudible. I have yet to try it, but I think moving the microphone farther back might help.

🔥

Man - I love your approach that is so far away from the Gearslutz anxiety bullshit! Peace /Nils

Allie Haze

Really interesting video, I also figure out about keeping back my mic, to get this natural roomy sound from an amp. Even with an SM57 it work well, you just need to turn a bit the mic from the amp ! :)

And the bright switch is garbage. Lol 7:58 I love recording bass with my early/mid-90s Evil Twin (not the red knob Twin. That’s not the Evil Twin!) and it works great because 100 watt Fender amps have HUGE bass. Anyway, if you’re into reverb, I definitely recommend the Boss-Fender Reverb pedal. The tone and dwell controls are really close to the sound of a Fender Reverb unit. And it adds that little bit of an extra gain stage the way those big boxes do. So cool. I love to couple that with the built-in reverb on my Fender amps. And my 60s Supro Spectator which has none.

Mario I'm sure you're aware, but mic positioning really depends on what kind of sound you're after. It can also change depending on what kind of amp you have. Sometimes I'll use a sm57 plus something like a Lewitt 640. Usually I have one to be set up as a bright mic and one as a dark mic. Then blend them together and see what you get. Sometimes with combos I'll actually put a mic somewhere behind the speaker, somewhere as a room mic, or put a mic right up against a wall and then smash it into oblivion with a compressor if I want tons of room tone. At the end of the day though, put a mic in front of a speaker mic it up and move it around until it sounds good. 😂 Keep up the interesting vids.

Have you watched any of Jim Lills videos? His microphone video is awesome

this is really helpful, thanks so much! just wondering - have you used an EV 664, and if so, what did you think of it?

Hey Barney that's tape saturation not tape compression

i have a 1970 and my friend has a 76 twin reverb so I've tried both and I like both our amps pretty much equally, but I've only ever recorded my amp but hell it sounds good almost no matter what. I have to try or be dumb to make it sound bad. I always use the bright switch on. Treble is about 3.5, mid 3 and bass 3.25 or so, reverb about 4 usually depending on the song. I have ehx tubes in the preamp and the jj's that came with it.

Great video. I’m surprised you don’t DI your guitar into the board before it hits the amps. It add so much flexibility as far as shaping your tone. Even if you barely use it, or don’t use it at all.

Great stuff

Sennheiser 441 about a third of a foot from the amp grill. Fender tube amp, Tele, Strat, bridge or mid and the secret ingredient...Boss eq pedal taming mud.

I enjoy a dynamic super cardioid with a hi pass and a ribbon backed up further with a slow attack compressor. If you have someone listen while you adjust it you can use some comb filtering to get the ice out.

Hey,,,,,,, I have trouble recording, I can't use a mic to amp setup. I live in flats, I will though use some of your mixing tips though. From what you said I put to much on, it made sense. I really liked your songs you know, very Radiohead but different, by the way it seem to have a surfing tone. A mix of a few kool things, even a touch of B52s. I'll drop in again, stay kool.

The older twins (without the master volume) had to be turned up quite loud to distort.

love your judicial use of 635a

I love how Leo doubled down on misnaming the vibrato on the Strat by misnaming the tremolo on his amps 😂

what about the omni pattern gets rid of the proximity effect?

I too am glad you can't od from reverb 🙃

Hey check out Surfybear reverb pedals they got one with built in reverb tank,and man it drips.🗽🛸

I two have a reverb problem😅

I owned this late 60s Twin Reverb (the one with the additional master volume) for decades - finally sold it. Best sounding part was the spring-reverb. But the overall sound was way to clean, way to bright. Unless you want to play Surf stuff, maybe some Rockabilly or classic R'n R it is not very usefull. When you want to enter crunchy territory use a different amp. Plus: It ruins your backbone.

It can be argued modern micing (close, central on a V30) helped kill public interest in rock and metal.

26:44 29:35

Love your content. Definitely going to try some stuff you pointed out especially the 3:1 ratio for 2 mics and different mic types such as the ribbon. What do you think of the dual sm57 (or similar mic) with the Fredman technique?

Love how you said Specific when talking about the amp . So many people these days say pacific ha ha , then I think n o it’s not an ocean . Seems like this video is more like a tv show , new camera ?

I’m not really in to cron stars but I do like Austin White. She’s beautiful.

6:29 As a purist (who uses a pedal board with like 6 different gain stages 😂) I like my ‘70 non master volume Twin. But I do find myself sometimes wishing for a master volume. But I’m not a huge fan of the changes Fender made to the overall circuit when the MV was added. 😢😂I’m insane.

It never made sense to me that people would spend ages getting a great tone then jam a microphone right up against the grill. My amp sounds great when I'm standing a couple of meters away and I wouldn't put my ear right up against the speaker. It just makes sense to give it a little space.

my favorite one is Luna Star 😛

How did that string not poke you in the eye? 😂

I dont have a twin but i also prefer my champ 25se with the master cranked and the channel volume on like 2 lol, and im going for the same sounds, clangy trashy reverb with a boss sd1 into the front

I've literally never gotten "too much" low end from a 57...not with the rolloff it has. And, the less eq you need to use afterwards, the better. You're either introducing phase changes at crossover points of the curve or pre-ringing if using linear phase. So...no, placement point on speaker here is not great advice for anyone. The changes in tone are drastic depending on the mic. Definitely so for a 57.

Hi mario did your twin have old speakers or some modern?!

You need to get rid of the grill cloth completely.

All microphones have a proximity effect, to a greater or lesser degree. No microphone has zero proximity effect, but you’re certainly correct that, say, an omnidirectional mic demonstrates it far less than a figure 8 mic. But, as well as directionality, a physically large microphone will have a greater proximity effect than a mic in a small armature. The bigger the armature, the longer it takes for sound waves to get round to the back of the microphone, this is known as ‘acoustic shadowing’ and it will exaggerate the proximity effect. All this said - getting into the weeds about the proximity effect is quite redundant when this video advocates a multi-mic setup like the added complications this brings are trivial and not worth understanding and without even telling the viewer they should check if the mics they’re using share the same polarity. Worrying about proximity effect is meaningless when the person following the advice in this video has likely got a litany of phase-cancellation issues that are combining to make a worse sounding recording than if they’d just used a single mic.

Great video, but your shaky camera makes me seasick :P

3:1 rule is kinda nonsense especially with them in a line like that.