Tips for Recording Mesa Boogie Stack

I personally am a BIG fan of the 57 off axis, away from the speaker cone. As a guitarist, I have spent a lot of time over the years experimenting with mic placement, and that particular way of doing it ALWAYS works. So you're doing that much right, as far as I'm concerned.

A ribbon mic like a Royer 121 or 122, facing the speaker cone directly also yields impressive results. Especially with heavy distorted tones... it smooths it out in a very favorable way.

However, with a 4 X 12, or even a 2 X 12 cabinet, the single mic on the speaker only gets you part way there (although it's generally sufficient). I would suggest placing a condenser mic (like the Baby Blue) about 3 to 5 feet out in front of the cabinet(s), to capture more of the 4 (or 2) speakers working together.

If the space you're recording the amp in has a wood floor, that distant mic set close to the floor can be really cool. Loads of low end... too much really, but it's fun to hear!

Another cool thong about the close and distant mic, is that you can pan those two tracks away from each other, for a really wide tone, that is still a single performance, so it doesn't suffer from the "slop" of a doubled part (unless you;re going for that sound intentionally).

The last thing I have just done, we used a Marshall stack on three tracks. We had a DI from the back of it, we have an SM57 off-axis, and then a PZM getting room (we were in a smallish hall/room.) The tone sounds amazing - a mix of the room and Spacedesigner gets a really mushy tone whilst playing with the other two, mostly the DI gives it just the bite to cut through. I keep learning things every day, but I have to say, I was really, really impressed by this. The possibilities through mixing the different tracks with eachother, and then sending to a bus with some secondary compression on made for a killer tone!
Best, Fred

Using a 3rd mic, to close mic the cabinet itself, either from the top or from the front (aimed at the centre of the cabinet top) as well as a close mic on a speaker cone & the ambient can yield some very warm tones.
Especially when the db's get to ear splitting levels.

What about phase issues?

Also, what about the Sennheiser 421, or 604?

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I have always been a 57 and condenser man myself, but the "Holy Grail of Vocal Recording" thread got me thinking about the "disk" and two mics concept (reread the great thread if you don't know what I'm talking about).

I remember a movie on DVD i rented that had a featurette about sound design...I don't remember the movie (possibly the Matrix or some such) but it was cool enough to need a featurette to explain it's sound. The main focus of the featurette was a mannequin like microphone system. Strategically placed mics in the "ear" position on a "head" provided the best recording's I heard up to that point in a movie. I can only imagine that something similar would do amazing things to any source...especially a big loud one like a Mesa Boogie!

Thanks for reading...

X

owned and recorded boogies since 1974. best result was with a pair of km88 neumanns - one at the speaker(off axis), one in the room pointing away.
lotsa detail. some of the best recordings are those where the amp was very soft - you could talk over it. the louder you have it - the bigger the room should be.
421 and 57s are good. the speaker used has a great baring on the tone. i find something in the 30-50rms range to work well. jensen alnicos.

usually the best spot for a room mic is wherever it sounds best to your ear. Walk around the room, get down low, point your ear in the direction that the mic would be facing. Put your finger in the other ear so that you are not hearing in stereo. Your ear will pic up the same phase cancellatioins, comb filters, etc. that a mic would in any spot in the room. So where the guitar sounds best to your ear is where it will sound best to the mic.

I'm a big fan of 57's paired with a ribbon mics. If you put the ribbon about 12 inches off of the cone it should be safe. Also, if you use a much shorter cable for a ribbon placed that far away, the two mics should be very close to being in phase. Then you can just play with the distances until they sound right together. You can also expand the waveforms and double check that the peaks all line up. You don't even need to use a sample delay plug-in. Just shift the actual waveform.

Also, in most cases you absolutely don't need to crank the amp all the way up to get a good tone. Usually the amp with the volume and gain backed off a bit (to a lot) from where you think it's right is going to sound best recorded. This is because your ear mixes in all of the room sound which washes out some of the detail and grind in the sound, so you wind up turning up the gain to compensate. However, a close 57 will be picking up all of that extra gain which usually just sound like mush close up. Sometimes you have to put your ear right up to where the mic will be to really get the gain and eq on the amp set well (which of course means turning the master down).

The ribbon mic will definately give you a big smooth low end. The 57 should give you a nice punchy tight top end. I also recently used a Peluso CMEC-6 pencil mic with really great results. About 1/2 way between the center and edge of the speaker, 6" away, and on axis. The SPL on these is around 147 db, so it can take the abuse. Great tone........tight and big.