Setting up a guitar cabinet for recording...

Posted: Mon Jul 09, 2007 7:19 pm

I have a POD Pro going into a Mesa power amp that I usually run stereo into my cabinet. I have never really given it much thought before, but should I record the cabinet running mono or stereo? I usually use two mics (I5 and some sort of condenser).

Would it make sense to use one mic on the left and one on the right; or am I thinking retarded for my setup? I am just doing high-gain distortion (JCM 2000, Line 6 Insane) so nothing wierd or trippy. Let me know your thoughts. Thanks guys!

Posted: Tue Jul 10, 2007 5:10 am

Tell more...
What mic placement have u used recording w/ the i5 and some condenser(what kind?)
How many speakers in the cabinet? 2.... 4.... 1?
What style of guitar playing? is it High gain Metal or just rock? I feel this imperative for mic placement.

Recording just the one speaker is a great idea really. That ensures that close miking will have less phase problems.
Hey I tend to use 2 different mics on the my two cab speakers. I put an i5 close mic'd on one speaker, and w/ equal distance I place a SM57 on the other speaker. And if I feel lucky and want a third perspective I put a large diaphragm condenser mic 4-10 feet in front of the cab usually 4 feet and going away from the cab I tend to raise the stand more upward as I get further away. I usually dont like the sound of condensers on close mic'd guitar. But I like the sound of a condenser room mic. I then decide which mics (if any) sound good and have 3 to pick between or combine.
Let us know what results work for u

Posted: Tue Jul 10, 2007 9:56 am

It's a 4x12 cab. I am using the I5 (recently converted FROM the SM57) almost dead center about 4-8" away and I usually use my Oktava MK-012 quite a bit off center 12-15" away. But with this new recording I will not be using the MK; I'm going to use my Sterling ST55 LDC because the sound from the MK is just way to smooth sounding.

It is going to be one song high-gain metal and two songs rock.

I am probably not going to place my LDC so far away because I want a more direct sound, not so ambient.

Posted: Wed Jul 11, 2007 6:18 am

Yup that i5. I hear this often but I have a higher timbre guitar tone. So actually the i5 prolly makes my brittled tone sound a lil more rounder. However, I could not due w/ out my SM57 so I put both of those mics on my cab. I really have trouble w/ digital recording of guitars or anything for that matter. I wish we all had an Analog recorder that was easy to use and better quality. The analog world is nearly dead. Just think if we never had digital computing, how great/plentiful would the analog technology be today? I really like the idea of recording analog then mixing that to digital, track by track.

Very good idea to bring that room mic close to the cab. Do u have a cab that has stereo option switch, so to use just 2 speaks? My thoughts are experiment all over w/ mic placement and try to bend the rules. Sometime creating a comb filter might be creative and different sounding. (I am not implying that this is done easily or effectively) I mean just think when effects were created they designed them w/ really crappy example settings. It was only when ppl started tinkering w/ them that we got EFFECTS!!
Good luck w/ the tracks and let us all know what ya get out of it!
Thumbs Up

Posted: Wed Jul 11, 2007 2:40 pm

Thanks for thoughts Dr!

Seriously, I've said it before and I'll say it again. With almost every question I post on here the answers only make me feel better about the equipment and the way I engineer things...

Posted: Wed Jul 18, 2007 4:19 am

There are many methods of micing amps. I have pretty much in my mind nailed a technique which I think never fails to give great results. Rather than descirbe it here in detail, you can read it at

http://www.koretzmusic.com/rocksure2.html#tip11

Hope that you find it helpful.

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