Anyone Double Mic Anymore?

[JerEvil]

I used my e609 on the last track I recorded and posted. About 5 or 6 years ago I was using the 609 and 57 double mic'd on the same cab for recording each guitar track.

This seemed really popular back then (Fredman technique or something like that). Is this still commonly done? If so, should it be the same cab? Same speaker even?

[nightflameauto]

Sometimes, but not often. It offered the cool ability to control fizz through comb filtering, but I found it to be a lot more trouble to set up than the results were worth. I'm about as happy with single mic'ing, unless I want a big atmospheric sound, then I'll toss a condensor somwhere a few feet back, maybe next to a wall to capture the reflections, and set it low in the mix.

[EndTime]

I have been lately. Like most, i tried double micing like 10 years ago when i didn't even know how to get a good single mic tone.. But now that i have a lot more experience, i actually found it really easy to get the two mics to play nice together. I simply flipped the phase on one mic, then put on headphones and move the mic(s) until i get as much cancellation as possible. This means you are actually in phase. Well, you are when you flip the phase switch back on the mic you flipped earlier.

Anyway, I've been meaning to.post results, since it does seem to get a much more honest sound. Just seems to sound like a bigger frequency response, and seema to sit on top of mix more..... But so far, I'm not sure its the sound i want. . Plus, i have only tried a couple mic combinations. I have a few more i want to try before i decide how much i like it over single micing..

[EndTime]

Btw, I've double miced the same speaker and 2 different speakers. Either way is acceptable.

[JerEvil]

Btw, I've double miced the same speaker and 2 different speakers. Either way is acceptable.

[Cirrus]

Last night I was recording my Mesa combo with an sm7+sm57, and my ac30 with an EV-20 and SM57. So yep, I double mic. And I double miked the same speaker in both amps, having first compared them using just an SM57 dead centre to find my favourite.

My thinking is that nothing gives you grind and aggression in an exploding-out-the-speakers way like an SM57, which is why they're so popular. I've used them alone before and been totally fine, you just sweep the speaker looking for the best sound. But there's something about having it on-axis at the edge of the dustcap that gives great articulation and grind. Then another mic, something with less of a propensity to grind in the 3-4kHz region, off towards the edge and off axis to get a smoother lower midrange sound works well.

I prefer treating them as one mic though, which means having them phase aligned, setting their relative levels and treating them as one guitar track moving forward. I don't want to be mired in 10 tracks of guitar mics at mix time, wondering what blend I prefer in each of 5 takes!

If the room sounds good, I'd have a room mic far back enough to not sound comb-filtery when blended with the close mic. And I'd probably only use two close mics at different distances to get a deliberate comb filter sound in a dense mix to help a part stand out.

[Dickarms]

with the little experience i had recording with professional equipment, we used that method too. different mics, but e906, 57, and r122's were involved (the royer in the corner of the room) and someone even pointed one at the back corner of the cab, as supposedly there were sounds to be had there as well
but mostly e906 on axis, and a 57 either at the edge on axis, or between edge and dustcap, off axis.

[Cirrus]

I'm gonna stick a mic on the back of my vox tonight and see what happens.

[Cirrus]

Here's a pic of what I've been up to. One SM57, one Horse's Cock. Actually really chuffed with how this pairing captures the AC30 - 57 gets the grindy harmonics, RE-20 gets some warmth going on in the midrange.

Also, nothing gives an AC30 balls like sitting it on top of an Ampeg SVT.

[Sizzler]

I double mic all the time - probably 2/3 times I mic up a cab.

Right now my combo is a 57 and MD421. I am curious to try the ribbon mic / 57 combo again... alas I has no ribbon mic

[Cirrus]

No denying ribbons such as the 121 have been used to record fantastic tones, but I can't make them work for me. The massive proximity effect bothers me so I pull it back off the cab, but then if I pair it with a '57 I want that closer to saturate the pathetic little transformer!

[Sizzler]

No denying ribbons such as the 121 have been used to record fantastic tones, but I can't make them work for me. The massive proximity effect bothers me so I pull it back off the cab, but then if I pair it with a '57 I want that closer to saturate the pathetic little transformer!

Exactly why I abandoned the R121 before - the proximity effect was definitely hard to work around but I was trying to use it as the only mic at that time (and I was primarily recording high gain/metal stuff). To your point so many good tones have been done with ribbons so I would love to give it another go....

too bad Royers are so damn expensive.

[thefyn]

Stupid question time: If you pan one mic hard right and one hard left, is phasing a non issue?

[Cirrus]

Oh man!

It's still an issue.

If the two mics are perfectly in phase, panning hard L and R will give you a sound where the similarities between the mics will sit in the middle of the stereo field, and any differences in tone between the two mics will skew that bit of the sound L or R.

If one side begins to slip relative to the other, say because the mics aren't equidistant from the sound source (see appendix a) things start to happen. If the time difference is within a few milliseconds, your ears will still hear it as one sound but your brain will think the sound is coming from the side that hits your ears first - that slight time difference is one of the ways your brain localises real world sounds. As the time difference increases the signal will keep panning harder until you start to feel like there's two separate sounds, panned hard L and R. Then it'll sound like really artificial double tracking with a strangely robotic, hollow quality.

I can't think of any situation where I'd opposite pan two close mics on a cab; at best it's smeared mono, at worst it's horrible! I'd only do it if one of the mics was so far back it was in the general room ambience and hence totally phase incoherent. What's more, it's still good practice to consider what happens to your mix if it's heard in mono.

Appendix a; a guitar speaker isn't a point source - different parts of the sound come from all over the speaker! So phase differences are always part of recording guitar even if you only use one mic.

[JerEvil]

Oh man!

It's still an issue.

If the two mics are perfectly in phase, panning hard L and R will give you a sound where the similarities between the mics will sit in the middle of the stereo field, and any differences in tone between the two mics will skew that bit of the sound L or R.

If one side begins to slip relative to the other, say because the mics aren't equidistant from the sound source (see appendix a) things start to happen. If the time difference is within a few milliseconds, your ears will still hear it as one sound but your brain will think the sound is coming from the side that hits your ears first - that slight time difference is one of the ways your brain localises real world sounds. As the time difference increases the signal will keep panning harder until you start to feel like there's two separate sounds, panned hard L and R. Then it'll sound like really artificial double tracking with a strangely robotic, hollow quality.

I can't think of any situation where I'd opposite pan two close mics on a cab; at best it's smeared mono, at worst it's horrible! I'd only do it if one of the mics was so far back it was in the general room ambience and hence totally phase incoherent. What's more, it's still good practice to consider what happens to your mix if it's heard in mono.

Appendix a; a guitar speaker isn't a point source - different parts of the sound come from all over the speaker! So phase differences are always part of recording guitar even if you only use one mic.

Ok so let me see if I understand this right.

If I set my 57/609 up on the cab, they should be set to the same pan in my DAW as well for the best sound?

[Cirrus]

Well the only rule is that is it sounds good to you, but yeah I'd pan them to the same place, unless I wanted a strange not-quite-mono thing going on.

[JerEvil]

Well the only rule is that is it sounds good to you, but yeah I'd pan them to the same place, unless I wanted a strange not-quite-mono thing going on.

[Markdude]

Oh man!

It's still an issue.

If the two mics are perfectly in phase, panning hard L and R will give you a sound where the similarities between the mics will sit in the middle of the stereo field, and any differences in tone between the two mics will skew that bit of the sound L or R.

If one side begins to slip relative to the other, say because the mics aren't equidistant from the sound source (see appendix a) things start to happen. If the time difference is within a few milliseconds, your ears will still hear it as one sound but your brain will think the sound is coming from the side that hits your ears first - that slight time difference is one of the ways your brain localises real world sounds. As the time difference increases the signal will keep panning harder until you start to feel like there's two separate sounds, panned hard L and R. Then it'll sound like really artificial double tracking with a strangely robotic, hollow quality.

I can't think of any situation where I'd opposite pan two close mics on a cab; at best it's smeared mono, at worst it's horrible! I'd only do it if one of the mics was so far back it was in the general room ambience and hence totally phase incoherent. What's more, it's still good practice to consider what happens to your mix if it's heard in mono.

Appendix a; a guitar speaker isn't a point source - different parts of the sound come from all over the speaker! So phase differences are always part of recording guitar even if you only use one mic.

Ok so let me see if I understand this right.

If I set my 57/609 up on the cab, they should be set to the same pan in my DAW as well for the best sound?

Not necessarily. The mics can still be out of phase, and as a matter of fact, the phasing anomalies will be more apparent if they're panned in the same spot. Of course, don't try to circumvent phasing issues by panning things apart (mono compatibility is important and your mix will sound better regardless), but rather fix things at the source.

EDIT: Whoops, reading on my phone and didn't read that right. Thought you were relating the panning to phase coherency too. Anyway, like Josh said, just do whatever sounds good. If I were double tracking parts with multiple mics on each take, I'd pan each 'set' to the same place. But if you had a single guitar part or maybe a lead that you wanted towards the center, panning each mic a little bit apart can sound cool and provide a bit of depth and possibly ambience. If one mic is way back from the speaker, you can use it for ambience and pan it away from the close miked track for some really interesting sounds. I wouldn't pan them hard left and right though unless you're going for the Van Halen kind of thing. It really just depends on how you want things to fit in the mix, just experiment.

[newholland]

i double mic most guitar cabs.