Mic a guitar cabinet for bedroom practice?

NizarOdeh85

NizarOdeh85

Inspired
Hello Folks!

Perhaps I am missing something here, but I never ever heard a tube amp sounding great through a traditional cabinet. Not sure why! There is always something missing to make it sound "genuine".

Last week, I attended a small gig in a club, and the guitar player there was playing few a mid size tube amp that was mic'ed to 15" monitors...Oh my God! The overall sound has much more "genuine" feeling than turning any tube amp as loud as that!!!! The effects are shining and filling the whole club in all dimensions....The distortion is very clear and you can hear the strings when chords are hit!

My question is: Why the hell guitar players don't mic their tube amps...even their Solid-state amps always anywhere? Aren't they missing the 'genuine' sound that we hear in concerts by Metallica, Dream Theater, Accept, etc....?
 
Some like the guitar cab raw sound, some like the polished record sound. Every one has different taste. you can mic the cab on stage but the player still hears the amp, unless it is in an iso box.
 
paranoid said:
Some like the guitar cab raw sound, some like the polished record sound. Every one has different taste. you can mic the cab on stage but the player still hears the amp, unless it is in an iso box.
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Does it make sense if I mic my tube amp in bedroom and send the signal to active studio monitors for "practicing"? I have no interest in recording at all.
 
How loud is it in your bedroom? To get good signal to a mic, you need some volume, to only here the mic signal that volume would have to be greater then the amp. Just use an axe fx and all is good at any volume through an amp, pa, or headphones.
 
paranoid said:
How loud is it in your bedroom? To get good signal to a mic, you need some volume, to only here the mic signal that volume would have to be greater then the amp. Just use an axe fx and all is good at any volume through an amp, pa, or headphones.
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I plan to listen to the mic'ed signal only, and I play around 70 - 75 dB in my room. I am just trying not to sell my tube amp :)
 
by all means keep your tube amp if you like it. build an iso cab, put the amp in the bathroom(that's where the good reverb is anyways). I am with you though, I like the final sound better then raw guitar cab, that's why I went Fractal in 2014!
 
Sounds like an ax8 or fm3 is the ticker for you.

I dont care if its a mic'd speaker or Im next to the cab, just make it sound good.
 
It's more dependent on the venue size and the size of their PA. Most tiny venues will only put vocals through the PA. Hell, even some decent sized venues I've played won't bother mic'ing a speaker cab. Especially when they deal with guitarists coming in with 100watt heads into a 4x12 or two and feel the need to crank them up. It just becomes overkill.

If you can get a decent tone out of your amp without relying on anything else, it might be time to consider a new amp. You can't get more "genuine" than standing in front of the amp itself. Getting a great sound from a mic'd cab is a whole different ballgame. It's very rare you can just stick a mic in front of a cabinet and get a great sound out of it right away and studio/live engineers have spent years learning how to get it right.

I've heard PLENTY of great amps mic'd up and a horrible tone coming out of studio monitors/PA speakers. 1 inch in the wrong direction and all you'll hear is OOOOFFFMMMM, directly in the center of a speaker and you'll get a ton of treble. Mic'ing a cab is all about finding that sweet spot and then hoping all the rest of the gear after the mic is going to actually translate that properly. Just type into Google "How to mic a guitar cabinet" and see how many results pop up, it's easily one of the most discussed aspects of basic recording just because of the fact that it's not as easy as sticking a mic in front of a cab.
 
RevDrucifer said:
It's more dependent on the venue size and the size of their PA. Most tiny venues will only put vocals through the PA. Hell, even some decent sized venues I've played won't bother mic'ing a speaker cab. Especially when they deal with guitarists coming in with 100watt heads into a 4x12 or two and feel the need to crank them up. It just becomes overkill.

If you can get a decent tone out of your amp without relying on anything else, it might be time to consider a new amp. You can't get more "genuine" than standing in front of the amp itself. Getting a great sound from a mic'd cab is a whole different ballgame. It's very rare you can just stick a mic in front of a cabinet and get a great sound out of it right away and studio/live engineers have spent years learning how to get it right.

I've heard PLENTY of great amps mic'd up and a horrible tone coming out of studio monitors/PA speakers. 1 inch in the wrong direction and all you'll hear is OOOOFFFMMMM, directly in the center of a speaker and you'll get a ton of treble. Mic'ing a cab is all about finding that sweet spot and then hoping all the rest of the gear after the mic is going to actually translate that properly. Just type into Google "How to mic a guitar cabinet" and see how many results pop up, it's easily one of the most discussed aspects of basic recording just because of the fact that it's not as easy as sticking a mic in front of a cab.
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Most places I've been to, even small ones, mic'd up the amps. Not a big fan of places that only use a PA for vocals. I'd rather not play such places.

As for properly mic'ing up an amp, it is a science, but it helps if take the time and effort to find the sweetspot on your amp and mark it with tape. And if need be take that mic along to gigs as in this spot with this mic sounds great to me. I always loved it when I got a band on my stage that had done that.

As for the OP, build or get an Iso Cab, stick it somewhere where you can turn it up where it won't cause angry mobs to form with pitchforks, mic it up and enjoy it from the comfort of your own bedroom. I remember a youtuber who had done just that. Stuck his cabs somewhere isolated in the garage while he got the mic'd sound from his monitors in his home studio. He had them loud and controlled the volume with a volume pedal, claiming it was preferable to the volume knob on his guitar.
 
Studio monitors and a modeller (or attenuated tube amp with cab ir) seems waaay more practcal for bedroom practice over a mic'd isocab.
 
Muad'zin said:
Most places I've been to, even small ones, mic'd up the amps. Not a big fan of places that only use a PA for vocals. I'd rather not play such places.
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I think the majority of people would prefer not to play those places, but some of those places paid my rent for a few years while the bigger venues made ME pay to play.
 
What you heard was a combination of sounds hitting you from different sources.

1) From the amp itself.
2) From the stage monitor.
3) From the P.A.
4) From the open mics on stage (Drums & Vocals) bleeding into the P.A.

Don't expect to be able to replicate this at home unless you have a full P.A. set up under the same conditions in a similar size room
 
Update:
I have purchased a Sennheiser e906 mic today, mic'ed my 4x12 cabinet speakers and sent the audio signal to Adam A77X active monitor...Disappointed :confounded:

I play around 75 dB and the mic is barely capturing anything. Even with full volume on the Adam A77X, I cannot hear the mic'ed sound compared to what is coming from the cabinet itself!

Can anyone help here?
 
Most audio interfaces (I use a Roland Octacapture) have mic inputs and outputs for monitors.
 
NizarOdeh85 said:
Aren't they missing the 'genuine' sound that we hear in concerts by Metallica,
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I think Metallica actually uses Axefx for a lot of their shows now - straight into PA with no tube amps at all and clean SS amps for onstage monitoring.

Interesting, you are like me in that I have a hard time to like / appreciate the amp in the room sound many guitarists rave about - I much prefer a mic'd cab sound - maybe becasue I started playing guitar late in life (40s) so most of my exposure to guitar sound was mic'd cab.
 
sprint said:
I think Metallica actually uses Axefx for a lot of their shows now - straight into PA with no tube amps at all and clean SS amps for onstage monitoring.

Interesting, you are like me in that I have a hard time to like / appreciate the amp in the room sound many guitarists rave about - I much prefer a mic'd cab sound - maybe becasue I started playing guitar late in life (40s) so most of my exposure to guitar sound was mic'd cab.
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For some reason, when someone says that he nailed Malmsteen's tone and demos it on his guitar speaker cab it is like 50% of what I hear when Malmsteen is live in a concert. When the guitar speaker cab is mic'ed, it becomes 90% identical to his signature tone!
 
Unless you have the means to completely isolate your 4x12, there's still a good amount of sound bleed you'll hear mixed thri your monitors and if, as you stated, you absolutely dislike the raw sound from your cabinet, then no matter what you will always end up dissapointed.

Of course, going straight into an Axe FX or an AX8/FM3 will be the best bet here but if you absolutely want to use your amp, my suggestion is to get a load box (Fractal does have one) and use your amp with some IRs.

Also you don't mention what kind of gear you have between your microphone and the monitors...
 
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