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Mic placement (any rules of thumb?)

taylor16

taylor16

Dec 25, 2012
1,829
1,742
Sedona, AZ
#1
Spent some time tonight playing around with recording off my PR40 and SM57 to get better aquatinted with their strengths and weaknesses. The more time I spent, the more "ear deaf" I became :)I certainly can tell the different between the fuller tone of the PR40 over the SM57 but, if used with a clean DI signal, I'm sure both would sound quite good.

Any suggestions for mic placement in general? With either of these two mic's? I know the SM57 is very commonly used... I have both a Z-bar and a floor-mounted stand to support both, if it matters.
 
#2
Depends on the room, the cab, the amp, the tone you're going for on the project and a million other factors.

Speaking EXTREMELY generally if you position the mic close to the cab you'll incur some proximity effect which will increase low end and reduce the amount of room sound. This can be good or bad. If you position the mic farther away you'll get less proximity effect, you'll generally get the impression of increased high frequency content, and you'll get more of the room sound.

If I know I'm going to pair with a clean DI my favorite placement is (in a good room) about 12-24" out from the grill with the mic about 10-15 degrees off axis aiming at a point roughly halfway between the outer edge of the dust cap and the edge of the cone. I like to do this with an RE20, but would happily use an SM57. That placement always works for me, but if I spend some time tweaking for a particular room and setup I can usually find something that's marginally better for a given recording.
 
#5
In most cases (that is, in most rooms and with common cab types) place the mic:
* close to the front
* somewhat off center (like 2/3 in) of the speaker cone
* pointing at a slight angle

This reduce most common problems and you can subtly adjust the tone by moving the mic towards/from the center of the speaker.
 
#6
Sometimes you have to experiment, but with my PR40, I find that I prefer micing one-way cabinets about halfway between the dustcap and the outer edge of a speaker. The PR40 can be a bit hot/woofy if you mic against the grill, so you may need to back off an inch or two. When micing a tweetered cab, I set the mic stand at the corner of the cab and shoot the mic across a driver at about a 45 degree angle, but just enough to catch the edge of the tweeter.
 

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