Microphone & Preamp Combination

[Davebass]

ive just set up what i considor a proffesional studio with a few mates.
what we are finding is that we cant get the tone of most distorted guitars/genral eletric instruments through to the final recordings. could anybody recommend me a microphone and preamp combinations that would improve the quality recordings we are getting from guitars and just genrally other instruments (bass, vocals etc) our budget is from £300 - £600. $600 - $1200?

Cheers

Dave

 

[Dave Martin]

Most of the time, I'll either use a Senheiser 421 or a ribbon mic on distorted guitar amps, and an EV RE-20 on bass amps. the 421 is cheaper than an old RCA 74B... And any decent preamp should work. If it doesn't, I'd suggest that it ain't a 'decent' preamp...

 

[Aaron]

Don't get a Presonus Eureka ;-) .

It's all a matter of taste. One of my favorite mics for guitar amps is a Blue Baby Bottle. It is a bit of a 'niche' mic though - especially with vox.

 

[Davebass]

ive been reading that the preamp and microphone combination is curcial and you must have the right preamp for the right mic. is this really necessary?

as for the 421 its definitley something i shall be looking into

Cheers

 

[i_got_a_mohawk]

Don't get a Presonus Eureka ;-) .

It's all a matter of taste. One of my favorite mics for guitar amps is a Blue Baby Bottle. It is a bit of a 'niche' mic though - especially with vox.

I still dont get what people have against the Eureka. Its an ultra clean preamp, with a tone of useful controls. On another board alot of people were talking about it being crap and recommending another preamp in the cheaper range (M-Audio Tampa), I managed to pick one up used. And it just muddies everything up in comparison to the eureka!

And for the OP, £300-£600 would be about $300-$600 just cus everything is cheaper in the states .

have a look over at www.thomann.de , click on the studio tab, and have a look at the mic pres and the mics they have. I just bought a ribbon mic at the end of last week, should be arriving in a day or so . The "T.Bone" mics are the inhouse brand, and they are cheap, but they are made in the same factories in china as 90% (the majority anyway) of the mics on the market.

about the preamp and mic combination, you will get some mics more suited to some preamps etc, but one thing that is important is a selectable input impedence on a preamp, especially if your working with a ribbon mic (if its a fixed value it will usually be too high an impedance for a ribbon mic so you wont be getting the most sonically out of it), well, i dare say sound is in the ear of the beholder, but having an impedence selector really gives you a host of different sounds

 

[bluestarbass]

For that money I'd go with the following pres for distorted guitar:

one of the UA solo pres probably the 110
Maybe a grace design, but they are very clean
If you can kick a little more you could pick up a chandler germ pre which are amazing on distorted guitars, $1000 used with a power supply

Mics:
the venerable 57, it does sound good though
421, personally this is what I use, and its awesome, very heavy
Royer 121, though at about $900 used it may be out of your price range
Audix i5, never tried one but heard its like a better 57
Sennhieser - 906 or 609, the 906 is $80 more but much better sounding and more useful

That should get you started. check out gearslutz.com Tons and Tons of info about what you asked.

 

[Davebass]

we are curretnly using a 57 and it just isnt working, a freind of mine who has been in the business for quite sometime also told us to use a 57 for acoustic guitars. i done it with a akg condensor and it sounded better hands down. so i am to find succsess using 57s.

does it look like we have a winner with the senhieser 421?

 

[i_got_a_mohawk]

The best sounds ive had for guitar have always used more than one mic.

Either 2 dynamics pointing over each others paths to opposite ends of a speaker, like so :

(amazing paint skills eh? , the mic's should be more central, and are pointing at the speaker.)

Or by close micing with a dynamic straight on, and a condensor a bit back.


Im still looking forward to giving it a bash with a ribbon mic tho

 

[bluestarbass]

This is a VERY GENERAL RULE. Loud source, dynamic, quiet source, condensor. A condensor is much more sensitive. I would never put a dynamic mic on an acoustic, not to say some people do with great results, but ive never heard great results. Putting a 57 on an acoustic guitar is one of the worst ideas ive ever heard. You were right putting an AKG condensor on there. I got a mohawk is right, an xy pattern works really well on acoustics, but usually pencil condensors are used in that application.

 

[bluestarbass]

Oh second note about 57's. The tired and true statement is they dont sound great on anything but they sound good on everything. Getting a good tone out of a 57, or really any mic for that matter but especially true with a 57, is placement. Sit there for literally an hour if it takes it moving it ever so slightly around the speaker cone till you get a good sound. I got a mohawk also mentioned dual micing. A dynamic up close and a condensor back is a great idea. Be careful when your putting 2 mics very closely together as youll start to have to deal with phase issues.

 

[Aaron]

I still dont get what people have against the Eureka. Its an ultra clean preamp, with a tone of useful controls. On another board alot of people were talking about it being crap and recommending another preamp in the cheaper range (M-Audio Tampa), I managed to pick one up used. And it just muddies everything up in comparison to the eureka!

I don't have experience with the Tampa, but the Eureka is my least favorite of the pre's I've used. I think a lot of the problem is that it is a full channel strip, so a lot of the resources put into the unit are going to the compressor and eq (either of which I never used and preferred other compressors/eqs). I prefer pieces of gear that just try to be a single unit, rather than a swiss army knife. Compared to the $500-600 Eureka, I greatly preferred a $1500 4 channel Focusrite ($375 a channel) and the $500 RNP ($250 a channel). I hear great things about the Rane Ms-1b for cheap preamps. Maybe Eureka I used was a lemon. It eventually had to get fixed (being less than a couple years old) due to a huge problem with the compressor and preamp producing distortion and hiss.

 

[i_got_a_mohawk]

Wierd one there. Tho i have heard quite a few cases of presonus lemons, but again, anyone will get those. The op amps are socketed so an upgrade to some burr's might be worth a look at?

I've used it countless times, and alot of the time, like yourself, i dont like the swiss army knife approach, (yet im not going to go buy a rediculously expensive multichannel preamp ). The EQ only really gets used when i use it as a bass pre.
The compressor only gets used if i feel everything needs smoothed out a bit, which IMO it does extremelly well, its ultra discreet.

Again, i dare say with anything sonic, its all down to presonal preference.

And i have to admit im tempted to get the RNC (compressor), and i did look at the pre version, but i couldnt justify that for a preamplifier with nothing else.

 

[Aaron]

Wierd one there. Tho i have heard quite a few cases of presonus lemons, but again, anyone will get those. The op amps are socketed so an upgrade to some burr's might be worth a look at?

I've used it countless times, and alot of the time, like yourself, i dont like the swiss army knife approach, (yet im not going to go buy a rediculously expensive multichannel preamp ).

Per channel, the focusrite is a considerable less amount of money than the Eureka. There are a number of pre's that cost thousands of dollars for ONE channel.

The EQ only really gets used when i use it as a bass pre.
The compressor only gets used if i feel everything needs smoothed out a bit, which IMO it does extremelly well, its ultra discreet.

I think where software compressors shine is when it comes to a transparent sound and really fast attack/release times. This is the one area, sonically, where plugins excel more than their hardware counterparts (although plugins are cheaper and more convenient).

Again, i dare say with anything sonic, its all down to presonal preference.

Very true.

And i have to admit im tempted to get the RNC (compressor), and i did look at the pre version, but i couldnt justify that for a preamplifier with nothing else.

I've used a couple RNCs quite a bit. I think they are handy little compressors. I personally prefer hardware compressors with more character (which FMR tries to go for with their second compressor - the RNLA).

I think the RNP (the preamp) is a great unit for the price. It is a two-channel preamp, so it is $250 per channel if you think of it that way. If I ever put together my own project studio, I'm sure I'll get one. $500 is really cheap for a 2-channel preamp for a recording studio.

 

[jwl]

This is a VERY GENERAL RULE. Loud source, dynamic, quiet source, condensor. A condensor is much more sensitive. I would never put a dynamic mic on an acoustic, not to say some people do with great results, but ive never heard great results. Putting a 57 on an acoustic guitar is one of the worst ideas ive ever heard. You were right putting an AKG condensor on there. I got a mohawk is right, an xy pattern works really well on acoustics, but usually pencil condensors are used in that application.

some of the best recordings made had limitations in the gear. working within those limitations caused the musicians/engineers/producers to have to be very creative and think in different ways other than the norm. if a problem exists with a guitar sound for example, it may not be the recording gear being used. you may not be using the right guitar or amp, or pick-up selection on the guitar. or it may be eq'd wrong after tracking. it could be anything. if you are tracking bed tracks with a les paul with humbuckers into high gain amp for example, maybe beefing up the tracks with a clean telecaster into a twin will make the les paul track sound huge. how you mix the telecaster in will be crucial. often we direct blame at gear rather than our own lack of creativity. the sounds are there, you have to be willing to work to find them. imho.
peace, jeff