Newsflash: I hate my speakers!

[jsiwek]

I have been beating my brains in trying to record a killer guitar tone without success for the better part of a year now. I have nice gear, nice mics (even the R-121 that everyone but me seemed to like) but the sound I capture in Pro Tools is dull, flat and uninspired.

I feel like I have tried nearly everything. I have read just about all of Brandon's great articles and they have certainly given me some new an fresh ideas.

But playing my amp at high volume sounds killer to me, and my nice gear should be able to capture what I'm hearing, right? It doesn't.

But for the first time, I pulled the grill off my 4x12 and turned the volume down low and listened to the speakers themselves. To my surprise, the same things that I didn't like about my recordings were coming out of my speakers!

I think when the volume is loud, our ears change the way we hear, but the microphone stays true.

I am using V30's, which everyone and their brother seems to like well enough, but I think they sound awful. I don't know if its because they are newer (12 months old) and need to be broken in or what. But to me there is some sort of upper midrange paper-y sound that makes it sound like a POD (promptly realizing that maybe the POD sounds like it does because they used V30's to model the amps !!)

Now the problem is that there are so many choices for speakers its ridiculous. There really is no way to determine whether or not I like a speaker other than buying at least a pair, unloading the old speakers, loading the new ones, then repeat. I know Brandon is singing the praises of the G12H's (70th Anniversary, or Classic?) which I may try out, but each "test" is either going to cost me at least $120-$200 a pop, or a string of time consuming eBay transactions.

Anyone have any other recommendations? I am drawn to very heavy slow groove sounds a la Audioslave's heavy tunes.

Thanks,
JS

[brandondrury]

You haven't told me enough info yet.

You didn't mention the guitar. You didn't mention the guitar player. You didn't mention the amp. Want a clue? YOU DIDN'T MENTION THE AMP!!!

If you are telling me that the Royer R121 sounds dull when you have the amp on 10, with the lows on 0, the mids on 10, and the highs on 10, you have poor mic placement, a broken mic, or a low pass filter on somewhere.

If you haven't tried these extreme settings, I ask you, "Why not?". Before you blame gear, you should always look at knobs (when applicable).

The Royer R121 is totally capable of picking up thin / harsh sounding recordings if that's what you are feeding it. Btw, I've kept the Royer R121 dead center on the cone (which is horrible for a 57, but I like that spot with the R121). The R121 is actually touching the grill, also.

Have you read My Guitar Secret Weapon yet?

The fort is important, but the isolation is what you are missing (or so it seams).


I've written somewhere on this dumb site that it took me almost one year to understand the Royer R121. The problem wasn't with the mic. It was with I was feeding it. I was giving it way too much low end on the amp. I keep the low end very low on most amps I record. It's easy to make these decisions when your making tone adjustments based on what you hear out of your studio monitors.

Speakers
The Vintage 30s are on all kinds of great guitar sounds. They are a little bit harsh when compared to the G12H30s. (I'll need to look up which kind I bought). If you are getting dull sounds out of your Vintage 30s, your amp isn't set right.

Do you own a guitar EQ pedal, by chance?

Brandon

[brandondrury]

Also, what mic pre are you using?

Brandon

[jsiwek]

Hey Brandon,

Thanks for the reply, you are awesome...

The guitar did not seem to matter too much, although I am using a few different flavors of hot humbucker pickups, ie Les Paul Standard, PRS Custom 22 and for the latest project the guitarist uses a 7 string Ernie Ball, which sounds a bit more processed to me than the LP, etc.

The amps vary, the current project the amp is a Diezel, which is a bit on the bright side, but is certainly more than capable of putting out too much bass. ther amps tried Guytron 100 and a Mesa Mark IV.

Yes, I read your secret weapon, that is a great tip. The best I can do right now before I locate/get some of this stuff is a few low freq sound panels leaning up against the front of the cab. It did pretty good for only three 2' x 8' panels.

Is the fort the secret you mentioned when you said you you found something that made your guitar cabs sounding amazing, right before you blew your first G12H?

I have a 4x12 V30 and a 2x12 that I had no idea what was in it, so I took it apart and it had a G12H 70th anniversary! I had been micing only the other speaker out of convenience, so I tried the G12H, and I liked it better, a bit smoother, but also a lot more midrangey, losing some bottom and losing a lot of the harsh high end, so I'll have to probably pull a lot of mids out when I work with it more. I'll have to buy some to load my 4x12 so I can crank it to 10. Let me know if yours are the 70th anniversary or the classic, maybe I'll just get 2 of each to mix/match.

I had been following your recommendations to place the r-121 right on the cone, but I have never ever been able to make it sound too bright or harsh. It seems to always be dull, even with bass on 0, etc., but I have not yet tried an EQ pedal pre-amp to pull out even more bass/mid range. I will try that next. Maybe something is wrong with my 121, but it has never been abused and doesn't sounds broken.

Mic pres are Manley dual mono and a BAE 1273 (Neve clone) which sounds pretty good for grindy guitars.

Thanks for your help!

JS

[brandondrury]

Mic pres are Manley dual mono and a BAE 1273 (Neve clone) which sounds pretty good for grindy guitars.

I assume you mean the 1272. If it sounds pretty good for grindy guitars, than why are having problems with grindy guitars? I'm not being a dick. I'm just trying to get to the heart of the problem here.

I had been following your recommendations to place the r-121 right on the cone, but I have never ever been able to make it sound too bright or harsh.

Are you telling me that if the bass on 0 and the highs on 10 that you can't get a tone that sounds too thin? That seams crazy no matter what the mic used!

Maybe you are thinking relatively. Compared to a AT4033 or something, the Royer R121 will always be dark. That's what it does. However, seriously going well out of your way to get the thinnest, brightest tone you can possibly get out of your amps will do you a ton of good.

You'll actually find out that if you start mega thin, that you don't need that much low end to make it the ideal tone. Like I said, I've done hard rock and metal guitars a lot recently and the low end is almost always around 0 depending on the amp (and the amount of power tube distortion).

You have some cool amps, so it's not like that's the problem. I think your weakest link is probably how you are setting the tone control though. That's what has made the biggest impact on my recordings. It's easy to set tone control when you can hear the guitar player playing the track through your monitors exclusively.

I'm using the G12H30 70th Anniversary speakers.

I liked it better, a bit smoother, but also a lot more midrangey, losing some bottom and losing a lot of the harsh high end, so I'll have to probably pull a lot of mids out when I work with it more

Interesting. Your speaker may sound differently than mine does, but I've never really felt the need to scoop out mids.

Brandon

[jsiwek]

Yep, 1272, sorry... My point was that it seems to accentuate the grindiness, not that it cured all my ills. Hey, no offense taken, I'm just trying to get it right and I may need someone to knock me upside the head every once in awhile

I'm going to get a pair of the 70th Anniversary G12H to load at least 1/2 my 4x12, I got the best results so far with 20 minutes of setup (after a year of trial and error on & off with V30's). There's just something about the top end of the V30's that I despise. The G12H's are much more satisfying to me, so I'll start there.

So, after I get the new speakers, get an EQ pedal, and load up on the Roxul, I will report my progress.

Thanks,
JS

[brandondrury]

One more point to make.

I had my Vintech 1272, my G12H30s, and my Rockwool for a long time before I got my guitar tones together. The real difference was in how I was setting the amp.

Just keep that in mind while you focus on gear.

Brandon

[jsiwek]

I tried a few things & wanted to mention a few things.

1. I tweaked my amp, turning the volume up to 10 and pulling back all lows & mids, treble up about 1/2 way. I don't know how your tone stack works on your amp, but if all my tone controls are down, its like turning the volume all the way down, so I had to turn up the bass & mid to about 3 & turn the treble up to 8-10 in order to get sufficient volume.

I was able to get pretty good high end out of the r-121 with the amp set up this way, for the first time I can remember. Still, it wasn't harsh at all lie an sm-57 gets. Nice!

2. For mic placement, a variation of the pink noise test you mentioned worked very well for me.

I didn't use a pink noise source, but the amp was loud enough so that there was a contant hiss, so I put the mic through to headphones & moved the mic around to a spot that sounded the most balanced to me.

The point I want to make here is that the sweet spot is not just 2-d, but 3-d. You can hear the balance of the highs/mids/lows change as the mic is moved closer to and away from the speaker pointed at the same spot. I found that the highs actually increased to a point as I moved the mic *away* from the speaker, I guess reducing proximity effect, but then if I went too far it would get bassy again.

I found a spot that I felt sounded pretty good and set it there, and when I went in the control room, that spot sounded really good. About as full sounding as I have gotten a single mic (especially the r-121) to this point.

Using real pink noise would probably make this even easier because the hiss I was using was not that loud, and pink noise is a better representation of a full frequency spectrum than just random amp noise.

Thanks for your comments, I think I am headed in the right direction.

JS

[brandondrury]

Everything in your chain is pro it sounds like, so the issue here has got to be you. No offense, but focusing on the "you" factor is what seperates the men from the boys. Focusing on the the playing, the knobs, and your creativity if what is going to get you where you want to be.

So don't be afraid to get really extreme with the settings.

I'm glad you are getting closer to where you want to be. I think I've got a great test for you.

Match the tone from Appetite For Destruction the best you can. Seriously try to get guitar tone to sound as close as possible to theirs. You will learn a lot! From there you can subtlely tweak until you find something that matches you and the band's tastes.

Brandon