I’m not a pro at neither recording nor playing guitar, so forgive me if this is an obvious question.
I recently got a Shure SM57, since I’ve been told for the last 30 years that it’s the industry standard for recording electric guitars, and I have seen them countless times hanging from the top of guitar amps in concerts. Because of that, I would think that it’s the best position, but is that really the case?
So far I have tried it that way, but I’m not crazy about stretching the cable that way, even if it’s a strong XLR cable. So I put it on a tripod both diagonally and facing the speaker dead on, and to me it sounds great both ways.
But I wanted to have opinions from pros about what’s the most usual setup. If it’s the hanging down one, I guess I can get some clamps so the mic doesn’t start to go down slowly.
I’ve only ever seen it done at small gigs… bars and the like. Usually small combo amps and not uncommon for the amp to be tilted back slightly and the '57 actually resting lengthwise against the grill cloth. Since the '57 is not a side-address mic, the resulting sound tends to be absolute crap.
A good starting poing is usuaĺly to place the top of the mic at the edge of the cone using a tripod. Play with the angle to change the tone: Point it slightly towards the centre of the cone or move it a tiny bit away from the edge. SM57s are always a safe bet to get great results when tracking guitars.
Like @KT66 said, the SM57 is a cardioid and mainly captures the signals it’s pointing at. Hanging it from above is far from ideal - maybe they had to do it because the stage was too small? Again, not a good idea.
To add to @Reco29’s comment - as a general rule the closer to the centre of cone the mic is pointing, the brighter the signal, and as you progress from the centre to the edge of the cone, the darker it becomes. Try recording some guitar and moving the mic around and you’ll see what I mean. Depending on what sound you’re looking for there’s a sweet spot somewhere between the centre and the edge.
Thanks for the comments. That makes sense, when I haven’t seen them hanging from the top, I’ve seen them pointing like mid way between the center and the edge. Although recently I saw a concert where it was hanging between the center and the edge too.
I’ll mention another tip, although from the position of having a control room, a main studio A and several booths/rooms.
And that is…get the actual amp into another room where you can’t hear it at all. Which perhaps you already do.
That enables you or the guitarist to play the guitar from the control room while hearing the mic’d amp (or speaker cab if separate head/cab) FROM your control room monitors…while or while not playing the mix too.
On guitar overdub days around here, I use pre-run cabling from control room to studio.
If I’m using a Deluxe, long banana-interfaced set of guitar cords to reach the 40ft or so out to the amp…longer if to one of the further rooms. If using the Marshall jmp, head is already sitting in the control room…40ft or so of speaker cable out to the 412 cabinet in the studio where the mic is. I just keep those cables in place all the time to save time.
This is the BEST way to find mic positions you like…which may vary song to song. There is no way…imo…to efficiently get a mic’d amp sound you like when the amp is two feet from your ears.
If you have a friend etc standing out in the room, you can then easily guide them over the headphones to say, move the mic left…move it up…move it back etc.
I use tripods as I sometimes use the heavier tube mics on speakers, but more often than not, I’ll use a 57, 58, or re20 depending on my mood.
Yes, using different mics than a 57 or using additional room mics is a different story altogether. That brings all sorts of factors into the equation. 57s are legendary for their simplicity and robustness.
Three other things to take into consideration:
Leave enough space between the back of the cabinet and the wall
If you don’t have a separate booth you should make sure that the cabinet will not aim directly at your knees sitting 6 feet away from it. Keep a minimum distance or stack the cabinet onto something in order to get some direct signal to your ears.
Depending on your monitoring level the unamplified sound of the guitar might trick you into thinking that this part of the signal will be tracked, too. It won’t…
Other than that it can be a lot of fun to overdo it or to mess it all up on purpose (e.g. The Beatles - Revolution, Blur - Song 2)
