Phase issues... please help!

[Mesa4x12er]

Ok so I know this might be the wrong place, but a lot of you are pros and as of right now I just suck.

I can never get a consistent guitar tone. I am only close micing. AT 4050, Fathead II, SM57. Sometimes I get a pretty great sound, and sometimes it is just out of phase hollowed out shit.

Weird thing is I always try to put the mics in the exact same spot, all what seems to be the same distance from a speaker.

I tried to do the flip out of phase, try to kill sound and the flip phase again trick, but I can only flip phase on something already recorded aka not live monitoring.

I'm pulling my hair out. Sorry guys. /breakdown.

[davedarling]

Try using 1 mic.

or - use the AT, and the 57 with the caps as close together as possible.

but still - get a good sound with one mic first, then add a second.

good luck - Dave Darling

[Mesa4x12er]

Originally Posted by davedarling

Try using 1 mic.

or - use the AT, and the 57 with the caps as close together as possible.

but still - get a good sound with one mic first, then add a second.

good luck - Dave Darling

Thanks for the response. I get a great sound out of all, just serious phase issues and I'm not sure why. I don't know what to do to make this a thing of the past. Nothing worse than being struck with a great song idea and then screwing with mics for an hour to get my sound.

[tmcconnell]

1) Use one mic, right on the baffle. Keep the main sound its picking up from one speaker because, at a given spot, multiple speakers will phase cancel each other.
2) If you must use 2 mics, put them in an xy configuration - diaphrams as close to each other as possible.
2.5) If you must get the aggregate sound of several speakers pull the mic back (and prepare to lose the punch of proximity effect if its a cardioid mic) and make it eqidistant from all the speakers - which is hard because they produce sounds from a big section of real estate. Going back 4 feet would not hurt unless...
3) wall or floor reflections are in play. Put the amp in the center of the room.
4) Use an amp with only one speaker.
5) Don't assuume the mics themselves are in phase - although, generally, the "matched pair" thing makes a very subtile difference esp with distorted electric guitar which will have nothing useful above 5k. (if you don't beleive me look at the response curves for guitar speakers.)
6) Hand match the phase by moving the second mic around while someone is playing quitely and you are in headphones turned up loud. The position with more bass is generally more in phase but remember that each frequencey will have a different location at which it is in phase in this situation so that's why people do xy micing with multiple mics.
7) read the huge volume of phase related micing methods available on the web.
8) Hard pan LR the two mics.

Tell us which one worked. ted.

[BluegrassDan]

Put one mic in front - almost touching the grill. Pointing right around the edge of speaker cone.

Put the other one in the back of the cabinet - a few inches behind the speaker cone. Pointing right at the cone.

Reverse the phase of the one in the back of the amp (this can be done later with your editor).

Record some.

Switch the mics...placing them in the exact same places.

Make sure the one in the back of the amp has the phase reversed.

Record some.

See which one you like better! Then let me know if it worked!!!

[Mesa4x12er]

thanks again! Now time to look up what XY means.

[Mesa4x12er]

Originally Posted by BluegrassDan

Put one mic in front - almost touching the grill. Pointing right around the edge of speaker cone.

Put the other one in the back of the cabinet - a few inches behind the speaker cone. Pointing right at the cone.

Reverse the phase of the one in the back of the amp (this can be done later with your editor).

Record some.

Switch the mics...placing them in the exact same places.

Make sure the one in the back of the amp has the phase reversed.

Record some.

See which one you like better! Then let me know if it worked!!!

You mean literally behind the cab where there are no speakers?

[BluegrassDan]

Is it an open-backed amp? Like a Fender Twin, Vibrolux or something?

[peeder]

I don't think you ought to XY mic a guitar amp close-on. You could use an XY pair further back to give stereo room sound blending with the close sound.

I generally like to mic speakers close-in absolute dead center on-axis in the sweet spot, with a single dynamic or ribbon. You find the sweet spot by listening to the amp hiss as you place the mic, the sweet spot is where the hiss is loudest and brightest. Most of your high-end tone is coming out of the sweet spot, and you are rolling it off by just being an inch out.

But that works for me because I'm also getting the tone right on axis, with fairly low-wattage amps. I mean I'm listening on-axis to the speaker as I dial in the tone knobs on the amp and guitar (& pedals), just as I would a studio monitor dialing in an EQ. Most shredders ears would bleed if they put themselves on-axis: they are listening to off-axis tone as they dial it in, so you mic off axis near the baffle to get them the tone they were hearing. It's not a very hifi replication of the amp but we're so used to it that many people do it that way.

Anyway try my method once and see if you can do better consistently.

[529 Pro Audio]

Just a hunch, but if you are recording in a typical smallish rectangular bedroom, then you are probably getting phase cancellation due to the reflections in the room. Do you have acoustic treatment up? Are you double tracking the guitars? If so, perhaps work on your timing?

Best,
Chris

[vernier]

Either use one mic within a foot away, or two mics, one close and one far, like six or seven feet. Btw, recording guitar is the most un-rocket-science part of recording ..you can't go wrong.

[greatgreatriver]

try pan the two mics L/R and check in mono - delay on signal until it sound good.

[narcoman]

Polarity. Please.

[greatgreatriver]

if you record to daw it's simple to zoom in waveforms and check if one track is out of phase but sometimes it's just wrong and you need to re:think your mic setup/placement.

Also - sometimes if you record loud you need to move the condenser away from the grill because you are overloading the mic - / pad the mic etc.

[davedarling]

Originally Posted by Mesa4x12er

Thanks for the response. I get a great sound out of all, just serious phase issues and I'm not sure why. I don't know what to do to make this a thing of the past. Nothing worse than being struck with a great song idea and then screwing with mics for an hour to get my sound.

Can you have "a great sound" and "serious phase issues" at the same time ?
If it sounds like a great sound to you...you're done.

do some research, and experiment a lot.

dd

[darkwavo]

Use 1 mic. Use the 58 or the fathead. put it up on the amp , move it around til you like the sound. If you really need to add a second mic, only in small amounts and flip the polarity on your pre to taste. If you really need two mics for the sound, try two seperate tracks (a double) that you can blend. Don't make it hard on yourself. A 58 should sound great, if it doesn't start looking at the sound of the amp/guitar/playing.

Oh use the AT as just a room mic about 6 feet from the amp, blend in only if it sounds good.

[dwall]

A lot of people swear by this thing, but with three mic's you'd need two to really be thorough: (especially if you can only switch polarity in the box; what preamp are you using?!?)

http://www.littlelabs.com/ibp.html

A less expensive option, and one that you can apply after recording, is the voxengo plugin:

Voxengo

I did some tests with it over the weekend with the demo (which cuts out for a second or so every 45 seconds) and it seems nice. It doesn't color the sound and is only $40.

If none of that gets sufficient results, I agree with people who say to cut down to two or even one mic. If you're going for a bigger sound, you can just double the part, which has more texture anyway, no? Or you can add a small touch of delay to one of the two mic's if you use two.

[dwall]

PS - As previously mentioned, it might indeed be worth it to blow the wave forms up and make sure they are time aligned. I know you say you're recording with the mic's at the same distance from the speaker, but it's still worth checking. It's also a good excercize to listen to what happens as you move them out of time with each other a little, just so you can recognize that particular kind of phase artifact in the future.

[Clarence]

Nothing worse than being struck with a great song idea and then screwing with mics for an hour to get my sound.

Don‘t do this. Get yourself a damagecontrol thinggy and record ideas right away. No hassle and sounds okay-ish.
Save your energy: writing and recording are two different beasts.

Other than that: there are no rules, no shortcuts, no secret pathways. Whatever works ...



Clarence

[Flymax]

Do whatever it takes to make the gtr sound good...
One 57 close can be great...(yes, right near the cone)
One condenser a foot back can be great..
4 mics on the 4 cones in a 4x12 cab can be great..
Do whatever you want and can to make it hot...
Avoid the obvious things that will make phase...or at least be aware of the phase and make it work for you..

[dwall]

Another thing to try with single mic setups is recording the part once with one mic (say a close dynamic, off-axis and a little to the side, for a darker sound), and then record the same part to a second track, this time with a condensor a foot or two away, with a brighter sound, more centered on the cone. You can angle the mic up a little if you're getting phase issues from floor reflections.

This raises an important point: you can get phase issues from a single mic (another reason to master using a single mic before adding a second). So if you have three mic's out of phase with each other, and there's a condensor in there that's getting an out of phase signal due to reflections, there's no way to fix that (once recorded) without removing the condensor from the mix. I would listen to each mic independently within what you already have recorded, and mess with muting each mic while the other two play together. It's a lot of listening, and then adjusting based on what you know about how this stuff works.

[heyman]

1) I say one mic... Stay with the basics.

2)Also, when using a mic like a Royer, I usally place a Sound absorber a few feet back to cancel what the backside of the mic is picking up from my walls (small room)

3) Place cab in center of room.. Get it up off the floor as well.

4) have some one move the mic around while you monitor ..

5) Have fun and relax..

Do 2 takes to thicken up the sound if you like..

[Jim Williams]

Check out the pics from the Hendrix and Cream sessions and just about everyone else back then. Did they get a good enough sound for you? Do you see multi mics on the cabs?

Jim Williams
Audio Upgrades

[leaper]

This place is so cool! so many suggestions to the poster's problem.. it's probably caused a brain overload.. but great to be on the receiving end, i imagine. we didn't have this kind of thing back in 1915.. no one to tell us how to reposition the recording gramophone's ear to the baritone's cravat, thus reducing resonance from the rattling bones inadvertently stuck in his beard whilst he was dining on a partridge pie.
Errrr... sorry... been editing drums too long!

[littlelabs]

Jim you could put a radio shack mic on Jimi or Erics amp and it would sound amazing. Other players could use a tad more help...

I was talking to Joe Barresi the other day and he told me a good story. Robin Trower (who I've always adored his tone) had all his gear stolen I think it was in Florida. So Robin went to the local guitar center bought a Japanese strat and I forget the amp and his tone that night still killed... it's all in his fingers. But... some players although technically top notch don't have that ability. I have another story along that line with Jeff Beck (another man with the gifted fingers) but that's a whole other story.
Oh and as a plug for the IBP, remember you can leave the mic where it sounds best and as you combine it with another that is placed to sound best, you need not compromise the placement for phase issues you can dial the problem out with the IBP.

[thenoiseflower]

plus the DI on the IBP kills,


you can reamp later and still make some cool micing choices in the moment.

[Jim Williams]

Originally Posted by littlelabs

Jim you could put a radio shack mic on Jimi or Erics amp and it would sound amazing. Other players could use a tad more help...

I was talking to Joe Barresi the other day and he told me a good story. Robin Trower (who I've always adored his tone) had all his gear stolen I think it was in Florida. So Robin went to the local guitar center bought a Japanese strat and I forget the amp and his tone that night still killed... it's all in his fingers. But... some players although technically top notch don't have that ability. I have another story along that line with Jeff Beck (another man with the gifted fingers) but that's a whole other story.
Oh and as a plug for the IBP, remember you can leave the mic where it sounds best and as you combine it with another that is placed to sound best, you need not compromise the placement for phase issues you can dial the problem out with the IBP.

I saw Hendrix at Devonshire Downs, (now part of Cal State Northridge in the San Fernando Valley) in 1969. He was in the same boat, arrived with no gear. He went down to I belive Valley Sound and they put a Strat together for him and as he was favoring maple fingerboards at the time, they slopped on a Tele neck on a white strat. This required shaving a curve into the heel of the tele neck as they are not curved like the rest of Fender's necks. There are many posters of this show, it's easy to ID as it's the only time he played that guitar.

The back line was 6 Fender Dual Showman amps with dual 15" JBL's in each cab. He had no Marshalls at this show.

The tone was of course, pure Hendrix. He played about 3 or 4 songs and didn't like something and walked off the stage. It could have been the gear, crowd, acid, I don't know. He was then spotted an hour later down at a local coffee shop eating a burger on Devonshire street.

My guess is he felt pretty bad about it and so he returned the next day and played a blistering set including one of the best versions of "Red House" I've ever heard. I got to hear that again as that track was included in a Blues special release.

The tone is slightly darker and thicker than the Marshall Major amps he was using at that time but there is no doubt who is playing. I didn't have a ticket for the next day but the Hammond player in my band lived across the street on so we just sat on the lawn and listened.

BTW, on the pics you can see one mic on the Showman cabs.

Jim Williams
Audio Upgrades

[Steffmo]

One good mic certainly beats a mess of 3, so its hard to argue about that.

But the first big remote I got to sit in on was Eddie Kramer recording Ace Frehley's "New York Groove" in Sharon Ct. at Paul Leka's house, which Eddie loved the acoustics of.

I only mention this because of the Kramer/Hendrix connect, but there were at least 6 mics on the guitar. What they used....who knows. But I doubt it was one mic.

[dwall]

Originally Posted by Jim Williams

Check out the pics from the Hendrix and Cream sessions and just about everyone else back then. Did they get a good enough sound for you? Do you see multi mics on the cabs?

Jim Williams
Audio Upgrades

Not everybody wants every song they record to sound like Hendrix or Cream or anything from the 60's for that matter.

[rsolinski]

Originally Posted by dwall

Not everybody wants every song they record to sound like Hendrix or Cream or anything from the 60's for that matter.

Maybe that's why a large percentage of recorded modern rock guitars/guitarists sound like a$$....This Cream/Hendrix stuff is still selling and influencing pretty well today...40 years later. Not that you want your whole song or cd to sound retro (although maybe you do!)...rock (not jazz) drums from that era leave a little to be desired imho but there is no need to reinvent the wheel on the guitar front..Good guitar, good amp, good player and good mic placement makes for a good tone...in the words of many a famous engineer and guitarist..."Keep it simple stupid"

Cheers,
Ray