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The One Year Thread 2007: XWA's Celibatic Boogaloo

Rogue Nine

By Rogue Nine
in One Year Thread Archives

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Rogue15 Newbie

Rogue15

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went in to a work-related meeting this morning...it was an hour long. I still have a sore throat, gonna drink some of that robitussin stuff and then head back to work. accidentally spent too much last night for food and gas....:( so my cable bill is gonna have to wait until next thursday....urge to just burn a hole w/the rest of the $$$.

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Cmdr. Cracken Newbie

Cmdr. Cracken

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Thank god I moved to Henrietta. I drive, litterally, 3 minutes to work and back.

With my oging out habits (I.E: I don't go out) I'm pretty much saving a ton of money on gas, than if I still lived with my parents.

 

Work last night sucked. I hate overnight. Worst. Shift. EVER.

 

 

Cracken's Guitar Hero Video's

 

Yup, I'm on Youtube now. ph34r.

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edlib Newbie

edlib

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What kind of mics do you use for that?

The universal standard for miking a guitar amp is the Shure SM-57. Does the job pretty well. The Shure Beta-57 is probably the 2nd most used.

At least 95% of all the electric-guitar-playing-through-an-amplifier sounds you have ever heard, on record or in concert, have been picked up through a SM-57. That's how ubiquitous they are.

 

They are also the same mic the U.S. President speaks through at all his press conferences.

 

(A guy I work with has some funny stories about the tech guys in Russia going ape-**** over the 57s he brought with them when he was on tour with B.B. King in the early 80's. Since these were the microphones used to pick up the American President on TV they had to be the best microphones in the world! They were willing to trade these ridiculously difficult to get vintage tube Telefunkens and pre-war Neumanns and incredible out of production ribbon mics and such that could have easily fetched 4 or maybe 5 figures (at that time... even more today!) over here... except nobody could figure out how to get them through customs.)

 

However, I have been experimenting pretty constantly for the last couple of years to see if I can't find something I like better. I have settled on the Sennhieser 421 as my current fave. Sounds a bit flatter and slightly more "hi-fi" than the 57, which has a pretty pronounced upper-midrange peak in the curve. The 421s sound more natural to me most of the time. This has been my first choice for guitar amps for a little over a year now. The only time that changes is if I am using all of our 6 421's on something else (a large trombone or trumpet section in a big band, or a lot of percussion.) My next choice for a cardioid moving-coil mic will usually be a Beyerdynamic M-88. Then the 57. A lot of guitarists are so used to seeing the 57 that they sometimes freak out if they don't see it and ask me to switch it out.

 

If it's strictly going to be a clean guitar sound though (jazz, country) I might use a large diaphragm condenser mic: AKG C-414 or C-3000; Shure KSM 27 or 32; or, if I have access to one (and it has been years) a Neumann U 87 or 89.

 

Why do you ask? Just out of sheer curiosity,.. or do you have a practical reason for knowing (I.E. playing a gig where it might come up)?

 

 

Spent the day maintaining: Building the new microphone stands and repairing the old ones that were bad. Went through the boxes of mic clips and audio adapters and re-organized them.

I guy I work with came across a stash of brand-new, never-used mic cables in a seldom-used drawer. They must have been in there for years. Score! We were starting to get short.

Started a pretty epic e-mail exchange about that crappy show the other night. I didn't really intend to get that deep into it... but it snowballed after a while. Everybody had something to contribute. Oh well. The kid will have to face up to playing over when I am positive he knew he was breaking the rules.

 

Got home pretty late for a non show night. Stuck around and spent the evening talking to the married couple I work with. (She's the other house engineer I mentioned recently, he runs two of the smaller recital halls.)

 

As I was leaving there was a Boston cop trying to get in. At first I thought it might still have something to do with all the madness of the other night... but it turns out he was supposed to be the detail cop for the show that was supposed to happen tonight, but got canceled a couple of weeks back. Nobody notified them. Oops. Fortunately the box-office manager was still around too, and she was able to take care of it.

 

All-in-all, a pretty full day.

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Keyan Farlander Newbie

Keyan Farlander

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Why do you ask? Just out of sheer curiosity,.. or do you have a practical reason for knowing (I.E. playing a gig where it might come up)?

 

Not really. Everyone I know always talks about using the SM-57 for miking guitar amps, but I have one and I can't believe there aren't better choices. It seems like a rather cheap mic, and I assumed it was so often used because of budget limitations, not because it was actually that great, and that a truly professional setup would use something much higher end. I have used my Shure KSM-44 to do some decent amp micing, but I'm just not an audiophile, and to be honest, I have a hard time telling the difference where others claim to hear a grea deal of difference.

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edlib Newbie

edlib

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The 57 cuts through a busy mix. The upper-mid boost EQ hump I mentioned can really put a guitar out front and center in a loud rock mix with little to no effort. Plus, they are almost totally indestructable, and cheap to replace if you do. Something you cannot say about some of the other mics I mentioned (I have always been highly reluctant to allow a Neumann on stage.)

 

But I've always found myself cutting all that 57 honk-y stuff back out with channel EQ anyway and using other forms of processing (mostly compression) to help get the guitar get up over the top.

 

The 421 doesn't do that. I find that a properly placed 421 can sound just like the amp on stage. The test is if you listen to the signal from the mic through the speakers, and then turn the mic off and just hear the amp coming off the stage, they should sound exactly the same... only one being louder.

 

I rarely get that with a 57... hence the quest for other choices.

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edlib Newbie

edlib

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Russell Peters comedy show tonight. Pretty easy. Not the funniest guy I've ever seen, but a couple o' laughs.

 

Too tired at the moment to go into much more detail than that. Add more in the AM... or whatever time it is I get back up.

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edlib Newbie

edlib

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Welcome, oh scarificated one. :)

 

Keyan: 57's work just fine for vocals (remember, these are the same mics found on the Presidential podium most of the time...) although you will probably need a windscreen or pop-filter (piece of pantyhose stretched over a hoop) to keep the "P" plosives from exploding in the mic.

Here's a fun little trick you can do, though: Unscrew the silver ball windscreen from the end of your 58... you now have a 2nd 57! Same exact mic in every respect, other than the ball over the end of the 58.

 

I use the Beta-mics of each model far more than the SM-equivalents.

 

There is no one mic that sounds good on every singer, in every style though. Some people sound better on the SM-58 rather than the Beta.

 

In a live setting the Beta-58 is typically my first call, especially on male rock singers... or any group with a loud band behind the vocals. again, like the 57, some people are so ingrained to the SM though we have to keep them around for when they demand to have me switch my choice out to it.

For female singers, or more dynamic music, I might go for a Beta-87C or 87A. (Really depends on the stage situation as to which polar pattern I wish to use to emphasise off-axis rejection.)

 

We don't have any Neumann handheld vocal mics... but I've worked with them, and on certain voices they sound totally spectacular.

 

In the studio I have typically gravitated to large diaphragm condensers. U-87s and U-89s with a pop-filter. AKG 414. Your KSM might work pretty well too... Ribbon mics (used carefully...) are usually amazing. (Incredibly fragile and expensive, though...)

 

Shure has a new handheld condenser vocal mic that is supposed to be a revelation: the KSM 9. All the reviews as well as all the word of mouth have been gushing over this model. Some people have said they like it better than Neumann's handheld vocal models (K-105 etc...) We are working to get our hands on a couple of these... both wired and wireless.

 

On page 2 of our technical package PDF you will find our most current microphone inventory list (with the possible exception of the DPA piano mic kit that was delivered this week.)

 

(Also: Sharp-eyed and clever cyber-stalkers will be able to glean my real name as well as my work phone number and e-mail off this document. Awesome. :dozey: )

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Ikhnaton Newbie

Ikhnaton

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Russell Peters comedy show tonight. Pretty easy. Not the funniest guy I've ever seen, but a couple o' laughs.
Is he the Indian guy? if so, I thought he was pretty funny. Not George Lopez funny, but pretty darn funny if you're familiar with some Indian culture. An Indian friend of mine introduced me to him via a youtube video of a concert. I just think it is funny to see someone other than a white man make fun of Indian stuff.

 

and just in case my fuzzy brain slipped, i happen to like Indians and Indian culture quite a bit. have to throw in that disclaimer.

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edlib Newbie

edlib

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Yup that's him. Yeah... I guess I did laugh quite a bit.

 

But personally I thought he leaned a just little too heavily on the "differences-between-ethnic-stereotypes" school of comedy, though. I would have liked to hear him delve into a couple of other topics during the show... but I guess that's just not his shtick.

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Keyan Farlander Newbie

Keyan Farlander

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Here's a fun little trick you can do, though: Unscrew the silver ball windscreen from the end of your 58... you now have a 2nd 57! Same exact mic in every respect, other than the ball over the end of the 58.

 

Interesting - I did not know that. Does than mean a 58 would be as good as a 57 for amps, or does that windscreen actually cause some difference there?

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