With a lot of nifty speaker emulation going on, does anybody use it? I still stick an old champ in a plywood box with a baffle and a 57 when there's people around. But when I'm "home alone" I pull out the Boogie, stick the 57 at an angle from the cone and put a condenser back in the room. How about you folks?

Probably the best way, with the 57 and such, but I have a lot of problems with the ol' 60 Hz hum...I haven't tried the emulators yet, but it's awful tempting.

What do you all do to shut your amp up when it's buzzing?

I've been using a Sansamp to record direct, on home projects anyway, but that's mainly because I don't have a good mic to record my amp. I've tried several times to record with my current mics but none are good for this app, the tone just SUCKS.

I'm gonna be getting a couple of 57's in a week or two, I can't wait. I hope I can find an older one, I was in a local store a while back and someone was checking out a couple of used 57's. One was older than the other and it sounded a lot hotter than the newer one, to me and everyone else in the store at the time. anyone else ever notice this, I would have never thought about it if I hadn't overheard the salesman telling the guy about it.

[This message has been edited by Stratman (edited 11-30-2000).]

For guitar mic I use an AKG D-1000E or SM-58. To kill noise I always play wireless. This also allows you to put the amp in a room that sounds great and use a small monitor where you are.To kill hum I lightly gate the signalbetween the mic pre and the tape machine.I set it so it will open as soon as you touch the string hard.It will then remain open untill you stop playing.

I record direct out of my DST-4, and sometimes add a channel of room-mic with a Marshall MXL-2001 to get some "air". You gotta be careful not to expose the Marshall to too much volume, though, because it is a large-diaphram condensor mic.

I have three separate and distinctly different amp setups. I use countryman direct boxes to get the guitar signal to a small mixer. A direct out from that channel of the mixer sends the "direct" guitar signal to a converter. Then I use the aux sends on the same mixer channel to send signal to the various amp setups. The mixer helps make finding the right amp sound a bit quicker. Then typically, I will use a 57 up close to the speaker and a condenser at various distances, depending on the room. When its all done, I'll have three recordings: direct, close 57 and distant (usually U87 or M49). This also makes it easy to re-amp the direct version of any guitar track. This is pretty cool, and I must confess to re-re-amping with very groovy results. An aux send from my mixing program is routed to the same mixer so that any recorded track can easily be directed back to any amp in the studio. Usually, though, no matter how many tracks I amass, I will combine to a stereo track in the end to "lock in" the particular guitar sound once obtained. Of course keeping all of the original recordings, just maybe limiting their distibution

For convenience, in a jamming situation I have run the stereo outs of a POD to a pair of small '59 tweed amps (super-amp and bassman) while using the tweed settings on the POD with FUN stereo results.

Man......Guitars are FUN!!!!

GigaBoy

[This message has been edited by GigaBoy (edited 12-01-2000).]

I generally like to get 3 or more setups going at one time. Like one with one of my HD-130's [modified for Joe Perry/Aerosmith in the 70's] w/a Marshall 1960 cabinet fitted with custom "Weber VST" speakers; a Vox AC-30 and a Magnatone. I find that between those 3 rigs, as well as a half a dozen or really good guitars, we can usually dial in whatever tone we're looking for. A big one is getting them *all* off the floor. I usually use road case covers, but whatever we end up using, getting the speaker cabinet at least 18"s off the floor is of paramount importance.

Recently I've been using the 'Littlelabs PCP' unit as a 'splitter' with a 'Terminator G-4' [made by the Wright Microphone and Monitor company of Atlanta, GA] to get the guitar signal from the control room to the studio. I usually prefer the player hanging with me in the control room, it makes communication a ton easier.

For microphones, I've been digging the Royer R-121 in a big way. On the Marshall cabinet I'll put it about 18 inches off the logo plate, usually an excellent spot. There are times when I've stuck it into the grill, this gives up one of the "happy face bottom from hell" tones in a heartbeat...not a tone I'm expecially fond of, but alot of the 'Korn-abee's find it be 'the balls'...

For "tone #'s 3-8" from the same rig, a Shure 57 on the lower right driver with a Sennheiser MD-421 on the upper left driver, and an RCA BK-5 on the upper right driver [R-121 on the lower left, see earlier "Korn-tone" reference]...blend/mix/match to taste.

On the Vox, a 57 on one speaker and a 121 on the other works nicely...with the Magnatone, there's just something about a Coles 4038 in front, and a Shure 57 round the back [move the back mic until the tone gets rich and creamy!!] that I've had good sucess employing.

Doing demos in an apartment, I could see where the POD could come in handy...trying to get good tones from a good player for a record...I think I'd rather stick my hand in blender on "Purre" than have to use the 'Kidney from hell', or it's new 'rackmountable cousin'...absolute drek [IMHO].

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Fletcher
Mercenary Audio http://www.mercenary.com

ive been using the crown cm700 which IMO sounds way better than a 57 [which i HATE on guitar] combined with a royer 121 running a split signal to two different amps, the royer about 2' back aimed at the logo twisting it until i get the tone i want from the top and bottom speaker [oddly the same as fletcher doesbefore i even read about him doing it, great minds eh?] and the crown right up on the grill moving it around until i hear the tone center. makes a nice delay between the two tones when spreading them in stereo.

the amps, whatever the guitarist uses and i just tell them to dial the tone they want and go from there. i dont find getting them off the floor to be as big of a deal as fletcher but ALWAYS on a think carpet. typically i try to use an openback combo for the crown and a closed back for the royer for obvious reasons.

The Line 6 POD works great in my little "in the corner of the living room" setup. You have to get inside the lil red kidney via the computer and the EMagic SoundDriver to really get good use of the unit. Trying to control the bugger via those knobs sucks bigtime.

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William F. Turner
Guitarist, Composer, Songwriter

Last session I did I used a '65 Fender Twin, cranked but clean to give a little bite. We threw a Neumann condenser infront of one of the speakers about 8 to 10 inches away and let it rip.

Good tone for the stuff we were working on.

I would like to try SRV's setup.....Fender, Marshall, Dumbel(sp?) all running together, wide open.....

Kev