AAwk3

This week Dave and I teamed up to create the ultimate guitar sound! Using the techniques explored within class I believe we achieved our goal.

Although we used Dave on his Ibanez 'RG 21-20' through the Laney Amp, we experimented with Jake on his Epiphone (Gibson) Les Paul. The tone of Jakes guitar and his playing style gave a much more prominent mid range Where as Dave had more a 'heavy' sound. In Daves words "It was made for METAL!" Although our final choice of mic positions worked for both sounds, I think it was more suited for Dave's playing. -which was just as well seeing as that's who we recorded.

Dave and I chose to use the Beta 52A, and the Shure Sm57 Beta to mic the Laney amp and the Neuman U87 as a room mic. We chose the 52A as with Dave's tendency toward 'heavy' riffs meant we wanted a prominent bottom end sound. The Sm57 gave a bit more depth to the overall sound and we chose the Neuman over the Road NTV as we felt that the NTV was just too sensitive and clouded the sound with room ambiance.

To achieve the best sound we placed soloed each mic and got the best sound individually first and then listened to them together to discover if they worked well. We had to do this a couple of times as the first try produced good results from the mic's by themselves but became way too muddy when combined.

The final positioning was very similar to what we had in class but overall I think we had the mic's closer to the speaker cone.

The Beta 52 was right in the Bottom Left corner touching the speaker mesh. it was so low it almost touched the ground. It was angled slightly towards center of the speaker cone, but not directly towards it.

The Sm57 was positioned slightly higher, and slightly closer to center than then Beta 52. It was angled towards the center of the speaker cone and was also touching the speaker mesh.

The Neuman took a bit more experimenting as the room had a very bright sound which contrasted to greatly with the 'heavy' sound we were trying to achieve. In the end we discovered (well it was Dave's idea but anyway...) that the far corner on the carpet next to the baffle flattened the sound significantly. Although it was not ideal as a sound by itself, when combined with the other two mic's it had a brilliant effect.

Dave Doing a Dive Bomb X 3 TO THE EXTREME!

Beta 52A Dive Bomb

Sm57 Beta Dive Bomb

Neuman U87 Dive Bomb

Dave doing Metallica's 'Master of Puppets' intro

Beta 52A Master of Puppets intro

Sm57 Beat Master of Puppets intro

Neuman Master of Puppets intro

Although I originally thought that the raw recordings were pretty good by themselves, Compression and EQ (mainly EQ) helped bring out the a bit more tone in the recordings. All the tracks together sound much fuller as well.

A Final mix down of Dave doing Dive bombs. (All 3 tracks + EQ and Compression.)

DIVE BOMB X 3 TO THE EXTREME!

References

Grice, David. Wk 3 Audio Arts "Electric Strings" Level 5 Schultz building University Adelaide. 13 March 2007.