Part 2: Fattening up the VIP 2 mic'd sound

[alienux]

So as much as I realize that I need to get the sound guys and myself more in sync with the sound that I want to get mic'd with my amp, I'm still always pursuing ways to make my sound better for playing live (vs. playing at home) and I'm always tweaking.

In the other thread I mentioned that the live mic'd sound was coming through through the PA very thin even though my amp sounds good to my ears.

The more I've tweaked the sound, the more I realize that the default presets of the high gain models on the VIP just have way too much trebly distortion for playing live. They sound great in a room, but thin and tinny in a live situation.

Over the months, as I mentioned, I've upped the mids, reduced the pre-gain, lowered the treble and been happy with the sound. But it's still a little thin and weak for my taste when playing live.

So, the reason for this post. I finally decided to switch from the high gain channel (been using 6534 on red almost exclusively) to the orange mid gain channel. The main change was going from the high gain channel with low pre-gain to the mid gain channel with high pre-gain. This seems to have improved the tone quite a bit and made it much fuller (maybe even the closest thing I've found to a brown sound).

I've been tweaking so much that I've lost the ability to really tell the difference in some of the subtle changes I'm making, but the difference are there. Here are two clips (I played the Panama intro) showing the change I've made.

The first is using the 6534 on high gain, with pre-gain at about 10-11 o'clock, bass and mid at around 4-5 o'clock, and treble at 12 o'clock. The second is the 6534 on mid gain, with pre-gain at full, and everything else the same.

http://www.mediafire.com/listen/vbazl26 ... el+mp3.mp3

http://www.mediafire.com/listen/zy7f3h7 ... el+mp3.mp3

Sorry for such a long post, but I'm looking for feedback on which one sounds fuller, and on whether or not there is too little distortion on the medium gain track. I would have said it was too low before, but the more I listen to the medium gain track, the more I think it's a much better distorted sound.

Oh, and I also just came across the Sannheiser e906 mic, which sounds like it blows the SM57 away in terms of quitar amp miking and sound quality. I think I'm going to look into getting one of those.

[Macheted01]

I want to say the high gain channel sounded more fuller, and almost necessary for what you were playing. Good either way, but I thought the high gain channel for this. I will be trying my amp for the first time at practice tomorrow, but it is not getting mic'd or anything. Also, more than bedroom level, so can't wait. Yeah, the 906 is the big brother to the 609 that I have and got better reviews. I just did not have the extra $ to throw at it, at the time. If you get it, please let me know what you think.

[dino_j]

Sorry for intruding upon this Vypyr forum, but you have an interesting topic here that I think applies to no matter what amp you have.

First off, you hit the nail on the head exactly when you said you had to get in sync with the sound guys. I used to play in a Church and they had recently gotten a new PA, state of the art system and they had a couple of guys that really knew how to use it. The problem was that they also decided to tweak the EQ on everything that they mic'ed, and all it took was one conversation that started with me saying, "Can we find a way to make my guitar sound the same through the PA that it does coming out of the amp?"

In my opinion, the first step is microphone placement. Whether you have an SM57 or a Sennheiser, placement is key. You can google and find some very interesting articles on microphone location for recording, but basically those concepts apply live as well. Most people will plop a microphone smack in front of the cone, as close as they can get it. Personally I back off a few inches and drop it an inch or two lower. I had a sound guy place a mic in the far left corner of my amp facing sideways and even though it looked weird, he got a great sound through the PA!

Like the clips! I think I like the high gain better, but the medium gain might work better in a band mix...

[alienux]

In my opinion, the first step is microphone placement. Whether you have an SM57 or a Sennheiser, placement is key. You can google and find some very interesting articles on microphone location for recording, but basically those concepts apply live as well. Most people will plop a microphone smack in front of the cone, as close as they can get it. Personally I back off a few inches and drop it an inch or two lower. I had a sound guy place a mic in the far left corner of my amp facing sideways and even though it looked weird, he got a great sound through the PA!

Yeah, I talked about my mic placement in my first post about this, which is here:

http://forums.peavey.com/viewtopic.php?f=33&t=35006

I've been there without the sound guys and had my amps sounding really good through the PA, but with 2 (actually 3 as we have a new one training) sound guys, they have different tastes and opinions, and the settings get moved all over the place between the 2 of them.

When I first started playing there, I didn't know much about mic placement (I had always just used stage volume before) and the sound guys would just put the mic (an SM57) pointed right at the dust cap. Of course it was very shrill and extremely thin and trebly, and I learned a lot from that. Now I have a piece of tape right on the grill cloth so anyone miking it knows where I've found the sweet spot. On my VIP 2, it's a little over halfway out between the dust cap and the surround. I do put it right against the cloth, so maybe I'll try backing off a little, but I'm hopeful that the Sannheiser mic will help, too.

I want to say the high gain channel sounded more fuller, and almost necessary for what you were playing. Good either way, but I thought the high gain channel for this.

Like the clips! I think I like the high gain better, but the medium gain might work better in a band mix...

Thanks, that's kind of where I am after going back and listening to the clips again. I think the high gain sounds better and is more what I want to hear, but I think the lower gain probably sounds better with the full band. It's amazing to me when I use low gain on stage and go back and listen to recordings that we make of the performance, and hearing just how more more it sounds like high gain even though it wasn't.

[dino_j]

So I went back and read your initial thread, and I can sympathize with you on the volume issue in Church. It was hard to get a great sound at low volumes. The Church I played at was fairly small, one thing that helped a little was spreading out. In the last year or so I played there, the piano player and bass player were on the left side of the Church, the singers were in the middle and the drummer and myself were over on the far right. Maybe if your amp was farther away from the others you could turn it up past 1.

Anyway, it is a challenge to get your 'real tone' through a PA, particularly once it's mixed with other instruments. I'm kind of skeptical the Sennheiser would be a fix to this by itself. My advice is to work with what you have first to get it as good as you can before buying a new mic. It won't be time wasted.

I do like your playing on those clips. Keep listening to your recorded performances with the group. You've learned something that took me a while to figure out, and that is the 'best tone' is not always the 'correct' tone in a mix.

[Macheted01]

Kind of on this topic, and figured I would share here. I just purchased an Audix Cab Grabber for micing up the amp. When I get it, I will let you know how it works. Seen a couple negative reviews from a few years back, so I am hoping they have improved on it since then. Still have not mic'd the cab at all, but have finally taken it to band rehearsal and will doing a little more tweaking.

[alienux]

So I went back and read your initial thread, and I can sympathize with you on the volume issue in Church. It was hard to get a great sound at low volumes. The Church I played at was fairly small, one thing that helped a little was spreading out. In the last year or so I played there, the piano player and bass player were on the left side of the Church, the singers were in the middle and the drummer and myself were over on the far right. Maybe if your amp was farther away from the others you could turn it up past 1.

Anyway, it is a challenge to get your 'real tone' through a PA, particularly once it's mixed with other instruments. I'm kind of skeptical the Sennheiser would be a fix to this by itself. My advice is to work with what you have first to get it as good as you can before buying a new mic. It won't be time wasted.

I do like your playing on those clips. Keep listening to your recorded performances with the group. You've learned something that took me a while to figure out, and that is the 'best tone' is not always the 'correct' tone in a mix.

Yeah, it's been a learning experience. Even though I've been playing for 27 years, in the past I've always just used my amp and its stage volume when playing live. I never mic'd until last summer when I basically had to.

I'd say we are pretty well spread out on stage, but the way our stage is, I'm either against a wall which booms the sound around the stage, or I'm away from the wall, and then the drummer says they can't hear the guitar unless I turn up more. I just keep plugging away each time trying to get a little better placement/sound/volume here and there. I guess it's just the nature of playing in a church setting where you can't really get your amp on stage as loud as would be ideal without being way to overpowering. That's what has me considering a POD HD500.

Thanks for all of the input and suggestions.

[alienux]

Kind of on this topic, and figured I would share here. I just purchased an Audix Cab Grabber for micing up the amp. When I get it, I will let you know how it works. Seen a couple negative reviews from a few years back, so I am hoping they have improved on it since then. Still have not mic'd the cab at all, but have finally taken it to band rehearsal and will doing a little more tweaking.

I'd be interested to hear how the Cab Grabber works for you. The one negative thing I've heard is that they tend to pick up the vibrations and frequencies from your cabinet, not just the output from the speaker, and that they can color the sound negatively as a result. It would be nice to hear if they've improved the design.

[jdalf]

ran across this today, thought it was pretty good, might be helpful for you, he's a Nashville musician

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W2NArguckg8

[alienux]

ran across this today, thought it was pretty good, might be helpful for you, he's a Nashville musician

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W2NArguckg8

The research I did when I first started miking lead me to place an SM57 the way the guy in this video has it in the first example (straight on axis right at the part of the cone between the dustcap and surround). What confused me about this video is that he said he moved it "off axis" but it just looks to me like he moved it right an inch or two but kept it on axis.

Still, gives me some other options to try with mic placement.

[propbeanie]

Def move your mic around to find the "sweet spot" on your speaker. Is your amp on the floor, or on a stand?

Have you ever tried using a "gobo"? That link is for a manufacturer who happened to be at the top of a search engine list, not an endorsement of their product(s) (unless, of course, they want to send me some product for "in house" testing purposes... hint hint). You can "test" the idea by placing a folding chair in front of your amp, and placing a jacket over the back of it, so as to partially block your amp's direct speaker output. Most churches are very "reverberant" and "lively", and don't take kindly to electric guitars. You might have to block some of the openback side also. Then you might be able to turn it up a little, and get "that sound"... If the "test" works, you could do a home-built device(s) and usually (unless you're "talented-not", like me) you can get asthetically pleasing results inexpensively with use of some nice cover cloth, or maybe the church could help you with the expense.

[lionheart]

Propbeanie has a good idea there. I achieved similar results by removing my Vypyr's speaker and laid a sheet of thick felt in the cutout in the front baffle, tucking the edges under between baffle and grille cloth to keep the felt away from the edge of the re-installed cone. This damped down the highs to an acceptable level having tried all other ways I could think of.

[alienux]

Def move your mic around to find the "sweet spot" on your speaker. Is your amp on the floor, or on a stand?

As far as finding the sweet spot, as I mentioned in an earlier post, I have a piece of tape marking the sweet spot so the sound guys know where to put the mic. It's generally been on-axis, but I'm going to try off-axis next time.

I do use a Peavey guitar stand that puts the amp about 1 1/2 to 2 feet off of the floor with a slight tilt.

Have you ever tried using a "gobo"? That link is for a manufacturer who happened to be at the top of a search engine list, not an endorsement of their product(s) (unless, of course, they want to send me some product for "in house" testing purposes... hint hint). You can "test" the idea by placing a folding chair in front of your amp, and placing a jacket over the back of it, so as to partially block your amp's direct speaker output. Most churches are very "reverberant" and "lively", and don't take kindly to electric guitars. You might have to block some of the openback side also. Then you might be able to turn it up a little, and get "that sound"... If the "test" works, you could do a home-built device(s) and usually (unless you're "talented-not", like me) you can get asthetically pleasing results inexpensively with use of some nice cover cloth, or maybe the church could help you with the expense.

I like the gobo idea. In my original part 1 thread of this topic, someone suggested making an enclosure, but we may even have some panels left from replacing our drum enclosure that I could put in front of my amp.

[alienux]

Propbeanie has a good idea there. I achieved similar results by removing my Vypyr's speaker and laid a sheet of thick felt in the cutout in the front baffle, tucking the edges under between baffle and grille cloth to keep the felt away from the edge of the re-installed cone. This damped down the highs to an acceptable level having tried all other ways I could think of.

Sounds promising as toning down the harshness of the highs is one of the biggest issues I have left. Originally I was using the XXX with and it was sounding very thin. I switched to the 6534 and added a lot of mids and dropped the treble, and the thin-ness wasn't as bad, but the harsh treble, even with the treble at 12:00 or lower and mids at 3-5:00, is still an issue.

[lionheart]

Alienux - as with most things there are two ways of resolving issues - either by " raising the bridge" or "lowering the river ". Often a lack of bass is actually a perceptual response to too much of another frequency etc etc. In this scenario, the ability to analyse sound helps immensely. Try setting all e.q. controls at a mid point (12:00) and gradually turning each independently slightly plus or minus after listening to the amp from a distance. Switch off and go do something else for a while and then return to testing again. Due to the brain's ability to perceptually "adjust" that which it finds unpleasant a good sound achieved an hour ago may sound utter garbage to fresh ears on your return - record sound samples noting E.Q. changes on each version then listen to them comparatively over again. Also the effect of E.Q. control interactions can never be understated with guitar amps whatever the make / model - bass bleeds in to mids, mids into trebles etc due to overlaps in frequencies. Lots to tinker with !