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How To Mic Guitar Cabinets

The art of recording the guitar has always been in constant change due to the ever-growing popularity of home recording studios and technology. It's very popular to record using direct digital connection with amplifier simulators, but the best pro recording engineers always gravitate back to recording the guitar by placing a mic in front of a guitar cabinet and pressing record. This will give the most organic guitar sounds, and it also gives you the widest variety of tonal choices due to the infinite possibility of mic placement.

Things You'll Need

  • Dynamic microphone
  • Condenser microphone
  • mixing console
  • microphone cable
  • 2 boom mic stands
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Instructions

    • 1

      Place the dynamic microphone directly in front of one speaker of the guitar amplifier cabinet. Given the flat response of a dynamic microphone placed so closely to a speaker, you'll avoid picking up ambient room noise such as unwanted reverb that is created by the amplifier sound bouncing off the walls. The placement will result in a sterile recording.

    • 2

      Place the condenser microphone approximately two feet away from the cabinet. The microphone should not be placed directly in front of the cabinet but off to the left or the right. This will not only pick up the sound from the amplifier. It will also record ambient noise including the room's natural reverb.

    • 3

      Connect both microphones to a mixing board and combine both microphones into the mix. Lowering the volume of the dynamic microphone will allow for more ambient reverb to be present in the mix. Reducing the volume of the condenser microphone will result in less ambient tones and yield a sterile guitar tone. The volumes of each microphone should be manipulated until the desired guitar sound is achieved.

Recording Music

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