Mar 02, 2004 12:00 pm how do you use a guitar cab as a mic?
Using a guitar cab as a mic?
Posted on Mar 02, 2004 11:53 am
TheJazzyOne
Your favorite rockstar
Member Since: Feb 03, 2003
Ha... I find myself thinking of every little recording question that goes thru my head to ask on here because I dig the conversation that follows questions on this board a lot! The ideas that flow thru this forum are amazing and they really inspire me to push myself when it comes to recording.
Anyway, I've been reading a lot about using a guitar cab as a second mic on a bass drum. From what I read it really pulls in the low end puch of the drum.
I plan on playing with it sometime this week to see what I think. Anyone ever tried it? Have any opinions?
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Mar 02, 2004 12:00 pm how do you use a guitar cab as a mic?
Mar 02, 2004 12:20 pm Basically you just plug it in! It acts as a very large diaphram mic. I run a 1/4" cable from the back of mine into an XLR adapter, into my preamp, into my recorder. It works fine, I just haven't tested it as a drum mic yet.
Mar 02, 2004 12:22 pm TCB, speakers and mics are the same thing, they just have signal goin opposite directions...
Mar 02, 2004 12:30 pm I've done something like this with small tweeters and put them in kick drums cause I couldn't afford to buy real kick drum mics. Hahahaha It worked!! It wouldn't be the best cause it takes quite a bit of sound pressure level to move something like a 12 inch cabinet speaker! Try a small tweeter and tell me how you like that.
Mar 02, 2004 01:00 pm See, I've always had the same question how this works cuz I used to hear all the time of rappers who started out rapping into headphones. Now that just makes no sense to me. I completely don't get how a speaker can pick up sound!
Mar 02, 2004 01:04 pm Again, speakers and microphones are the same thing...speakers move air by the electrical impulses sent to it from an amp. Micropohone are moved by air from your mouth and send that electrical signal...all you really need to do is plug a speaker into a preamp and yell into it...or, send an output of an amp into a microphone diaphram to get sound out of it.
Now, obviously these two diaphrams are designed very differently to optimize them for the targetted use but at the end of the day, they are the same thing.
Mar 02, 2004 01:35 pm if thats the case could i use a spare amp as an extra mic for the bass drum?
Mar 02, 2004 01:40 pm You have to realize that the material that a speaker uses and the material a mic diaphram uses is quite a bit different in thinkness. The big speaker will pick up the sound and low frequencies but it will sound quite dull. That's why I said using a 2 inch tweeter would be better than a 12 inch woofer.Try the tweeter and put it right in the kick drum I actually used the magnet on the back to stick it to a rooler wheel that you can buy to attach to cabinets to roll them around.The smaller and thinner the transducer the better the sound will be (within reason).
Mar 02, 2004 03:51 pm Very good info there!! I got my info and idea for using a speaker as a mic from Recording magazine. In fact I got a lot of things from recording mags over the years, now it's the internet.
Mar 02, 2004 09:07 pm Yes, it can be done (and yes, I've sung into headphone as well! :| ) but it sounds terrible - like Gregor said, the material of a common speaker (or to a greater degree and amp!) is far thicker and more resilliant than that of a microphone - after all, would you happily play music out of a Sennheister 421 / Shure SM75?
Mar 03, 2004 09:56 am You have to know the way freq work and freq actually have a physical length. Bass freq are quite long and strong (that's why you can literally feel bass freqs) and that's why standing waves are so common in smaller rooms.If you have a high freq wave going through the air, the higher the freq the shorter the wavelength so therefore in order to pick up that higher freq you need something that will move when it's hit with that freq that's why using a speaker as a mic will sound muddy.The material cannot be moved physically by the high and smaller freqs. That's why condensers and ribben mics are so common place when wanting to get acurate high freq repersentation. Hope this made sense.
Mar 04, 2004 05:45 pm BennisHahn, that is great. How idiotic is it that thye can charge $300.00 for a simple speaker in a drum shell, and it probly doesnt even come with the stand.
And yes, I think many of us have used that trick to get a good low end from a kick and toms. We used to use a pair of Bazooka's which are a car audio sub woofer mounted in a tube for real heavy sub-bass. And they worked awsome. We called them underheads. (pun intended)
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