Sennheiser e609 vs. Sm57?!
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Posted on Jun 15, 2005 09:27 am
ledeux_machina
Member Since: Jun 04, 2004
Hi,
I already have an sm57 that I use to mic my amps with. But recently I purchased a Gorgeous vintage blackface fender deluxe reverb and I`m slightly disappointed with it`s tone when recorded. It sounds absolutely awesome unrecorded and still great when recorded but it`s not keeping the vintage sound intact. So anyway, I`ve been reading about the Sennheiser 3609 microphone and it seems that people with vintage amps tend to use these more to capture that sound. So basically, what are your opinions on this mic? Is it much different to the sm57?! Should I just go for it a buy one?
Thanks ever so much.
Take care,
Alex
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Jun 15, 2005 11:12 am i've never used the 609 before so i can't comment on that....what i can comment on is your mic placement, play one chord kinda palm muted over and over, and record yourself SLOWLY moving your 57 all around an immaginary 3 foot cube infront of the speaker....there's an infinate number of different tones possible.
peace
wyd
Jun 16, 2005 04:02 am thats what I thought with my first recordings, i was like whats this ****?
purely a learning curve my good machina. If i was gonna buy another mic, i would buy a condensor to back up th 57 tone wise.
Try moving the 57 further back from the grill and further to the center of the cone.
If you are still not happy, i will pay pal you packing postage money for you to send me your sm 57. I will modify it for you, and maybe send back in 10 or so years once i have replaced all my mics with U 47's. : D. (might not have gotten round to modifying it yet)
Jun 16, 2005 11:13 am lol
modifying a 57? this month's Recording mag had an article on modifying Oktavia 219 & 319's....pretty neat stuff, i've got a 219 but it's back in florida....
Jun 16, 2005 11:19 am ahh right, thanks for the replies guys. What condensor would you recommend for use with the 57? I already have a Studio Projects B-1 (the first mic I bought!)...but I`m close to buying another condensor anyway...maybe the TLM 103?
What would you recommend?
Thanks again. :)
Alex
Jun 16, 2005 11:29 am stereo pair of small diaphragm's like Samson 02's or MXL's....
wait, unless you're only talkin' about gettin' a better guitar sound....then maybe another LDC might be worth lookin' into...or even a better preamp.
Jun 16, 2005 11:42 am also What do you guys do when the two mics are tracked?...do you pan them hard left and right or what?
Thanks again.
Alex :)
Jun 16, 2005 12:00 pm yeppers pan hard, to TWO SEPERATE CHANNELS in your daw.
Edit: i was refering to tracking, when mixing i really don't have a set rule for panning guitars...
el musicoFreeleance Producer/Engineer/GtrMember
Since: Aug 11, 2002
Jun 16, 2005 03:50 pm I use e609's and it really depends on the tone you want to achieve. Also double or triple micing a cab is often done. Normally I would use all these mics summed and use a second performance if i wanted to pan guitars. it increases your track count but sounds very good.
Jun 16, 2005 07:29 pm I have 2 '57s and an e609. I've experimented quite a bit and found that the 609 tends to sound better than the 57 when it's all by itself because the sound is fuller and less on the harsh side. You can put it right in the center of the speaker and it still sounds decent. It seems to capture a wider spectrum. However, after trying 2 '57s on one speaker, both on the grill with one in the center and the other somewhere between the center and the edge of the cone, I prefer the double 57 trick. You don't have to sweat quite as much over placement, and you get a very full sound. I have also tried adding in the 609 as well, and I think that could give your sound even more of an extra boost. If you start adding condensers further away from the amp, you're going to get frequency adding and cancellation in strange spots. It can't be avoided when the mics are at different distances from the source. It's possible to get a nice sound that way, but I've never been able to do it.
Jun 17, 2005 04:09 am cool. thanks for the replies.
What I don`t understand about stereo micing is this... what if you don`t want the guitar in both left and right but you want to use 2 mics to capture the best sound? Quite often I pan Guitar 1 to the right (almost hard right) so obviously if I pan one left and one right I`ve cancelled out this teqnique...so should I just track it with 2 mics but pan the final results both hard right? (or will this result in some sort of phasing?)
Thanks again and sorry for the scrambled question!
Alex
TadpuiI am not a crook's headMember
Since: Mar 14, 2003
Jun 17, 2005 04:55 am If you're sure to get the mics in phase when tracking, then you can go ahead and blend them into the same track at mixdown with no worries about phase cancellation.
Or you can "nudge" one of the tracks over a bit to correct phase issues if your mixing software allows you to zoom in close enough to look at the actual peaks and valleys of the waveform...just line them up using your position marker.
Also there are tools (can't remember what they're called tho) that will let you do the same thing.
In my mixing software, I'm limited to 16 tracks so I create a project that's just a submix of the mics I use on one instrument. I blend them to taste and mix it down to a mono .wav file and import that file into the master mix.
Jun 17, 2005 11:02 pm I'm not talking about stereo miking, really, I'm just talking about miking an amp with more than one mic. Keep the two mic tracks together. If you want the guitar centered, pan both mics/tracks to the center. If you want it panned right or left, pan them both either right or left. From there you can double track for a stereo effect.
Jun 17, 2005 11:11 pm ledeux_machina, it's not completely uncommon to use even more than two mics and just combine the results of all the mics to make an interesting sound.
With my current setup, I record guitar in mono, but with one track coming from my Pod xt and one track from the Axetrak. The two tracks have unique characteristics to their sound, and together make a very full, powerful, and mono guitar sound...so it's not about "stereo" miking, it's about getting the best sound from multiple sources of the same sound.
If that makes sense...
Hell, sometimes with bass guitar I have seen people take a direct sound, a miked sound and a mic on the bass body to capture string noise and mix them together...just to get a realistic and powerful sound...
Jun 18, 2005 06:20 am ahhh i see. I do that bass amp/d.i/mic on body thing sometimes...it does sound great!
Anyway, dB, when you say you record your guitar in mono...what exactly does that mean?...just that you don`t pan it? or that you just record from one input?...I`ve never fully understood the technical meaning of "mono".
Sorry, to lead off the track and ask this question!
But as for the original topic, I`m going to try the advice of mixing multiple mics together.
Thanks again guys...you really are the ultimate source of knowledge!...forget the Encyclopedia!
Alex :)
Jun 18, 2005 07:32 am well, stereo is simply two different signals, like FM radio, mono is one single signal, like AM radio. Mono is how I record the instrument, once it's recorded and I start mixing the full song, I then pan that mono signal within the stero mixof th song.
By itself the guitar is mono, the full song is stereo...bass, guitar, vocals, keyboards, etc are all mono themselves, but, mixed together and panned around they create a single stereo song.
