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Post by svart on Sept 24, 2014 7:59:32 GMT -6
Not sure if this should go in the guitar subforum or what.. Mods please move to the appropriate subforum if needed..
I found this today, it's a video series about recording various types of e-guitars. It's Royer branded and Royer centric, but there is a lot of good information in general, including a ton about blending a 57 and 121/101, and a lot about positioning and levels.
I've never been too fond of blending mics since I'm very particular about phase issues over frequency, but this has made me want to give blending another go-round for sure.
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Post by Johnkenn on Sept 24, 2014 20:46:26 GMT -6
Nice...for my home demos I feel like the Royer is kind of a luxury item...but man - does that freaking sound great or what? popmann weren't you saying the Royer was a revelation for you? I wonder how the R92 would compare? |
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Post by svart on Sept 24, 2014 21:09:25 GMT -6
It was for me. When i got my R121, it was like a lightbulb turned on. I typically only use the R121 on guitars now. You can get just as much midrange from it as you can the 57. Just place it dead center onthe dust cap and move it back and forth to taste.
It's also worth noting that the royers don't have a traditional ribbon sound. They majority of the sound is there, but the frequency and transient response are much better on the royers.
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Post by tonycamphd on Sept 24, 2014 21:19:36 GMT -6
the best thing i took from those vids was the suggestion to use headphones and work the mic placement using the white noise coming from the speakers to judge the frequency response! One of those "why didn't i think of that?" items. I've never used a 121, but my samar ribbon mics have stunning top end for ribbons, i'd LOVE to get my hands on a 121 for a bit to try it out.
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Post by svart on Sept 25, 2014 7:04:24 GMT -6
I read that a long time ago. I think it was Butch Vig, who mentioned turning up the gain on an amp and leaving the cable unhooked on the floor to get a lot of hiss and then moving mics around while wearing headphones.
My experience trying this was good, and it's fairly easy to find a spot for the mic listening for the strange "hollow" sound to disappear as you move the mic around through the mode points. I never did like the mic right up on the grill though. To me, the R121 sounds most even when it's around 6"-8" away from the dust cap of the speaker (3-4" from most cabinet grills).
I found that while the 57 and R121 can be visually aligned, the propagation delay through the mics are slight different, and the 57 needs to be moved forward a couple millimeters from where they show it in the video for best sound. For me, the easiest was to do the noise placement on one mic, then flip the polarity on the other and move it around until it nulls the most.
What you'll find is that it only nulls in certain spots, and moving the nulling mic back and forth will null at different places in the frequency response of the other. For these videos, the clearly want the Royers to handle most of the low end, and have placed the mics as such. This works a lot better than trying to blend two mics capturing the full spectrum IMHO.
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Post by popmann on Sept 25, 2014 7:26:20 GMT -6
He's using it differently than I do. You will NEED to blend the 57 to get a sound that way. I did it that way, too, because I was told to....shown that was how it's used....that does work. It works well...but, it misses the beauty of the mic, IMO, which is the ability to hear the amp as it sounds in the room.
If your ethos is "amp as starting point for guitar tone I will dial in"--you can stop reading now, since the above will give a great yin/yang for blending and EQing and bussing at mix time. But, if you want it to sound like the amp in the room**....and save a ton of time in the process, you put it a foot out from DEAD CENTER of the speaker cone--you know--the place where anyone with experience wouldn't put ANY 57....the place where all the duck tape "L" marking on cabs everywhere it NOT because it's so hard and shrill? Right. There. I say between a foot to two--because that's when the bloat of the proximity is gone. If you WANT a huge puffy low end, push it up to 6-8"...that positioning in the video is just ensuring it won't stand on it's own, because it gets SO huge and pillowy, you'll be blending all day because you HAVE to....
12-18" out from dead center on the cone. At that point, use the EQ on the amp first. I occasionally patch in the Specks to poke a little 2-5k somewhere that the 57 blend would've brought.
As an engineer? Don't care. I can craft just as good a sounds with other mics. As a player, though? Holy fuck shit. I value the Rpyer because it's the first time it's sounded like it does in the room--EVER....hell--tape, we did this whole big thing--ripping frequencies on the way in to hit the tape just so....then hitting IT hard so it came back sounding like X. I was never able to actually dial in my tone as a player and think it was going to more than kinda resemble that. The PLAYER in me bought the Royer. The engineer in me just likes it cause he can be lazy.
Sm7 is the budget choice--not a 57. Use it all the time for the purpose.
**because this is what simply wasn't possible prior to the Royer, IME. You see so many sold used for this reason. It won't lead to a better recorded guitar tone, inherently....it WILL, I can assure you lead to a recording of what the amp actually sounds like. For better or worse.
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Post by popmann on Sept 25, 2014 7:29:54 GMT -6
Tip: If I extend my pinky+thumb away from each other, the span is like 10"....I use that as guide for "closest you'd want it"--cause it's always with me.  |
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Post by svart on Sept 25, 2014 9:20:33 GMT -6
He's using it differently than I do. You will NEED to blend the 57 to get a sound that way. I did it that way, too, because I was told to....shown that was how it's used....that does work. It works well...but, it misses the beauty of the mic, IMO, which is the ability to hear the amp as it sounds in the room. If your ethos is "amp as starting point for guitar tone I will dial in"--you can stop reading now, since the above will give a great yin/yang for blending and EQing and bussing at mix time. But, if you want it to sound like the amp in the room**....and save a ton of time in the process, you put it a foot out from DEAD CENTER of the speaker cone--you know--the place where anyone with experience wouldn't put ANY 57....the place where all the duck tape "L" marking on cabs everywhere it NOT because it's so hard and shrill? Right. There. I say between a foot to two--because that's when the bloat of the proximity is gone. If you WANT a huge puffy low end, push it up to 6-8"...that positioning in the video is just ensuring it won't stand on it's own, because it gets SO huge and pillowy, you'll be blending all day because you HAVE to.... 12-18" out from dead center on the cone. At that point, use the EQ on the amp first. I occasionally patch in the Specks to poke a little 2-5k somewhere that the 57 blend would've brought. As an engineer? Don't care. I can craft just as good a sounds with other mics. As a player, though? Holy fuck shit. I value the Rpyer because it's the first time it's sounded like it does in the room--EVER....hell--tape, we did this whole big thing--ripping frequencies on the way in to hit the tape just so....then hitting IT hard so it came back sounding like X. I was never able to actually dial in my tone as a player and think it was going to more than kinda resemble that. The PLAYER in me bought the Royer. The engineer in me just likes it cause he can be lazy. Sm7 is the budget choice--not a 57. Use it all the time for the purpose. **because this is what simply wasn't possible prior to the Royer, IME. You see so many sold used for this reason. It won't lead to a better recorded guitar tone, inherently....it WILL, I can assure you lead to a recording of what the amp actually sounds like. For better or worse. Man I agree with this so hard. The only thing is that I typically HPF around 100 on guitars so I'll push the cabinet a bit with the amp on the low end just to get some of the speaker cone flexing. But even then I'm still putting the R121 around 6-8" away. My go-to speaker is a V30 in a sealed 2x12. Which speaker/cabinet are you using that you have to move the R121 further away? |
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Post by popmann on Sept 25, 2014 11:44:35 GMT -6
Combos. I have a couple 1x12s...1x15...4x10....all different speakers. Been years since I did the closed back 4x12 thing.
Fwiw, low frequency waves take longer (physical time to travel) to develop....so, you getting more natural low end further out--you're just not getting the mic induced proximity bump which is MUCH more pronounced than the actual lows coming from the speaker.
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Post by Johnkenn on Sept 25, 2014 15:37:57 GMT -6
Well, shit...now I want one bad...
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Post by svart on Sept 25, 2014 16:45:59 GMT -6
Well, shit...now I want one bad... You do, even if you don't know it. As popman said, a lot of folks buy them, stick them up and expect perfection, but it does take a little work to get used them. If you are used to doing a lot of eq on the amp or mixer, then it'll sound strange until you back off of those and recalibrate your ears, then worlds open up. |
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Post by swurveman on Sept 26, 2014 13:00:14 GMT -6
The thing I have trouble with is the room sound due to the figure 8 pattern. I expected magic from the 121 due to the hype, but I often do not want the sound of the room in the mic and with the 121 that's inescapable.
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Post by tonycamphd on Sept 26, 2014 13:19:06 GMT -6
The thing I have trouble with is the room sound due to the figure 8 pattern. I expected magic from the 121 due to the hype, but I often do not want the sound of the room in the mic and with the 121 that's inescapable. absorbing gobo on backside helps, but IME, there is no escaping a bad room with any mic let alone a figure of 8. |
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