I'm trying to close-mic my guitar amp (twin reverb) with my roland vs-880, but my mics are ****ty nady throw away mics that were given to me. I play ambientish rock and the subtleties of my playing get dulled with them. I don't even think they are instument mics, as the guy who gave them to me recorded mostly drums. I'd like to get a decent mic for the price, preferably under 100 dollars. I'm a complete n00b about recording, so any help would be greatly appreciated.

Sennheiser e609 silver. Not much more than a shure SM57 and made specifically for guitar amps. I love mine.

__________________
___________
79 Gibson LP Deluxe (Cherry Sunburst)
2006 Fender Deluxe American Strat HSS (Silver/Rosewood)
Current favorite is my home made strat! Candy Apple Red/maple neck/locking trem (FR copy)/White pickguard and pickups/chrome hardware/EVO2 bridge pickup and Breed Neck pickup

Peavey JSX 2X12 combo

Efects:
Boss DD-20 delay
MXR phase 90
Various self made effects

I have an SM58 and love it. Can do vox/guitar/whatever. Versatile and wonderful sounding.

They are on sale occasionally, i believe.

Get an SM-57. Usually a bit over $100 bucks but its the industry standard for that sort of thing.

To quote my mate who's been playing professionally in his band for 15 years and is signed to Warners Music and continually gets to #1 on the New Zealand album charts (his homeland) the week his band's album comes out and now owns and operates his own studio...

"to get the best guitar tone you just need a good mic like an SM57..."

I'm more a fan of ambient amp mic-ing, but if you have more than one mic for the amp, it's good to get one right up in the grill,

an SM58 would not be ideal for recording. It's a live vocal mic. On a guitar amp, it's going to miss important frequencies. Recording vocals, it's not going to sound as seamless and organic as a recording condenser.

an SM57 would be much better for close-mic-ing, and can compete with most of the specifically-designed amp recording mics.

or any decent condenser with a cut-off switch. I like the Shure KSM27 up close and at a distance for guitar amps.

__________________
Hamer SATF (burstbuckers #1 & #2) -> throbak stone bender fuzz/od -> EH Memory Toy -> Bugera 1960 -> homemade 412 w/V30s.

yup. especially for a twin reverb if you're going for an ambient thing. I think itd be a way better choice than a sm57, theyre more suited for on-axis rock and roll.

Come on. Shut your eyes and try to notice the difference. Important frequencies my ass, the frequency response curves are nearly identical.

__________________
Gentle Robot - Chapel Hill NC Rock Band

Seagull Artist Mosaic (acoustic)
Fender Strat Plus
Line 6 M9
Traynor YCV40WR

+1

__________________
My Gear , please wack with the side of your hand for normal service.
Bringing you EVIL VOODOO WAX MAGIC since 2009

Hmmm. OK I'm gonna chime in again on this.

I stand by the e609 recmmendation. I think it can't be beat for miking a guitar amp.

But if you want a more generic mic that is suitable for a broader range of stuff (like maybe some day it'll have to stand in a part of a set you're gonna use to mic drums with or something) really you can't go wrong with the 57 either.

The 58 is a good vocal mic, sure. I think for studio work the prevailing opinion is that in general a condenser is more suited to that (even though it is no secret the Bono uses a 58 in the studio).

Any one of those mics would serve you well enough. If you wanted just ONE mic to do all this stuff I'd vote for the 58 but really you could more or less toss a coin between that and the 57 I believe.

As much as I dig my e609 for miking my amp, I couldn't really say that the difference between it and, say, a 57 or 58, is more imporant than getting the mic in a place where you like the sound. That takes trial and error and is a much bigger factor than the difference between any of the 3 dynamic mics we're talking about here, IMHO.

Good luck picking a mic (or two... ). I suspect that if you do much recording and you are a guitarist, at some point you'll end up with all 3 anyway. Hard to have too many mics

__________________
___________
79 Gibson LP Deluxe (Cherry Sunburst)
2006 Fender Deluxe American Strat HSS (Silver/Rosewood)
Current favorite is my home made strat! Candy Apple Red/maple neck/locking trem (FR copy)/White pickguard and pickups/chrome hardware/EVO2 bridge pickup and Breed Neck pickup

Peavey JSX 2X12 combo

Efects:
Boss DD-20 delay
MXR phase 90
Various self made effects

Really?

__________________
Ibanez SA160QM (w/ Lindy Fralin's)
Boss TU-2 > Boss DS-2 > EHX Big Muff Pi > Arion SAD-1 > Boss PH3 >Boss RV-3 >Visual sound Jekyll & Hyde> Akai Headrush > tech 21 triac> "borrowed" Roland JC-50

For Sale/trade, PM for info:
...
Epiphone Alleykat (w/hard case)
DOD fx25B Diago gigman pedalboard (virtually as new) Boss OC-2 MXR Dynacomp

yes, some people record with an SM58 (I'm sure Bono's engineers use other mics, too). Having used one for vocals up to 2 years ago, I don't need to close my eyes to hear a difference.

& I don't work for Shure, but my friend John is an engineer there ...

The SM58 has a low-end drop-off once you're more than 6" from the mic. This drop-off is built-into the mic so other sounds don't bleed into a live vocal mix. Likewise, an SM-57 is designed to be utilized *very close* to louder sound sources (like right in your speaker cone or 1" from a drum) and drops off even more drastically as the source gets further away ...

Such a drop-off is not built-into, say, a KSM-27 (though you can dial in decibel drops), because when you're recording a vocal, or an instrument, you likely want to be able to capture the way it sounds in more of an open space -- recording the sound of the room as well as the source ...

__________________
Hamer SATF (burstbuckers #1 & #2) -> throbak stone bender fuzz/od -> EH Memory Toy -> Bugera 1960 -> homemade 412 w/V30s.

that's presuming you have a decent sounding room. i'm going to guess that this guy doesn't

Ya I would tend to agree that it's better to avoid trying to mic your ambient space unless you have a really good space to work with.

No worries though... I think you can get a really ass kicking rock guitar tone just by miking close. To get the room and get it clean and well is a big step in cost/complexity I think. Try to get all you can out of miking close before going for other fancy stuff would be my input.

This is another thing I like about my 609 silver by the way. You drape the cord over the amp so that the mic hangs on the grille right in front of the speaker, and you're all set. I don't work for Sennheiser or anything I just really dig that mic.


Charlie

__________________
___________
79 Gibson LP Deluxe (Cherry Sunburst)
2006 Fender Deluxe American Strat HSS (Silver/Rosewood)
Current favorite is my home made strat! Candy Apple Red/maple neck/locking trem (FR copy)/White pickguard and pickups/chrome hardware/EVO2 bridge pickup and Breed Neck pickup

Peavey JSX 2X12 combo

Efects:
Boss DD-20 delay
MXR phase 90
Various self made effects

(sorry for the late response)

What does this mean?

Also, is it worth putting a 58 and condenser side by side for vocals?

__________________
Ibanez SA160QM (w/ Lindy Fralin's)
Boss TU-2 > Boss DS-2 > EHX Big Muff Pi > Arion SAD-1 > Boss PH3 >Boss RV-3 >Visual sound Jekyll & Hyde> Akai Headrush > tech 21 triac> "borrowed" Roland JC-50

For Sale/trade, PM for info:
...
Epiphone Alleykat (w/hard case)
DOD fx25B Diago gigman pedalboard (virtually as new) Boss OC-2 MXR Dynacomp