Recording A Guitar Amp

Probably nothing is more frustrating than mic'ing up your guitar amp, playing your heart out and nailing the take, and then listening back to your recording only to find it sounds lifeless or dull.  Or it doesn't sound like what your ears were hearing.  Its an incredibly maddening process to try to get recording right and involves a lot of trial and error.  The first rule is:  there are no rules.

I know that doesn't really help, so here are some starting points to work with.  The industry-standard guitar microphone is the Shure SM57.  Get one.  They are cheap and they sound pretty good and they are rugged and strong.  The SM57 is a dynamic microphone so it doesn't need phantom power, just plug it into a good mixer or preamp or recording interface.  I highly recommend pairing the SM57 with another microphone; something with different character. 

Ribbon microphones are popular for their high-end and transient response and sensitivity.  There are several good ones available for reasonable prices.  Royer is kind of the industry-standard, but they are pretty pricy.  Instead, check out the Cascade Fathead II or the Beyerdynamic M160; each is very different from each other and from an SM57.

Once you have two or more microphones, you will want to set them up.  This is where you want good boom stands that will allow you to position the microphone exactly where you want it, without slipping or sliding or tipping over.  Generally speaking, you'll want to put the SM57 close to the speaker.  You can vary the positioning of the mic to either put it straight on-axis, slanted-but-pointed-at-center, or off-axis.  Each will sound slightly different.  Experiment to find what works best for you!  I find that the slanted pointed-at-center approach works best for me.

The other microphones, ribbons or large diaphragm condenser microphones you should place at least 2' away from the amp to try and capture the room sound and how the sound develops as it emerges from the amp.  Again, this isn't a hard and fast rule; there are plenty of producers who put large condenser mics right up against amps.  But that doesn't work for me. 

This was a picture of one of my better recording sessions.  What you see are five microphones mic'ing up a 2x12 cabinet.  Off-center against the grill on the left is an SM57, on the right and close to the grill is a Sennheiser e609.  These mics are each panned hard left and hard right in the mix.  Then further back on the left side we have the M160 and on the right side a Fathead II (in gold).  Lastly, I used a Chameleon Labs TS1 mic with a small diaphragm capsule all the way on the left aimed at the center of the cabinet.

I captured each microphone on a separate track.  Then I panned the SM57 and Fathead hard right, and the e609 and the M160 hard left.  I put the TS1 in the center.  Then I inverted the phase of the left-side tracks.  This creates a bigger stereo field, while the TS1 in the center of the mix helps prevent any loss of clarity from phase cancellation.

You don't always need to use expensive mics to get interesting effects.  On small guitar amps with small speakers, they tend to lack a bit of low-end.  I will use a kick-drum mic on the edge of the amp to capture some low-end and blend that into the mix.

So just remember, more mics (on separate tracks) gives you more options at mix-down time.  Use your ears and don't be afraid to try something different!

Big amps

Sooner or later (usually sooner), the hankering to jam/play-in-a-band is going to come up.  And when you do jam, there will likely be someone louder than you, resulting in an ever-escalating war of amps.

First off, be careful and protect your hearing.  The frequencies of guitar, especially the high-end, can do serious damage to your ears.  Don't be stupid and put your face in front of a 4x12 with the amp cranked looking for the "sweet spot" for a mic.

That out of the way, you're going to want at least two speakers.  If you go cab+head or for a combo, that's up to you, but its a lot easier to manage carrying the amp and the cab separately.  As we have said before, the only good amps worth pursuing are tube amps, so that's what we'll be focusing on.  In particular, the tube amps that represent good value today.

So with big tube amps, they usually run one of two ways, Class-A or Class-A/B.  Class-A amps sound roughly twice as loud or more than a Class-A/B amp of the same wattage.  Now remember, speakers play a part in how loud and clear you sound too, but generally speaking, the tubes in a Class-A amp are working harder so your tube life will be shorter.  That said, Class-A generally sounds better than A/B to many people's ears.

How much is enough?  Well that depends on your speaker efficiency and also on which class of amp you choose.  For a Class-A amp, 30-watts pushing two speakers is very loud.  For Class-A/B, you'll want between 50-100-watts of power and push four speakers.

There's another route too, the tube-preamp + solid-state power amp setup.  This was used extensively by Kurt Cobain; Mesa Studio tube preamp into a big solid-state power amp.  Since Nirvana did not rely on their amp's power tubes for overdrive/distortion, this setup can work great and can really scale up big.  If you go SS, get something powerful, 400-watts is not overkill.  I ran a similar setup to Cobain except with a 2x12 instead of multiple 4x12's and power amps and I used a 450-watt Carvin power amplifier.

Which big amps to choose?  Well there are several that are reasonably priced still.  I like the Silverface Fenders a lot, especially the Bassman 100.  There are lots of Silverface models that are really good, like the Showman, and the Bandmaster.  Also the Peavey Valveking 100 isn't bad either; it even has gains to get some distorted sounds, although honestly I would still rather rely on pedals for my fuzz.

For a combo amp, I chose a Fender Prosonic.  This amp runs in Class-A or Class-A/B, although I ran it almost exclusively in Class-A mode.  With 30-watts pushing two 10" speakers, the amp sounds amazing, and has a drive channel that would confound most Fender-heads; it sounds very Mesa-Boogie-like.  The downside to the Prosonic is that it is a heavy beast, but then again, so is a 100-watt Bassman, mainly because of the HUGE iron transformers they used back in the day.

There are of course plenty of other big amps.  Sovtek MIG's are popular.  In combo form, Tranyor made a number of models that are still very affordable.  But big Marshalls?  No, stay away.  There is something to the Marshall sound, but they are vey expensive just to get your distortion from the amp. Also, depending on the particular Marshall, they aren't always that loud either.

Hopefully this helps you find your BIG amp and compete against ferocious drummers and bassists with 18" subwoofers.

Why listen to me?

Let's face it, the Internet has perhaps more opinions than there are humans on earth.  There are countless forums where you will hear that Pedal XYZ is "da bomb" or "crap" or that you have to get ABC to achieve a certain tone.  I can't make the blanket statement saying all those people are wrong, but I will say this:  you must find you own way.

That being said, we are here to help!

So the question becomes, why should you listen to us when it comes to guitars, amps, and most especially effect pedals?  Well the story is long, but the short answer is that we have owned and played most pedals.  If we own it, there is a good chance there is a reason.  And if we don't, either we haven't found and example to buy or we don't like it.

Example:  The Maxon/Ibanez TubeScreamer.  The TS9 or the TS808, either one, we don't really care for because they aren't true-bypass.  We carry pedals that we believe are superior clones of the TS circuit (using the original IC's) and do have true-bypass.  Sometimes we even prefer some of the Chinese copies of Boss pedals because the Chinese pedals are much smaller and have metal housings and true-bypass switching.  And they sound good.  That is of course the most important thing.

We have over 40 different types of fuzz in stock.  Did you even know that was possible?  And we try to explain the nuances of each one, how each fuzz differs from the others, what makes each pedal unique.  There's way more to life than just the Big Muff Pi pedal and we will help you find it.

 A little about myself:  I started playing guitar at age 14, starting out with a semi-acoustic Norma piece-of-junk that had a tendency to break strings and drift out of tune.  By the time I was 15, I had secured a practice amp (Fender 15GR, a solid-state dual-gain amp with real spring reverb) and I picked a Stratocaster blindly from Daddy's Junky Music Shop catalog.  What showed up a week after my birthday was a beautiful candy red strat.  Now don't misread me, I had saved my pennies and lawn-mowing money to get that guitar, but it wasn't a USA strat; no way.  It was one of the early Squier guitars to be made in South Korea.  From what I understand, the guitar I got was rather unique in that is had a big Fender logo on the headstock and only a very tiny little "Squier" logo next to that.  That guitar lead me into my first band, which I joined at 15.

Having practiced with a goth/industrial band as their lead guitarist (I was better than the other guy, therefore I was default "lead guitarist") I decided I was going to need a bigger amp.  This desire took me on a quest to the vintage music store, because I had heard and indeed believed that a vintage tube amp was the answer.

Instantly disappointed with how much a Marshall or Blackface Fender cost relative to my budget, the associate suggested I try out a clean amp and get my distortion from pedals.  A novel idea!  He took me in the bass room and gave me a pre-CBS strat and plugged me into a vintage TS9 and that into a Fender Silverface Bassman 100 head.  It only took 30 seconds before I was in love.  The Silverface Bassman not only had TONS of clean headroom, it sparkled with the Bright switch enabled and most importantly was LOUD AS F**K.  Paired with a 4x12 cab, this thing was a sonic monster.  Kicking in the TS9 gave me loads of tone from the vintage axe I had been handed.  A short while later, I returned to the music store with my saved lawn-mowing money and found another Fender Silverface Bassman 100 and negotiated a great price.  I finally had my head!

But as guitarist should know, a head is useless without a cab, so the subsequent search for an affordable used 4x12 took several weeks, but eventually said cab was located and acquired, transported in the back of my mom's minivan.  The 4x12 was a mismatch of speakers and had seen better days, but still gave me tons of tone, headroom, and volume.  Finally a distortion pedal was acquired; again blindly, receiving a Boss MT-2 Metalzone.

About this time, I broke up with the goth/industrial band guys and started my own foray with a friend/keyboardist as a 2-piece outfit:  no drummer.  We performed at the local High School Band Challenge and actually made it through the first round of competition.  By that time I had a small collection of pedals.  My chain started with the MT-2, then ran into a Arion flanger that I got in trade for a pocket knife (!) then into a spring-loaded switch-less Morely wah and then finally into a Rocktron delay.

After HS was over my friend and I sort of lost touch and our 2-piece industrial/techno band broke up.  I began producing on my own.  At 16 I landed my first real job working as an electrician's assistant, which was absolutely back-breaking labor in the summer heat, but earned me the money to buy some of my first electronic gear: a Kawai K5000 keyboard, an ESI-32 sampler, a Zoom 1204 FX unit, and a Mackie CR1604 mixer.  I finally had a proper setup!

Other electronic studio gear would follow until I had amassed collection that would probably rival the Chemical Brothers and I don't say that lightly.  I had a feverish case of an affliction most musicians will know:  GAS or Gear Acquisition Syndrome.  Suffice to say the electronic music foray was an interesting excursion (and one that still continues today), but I never stopped playing guitar entirely.

Relocating across the country, new gear was to follow.  My guitar setup expanded dramatically to include:

• Fender Kurt Cobain MIJ Mustang
• Fender MIJ Jaguar HH
• BC Rich Mockingbird
• Fender Squier Duosonic
• Fender USA Strat with Lace pickups
• Schecter 7-string
• Danelectro baritone
• Roland G707
• Ibanez IMG2010
• Rondo Telecaster
• Roland G202
• Fender P-bass
• Yamaha FG acoustic
• Another Fender Squier South Korean Strat

Guitars were not the only things I bought.  I invested in amps again, after having sold my Bassman before the move.  I purchased:

• Another Fender Silverface Bassman 100 head
• Peavey Valveking 100 head
• Newcomb custom tube amp head
• Epiphone Valve Jr. head
• Jet City Picovalve head
• Ibanez TSA15H head
• Orange Microterror head and special cab
• Fender Prosonic combo
• Fender Silverface Champ
• Emery Microbaby head and Weber custom Blue Pup speaker
• Carvin Microbass bass amp
• Mesa Studio preamp
• Digitech 2112 preamp
• Tech21 Studio preamp
• Carvin Quad-X preamp
• Carvin power amp
• 2x12 closed-back cab with Celestion GT75's
• 1x12 open-back cab with a Celestion Greenback
• 4x12 cab with matched Eminence speakers

 Then there were the pedal-boards, four of them...  I won't bother to list all the pedals, but suffice to say, it was a lot.  I've played a lot of rigs, including Marshalls, Mesa Boogies, Ampegs, Sovtek Migs, about every vintage Fender, and a few boutique amps.  Because of my voracious appetite for gear and all information around gear, I have consumed a tremendous amount of knowledge regarding the workings, sounds, and function of most pieces of contemporary and vintage gear.

Put another way, I know how to get the sounds I want.  And more importantly, I will try my best to help you get the sounds you want.  If you need advice on pickups, tuners, tail-pieces, bridges, cables, amps, or guitars, we are here to help!  And most importantly, we want to be your go-to when it comes to advice for effects pedals.

Small Amp? The answers.

One of the questions frequently asked is "What small amp should I get?"  Normally the needs of the player are home recording, home jamming, and basic practice.  And not annoying the neighbors or the wife or kids!  For our purposes, we're only going to consider tube amps, because solid-state and modeling amps are, well...crap.

To get a great tone, start with a great amp.  Don't skimp out on your amp; plan to spend around the same amount of money as your guitar costs roughly.  There are a lot of small tube amps to choose from, but I'll run down the list of some of my favorites, starting with the newer stuff on the market.

Blackstar HT-5R:  This is a little 5-watt amp that uses a 12BH7 tube in a dual triode configuration.  That's a little bit unusual and results in a different sound than the typical single-ended class-A 12AX7 preamp tube design.  While a small package, it still manages a 12" speaker.  I've never played one, but reviews are generally favorable.  It has an "ISF" control that is supposed to morph between "British" (read Marshall) and "American" (read Fender) tones.  There is also a baby version the HT-1R.  The 1R uses a pair of 12AU7 tubes to power the amp and has an 8" speaker.

Gretsch Electromatic G5222:  A more conventional tube-amp approach, using one 12AX7 in the preamp and a single 6V6 power tube, it has one control; volume.  And quite frankly that should be all you need.  A tube sound that takes pedals well, the speaker is a bit small but is a special 6" design.  I have not played one.

Orange Microterror:  Owning a Microterror gave me an appreciation for the distinct sound of Orange amps.  While the Microterror uses a solid-state power section for 20 watts, the preamp is all 12AX7 tube goodness.  This little amp pairs up well with Orange's specially designed mini-cabinet but also will rock a 4x12 full-size cab surprisingly well.  What the Orange lacks though is clean headroom and easily distorts with a bright, punchy sound.  I never found it to take pedals well because of the inherent distortion, so this is a good amp for those of you who want to just plug-in and play.

Jet City PicoValve:  I paired my PicoValve with an open-back 1x12 cab loaded with a Celestion Greenback.  This combo sounded quite good with my Strat and it should; the amp was designed by Andy Marshall of THD-fame.  The power section can run on virtually any octal-based power tube, so feel free to swap away without worrying about biasing or blowing anything up.  The amp also has a 2.5 or 5 watt switch, and the 2.5 watts is generally powerful enough for most practicing and room-playing, while the 5-watts with an efficient speaker sounds remarkably loud.  The gain is more extreme than some of the other small amps due to its dual 12AX7's tubes, while offering a smooth single 6L6 in the power section.

Ibanez TSA15H:  No this has nothing to do with the TSA you'll find at the airport, its Ibanez's attempt at making a small tube head.  This head is 15-watts and easily rocks a 4x12 full cabinet.  The amp controls are Bass, Treble and Volume, while the icing on the cake here is the built-in TS9 TubeScreamer circuit that is foot-switchable.  The amp features two 12AX7 preamp tubes and two 6v6 power tubes.  This is your amp if you like the TS9 circuit, having it integrated into the amp gives some incredible gain tones and will really rock.  However, if you don't like the mid-range boost of the TubeScreamer, you may want to shy away from this one as there is no Mid control to mellow it out, aside from the TS9 tone control.

Epiphone Valve Jr.:  This amp was all the craze a few years ago, sort of bringing back the all-tube, low-wattage amp category.  The early versions had some problems and were not particularly well-received, but Epiphone corrected their issues by the time they released the amp in head format, which is what I own.  Coupled to a 1x12 open back, the Epiphone's 5-watts come in a simple configuration of one 12AX7 and one EL84 power tube.  The only control is volume, which is all you need, and the amp generally stays clean even at high volume levels and takes pedals fairly well.  My only criticism is that the amp doesn't quite sound balanced across the fretboard, but a tube swap might help this.

There are also a *bunch* of low-watt all-tube amps from Marshall, Fender, Vox, Lanely, and Hughes & Kettner.  I haven't played them, so I can't really comment.

So what do I recommend?

There is always one answer:  The Fender Silverface Champ.

This amp is absolutely great.  All tube, the Champ went through Tweed, Blackface, and Silverface iterations before Fender finally killed it off.  It runs all class-A single-ended, meaning you don't need to bias the power tube, which is a 6V6GT, while a typical 12AX7 (actually a 7025) sits in the preamp.  The only controls are Volume, Bass, and Treble, and likely you will set the Bass and Treble to 5 or 10 and leave them that way.  The Champ is known for its amazing crystal-clear and chime-like clean sound, which pair particularly well with single-coils pickups.  But with this great clean platform also comes a spectacular pedal platform.  Handling everything from "transparent overdrive" to all-out sonic assaults, the 8" speaker does a remarkable job reproducing the frequencies while never feeling lacking in headroom or power.  You can find a vintage Silverface Champ for about $300-$500 while a Blackface will bring perhaps 2x more and not really sound significantly different.  The Champ does have a couple weak-points, namely a can-type capacitor that can go bad if you don't play the amp often enough.  This is easily fixed by a tech for less than $50.  Ted Weber offers custom replacement speakers for Champs that are outstanding as well.

There you go, your small amp guide to finding a pedal platform.  Next time we revisit the subject, we'll talk about the amp I jack straight into; the Emery Microbaby.

Why You Don't Need A Klon

Watch the shootout.  See if you can hear ANY difference at all!

What's Up With Devi Ever?

Sigh.

This was a story I didn't really want to go into, but here goes.

Devi Ever is actually a person who lives or used to live in Portland making some of the coolest pedals you ever heard.  Devi's were known to be in use by lots of top artists like Trent Reznor and Billy Corgan (although those guys can afford to have pretty much every pedal anyway).  The Devi reputation was flying high in circa 2009.

Devi Ever the person launched a crowd-sourcing campaign called The Console.  The idea was a modular effects platform that would allow one to plug different modules into a core and achieve different sounds.  The goal of something like $47,000 was reached with many people, including myself, pledging some money towards this goal.  Eventually after many delays, we were told that Devi the person had "mismanaged" the finances and had spent all the money.  Needless to say, the community was outraged.

From what I understand, Devi has returned about half the money back.  As for the Devi Ever FX brand, it was acquired by Dwarfcraft FX located in Wisconsin.  Dwarfcraft plans on selling the remaining Devi Ever FX pedals and then winding that business down aside from support.

But the story isn't over.  As of July this year (2015) Devi was back on some forums making claims that Devi was to return to making effects again.  This apparently is in violation of a non-compete agreement signed in the acquisition of the Devi Ever line.  Devi the person is claiming that said agreement is harming an ability to make a living.  I have no idea where this will lead but it can't be good.  Not many in the community are happy about the situation.

Now...all that said; Devi Ever pedals still rock.  I will be demoing one of my favorite pedals ever, the Shoe-Gazer which is a Devi Ever combo of the Torn's Peaker and the Soda Mesier into one pedal that is deliciously fuzzy and powerful.  We carry a number of Devi pedals because they have unique sounds that haven't been replicated elsewhere...yet.  When that begins to change, we will try to be the first on board.

(Just to be absolutely clear:  we have relationships with some manufacturers.  Right now we have no relationship with Devi Ever the person, nor will we ever.  That doesn't mean we don't love the designs.)

The Pedal Demo Setup

Lately I've been doing a lot of pedal demos as we build and receive inventory.  I think it is important to provide our subscribers with demos that are consistent.  We don't claim to have the best equipment, be the best guitar players, or even do the best demos.  What we do promise is that we will try and be as consistent as possible in our setups.

To that end, I play three different guitars:  A Roland G202 which is basically an 80's Ibanez double-cutaway with two humbuckers.  Number two is a Rondo SX Telecaster which has been highly modified into a player's special, with locking tuners and hand-wound custom Vintage '54 pickups.  Finally comes a Fender MIJ Mustang with a single coil neck and Seymour Duncan humbucker in the bridge.  Most of the demos feature the Mustang.

I play one amp:  Fender Silverface Champ.  This is a little single-ended class-A tube amp combo that takes pedals extremely well.  The basic sound is clean and sparkly like a Silverface Fender should sound.  Still using the original 8" speaker which still sounds great.

Recording-wise, we use the GoPro Hero3+ with a lapel dynamic microphone placed about one foot from the guitar amp and elevated in-line with the speaker.  We try to record three or four demos at a time to minimize setup movement.  Our GoPro get's mounted onto a goose-neck arm that attaches to the pedalboard so we can easily position it over new pedals.

Hopefully this gives you some insight into the humble setup we are using to record our demos.