How to make a small electric guitar amp sound bigger
There's nothing worse than a cheesy little guitar sound when the song calls for the throaty roar of a vintage AC30. But what if all you have is a small practice amp (or your neighbors won't put up with 100W of shredding on a nightly basis?) Here's how you can use a couple of HM-1s to add some heft to small open-backed guitar amps:
1. Place the amp in a relatively small but lively room in order to generate a lot of early reflections (yes, there will be all kinds of weird frequency modes in operation, but bear with us). Fig. 1
2. Place the amp on a chair in order to get it up off the floor and easier to work with.
3. Position the first mic roughly 2 inches from the from the grill cloth, half way between the center and edge of the speaker cone. Fig. 2
4. Position the second mic about six inches from the open back of the amp pointing at the center of the speaker (a lot of low frequencies blow out the back of open backed amps and this is how to capture them.) Fig. 3 Note: don't place any mics far away from the amp in a small lively room or you'll just get mud. You want early reflections - not ambience or "reverb."
5. Adjust the amp to achieve the desired tonality.
6. Adjust your record levels and check the phase of the mic pointing at the back of the amp. You will get a very thin sound if you sum two out of phase signals.
7. Blend the signals of the two mics until you're happy with the sound.
There's nothing worse than a cheesy little guitar sound when the song calls for the throaty roar of a vintage AC30. But what if all you have is a small practice amp (or your neighbors won't put up with 100W of shredding on a nightly basis?) Here's how you can use a couple of HM-1s to add some heft to small open-backed guitar amps:
1. Place the amp in a relatively small but lively room in order to generate a lot of early reflections (yes, there will be all kinds of weird frequency modes in operation, but bear with us). Fig. 1
2. Place the amp on a chair in order to get it up off the floor and easier to work with.
3. Position the first mic roughly 2 inches from the from the grill cloth, half way between the center and edge of the speaker cone. Fig. 2
4. Position the second mic about six inches from the open back of the amp pointing at the center of the speaker (a lot of low frequencies blow out the back of open backed amps and this is how to capture them.) Fig. 3 Note: don't place any mics far away from the amp in a small lively room or you'll just get mud. You want early reflections - not ambience or "reverb."
5. Adjust the amp to achieve the desired tonality.
6. Adjust your record levels and check the phase of the mic pointing at the back of the amp. You will get a very thin sound if you sum two out of phase signals.
7. Blend the signals of the two mics until you're happy with the sound.
