A request for a bit of general guidance

[evilhomer]

First off, many thanks yet again for an excellent product! I just wanted some general recommendations in regards to tweaking the parameters to get to the perfect sound. I find that with the Torpedo Live I get to like 99% of what I'm looking for (i e, what I'm hearing from the amp in the room), whereas with the mikes and knowledge of miking techniques I reach maybe 70% if I'm lucky, so that's a battle won right there.

For most intents and purposes this is perfectly fine but now we're going to start recording and naturally I'd like to get to that little last elusive percent as well. I'm not the most patient guy when it comes to tweaking sound, and tend to settle for the "oh but that's close enough, let's get to the playing part" perhaps a bit too quick. In this case I end up moving the mic around, changing preamp settings, changing mics, eq etc in no particular order which I'm sure there must be far better ways of working more methodically.

It'd be great to hear other people's thoughts and experiences about this. What do you use for reference listening? High quality studio speakers? Headphones? Do you start with choosing cab, then mic, then preamp or another order? Do you choose preamp by reason or logic (as in, what's in the amp anyway) or just by what sounds good? Things like that. Thanks in advance!

 

[guillaume_pille]

Hi Evilhomer,

please help refreshing my memory, what do you use as a source? An amp, a preamp?

 

[evilhomer]

Hi Guillaume,
It varies but mostly amps, primarily a Dr Z Maz 18 and a Custom Audio OD100 Classic+.

 

[guillaume_pille]

OK so here is how I do:

Depending on the sound of the amp, and what I want to achieve, I'll pick a cabinet and a microphone. Ribbon microphones if I want a soft sound, more aggressive with Dynamic and high fidelity with condenser.

When I use and amp I switch off the power amp sim, but sometimes I lie to put it also, to "virtually crank" the amp even more.

I keep the EQ off when I do the miking, and I want to get, say 90% of the final tone with the cabinet, mic and mic placement combination.

Then When I'm 90% satisfied I use the EQ to finish the job, with the help of the amp EQ I may need to touch one last time at that point.

 

[evilhomer]

Excellent, thank you for your advice, sounds simple enough even I could follow that Will give that a go and see how far I get. What type of speakers or headphones would you recommend for reference listening?

 

[guillaume_pille]

I really like my AKG K271, but sometimes I prefer to listen to guitar with a Beyer DT770 Pro, or even these little marshall headphones... ^^

I use Adam A7 and S3 as monitors, but there are many small monitors that get good reviews like some small JBL, Adam or Neumann. Never tried them so I prefer not to speak them.