Recording a Diezel

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skippystz

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Hey guys, my name's Peter, I'm new to the board. Anyway, i recently purchased a Diezel VH-4S with a matching NYC 4x12 cab. I've never been more pleased with an amp's sound... it's totally awesome.

So i went to the studio this past weekend for the first time since i've had this amp, and I found that the way it tracks to tape is much different than the way it sounds in the room. I found it difficult to get any brightness out of channels 3 and 4. 3 sounded great for leads, but for the heavy biting rhythms, it just tracked very muddy and not quite searing enough. To my surprise, i ended up using channel 2 for virtually all of the big distorted guitar tracks(cranked to hell, of course). it sounds ridiculously awesome(one of the coolest guitar sounds i've heard to tape - seriously), but i left the studio somewhat disappointed we couldnt seem to make channel 3 shine on tape.

here's how i had it set up: vh4-s split into 1 mesa 4x12 and 1 diezel nyc 4x12. each cab was mic'ed with a 57, sennheiser 609 and 421. guitars were almost exlusively vintage les paul standards with SD JB in the bridge and '59 in the neck. A '72 tele was also used.

I even tried cranking the presence on both sides and turning the deep switches completely off...

Any thoughts?
 
Sounds like mic placement problem.
How did it sound in front of the speaker?

One common mistake that many do is confusing mids with highs. If you want cutting through bite you probably want to crank the mids. What were your amp settings?
 
we tried a bunch of different mic placements... couldnt seem to get it sounding full and bright. like i said, we got channel 2 to sound ridiculous... really tight and biting. Channel 3 seemed to sound like it was in a closet...
 
we tried virtually every eq setting... the engineer sat there while i played and he turned every knob every which way...
 
but it sounds ridiculous in the room... and the scratch tracks, believe it or not, were great as well. i'll try swapping out for some el34's...

Does anyone have any great techniques for tracking these things? what kind of mics are you guys all using???
 
Miking amps is all about making it sound good in front of the speakers. You should be standing in front of your speakers when you are dialing the tone (easy with volume!!! :lol: :LOL: , push your power amp up later), you are miking the speaker & not the room! Fortunately with Diezel amps it's very easy to dial the tone you want at the speaker, unlike some other amps I had a chance to work with. With VH4 channel 3 I'd say crank the mids & highs, but highs not as much as mids (3-2 o'clockish or higher(mids), highs probably not more than 2) & some good amount of presence. I wouldn't cut the deep.
Mics really don't matter that much as long as you got some of the standards. My personal favorite is Royer 121 combined with SM7, but I could work with either one of them by itself with no problem. A mic pointing a little off the center works great, with dynamics I like to angle them a little towards the outer edge. At this point you will have to listen through your monitors & tweak the rest, but it should be very close.
If you are still not satisfied after this I'd suggest running a clean EQ pedal in front of your amp & fine tweak it that way.
 
The problems you're having could also have something to do with your choice of microphones. If you have access to them, try this setup:

LOMO 19A19, or AKG 414 close mic on the speaker cones,
Coles 4037 about 36"-45" away from the cabinet.

The LOMO 19A19 is a front addressing large diaphragm tube condenser mic with a fixed cardioid pickup pattern. It has massive bass boost when used in close proximity to the source material, so you may want to use the LF padding on the desk.

If the LOMO is too muddy, switch out with the AKG, which has a rise in the frequency response @ 5Khz, this should bring out the HF more.

The Coles 4037 is a ribbon mic, therefore it has a biderctional pickup pattern. Placement of the cab, or gobo may be used to either accentuate or curtail the reflected pickup from the Coles mic. --Also, because the Coles is a Ribbon mic, it is very fragile, and NOT a good choice for using as a close mic, especially with cranked up Diezel.

Defeat the EQ on the Mixer, and move the mics around until what you hear in the control room sounds like what you hear in front of the cab. --Failing this, use cut and LF shelving EQ sparingly at the desk until it matches up. If you have variable LF shelving on the desk, so much the better.
 
I've had the same experience with the same mic's you used. If you have access to Royer 121, try it 6-8 inches away from the center of the speaker. The Royer into a Great River preamp with that mic position on my Herbert channel 3, sounded really close to how it sounded in the room.
 
I find that most times I can achieve my best tones with 1 mic placed correctly, you have a lower track count and less phase issues this way also! try an audix D3 next time if you can get your hands on one! :thumbsup:
 
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