reflection panels?

[miktunes25]

OK this is actually my first post on this board. I am kinda stumped with this situation of mine. I have a computer setup with a delta 1010 soundcard and a yamaha 16/4 mixer. When I do something as simple as miking a cab with an sm57 I can't get good tones. Everything sounds dull. There is just too much bass. I lifted the cab off the ground and that helped a lot but I am still not getting good sounds. Now my room I record in is my guess of what the problem is. It is a very dead room. It's like 12' by 15' and it's carpeted with some furniture. Is the room causing my recordings to sound dead? My problem is that I don't really have another room I can record in. Would some sort of stand up reflection panels help? Or am I totally off?

[joel hamilton]

There are about 95 things you can do before resorting to carpentry.

You could turn down the low end on the amp. You can back the mic up inch by inch until it sounds right, you can rotate the mic at the center of the cone, you can move the mic to and from the center cone, straight on.. listen to how the sound changes from the edge of the cone to the center. Now try the same thing with the 57 turned 45 degrees to the speaker. try both ways towards the inside and the outside of the cone. Up, down, around. Remember the results each time you move the mic.

Also, amazingly enough, turing the treble on the amp UP will be percieved as a bass roll off.

Try every possible combination of these things until it sounds good to you.

Make it work!

[jajjguy]

and when you're done with all that, try moving the amp to a few different places in the room. you didn't mention what the amp is, but if it's open-backed then it matters whether a wall is behind it, etc. also, different spots in a small to medium sized room sound different, especially with regard to bass.

[Nathan Eldred]

Good suggestions.

Before you start building reflecting panels or anything like that. To find out if it is indeed the room, do you at least have the ability to throw this cab and set it up into a tiled bathroom? It sounds crazy, but there are some home recordists who use the bathroom as a live room. That most likely won't be THE solution, but it could give you an idea of what's going on. And then you could figure out if it's your cab or mic, or something else.

[miktunes25]

Thanks for the suggestions. Oh and yeah I can probably throw the amp in a bathroom to see what that does. By the way the amp I am using is a JCM800. I will just have to keep experimenting. I'm glad to know that the room I'm recording in can be worked with.

[joel hamilton]

The room doesnt really matter if a 57 is jammed in the speaker grill. You simply have to tweak the amp to suit that mic position. I would record gtr's anywhere. That has never bummed me out.

Acoustic intruments benefit more from a great acoustic space.

(of course there are times when we want some air around the solo or something, but for a basic GTR track this is true).