6 Mic Placement Tips For Electric Guitars

When it comes to recording electric guitars (or any other instrument, for that matter) so often we rely on experience or sight when placing the mic. That might be a good place to start, but there's a more thorough way to get a great sound.

Here's an excerpt from my Ultimate Guitar Tone Handbook (written with Rich Tozzoli) that outlines 6 mic placement tips for making sure that the mic placement will capture the right sound for the track.

"A common recording process has an engineer EQing, compressing, and adding multiple mics in trying to capture a sound, yet never taking into account what the sound in the room at the source is like. That’s why it’s imperative that every engineer use the following steps in any serious microphone placement:

1. Go out into the room, stand in front of the amp or acoustic guitar player, and listen to them play the part from the song you’re about to record. Playing the song is important because you might be deceived if it’s another song or just random playing. Listen for the tonal balance from the amp or instrument as well as the way the room responds. Listening to the amp or acoustic guitar in the room will give you a reference point to the way it really sounds so you have a better idea of what you’re trying to capture.

2. Find the sweet spot. There are several ways to find the sweet spot.

• To place an omnidirectional mic, cover one ear and listen with the other. Move around the mic or player until you find the spot that sounds best. That’s where to place the mic to begin.

• To place a cardioid mic, cup your hand behind your ear (instead of covering it) and move around the player or amp until you find the place that sounds best.

• To place a stereo mic or stereo pair, cup both ears and move around the player or amp until you find the place that sounds best.

• As an alternate method, crank the amp until it’s noisy, then put on headphones and listen to the mic as you move it around until the noise has the best combination of highs and lows.

3. You can’t place the mic by sight. The best mic position must always be found, not predicted. It’s okay to have a starting place, but it’s usually never what ends up being the best spot.

4. Change the mic position instead of reaching for the EQ. Chances are that you can adjust the quality of the sound enough by simply moving the mic in order to avoid using any equalization. The EQ will add a least a small amount of phase shift at some frequency and can’t be undone later. Moving the mic (which amounts to an acoustic EQ) will usually sound smoother and more pleasing to the ear.

5. Give the mic some distance. Remember, distance creates depth. The guitar and amp will sound a lot more natural than using artificial ambience. If possible, leave just enough distance between the mic and the source to get a bit of room reflection to it.

6. Be careful miking multi-speaker cabinets. 4x12 cabinets like the typical Marshall 1960 pose a special challenge in that at a certain distance you have phase anomalies from the multiple speakers that you really don’t want to capture.

The cabinet will sound fine when close miked from right against the grill cloth to approximately three inches away from the best sounding speaker in the cabinet, but until you get to a distance of 18 inches where the sound of all the speakers converge, you may be capturing some speaker interaction that’s not all that pleasant sounding. That distance varies with the make and model of speaker cabinet.

Also, be careful about buzzes and rattles from the cabinet, which could sound very much like distortion or a blown speaker. Finding it may take some time, but a bit of tape should do the trick to quiet things down."

To read additional excerpts from The Ultimate Guitar Tone Handbook and my other books, go to the excerpts section of bobbyowsinski.com.

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9 Reasons A Guitar Pickup Sounds The Way It Does

As any electric string instrument player knows, there are a number of different types of pickups, and within each category there's a tremendous variation in possible tone.

This excerpt from The Ultimate Guitar Tone Handbook explains the 9 factors that affect how a pickup sounds. The next time you're in the market for one, keep these in mind so you can better tailor the pickup to your needs.

"Just like most things in life, something that seems so simple on the outside is very intricate on the inside and a pickup is no exception. Here are the numerous factors that contribute to a pickup’s sound.

1. The number of turns or winding. This is the number of turns of wire around the bobbin of the pickup. The more turns, the louder the pickup, but the worse the high-frequency response becomes. The number of turns is measured by the electronic resistance of the wire, which is measured in ohms. The higher the ohms value, the hotter the pickup but the less high-frequency response you’ll have. Humbucking pickups have more resistance than a single coil because there are more turns of wire, which is why they’re hotter and have less high end. 

2. Type of wire used. The diameter and insulation determines the number of windings that can fit on a bobbin, which will determine the resistance, which determines the output, etc. 

3. Type of winding method used. We’ll look at this a bit closer in a bit, but many of the pickups in the early days of the electric guitar were wound by hand, which meant that there were more or less than the required number of windings on the bobbin, and an uneven wind would also affect the capacitance of the pickup, which can cause a peak in the frequency response. This problem was virtually eliminated when manufacturers switched to machine winding (see above), but while every pickup was now the same, some of the magic that occasionally came from a hand-wound pickup also disappeared. 

4. The type of magnets used. Although Alnico (a blend of aluminum, nickel and cobalt) is the alloy of choice for most pickups, occasionally you’ll find pickups made of other materials such as ceramic or neodymium. This will affect the strength of the magnetic field which we’ll cover next. 

5. The strength of the magnets used. Magnets used for pickups are categorized by strength on a scale of two to five with five being the strongest. A stronger magnet will produce a louder and brighter sound  while a weaker one will produce one that’s warmer. 

6. The magnet height. How close the individual magnets are to the strings will determine how loud that string is. On pickups that have adjustable pole pieces that’s not so much of a problem, but on pickups with fixed pole pieces (like a Fender Strat or Tele) that could cause a slight imbalance in the string output. As an example, prior to the late 60’s, most guitarists used a wound G string, so the fixed height of the magnets on a Strat were different to compensate. 

7. Pickup Cover. Metal covers on humbuckers can cause a resonance that results in feedback problems at high volumes. That’s why many of the early rockers removed their pickup covers, and why many guitars and pickups are sold that way today. 

8. Pickup potting. Many pickups are sealed in wax to eliminate vibration induced signals that make a pickup microphonic. The heat from the hot wax can weaken the magnet though, thereby changing the pickup’s sound. 

9. Potentiometers. Although not exactly a part of the pickup itself, the volume and tone pots are part of the electronic circuit along with the pickup and can affect the sound. The higher the resistance of the pot, the more high end will pass. Fenders use 250k ohm pots, Gibson uses 500k, and many other manufacturers use 1 Meg pots.

There are other factors such as winding direction, magnetic polarity, and the type of bobbins used, but their contribution to the final sound is subtle at best."

You can read additional book excerpts from The Ultimate Guitar Tone Handbook and my other books at bobbyowsinski.com.

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Get That Vintage Sound From Fungi

Trying to determine why a vintage instruments sounds better than one recently made has gone back seemingly forever, with almost every violin maker wondering why a Stradivarius sounds the way it does to every guitarist wondering why that 1955 Martin beats a new one from the factory.

It's long been known that as an instrument ages it purges the moisture within, making it lighter in the process. Also, the more it's played, the more it begins to resonant as the vibrations are set in the wood (you can get more detail from The Ultimate Guitar Tone Handbook). But there's more to it than that, as any vintage collector will tell you. There are some vintage instruments that just sing while others aren't on the same level.

Now a team at the Center for Molecular Medicine in Berlin believes they've found the answer - fungi. After analyzing wood from various vintages of violins, Professor Francis Schwarze discovered that the one thing that everyone has been overlooking all these years is the fact that back in the Stradivarius' day, two species of fungi (think mushrooms) were normally found in the wood, and it decayed it in such a way that an instrument's tonal properties improved. The fungi reduce the density of the wood (just like the moisture being naturally purged) and increased the speed that the sound traveled through it. The interesting by-product is that the wood still remained as strong as ever.

So why don't we have natural wood fungi today? Most wood today is treated with an ethylene oxide gas before it's processed, which instantly kill all the fungi.

To put it to the test, the team exposed a new violin to the two fungi for a period of 9 months and then held a blind test against a Stradivarius. Although a test like this is always subjective, a panel of experts were fooled into thinking that the new violin was also a Strad.

Will this work on acoustic guitars as well? Maybe. Violins are typically made out of spruce and sycamore, and acoustic guitars typically use spruce for the tops, so it seems like an exposure to fungi might work (more on acoustic guitar woods in this post). Any takers out there?

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Boston "More Than A Feeling" Song Analysis

Reader Michael Frassetti asked for an analysis of the song that broke the band Boston into the big time called "More Than A Feeling." The song, written by guitarist Tom Scholz, was the first single from the band's self titled record in 1976, and set a standard for rock guitar sounds that came afterwards.

The song supposedly took Scholz 5 years to complete and was one of the six that he worked on in his basement that eventually lead to a record deal with Epic, 5 of which eventually ended up on the album. The song was recorded by Scholz on all the guitars and bass, drummer Sib Hashian and singer Brad Delp.

"More Than A Feeling" eventually made it to #5 on the Billboard charts, becoming the biggest single that the band would ever have, and was eventually named the 39th best rock song ever by VH1. The album went on to become the 2nd biggest debut album of all time in the United States, selling 20 million copies.

As with all song analysis, we'll look at the song form, the arrangement, the sound and the production.

The Song
"More Than A Feeling" uses a slightly different form than the normal rock or pop song of the era in that the B sections are instrumental as they transition into the choruses. The form looks like this:

intro, verse, B section, chorus, intro, verse, B section, chorus, bridge/solo, 

intro, verse (with an extra 9 bars), chorus, outro

The intros are just the verses minus the vocals, and the outro is a chorus minus the vocals. The bridge is where the solo occurs and is almost like a different song with a completely different set of chords and feel. During the last verse the song takes a left turn with an added 9 bars that builds to the B section guitar line.

The lyrics are pretty good in that they tell a story and are cadenced well. They roll off the lips with no trouble and the rhymes never seem forced.

The Arrangement
The arrangement of "More Than A Feeling" is pretty classic in that it breathes with intensity pretty much where you expect it to, except for one place. The intro is just doubled 12 string guitars, followed by another acoustic guitar doubling the bass when the vocals enter, and the drums playing a sidestick snare. 


The B section is unexpected in that it's a Les Paul/Marshall lead line that fades into feedback and reverb into the chorus, which has both double big electric guitars, handclaps adding motion and harmony vocal answers.


The second verse is pretty much the same as the first except the acoustic guitar doubling the bass is augmented with a clean electric guitar as well. The 2nd chorus is identical to the first.


The bridge is interesting in that it's a written guitar solo over a new set of chord changes, which leads into the 3rd verse, where it gets interesting in that the drums drop out and the intensity lowers. This is brilliant in that there's a new 9 bar part that's tacked on to the verse where the drums and lead guitar enter and help it build to the peak of the song with the lead vocal and guitar wailing on the same reverbed note.


The last chorus is identical to the first two, but unlike many other songs, just plays once. The vocal exits but the rest of the instruments remain on the fadeout.


Here are the arrangement elements:

  * The Foundation: bass and drums

  * The Rhythm: acoustic 12 string guitars in verse, claps in chorus

  * The Pad: none

  *The Lead: lead vocals, lead guitar in B section and solo

  * The Fills: lead guitar in 9 bar 3rd verse build, vocal answers in chorus

The Sound
The sound of "More Than A Feeling" isn't all that great. I looked for the best audio representation and they were all the same; extremely mediocre quality-wise. This is probably because the tracks were done on a 12 track Scully tape machine (that's a rare one) in Scholz's basement in Massachusetts, then transferred to a standard 24 track for completion at Capitol Studios in Hollywood. The quality degradation really shows.

The unique guitar sound is the result of a 1968 Les Paul Goldtop Deluxe into a Marshall Super Lead 'Plexi" cranked all the way up, but padded down with Scholz's homemade attenuator. The real secret to the sound appears to be an MXR graphic equalizer with the 400 Hz, and especially the 800 Hz band heavily boosted. Tom also used a custom-made analog doubler/harmonizer that eventually became his "Dual Chorus" product from Scholz R&D.

Delp's vocals are doubled, but not that closely, and pushed back in the mix a bit. This is another case where the vocals probably would have been fixed if done today. The reverb is rather plain, and has a bit of a "boing" to it that you can hear on the fade at :43. It sounds like an EMT plate that hasn't been tuned recently.


There's only one reverb and there appears to be a bit of it on everything except for the claps in the chorus, which makes them stick out about.

The Production
The production on this song (by John Boylan and Scholz) was state-of-the-art back in 1976 and is still hot even by today's standards. The use of doubling (the 12 string in the intro and verses, and electric guitars in the chorus), the unexpected peak of the song at the end of the 3rd verse, the intensity swings during the song are all things that continue to keep the listener's attention glued.

There are lots of little things as well. Listen to the way the song fades in on the intro. Listen to the way that the drums play along with the guitar during the 2nd intro. Listen to the way that the drum fills are slightly boosted. Listen to Delp's high vocal double the lead guitar at the end of the 3rd verse when the song really peaks. Listen to the drum and clap patterns during the choruses and how they move the song. Notice the clean electric guitars at the end of each chorus as the tension releases. This is a very well thought-out song in just about all aspects.

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Brian May On Vox AC-30 Amplifiers

Like most guitar players, I'm pretty much a tone freak. It was a long and sometimes painful journey to figure out how to get the sounds that I heard on so many of the records that I loved, one that I've outlined in The Ultimate Guitar Tone Handbook.

One of the things that I discovered is that you can sometimes get the best tone just by going back to basics with a good sounding guitar plugged directly into a good sounding amp with no pedals in between. With the amp cranked to a level where it breaks into a nice creamy distortion, if you turn the volume on the guitar down, you get a great clean sound. Want more distortion or any amount in between, turn up the guitar volume. No pedals required.

In this short video, Queen's Brian May shows you that's the way he does it as well, using his trusty Vox AC-30 amps. You can't argue with the great sound.

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The Week In Review

Here's the articles from the week of March 28 to April 1st.

"Don't Stop Believin'" - Journey Song Analysis
There are few songs from the 80's that have had the impact or longevity of Journey's "Don't Stop Believin,'" which was requested for song analysis by long-time reader HF. Surprisingly, the song may be more popular today than it ever was when it was first released in 1981........ Read More...

The Quick And Easy Effects Setup
Ever wondered what effects to dial in so things sound good during tracking without getting into your head turned around by the infinite possibilities available? Here's a quick and easy setup that will sound great.... Read More...

Busting Some Soundproofing Myths
Before you can look at some accepted ways to improve your isolation, it’s important to look at all the things that won’t work. In this excerpt from The Studio Builder’s Handbook (written with Dennis Moody) is a list of various materials that you’ll often see attached to the walls of a space in hopes of increasing the isolation, but although they won't help very much at all. Read More...

"Refugee" - Tom Petty And The Heartbreakers Song Analysis
Reader Henry Y asked for a song analysis of the song that broke Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers - "Refugee." The song was from their 1979 multi-platinum classic Damn The Torpedos LP that was TP's first Top 10.... Read More...

The Essence Of Guitar Tone
Beyond the basic body style, there are quite a number of elements that go into giving an acoustic guitar its sound. Here's an excerpt from The Ultimate Guitar Tone Handbook (co-authored with Rich Tozzoli), that shows why the kind of wood that the guitar is made from makes such a big difference. Read More...

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The Ultimate Guitar Tone Handbook

Today my new book, The Ultimate Guitar Tone Handbook, makes it's debut at NAMM 2011. The book was co-written by Rich Tozzoli, who many of you may recognize from his contributions to Pro Sound News and Premier Guitar. You've also heard Rich's guitar work on shows on the Discovery and History Channel as well as Fox Sports.

Both of us are extremely passionate about guitar tone, and we know how difficult it is for a guitar player to not only get the tone that he hears in his head, but then record it too. That's why we set out to write a book that would explain just why electric and acoustic guitars, amps and effects sound the way they do, how to realize the sound you're looking for, then have the miking and production techniques to make sure it works in the track.

You can read a table of contents and some excerpts on my personal website.

The book includes interviews with experts like Dick Boak from Martin Guitar (discussing tonewoods and acoustic guitar tone), platinum selling engineer Chuck Ainley (discussing electric and acoustic guitar miking techniques), Jim D'Addario from D'Addario Strings (discussing string technology), guitar virtuoso Al DiMeola (discussing his lifelong quest for guitar tone) and many more.

The book also comes with a DVD that looks at the miking and production of both electric and acoustic guitars. Here's an excerpt, which is about the making of Driven, a song from Rich Tozzoli's solo record.

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Help support this blog. Any purchases made through our Amazon links help support this website with no cost to you.