Was there a rule of thumb when miking the guitar amps?
Siket: I always position dynamic mics very close up on the amps to minimize signal bleed from the other instruments. I used a Sennheiser MD409 on Al’s Marquis 30. Because of how the band set up, there wasn’t a lot of room to fit in a mic stand, so I just draped mics over the fronts of the amps, right up on the grille cloths. We also tracked the guitars with some light compression from a pair of Universal Audio 2-1176s. You’re not a fan of recording guitars direct to combat leakage? Siket: No—I want the amp sound. That said, sometimes I couldn’t get a good miked sound with all the guys cranked up, so on Al’s mandolin, we used a Fishman pickup and ran direct. But even for recording acoustic guitar—where I was having similar leakage problems with my Neumann KM54—I preferred to place a gobo in front of the performer to shield the mic. Rob, how did you get your bass sound? Derhak: I use a Pedulla MVP JJ with Bartolini pickups, a vintage Gibson EB2, a Ritter Classic 4-String, a 1977 Musicman
