Mic question

Hi dudes!

That's my first post here in the recording section, so you can easily conclude that I don't know crap about recording . :(

I need to know which works better to mic an amp, omnidirectional or unidirectional mics ... I assumed that unidirectional would catch less noise, but I want some advice from experts here.
Also, what does "dynamic" mic mean?

Any help is appreciated.

Thanx. :)

If you know jack about recording, buy a pod.

Recording nice sounding guitar with a mic is difficult for lots of reasons. I'm only going to touch on the tip of the iceberg here.... and remember a pod saves you form having to know all this and more.

Ultimately, some of the nicest sounds can be obtained using a mic however you have to A) know what you are doing B) have a place that is acoustically suitable and C) have the right kit.

Mics:
Dynamic is the opposite of Condenser. It means the mic doesn't need external power because it generates its own by making sound waves move a coil in a magnetic field (like a guitar pickup really).

Dynamic mics typically have fix directional input such as cardioid or hyper-cardioid response patterns which rejects sounds to the side and rear. A typical example would be a Shure SM57, which incidentally is the standard for recording live guitar.

As far as recording guitar goes mic position is critical. With a cardioid pattern mic comes a shift in tone as you move the mic off axis (to the side of the speaker). This is used to great effect when recording guitar and will give you a very different sound depending on the placement of the mic. Most people like a 57 pointed directly at the top right corner of a speaker directly on the cloth grill of there amp.

Live SM57s are great as the can handle a very high SPL (volume) with out the capsule blowing (unlike the more sensitive large diaphragm condensers). The also reject noise from other instruments near by due to their cardioid sensitivity pattern.

Remember most of the sound you hear is actually reflected sound not sound coming striate out of your amp and this is important and also reflects on the choice of omni (lots of ambient sound), cardioid (a bit of ambient sound) or uni (not much ambient sound depending on the direction of the mic. It also means the acoustic properties of the room you are in will drastically effect the sound you get.

In the studio people use two mic to great effect one on the amp (as describes above) and one 6 ft away, 6ft in the air for ambiance. Condensers are my first choice for this however they require phantom power to operate and that usually means a preamp.

The next impotent thing is compression. You will want a lot of this if you cont want your guitar to come and go relative to the bass and vocals.

Then comes a preamp for the mic (remember the output of a microphone is LoZ signal not line level.). The nicer the preamp and A/D converter (if you are recording digitally) thin nicer your finished result will sound.

Now you can double track to fatten up your sound ...

or get a pod !

Thanx a million doc , that's more than I wanted to know! :D

I think I'll get the unidirectional dynamic mic that I saw couple of days ago at Radioshack , it was very affordable and looked nice.
I want to capture the tone from my tube amp, that's why I thought of using a mic and not getting POD or something, not to mention that it's way costy than the mic I'm gonna buy.

Thanx again for the usefull info.

one more word of warning:
cheap mics sound cheap, that is why they are cheap.

What are you going to use as a pre ? Are you planning of using any outboard gear ? If so you will need to bring your mic (loZ signal up to line level before it can go through a compressor or a midiverb or whatever.

Anyway, best of luck

(I'd sill forgo the mic and buy a pod 100 bucks on eBay, that is less than an SM57 and a good cable !!)

I'm not going to use a pre or anything... Will just go directly to the soundcard in my computer.
Unfortunately , e-bay don't ship to egypt , and I don't know if I can get a used one from here ... POD's ain't really popular over here.

I just want something that can decently capture my amp's tone , with as less noise as possible , that's all.
I really feel ashamed that I've been playing guitar for 8 years or so , and all the recording I've done are either low quality cassette recording in jamming studios or the cheap computer headphone-mic thing.

I will get that $30 mic as a first step, in a few months I should have more experience and interest , and may be willing to throw some cash for higher quality recording.

I don't want to spend more money on something I have no experience with, cuz I can possibly end up losing interest in couple of weeks.

Best of luck !

Thanx man !