Grateful Dead Music Forum

I am considering taking the plunge and buying a Royer R121 ribbon mic to record my guitar sounds. I have heard of people combining this mic with a SM57 to two different tracks and mixing them together. Do any of you use this mic and how? What other great recording mics are out there (new or vintage) for guitar cabs.

1960strat wrote:I am considering taking the plunge and buying a Royer R121 ribbon mic to record my guitar sounds. I have heard of people combining this mic with a SM57 to two different tracks and mixing them together. Do any of you use this mic and how? What other great recording mics are out there (new or vintage) for guitar cabs.

57s are solid mics and nice to have cuz they can double as a vocal mic if needed.

I prefer the Sennheiser e609 but if I needed to buy an amp mic and could only buy 1, I'd do a 57.

I already have both an e609 and a SM57. I have been told ribbon mics are the way to go.. but much $$$ a new Royer is about 1200.

What are you recording into? What is your training as an engineer? What other tools will you be using?

Sure they are better but not if you are gonna go into a PC soundcard and use Audiology as an editor.

Just like my guitar playing, my engineering experience is pretty limited. Having said that i do have pretty good gear. I am using Protools and recording into either a firewire 2626 interface or an maudio fasttreack ultra interface. I use a macbook pro. i am using the following amps (not plug-ins, real amps) 64 Vibroverb, 65 deluxe reverb, 68 princeton reverb, 71 twin, 86 marshall jcm800, and 86 mesa mark 3.

1960strat wrote:Just like my guitar playing, my engineering experience is pretty limited. Having said that i do have pretty good gear. I am using Protools and recording into either a firewire 2626 interface or an maudio fasttreack ultra interface. I use a macbook pro. i am using the following amps (not plug-ins, real amps) 64 Vibroverb, 65 deluxe reverb, 68 princeton reverb, 71 twin, 86 marshall jcm800, and 86 mesa mark 3.

Nice amps! I can see why you'd want them properly represented! And a nice home recording / band recording rig. To my ears I don't hear a huge difference between a multi-quality mic strategy and ribbon when using PC based effects. You may. However what I have heard is the significance of placement, distance, and room qualities with mics that have been much, MUCH more signigicant. However YMMV.


PS - what speaker is in your 64 VV? I've got one too! A very sweet score! Mine is loaded with a 15" Jensen. Delicious!!

It has a sweet JBL D130F. It has a replacement output transformer so its not completely original.

1960strat wrote:It has a sweet JBL D130F. It has a replacement output transformer so its not completely original.

Nice! I love D130Fs! However, I had that in my garrison already so that's why I love the Jensen!

Mine isn't 100% original either. Can't remember but either the speaker or one of the trannies was changed in the mid 60s.