[Harp-L] What a difference a mic makes

[Richard Hunter <turtlehill@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

There's been a lot of discussion about amp modelers and amps and their respective sounds, and it occurred to me a few days ago that mics haven't been a big part of the discussion.  But they should be.  I get a lot of questions from people who want to know whether they can use particular mics with an amp modeler.  This post addresses that question, and the short answer is: you can use any mic you like, and if you want a particular sound, you should use the mic that produces that sound.

Amp modelers by definition "model" the behavior of a "real" amp--they use chips to mimic the signal processing of an analog circuit.  The microphone that feeds the signal to the amp is obviously a big part of the signal chain--to put it another way, if it's not in the signal from the mic, it's not going to come through the amp (modeler).    

For the last several years, I've used an Audix Fireball as the front end to my setup.  I like this mic for a lot of reasons, but there's no question that it does NOT sound the same as a typical blues mic--to take two obvious points, it doesn't exhibit a lot of proximity effect, and it doesn't distort the way an overloaded Bullet mic does.  That's not a problem for me--I'm willing to trade off that capability for the stuff that the Audix does very well.  But it might be a problem for people who rely heavily on the mic's behavior to shape the sound before it gets to the amp.

So I've recorded myself playing similar blues licks through a very hard-hitting, bluesy amp modeled patch on my Digitech RP500, using 3 different mics: the Fireball, a Shure 545SD (which is popular among blues players who prefer stick-type vocal mics), and a Bottle o' Blues (my favorite cheapo dirty blues mic).  You can hear the results here:
http://www.hunterharp.com/what-a-difference-a-mic-makes-part-1/

Short summary: if you use a blues mic with an amp modeler, you'll get a blue sound.  

Thanks, Richard Hunter

author, "Jazz Harp" 
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