What’s your approach to mic’ing guitar cabinets? Turn them away from the crowd and put a spare vocal mic on them? Wrap them in a blanket? Put them in a box or a closet? Church Production recently talked with Bryce Boynton, audio director at Flatirons Church, a multi-site based in Lafayette, Colo., about an interesting, flexible solution the Flatirons team constructed to help mic guitar speaker cabinets or combo rigs.
“I used to spend so much time setting up and mic’ing guitar cabinets each week.,” Boynton says. “It just seemed like there had to be an easier way. I didn’t want to fully isolate each amp or combo because that’s even more time-consuming and takes up a lot of space. Besides, if you put a speaker in a box… it winds up sounding like it’s in a box.”
The solution, which Boyton says he was first inspired by at a tech conference at Saddleback in southern California, is a four-compartment wide, three-compartment tall custom cabinet that contains a “wall” of guitar amps. Boynton helped spec out the design, and the cabinets were built by a high-end kitchen cabinet maker who belongs to the church.
The innovative wall of guitar amps is designed to allow fast, easy access to a variety of mics and mic'ing techniques on the guitar cabinets.
The bottom bay of the custom cabinet is for amp/speaker combos, while the smaller middle section is for amp heads. It sits at waist to chest high to enable quick and easy access to the controls. The combo amps are on sliding shelves so that you can quickly pull out the amp to adjust settings on top. The larger top row is where the speaker cabinets are located. This puts most of the speakers at ear level and eliminates the need to squat or bend over to hear what’s coming out of the cabinet. It also makes the cabinets very easy to manipulate and experiment with microphone technique. The front and back are fully open to allow easy access to power and speaker connectors. Most importantly, the open front and back design gives the amplifiers room to “breathe” and perform to their best potential.
The structure is made from heavy-duty, 1/2-inch plywood, and each bay is lined with carpet and acoustic absorption foam on three sides (two sides and the top). Each bay is about three feet deep, enabling the mic to be placed fully within the bay and virtually eliminating bleed from adjacent amps. The concrete wall behind the structure is treated with duct liner, and a 20-ounce velour theatrical-style curtain separating the wall from the stage helps isolate the sound from impeding stage noise.
Guitarists are able to mix and match amp and speaker combinations using a patch bay to further tailor their sounds. But Boynton points out that mic selection plays a major role. Some speakers are really bright and certain microphones don’t handle those sounds well, reports Boynton. Other speakers are really dark and warm--and it often takes experimentation with various mics to get the sound that translates well into the PA.
“It’s easy to throw a Sennheiser e906 on a speaker and call it a day, but that might not be the best possible sound for every combination,” Boynton notes. “On certain amps we may opt for a dynamic over a condenser or a ribbon, or vice versa. Last week we used a Sennheiser MD421 on a bass amp and it sounded fantastic. But other times we’ll use a dynamic or a dark condenser or a ribbon. Also, sometimes we’ll double mic the amps and have fun mixing between the two.”
This set up allows Boyton and other members of the audio team at Flatirons Church to play with different amp and speaker combinations, as well as speaker microphone combinations, quickly and easily. “Everything is prewired and at waist or eye level.” Boyton says.
Boyton acknowledges that this solution may not be practical in all venues. In some churches it may be necessary to provide enough isolation for an amp by completely enclosing it due to a smaller room size or proximity to the stage area. He also suggests that church sound engineers and musicians need to ask themselves, “Is this amp appropriate for the music itself and the venue that it’s being used in?” He says it’s important to let an amp be used to its best potential, which can often be at the top of its gain range. If the amp must be isolated, it should have enough space around it so that it doesn’t sound like it’s constricted. “Each venue is different and proposes different challenges,” he adds. But to get the best possible results, it’s important to make sure all the gear is functioning to its best potential--from the guitar to the PA.
“However, many of our players have invested in boutique amps from Bogner, Marshall, Matchless, Fender, Tyler, Denver Amp Works and others, and we want to help them get their chosen sound into the mix without compromise. Mics are definitely part of the flavor of the combination, and with our new wall we have the benefit of not having to completely isolate the amps--and we have the freedom and access to make changes quickly and easily,” he closes.
