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Often times, in our quest for the ultimate tone, we guitarists are so focused on finding the perfect guitar, amp, or pedal that we forget one of the most important parts of the signal chain – the microphone.  Whether you’re rocking a live show or recording an album in the studio, you’ll be depending on a properly placed microphone to faithfully translate your “ultimate tone” to the audience.  In this article we will focus on the “properly placed” part of this equation and cover some tried-and-true mic techniques you can use to get great guitar tones. Distance & Depth Perhaps the most crucial element of good mic technique is finding the optimum distance from the mic to the sound source. Your wall of sound will crumble quickly without an understanding of the profound affect distance has on your microphone’s bass response and clarity, as well as the sense of depth heard in the final product. Mics with directional polar patterns (cardioid or figure-8) will show a marked increase in bass response the closer they are to the sound source. The technical term for this phenomenon is “proximity effect”, and all directional microphones are subject to it in varying degrees.  A good example is the Shure SM57, easily the most common cardioid mic used on guitar cabinets. In common use the ’57 will often be shoved right up onto the grill of a speaker cabinet to maximize the proximity effect. This technique works well with the SM57 because it complements the ‘57’s natural frequency response, which exhibits a sharp bass roll-off below 150Hz and a sharp increase in mid and treble frequencies above 3000Hz.  The natural frequency curve of the Shure SM57, with added low-end from proximity effect, results in a guitar sound that exhibits both good clarity and respectable low-end. Microphones with flatter frequency response and deeper bass, like the Sennheiser MD421, or the Royer R121 ribbon mic that we use here at the PGS studios, often need to be placed further away from the speaker to avoid the low-end mud and distortion that can result from a build up of proximity effect.  For example, we usually place our Royer figure-8 ribbon microphone 6-8 inches from the speaker of our Fender Deluxe.  In addition to achieving a more balanced overall tone, moving the mic back further from the amp also gives the sound space to “breathe” and interact with the room before it hits the microphone diaphragm, making for a lively, organic guitar tone that sounds more like what your ears hear in the room.