AKG D 112

musician of various genres (electronic, jazz, indie rock) since 2001. i've been recording myself and local musicians for a few years. for a DAW, i use either FL studio 7 or protools m-powered 7. my interfaces include m-audio NRV10 and m-audio FW410. i listen with KRK V6, sony mdr 7506, and AKG k240.

i'd like to recommend using this for guitar amps. it has this extremely authoritative, low-mid growl that i don't get with other bass-pickup mics (specifically the shure beta52). the user manual doesn't lie when it says the d112 will restore the lacking bass response of open-backed cabinets. it makes my fender blues junior sound huge. it has a fairly mellow high end response, but the fender amps are known to be bright, so perhaps this mic balances the sound. it masks that hissy distortion sound that you will find with the sm57 and the audix i5, and condenser mics. the positioning i like is about 45 degrees off-axis with the speaker, 1.5 in. from the grill cloth, at the edge of the cone, pointing in towards the middle. i also tried a two mic approach, mixing the d112 with the beta52 (both in the same position mentioned above), and that sounds pretty good too. a little more complicated, but still a useful sound. make sure you get the phases aligned right.

for me this mic has been a huge problem-solver for that amp. before, i used to use two mics; one for the front and one for the back. it worked, but this sounds far more natural, and is simpler.

I have been a musician for almost 20 years, and a professional engineer for 10 years.I have worked in 20 plus studios. We record to the Fostex D2424 units, Genelec , Tannoy and custom made monitors. The consoles we use are 2 Ramsa DA7 ran in tandem.

The D112 is a dynamic kick drum mic. It is also verry usefull on acoustic, and electric bass. We have also used it on lead vocal tracks where the mic has preformed verry well. This is one of over 100 mics I have to choose from, and it is a great choice. It also sounds great with the front head on a kick drum wich some people claim to have difficulty tracking.
This is a well rounded mic with many aplications. This is the best for a kick with the front head on, and also with a hole in it. I would recomend this as a good first choice for someone looking to record kick drum, and bass if they only could afford one mic for both jobs. You will not be dissapointed with any AKG product. We have several of their mics, and they are all used frequently, and we plan an buying them all, and every mic ever made because you can never have enough mics, and we are gear heads. Choice is verry important the more choices you have the better the end result will be.
Choice, and placment are critical, and never put a mic where you would not put your ear louder is not better it is just louder. At times I will track instruments that I want to stand out in the mix at a lower volume, and then use the gain, or an outboard preamp to boost the level. To find the best place for a cardiod mic cover one ear, and find the sweet spot then put on a pair of headphones, and zero it in, for a stereo pair cup your hands behind your ear to find the sweet spot.
If you want a good setup to record, and do live gigs get an EV RE20, or D112 for the kick and one for the bass, 2 AKG C451 for overheads, Behringer ECM8000, or Shure SM81 then next an AKG D310 for guitars, or Sennheiser e609 or e906, for vocals, and snare drum an AKG D190, EV 767 or Shure Beta 58. You can rent most of the mics I mentioned here to try and see if they fit your sound verry inexspensively, or come try them at our studio Gargoyle Recording Studios.