High Gain Mic Position Demo: Sennheiser e609 (w/Playable Rig Captures)

Sennheiser's e609 Silver is designed to hang right up against a guitar cabinet, which makes it an attractive option for recording beginners and gigging players (with a need for reproducible results) alike.

What kind of tonal range can we get out of the e609 on one amp just by changing where we hang it relative to the center of the speaker cone? And what does this sound like with your own playing? These are the kinds of questions that I'm trying to explore interactively in this article format.

(Clicking the button opens my online NAM player with the captures from this article loaded, so you can plug in and try the tones yourself.)

The setup

I created a capture pack of my Marshall DSL5CR combo about a month ago with the following settings:

• Gain: 8.5

• Volume: 7

• Treble:5

• Mids: 5

• Bass: 3

• Reverb: 0

I captured my amp with the NAM sweep signal input with various settings/combinations of overdrive. For each of those overdrive choices, I did one capture with the mic over the center of the speaker cone and another with it over the bottom edge.

Here's the center position:

And the bottom edge position:

Finally, here's the EQ preset I used on my Boss EQ-200 for this:

The mic

The e609 Silver from Sennheiser is a dynamic mic designed for use on guitar cabinets, and its price (less than $100 at many stores at time of writing) makes it worthwhile to compare if you're considering something like the SM-57.

Sennheiser e609 Silver on Amazon (earns commission)

You can also check out the e906 if you are ok with spending more.

Tonal thoughts & wrapping up

In general, I think the e609 sounds better on my amp hanging near the bottom edge of the speaker cone. To my ears, it's a very present mic, and the fizz risks being too much when it's over the center of the speaker cone. But I don't think that center position is useless either; it cuts through a mix and you can use parametric EQ in a DAW to sculpt it further.

As I was playing earlier today, I felt like I could "find the fizz" with my ear if I focused on it. In a way, this is what you can do with microphone placement.