II. Dynamic Mics

The Dynamic mics are pretty good, but can sound overly aggressive. They almost sound like a real amp with a blanket over the speakers, then a touch of highs added on top later on. The highs are bright but the presence is lacking. In fact, when you turn up presence for these, often you'll notice you get a thicker sound, not necessarily what you'd expect by adding more presence. I like the sound of the XXL cab with the 409 and the Tread V-30 with the 421, but I use these very sparingly. The 409 can sound more vintage with other cabs.

I sparingly use the 409 for dual cabs - it can fill in some punch and warmth pretty well, but in general I find other mics below do it better.

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III. Condenser Mics

I can't tell if these mics dial in a good bit of midrange or are simply noisy. The 67 is a bit tamer than the 87. The 87 I use sparingly. I tried to work with the '87 for a while and was digging it at one point, but I eventually gave up on it.

These mics sound "squishier" than the others, which can sound a little djenty. You get less high end definition, but the overall sound is a bit smoother. They might work well for lead tone in a mix with a lot of space, but I don't think they'd cut through at all in any kind of busy mix. It just sounds way too noisy to me.

I tend to like the 67 and sometimes the 87 for dual cab tones. They add punch and warmth nicely and "fill in" the tone. Just watch out for some buzzy high end creeping in - you may have to dial down the treble on the amp using this.

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IV. Ribbon Mics

The 4038 actually sounds kind of like a mild version of the Condenser mics, but a bit buzzier or filtered-sounding. It's usable but kind of dark. Maybe it'd work for a real grindy tone. The 121 will get you nowhere for high gain tones from my experience, at least on its own. I know many metal bands use a 121 to record. I could never get anything worthwhile from the 121 model though. I do like it for mid-centric clean tones though.

The 121 is great for dual cab tones, filling in a lot of midrange and punch, but not really putting out a bunch of nasty high-end like the dynamics and sometimes even the condensers. The 4038 is more difficult to blend in due to its raucous high-end, but it can be made to work.

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E. Dual Cabs

I. Introduction

Using the dual cab technique I'm presenting here can improve your direct tone dramatically. However, this is not for the faint of heart. It requires about 2x as much time to dial in as a single cab patch. You will also take a heavy DSP hit, so this is not recommended where you need many effects on your patches - in some cases you won't be able to fit a single reverb after adding a distortion effect and the necessary EQ effects.

Every cab/mic will have some frequency range that sounds fake, washed out, or muffled. Luckily, I don't believe these are always in the same spot. This means that you can combine complementary cab/mic's to get what sounds like one great cab.

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