Pictures of iso cabs, amp closets etc.

[Rick Sutton]

OK, Mine is butt ugly, but it does get the job done. I built it back in my shop area about 50 feet from the control room and have been using it when tracking and during mix to reamp DI'd bass. Hartke bass cab, u47fet mic, 80 watt mosfet amp.
The cab weighs at least 500 pounds and is double wall constuction with sand between the walls. It is 4 feet high by 4 feet long by 3 1/2 feet wide. Screwed, glued and caulked. Interior has 703 and sonex . The cab is slanted back about 45degrees. Access is thru a door on right front and mics can be changed or moved. To replace the cab the entire front has to be unscrewed and taken off.

Here's a joke on me. The sound had improved quite a bit when I dedicated the U47 to the job but I've noticed in the last month or so that the iso sound has had a much better tone and just attributed it to the tone of the DI'd basses that I had been working with and not thinking anything had changed with the iso cab. Well.......when I opened the door to take the interior picture I was surprised to see the mic was not in its normal position. Usually it is pointed toward one of the speaker cones, as you would expect, but it was now pointing down toward the floor and was at 90 degrees to the speaker. I don't have a clue how it got like that but I'm going to keep it that way and see if this is the "magic" spot. Who'd a thunk it.

If you've got some kind of iso cab/amp arrangement or amp closet, whether home built or commercial, how about letting us see?
Thanks, Rick

[Rick Sutton]

Here's a shot thru the access door.

[tomdarude]

wow...great thread!! keep it coming, guys....
I´m about to build an iso-cab for my new place in october

....so let´s see some great DIY ideas!

tom

[Jeff16years]

Originally Posted by Rick Sutton

OK, Mine is butt ugly, but it does get the job done. I built it back in my shop area about 50 feet from the control room and have been using it during mix to reamp DI'd bass. Hartke bass cab, u47fet mic, 80 watt mosfet amp.
The cab weighs at least 500 pounds and is double wall constuction with sand between the walls. It is 4 feet high by 4 feet long by 3 1/2 feet wide. Screwed, glued and caulked. Interior has 703 and sonex . The cab is slanted back about 45degrees. Access is thru a door on right front and mics can be changed or moved. To replace the cab the entire front has to be unscrewed and taken off.

Here's a joke on me. The sound had improved quite a bit when I dedicated the U47 to the job but I've noticed in the last month or so that the iso sound has had a much better tone and just attributed it to the tone of the DI'd basses that I had been working with and not thinking anything had changed with the iso cab. Well.......when I opened the door to take the interior picture I was surprised to see the mic was not in its normal position. Usually it is pointed toward one of the speaker cones, as you would expect, but it was now pointing down toward the floor and was at 90 degrees to the speaker. I don't have a clue how it got like that but I'm going to keep it that way and see if this is the "magic" spot. Who'd a thunk it.

If you've got some kind of iso cab/amp arrangement or amp closet, whether home built or commercial, how about letting us see?
Thanks, Rick

nice job!.
tell me...
are all of the walls parallel? tilting the actual speaker cab is a good idea.
i need to build something like this.
good thread.
-Jeff

[Jeff16years]

by the way

i wish i had enough fet47 hanging around that I could dedicate 1 to my bass booth.

WTF

[heyman]

"Screwed, glued and caulked"


That could pretty much some up a Paris Hilton Thread as well...!

[joeq]

police found the teenager still alive, locked inside this crude wooden dungeon
...

[amost]

OK, Mine is butt ugly,

nuh uh...it's beautiful compared to mine. Still thinking on how to do it.

Just moved into a house & I have a pretty good unfinished space in the basement but under the stairs is calling for an iso cab space. Getting ideas here thanks! I can actually get a 4x12 in there if I wanted...but probably a 2x12 will be it. BTW it's dry down there...that's some funk on the wall.

[TEMAS]

I'm building mine next week. What I'm planning is something which will also be used as a seat (when not being used for amps). It will be like a trunk which has a top/lid that opens up, instead of a door that opens out.

It will be 5ft long x 2&1/2ft high x 2&1/2ft deep. Gonna go for 2 layers of 18mm MDF with MLV inbetween the 2 layers and put 100mm rockwool covered in fabric up against the inside of the walls.

I may also use it to store spare duvets and pillows, which should help to reduce the reflections!!

[Rick Sutton]

Originally Posted by Jeff16years

are all of the walls parallel?
-Jeff

I'm not a good carpenter so I gotta shoot for parallel. The combination of speaker tilt, lots of trapping ( you can't see it in the picture but behind the speaker is about 20"thick of Owens Corning 703 across the entire back of iso cab and it's also at an angle that the speaker lays up against) and moderate volume keep things under control. There are no reflective surfaces anywhere in the iso box.

[doorknocker]

I wonder if anybody has done shooutouts with the exact same setup both in an Iso cab and out in a good sounding room.

I plan to expand my studio next year and I want to build maybe 2 specific Iso rooms. This is mainly for seperation's sake and not for noise reasons.
My plan is to go for a bigger sized cab with a surface structure similar to what I have in my live room (wood floor, stonewalls, brickwall).

If have a feeling that recording in a totally dead enclosure will sound totally dead eventually, am I wrong?

[Rick Sutton]

Originally Posted by doorknocker

I wonder if anybody has done shooutouts with the same setup both in an Iso cab and a good sounding room

If have a feeling that recording in a totally dead enclosure will sound totally dead eventually, am I wrong?

My experience has been that once you go below a decent room size space you are compelled to "overkill' the iso space because the reflections are far too dominant and un-natural. The fact that you are recording in basically a closet becomes apparent and there is no way to fix that once it shows in the recording. Also, many of the recordings of amps that we are used to hearing are made with the mic so close to the cone that any room is rendered moot. The iso isn't for all sounds, just a device to save your butt when the traditional approach is unavailable or cost/space prohibitive....in my opinion. Oh course I'd take a recording of a cabinet in a good sounding space over a dead iso cab but circumstances sometimes require the use of an iso.

[mdsmith64]

I've been very interested in iso cabinets lately myself. The problem is, every sound clip I've heard of these things always has that "boxy" sound. I've looked into the Demeter cabinet (http://www.demeteramps.com/ ), the Randall isolation cabinet (http://www.randallamplifiers.com/pro...tion/index.asp) and the AxeTrack iso cab (http://www.jlhproducts.com/axetrak/main.asp ) Sometimes the boxy sound sounds good. This great and quircky guitar player Matias IA Eklund uses a home made iso cab and I love his sound (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fRGtY_gvvYE ) It's very boxy, but I like it. It's different. I wouldn't want it on every guitar in every track, however. For this reason I probably won't be getting one, or making my own anytime soon.


Best Regards,

Mike.

[mdsmith64]

Just for fun (and because I think this guy needs more attention for his innovative playing) here a couple more vids:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vc329X_8bFo

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_fdlke8EsuU

Best Regards,

Mike.

[Rick Sutton]

Originally Posted by mdsmith64

The problem is, every sound clip I've heard of these things always has that "boxy" sound. .

You may have build one to eliminate the boxy sound. The commercial ones are really pretty small. I calculated the cubic footage of the enclosures you listed and they come out like this:
Demeter...........5.65 cu.ft.
Randall.............5.90 cu.ft.
Axetrack...........0.90 cu.ft.
My homejob.....45.00 cu.ft.

[mdsmith64]

Originally Posted by Rick Sutton

You may have build one to eliminate the boxy sound. The commercial ones are really pretty small. I calculated the cubic footage of the enclosures you listed and they come out like this:
Demeter...........5.65 cu.ft.
Randall.............5.90 cu.ft.
Axetrack...........0.90 cu.ft.
My homejob.....45.00 cu.ft.

You may be right! However, I'm still waiting to hear a sound clip of a guitar recorded in an iso cab that didn't sound a bit boxy. I should also add that this boxy sound wasn't as apparent on the bass clips I heard (on the AxeTrack site for example). Again, it can be a cool sound. I just wouldn't want it on every single track and song. Have you tried guitar in yours yet? What did you think?

Best Regards,

Mike.

[Rick Sutton]

Originally Posted by mdsmith64

Have you tried guitar in yours yet?

Sorry Mike, but i built mine (about 10 years ago) to solve bass amp bleed in my tracking room and never have tried it for guitar. I was having problems with bass getting into my piano during tracking and it came to a head when a bad bass note got into the piano track on a very important session and it was a bitch to deal with when we discovered it at a later date. It was at that point I started building the remote bass cab. I don't seem to have any bleed problem with guitars so I never needed to try a guit cab in there. Wish I could be more help.
Rick

[r0ck1r0ck2]

definately a must for that dammed bass...
gets in everything..

nice work by the way..

i love that you used sand..

if you've got some drawings i'd love to see them..

[r0ck1r0ck2]

and just how the hell does the door work?

sand in there as well?

let's see some drawings already.

oh please

[Rick Sutton]

Originally Posted by r0ck1r0ck2

and just how the hell does the door work?

sand in there as well?

let's see some drawings already.

oh please

Like so many things I build around the studio the drawings are just a single piece of paper with quick sketches (after 4 years of architecture schooling you'd think I'd do more!) and these are tossed after the project is completed. Sorry. Really nothing fancy, the floor and walls are particle board with furring strips to hold the two layers apart and dried sand poured into them to add to the mass. The door is really pretty cheesy and if you look close you can see I cheated and just put two layers of sheetrock on top of the plywood and Sonex on top of the sheetrock. One side of the door is screwed into place and the right side is on hinges and uses slide lock bolts (along with a couple of screws) to hold it tightly shut. The right hand door is for changing the mic and to change out the cab you have to also unscrew the left hand door, which I have never done to this point. It would have been fairly simple to make both doors open easily I just didn't anticipate using it with different cabs as I have pretty good iso's on the studio. The entire cabinet is on heavy casters. You can't really move it around, but I wanted it to touch the floor with as little surface area as possible to decouple it.

[orksnork]

here's one of don fury's at www.cyclonesound.com in coney island, ny....he engineered and produced, pretty much, the entire catalog of new york hardcore for many years...

[pan60]

bump!!!

[Ca$h Marty]

I'd love to see some more of these, any one got an amp-closet to show?

[Kolt45]

Looks like something youwould lock someone in and cement shut rick!

[ManWalrus]

Nice Job Im going to have to try an FET faced at a cab like that, love new ideas! At the studio Ive been working at, one of our 3 Iso booths is completely made of wood and is an absolutely dead room. I have worked with an Iso cab, but the guitars always sound a bit boxy. The room it about 12x9 with a 13ft ceiling and clouds hanging. I like to let the amps breathe a bit!