Recording guitars with a DIY Isolation Cabinet (+ how to build one)
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- Опубліковано 5 тра 2011
- A tutorial about recording great guitar tones at home without disturbing the neighbors, with a DIY isolation cabinet, or iso box.
I built it in 2007, after being inspired by Matthias IA Eklundh recordings (e.g. his freak guitar albums are recorded this way).
In this video:
I'll show you how I built it
how to record with it
and everything else that should be interesting
Check my older videos for some fully produced songs that I recorded with my isolation box:
Purple Organ (rock sounds)
• Georg Figél - Purple O...
Riverdance Theme (clean and vintage lead sound)
• Riverdance Theme - Gui...
Adagio for Strings (clean and mellow sounds)
• Adagio For Strings - i...
Benny Hill Theme (country clean, sort of)
• Benny Hill Theme / Yak...
Castlevenia - some theme (Neoclassical shred)
• Castlevania - "Prayer ...
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I think your intro should be longer.
omg 😂😂😂
I liked it, was very 90s esc.
Congrats ! the #1 rule for good recording is DON'T BE LAZY, take the effort to experiment, move things around, etc. You are the poster boy for this motto, very inspiring :)
Nice one! This gave me a lot of inspiration to build my own isolation box :D Very detailed explanation and simple to understand!
Very awesome. I've been meaning to build an isolation box for a while now. I was thinking of just suspending a guitar speaker in a box, I hadn't thought of just putting a small cabinet inside a box.
Very well done video. Your Iso box is built like a tank. Thanks for sharing your design.
Georg, great video! Thank you for taking the time to put this together.
You should do a comparison of the same equipment without the isolation box vs with it and how it sounds.
The part with the difference between loud amp vs. loud mic preamp was really cool! It'd be awesome to hear more of that.
Great, I didn't know that kind of stuff. Thank you. And nice instrumental work and a lot of fun ;-)
keep it as analogue as possible, i'm going to push to build one of these for our pre production stuff, great video man
Great video! Some suggest adding some reverb to compensate for the lack of 'room' in the boxed recordings. In my experience, however, for rock guitar a bit of slap delay (5% mix with left 80ms, right 90ms delay) gives you a better feeling of a recording space, without mudding up your recordings as would adding reverb do.
Excellent work! Thanks for sharing mate!
Excellent video!
that's very clever man! Loved it. Thanks for sharing.
bro,,,,,,, mind blown. I'm going to build one next weekend. Very nice man.
I converted a SUNN 2 x12 cab into a stereo isolation box. the speakers were already recessed in the cab. I added acoustic insulation inside. I also made a frame to cover the front of the cab. For the mic, I installed a small stand and a dual adapter to hold 2 SM57s. I installed a XLR jack plate for the microphones outputs. The speaker connections were changed from mono to stereo.
Iv been here for 2 hours and Im still watching the intro
😂😂
Really , really cool and clear Video my friend!
very cool to share this on youtube.... oh and i like your little touch of humour in the intro music...
cool! thanx for video dude. It's very useful!
Regarding floor vibrations, you may be able to alleviate that by doing the bottom like the sides and top, with the cabinet on casters inside the box, and/or mounting the box itself on casters or feet. You'd still get some resonance, but it would transfer to smaller points and will be diffused by the insulation in the floor (or the downstairs-neighbor's ceiling insulation).
Loving the Richie Kotzen poster. I only discovered him recently and I feel like a nimrod. He’s such a damn good singer and guitarist. Cheers from Chicago.
super cool video!
Thats a great video! Thanks for sharing.
so, how do you recored nowadays? any video of the new method?
I'm picking up a orange micro dark terror (20 watt amp the size of a lunchbox) and a 1-12 cab with a V30 speaker just so I can do this and only have to build a little cabinet. Will probably is wood screws so I can disassemble and store in the garage. Looks great and thanks for the video!
Nicely done. I'd love to see what kind of isolation you get from this. Perhaps you can measure an 85dB signal inside the cabinet, then measure that signal at the same volume setting, but with the cab closed and the meter on the outside. Perhaps a 10dB difference?
very cool. thanks for the idea
Great work buddy. We thank you a lot...
Great video! Thanks!
Thank you!!!!! very very intuitive and helpful vid!!!
Very nice work.
Great video, thanks for sharing!
Haha weird, you just commented on my video and I just happened to stumble across your vid on the iso cab. Looks good. I really want one.
Still a useful video 11 years later. I just got my 2nd Mesa cab this time a 2x12 so your box would be perfect. A 2 notes captor might be the same price as all the materials.
thanks man. I don't have the dimensions at hand right now, but I basically just added space on all sides for the acoustic foam + room for putting up microphones... also, I built it so it fits perfectly into that corner of the room ;)
Awesome vid, I think I'll build one!!
Great job!
Great man..it is very usefull!!
Hi, one question, it needs to be exact size of the amp?? Because I want to record with two amps one 1x10 and one 1x12 thanks for the video
thank's a lot :)
It seems as if there are more musicians starting out these days, I can hear all kinds of instruments playing at the neighbors :)
Thank you, greetings from Colorado.
Question: what about preventing standing waves in there? Is it advisable to make non-parallel walls for a similar build like this?
:) He looks like a ski jumper from Norway: Rune Velta..:) good job!!!
great!
nice diy!
gettuda choppaaaa! XD great video!
love your videos :D
I love the intro, and the cab is EPIC... if it was a tiny bit bigger you could get a drummer in there, I wish I had the space for such things!
thanks, and good luck to you with the cab :)
Great work. How well does it keep sound out? I want to put one of these in a room that's close to the Central AC unit for the house, and the mics pick that up. I'm hoping that an iso box will solve both of my issues at once: recording volume and external noises.
Really nice video mate, great job on the isolation booth as well ;-)
A wild Rob appears
Didnt expect to see you here lol
great video my friend!!
Awesome vid buddy 👍🏻 Now I've got a cool little project I can finally get to work on and for the first time it isn't Metal lol 😆
great post!
great vid! =D ima try this hehe
Thanks a lot. I am able to isolate myself perfectly now. :)
@Aappleyard2a yes, that also works, I've seen some isolation boxes, where the speaker was built directly into the isolation box, so without a cabinet.
Some guitar speakers can take a bit more watt than others, but you can always take the standard route and use a V30.
Rather use a low wattage amp for recording. Using e.g. a tripple Rectifier with 150W into a single speaker could surely break that speaker at higher volumes
Great video! But I was wondering, if i would build the space where the mic stands are standing smaller, and hang a little mic stand against the wall of the box, and mic it with a smaller mic (Sennheiser E 906 or something) and then mic the speaker from there. Would that influence the sound in a bad way? A smaller box makes it easier to tour and play gigs. Thank you!
You deserve more than 5000 views!!!
pretty great sound!
Soooooo, would I be able to crank a '65 Twin Reverb in one of these?
thanks :)
Yes, the box has a floor, but I've seen some isolation boxes without a floor. The box affects the tone a little bit, the amp settings will need some adjustments once the box is closed.
Great video! Thank you
Hey what are the measurements of the box? I have the exact same mesa cabinet and would really LOVE to build one of these for my place.
Thank you so much for posting this video, I'n two weeks time I shall have my own Isolation Cabinet :)
awesome, good luck :)
hey. my amp is a little champion 600 (combo), will not that cabinet get too hot with the tubes inside and damage my amp?
How do you not get serious low end boost in this box? A 3'x3' box with no room for corner treating sounds like it would be absolutely hell to mix haha
#guitarDouchebaggery I built last week an iso-cab likr yours. And it is terrific! Thanks for the hints about material. The Floor laminate is a very good choice!
Love it!
great Man!
geile sache, echt super :) bin begeistert :D
I made one of these out of old wood boards and threw a bunch of blankets on top. It stopped all the acoustic sound from the strings from being picked up by the microphone. But it's still pretty loud in my recoding space.
@tpulse2001 yes, that should work perfectly. When close miking, the room sound is less important. Also, because of the acoustic foam there shouldn't be any noticeable room sound anyways.
this thing is realy help and can be improved with air between the foam and plywood.
@FeelingShred yes, I've seen that one. He also built a really interesting tunnel-thing for his ambiance mic
suscribed for the great intro xD!. great vid..
Hello, dude! Great video! Do you have more samples recorded with this box? I'd like to listen more to its sound, if possible. Usually these boxes produce a boxy sound... do you think these measurements are good enough to avoid that? Thank you!!
great stuff man and richie kotzen rules :D
This is how real IR impulses are done, you can also IR mics as well when using the inclosed method. This box looks pathetic but most have no idea how important it is. It is now being used in smaller Studios since it's way cheaper to do it this way than rent big studio spaces. Everyone laughed at me when I showed my small shoebox Mic IR capture box a few years ago and now it is being used everywhere. I was capturing Mic iR's years before it became mainstream. Because something looks weird and or "Why would you put an amp or speaker box in a iso box?" does not mean that it should be considered dumb.
Keep up the good work.
"Think outside the box" 😉
Hello dude I like this idea of your box however, could you tell me if when you record inside the box, do you get any kind of boxy sound or too much bass in the recording, due the amp being trapped in the box? Thanks..
Hey great DIY video and awesome ISO Cab!! Does it make a difference to have that front foam be concave or convex?
@Sphereal thanks, I posted it on facebook fan page though, it might just not got shown, some things don't seem to show up sometimes
Great Video. #1 Does the box have a floor, or is that just your "room floor". #2 Does the box affect the "character" or "tone" of the amp, much (as compared to open aired) Thanks
Excellent video, thank you!! One thing: they say an isolation cabinet/box that cannot 'breathe' will sound ALOT less good than one that can breathe because of the pressure buildup caused by the lack of ways for the air to travel. How do you stand on this?
Cool video thanks
nice video! very clever,,,
I'm not sure if I understand the question correctly. The power cable of the amp is plugged into the AC outlet. The output of the amp, goes into the speaker over a speaker cable.
@megadarkstar82 no, I got no boxyness
it's just really dry sounding, no reverb whatsoever
the sound changes slightly when the box is closed, so if it's too bassy you just change the EQ of the amp a little
Awesome work man, Im gonna build me one too for my recordings because I cant make noise and I need to record tracks. What do you use for the floor? if any. I am gonna make a floor for it and add wheels for portability. Thanks for all the info.
Great performance! Here works a great talent!!! Hot intro!!! (...says a keyboarder!) :)
sir, this is one sexy isolation cabinet! :) great vid, tnx
hi, yes, there are subtle changes, most noticeably in the bass frequencies.
So I always had to adjust the settings on the amp a bit once the lid was closed.
+ the sound was very dry, without any reverb, so I added those effects later on in Cubase
hey georg, do you think this is effective enough to say, use in the basement of a home without affecting the people who live above?
hey man cool video
i have one question, do you think it is enough if the absorber is only 5 cm large
thanks a lot, glad you liked it
hi Georg
how wide the wood that you used ?
Didn't see any mention of the cost, what would you say the estimated final cost was?
hey man really love the video but just had one question, i only have one guitar cabinet and i gig sometimes so if i were to do what you did but have instead of the door hinge to open the top, have the door hinge to open the side so its more accessible, would that cause it to be louder?
thanks a bunch!
My compliments, Georg
Do you have a video on why you should have a pre amp?
will the box stop the mic's picking up background noise from outside the box?