Micing hot rod deluxe & isolation box?

T

tikka308

New member
I live in an NYC apartment building and really can't afford to get evicted. I'm finding that to get the good tone & good signal level out of my hot rod deluxe, it's just too loud - especially later at night. I'm trying to explore my options - and I've heard I could use an isolation box. I've done a few searches on the bbs and google and haven't seen anything definitive except http://www.sweetwater.com/store/detail/IsolationCab/

Any suggestions

FYI: my setup is a Sennheiser MD421, SM57, summit audio 2BA-221 (For the MD421) and iMac G5...

Thanks!
 
Thanks! Have you used one before?

I'll definitely look into this. However - I should have been mentioned in my first thread that one of the reasons I was thinking about an isolation box is that I'm having troubles recording with my Sennheiser MD421 at low levels.

If I put the amp in an iso box, I am under the impression I could crank it up more, get great sound and recording levels, but still not blast the walls down?
 
I have the Blues Deluxe and had the exact same problem. I posted about it in a very similiar manner as well. If you do a search, you could probably see the comments i got on it.

I ended up building an Iso box, but it was a real tough project. I used 3/4 inch plywood in a frame of 2x6's and it is big, probabaly stands about 4 feet tall and is nearly square. I put it on some big wheels to get it off the ground and make it a bit more mobile, but it is still a beast. I lined the inside with an old rug, and put the amp in, add a bunch of ridig fiberglass bass trap panels inside-- as much as i can fit and successfully removed almost all of the high end noise from bleeding out into the room. The problem though is that i still have a lot of low end, the bass cuts right through and when the amp is cranked, the worst of it is still pretty loud for apartment living.

I have passable carpentry skills but there will always be areas where the noise will get through, the real way to build an iso box is to take one like mine, and put it in another box, stuff the areas inbetween with tons of high-mass noise absorbing, and leave as few gaps as possible. The trapping needs to be above and below the acutal amp as well.

Now here is the real rub, even if you build such a thing, a tube amp is going to put off a good amount of heat and in a heaviy insulated space like an iso box, you are going to have a hard time dissapating that heat if you play it for any extended time. With these curcuit board tube amps you risk melting solder and all sorts of problems. I think the hot rod is a good deal smaller than my Bluse Deluxe (which is about 2 full feet wide and about a foot deep, and more than a foot tall which means i had to build my box really big to accomodate space for the mic, and noise reduction trapping, which did nto even work as well as i would have liked!).

So anyway that is my experience with an iso box, i would reccomned looking into some of the options above. If i had the cash, i would be doing that about now. As it is, I just decided to live with the amp as is, and generally never turn it above "2" on the clean channel, with the volume on the pickups pretty low as well.


Good luck,
Daav
 
Daav - Thanks for the reply. Glad to hear a similar story. Sounds like one hell of a project - and something that I won't be able to get in. a 4' x 4' isolation box wouldn't leave enough room for my bed :)

I'm going to hunt for your thread and check out other options.

Appreciate the advice.
 
HERE'S MINE.

a Demeter isolation cabinet, with a celestion vintage 30, and a brand spankin' new insulation job by yours truely.


pics of the isocab, post surgery

isocab.th.jpg

when i first got the iso cab, and first heard it, i thought "this is totally worth the money".

but i also looked at the dacron insulation that lined the entire cabinet, and i thought "i can do better".

so, i went online, purchased 36 sq ft of 2" Acoustic Wedge Foam....
12"X12"X2" squares....

IMG_0488.th.jpg


so, i spent sunday afternoon, stripping out all the dacron insulation (man, that stuff was put in really well!) and prepping the surfaces for spray-adhesive gluing in the insulation.

my.php

i had to block off the speaker, and wrapped the cab around the access door for any sprayover, and starting cutting out pieces of the wedge foam, to fit in just right.
i cut out sections for the handles, the speaker wires, the mic cable, and the microphone mount.
every inch of the inside of that thing is covered now....
looks like a anechoic chamber in there!


my.php


hey! how come the pics don't show?!
 
tikka308 said:
Thanks! Have you used one before?

I'll definitely look into this. However - I should have been mentioned in my first thread that one of the reasons I was thinking about an isolation box is that I'm having troubles recording with my Sennheiser MD421 at low levels.

If I put the amp in an iso box, I am under the impression I could crank it up more, get great sound and recording levels, but still not blast the walls down?
Click to expand...

What Outlaws said...the THD hot plates are great for exactly your situation. In the long run, a different mic and/or pre-amp may still be a better solution (budget wise and realestate considerations) than an isolation box. And, it will be a whole lot easier to move if you ever decide to move.

I don't know what you're using for a mic pre but, I've gotten great results at low levels with the E609...but you might be committed to the 421...Just a thought.
 
I've done a lot of Low Volume recording with both the E609 and the SM 57. I'm pretty confident that you would be able to pull off some nice sounding clips with either of those mic's. I have no experience with the 421 though....

The hot plate is good, but you are limited to the impeadance of that unit. I personally use a Weber Standard Mass Attenuator. Basically the same thing, but it's more versital in the impeadance department (2, 4, 8, and 16).

We've built a couple of our own isolations cabs, but they were all 4' cubes. They worked out very well, but they're not very practical where space is an issue.

The good thing about the attenuators is that you can really crank up your tubes and get "that" sound. The only down side is that you arn't cranking up your speakers, so you'll be loosing a bit of the tone that they would provide in a cranked up situation -------- but it's pretty darn good for bedroom volumes! :)

All most all of these clips were recorded at "Bedroom" volumes:

http://www.soundclick.com/bands/pagemusic.cfm?bandID=410286

Rick
 
yeah, i struggled with low volume recordings for quite a while..

once i got the iso cab, i knew that it was a better deal.
for certain sounds, you just got to have that speaker thumpin'...

and that takes volume.

you can use the iso cab, at lower volumes, with some aggressive low end eq'ing, that approximates the thump factor.

amps like the 5150, that have a resonance control (think the rivera's have this as well, maybe the bogners?) that seems to have a really nice effect on iso-cab tones....

i use my boogie really loud through mine right now, but am thinking about picking up a hotplate, to dial it in even more....
 
I'm looking into building an isolation box myself. I have a Mesa Boogie Maverick 2x12 combo. I'm planning on doing the box-in-a-box idea, and I'm going to try to make it air tight.

So in order to get around the tube-heat issue, I'm basically going to have to temporarily convert my combo amp into a head/cabinet model. I'll either take the "head" part out and build a temp cabinet for it or keep it in the combo cabinet and build a speaker cabinet --- whichever is easier.

I'll let you know how it goes when I'm done. Should be within the next month or so.
 
WERNER 1 said:
I've got this one: https://weberspeakerscom.secure.powweb.com/weber/mass.htm

The 100W version ;)

Rick
Click to expand...

Quoted from the site: "Optional wings ($25) may be employed for rackmounting the MASS. The MASS occupies two rack spaces and requires adequate ventilation for proper operation."

How does that take up 2 rack spaces? It looks like 1/2 rack space to me. If that thing is 19" inches wide and 2 rack spaces tall then those controls must be HUGE up close!
 
I've not used the Marshall one, but I've heard good things about them -- As in they don't color your tone very much. I'm not sure on their inpedance either (Single or Selectable)

Rackspacing: The weber is two rack spaces high, not wide.........it's only about 1/2 a rack space wide. I did buy the rack ears, and they work just fine. :)

Rick
 
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