Miking in an isolation cabinet

[Rufus Leaking]

I've built a pair of isolation cabinets for purposes of miking an electric guitar without disturbing the rest of the house. Each cabinet is 18" X 18" X 30" and houses a single 12" speaker.

Although they work pretty well, the sound is boxy and small compared to miking in an open room. I especially notice a loss of bass and find the mids are way too prominent. I've experimented with mic positions for hours and even tried using a pair at slight angles to induce some phase cancellation which actually helped somewhat, but the sound is still not there.

Any ideas on getting more bottom and reducing mids in this type of environment? I may try turning one mike 180 degrees away from the speaker to see what happens. I've got a pair of SM-578's and an AKG C-1000s.

Thanks!

 

[Roybot]

I also have 2 isolation cabinets that I use with several amps. I covered the inside of each of them with auralex 2" wedge foam and have experimented with mic placement and selection. The results in general are that I get a focused, and fairly pure sound. Do you have any absorption material on the inside? I would think in such a small environment that phasing and comb filtering would be prevalent without absorption but equally easy to tame by adding it.

 

[Rufus Leaking]

Yes the insides are lined with eggcrate foam - it's dept. store mattress padding, not Auralex, but it should be diffusing the sound waves pretty well.

Do you find you have to totally re-EQ your amp to get it to sound on tape like it does in the room (i.e. cut the mids, crank the bass)?

I'm wondering if I ported the baffle boards if that would help me get more bottom end. I don't have a lot of room but could probably put a 2" port in each corner of the baffle boards if I wanted to.

 

[Roybot]

I actually don't e.q. my guitar tracks at all except for an occasional low cut at 100hz or less. I move my mics around and mess with guitar and amp settings until I like what I hear and I have been pleased with how my tracks sit in a mix. I do mostly simple melodic, progressive type stuff which usually doesn't call for alot of bass in the guitar tracks so depending on what you are doing your requirements may be different. I don't know about porting the baffle board but that may get you more bass. You could try something like a Red Box Pro in conjunction with the mic'd sound. I get plenty of that 4x12 type thump out of mine.

 

[grinder]

I just posted a similar question in recording techniques.I've also spent hours moving the mike and eqing.I'm using a 57 near the cone, about an inch off the speaker.That seems to be the best sounding spot.Still can't get rid of the boxy mid rangey sound.I'm going to expiriment with the amount of insulation in the bottom half of the cab and see if that helps.

 

[Rufus Leaking]

I just posted a similar question in recording techniques.I've also spent hours moving the mike and eqing.I'm using a 57 near the cone, about an inch off the speaker.That seems to be the best sounding spot.Still can't get rid of the boxy mid rangey sound.I'm going to expiriment with the amount of insulation in the bottom half of the cab and see if that helps.

I'll check the thread over there - thanks.

If it helps, in my experimentation I found the further away from the speaker I placed the mike, the more open and natural it sounded. So mine are back about as far as they will go which is about 6" off of the cone. I found this sounded much better than right up against the speaker.

(Thinking out loud) I wonder if one of those Blue ball mikes would help here - they have no length, which would allow me to place it way back in the enclosure. Anyone ever try these mikes on electric guitar?