Studio - isocab or load box and IRs?

PeteC · July 2022

Hi folks

i have a pretty good home studio based around a Mac with top of the line Presonus, neumann monitoring, loads of valve outboard and good mics

But i also have some really special valve amps that inused to gig with a
lot that are sitting idle ( 1959 clone, Park 1210 , Trainwreck and Dumble clones and i would really like
to start using them in the home studio.

At the moment i just use a

little Blackstar amp close mic’d or a Tweed in a Box into my valve preamps and compressors and into the Presonus Although i get good sounds i want to get the big amps going.

Ive been watching Tim Pierce and Pete Thorn on YT use their bigger amps with either load boxes or isocabs mic’d up

i have a roof void space about the studio big enough to build an isolated cab but wonder if its worth the effort. If i go down the load box and cab sim
route i want it to be as good quality as i can get.

What would anyone recommend ?

Those amps need to sing!!

Cheers
pete

PhilKing · July 2022

I have an Isocab and use it, but it is hard to stop the sound leaking. You need to put it on an isolating mount too, to stop the vibrations coming though the floor. Also it is just a single 12", so it might not be the sound you are looking for. I have mine with a Webber 75w Fane style speaker in it, which works for me. However I still use a load box to drop the volume from the 50w amps, as sound still radiates from it.

Danny1969 · July 2022

I turned my under the stairs cupboard into a little amp room, got 3 amps in there and have run a mic cable from there into my DAW.
One trick if the amp has a loop is to record into the amp as normal but come out the effects send into the DAW and put a cab sim on it. Then get a great take just monitoring that.
Then take the cam sim off, send it back out of the DAW into the effects return of the amp and mic that cranked up a bit. This means you get the full flavour of the amp and speaker but the loud volume only lasts for the length of the track, not for the hour or so it might take to get a decent recorded track.

PeteC · August 2022

Thanks guys, some interesting ideas there. I think i will probably go down the reactive load box route and use cabinet IRs in software. I am a little worried that I might spend a lot of time building the isobox and then find it’s too, err… “boxy” or has an EQ hump. I’ve been messing with various cabinet IRs lately and getting used to using them. I’ve seen a good reactive load kit from TubeTown in Germany - and I like to build as much of my gear as possible - so I might go for that.

Neilybob · August 2022

I use a Two Notes Capture with the wall of sound software into Reaper for recording so my signal chain goes -

Guitar - Peavey Classic 100 head - Capture Loadbox - Scarlett interface - Laptop

I either use my studio monitors or headphones for recording.

I don't have the space for an iso can.

Neilybob · August 2022

Neilybob said:

I use a Two Notes Capture with the wall of sound software into Reaper for recording so my signal chain goes -

Guitar - Peavey Classic 100 head - Capture Loadbox - Scarlett interface - Laptop

I either use my studio monitors or headphones for recording.

I don't have the space for an iso can.

Just saying

https://www.thefretboard.co.uk/discussion/232494/two-notes-35-discount-and-50-voucher#Comment_3340979

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Studio - isocab or load box and IRs?

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