This is why it bums me out that this is only a metal channel. NOBODY else puts this kind of effort into testing and experimentation. Nobody else is so beginner friendly and thorough.
Much of these applies to other genres. However. Even in metal gear can sometimes occasionally be specific. In industrial metal they often use gear in weird not normal ways to get new tones. A mixing board that's like 30 bucks and sounds like crap to create distortion. Or tweaking some specifics inside the amps that actually do tweak sounds. You can sometimes mod amps to do some cool extra stuff. But for clean tones. On acoustic guitars tone wood is real. But barely. Shape matter more. The reason vintage stuff in electric tones world has such variance in the vintage stuff is looser tolerances. You can get every bit in tolerances to clone any exact configuration physically for cheap. It doesn't have to be a price hike. Like 1200 for the most expensive amps with specific parts tolerances in the transformer or hand wiring scheme. Speakers matter probably more then that in most cases. Cab design matters alot. A few things can effect how strings vibrate. But nothing enough in a mix. Here's example of design mattering most. Old gibsons. And one other historic brand I think gretch or Martin used a historic scale measure from the 1800s in their guitars till the 60s. It's less accurate. But more about those subtle imperfections. So it matters context wise. Can you make advantage of Any of the little subtle things that can even effect tone to see I'd they cut through the mix in your genre. If you pitch correct and time align. Nah. If it's very raw with imperfections and feel. Yes. Cause if every note is a little less accurate but you have like perfect playing and stuff. And expressive playing. Bends can matter. But sometimes hilariously the cheaper stuff sounds better. Or the less accurate stuff matters. With modern instruments nah. Scale length. Amp or mic. Speakers. Cab design. Effects. Recording method. Room design matters more. Digital can effect that to tune for the room easier. But for general purpose. Alot of the same stuff still applies. I have a theory on why pafs do sound quite a bit different. And again is tolerances related. But that wire is now impossible to get. And not worth it since you have no way of knowing how it'll turn out. But essentially tolerance along the wire being less concise effecting the individuals pole pieces magnetic factor differently in terms of how hot or clean they are which is about all you can effect. But that'll effect how each string breaks up when driven causing the differences. Combined with old scale and more hand made and looser tolerances on intonation factors and yeah. Add in the coils being slightly different windings within each pick up. How hot and clean they are. But also means it's cheap to clone anything besides the pickups. Which you can effect with an eq pedal.... lol.
@@donovanolguin6549I'm a metal guy, but I am still curious if there really is a difference in other styles. That said, tone wood for a solid body electric has never made sense to me.
You’re doing a great service for all guitar players and guitar recording engineers out there, even in non-metal genres. These series of videos are outstanding. 👍🏽
I agree, ive seen so many discussions and videos over the years that are all opinion based. What Glenn is doing is amazing and has actual clear results. We need more of this shit.
Glenn, I've been designing and building hifi and monitor cabinets for years (as I design the speakers) and bracing makes a massive difference. The best way to measure the cabs for resonance is a cheap contact accelerometer like the ACH1 you can get from Digikey or Mouser in the US.
Q for you, since you outed yourself as a designer: I've got a pair of 12s and a pair of 15s lying around. Do I build a 2-12 and a 2-15, or a pair of 12/15 cabinets? Predominantly bass guitar.
An old friend of mine used to design his own stereo speaker cabs as well. It seemed like every time I went over to his place he had a different iteration of speaker cabs. I think his final conclusion for best sound was the best speakers you could afford and the least resonant material you could make them out of, so he ended up making the cabs out of cement. I think the take away for me was get the heaviest cabs you can...they will resonate the least. For wood cabs he used 1" plywood with tons of bracing.
@@GenJerDan I have been toying with a Roland JC with a 2x12 on one channel and a 15” Fullback equipped cab on the other! The only reasonI haven’t tried a 12x15 cab is the time and money to experiment with it.
Do you understand why guitar and bass cabs often have multiple identical drivers, and if it's just two, they're usually side-by-side? That seems like a recipe for maximizing comb filtering, which most speaker designers would studiously avoid. They're also usually open-backed rather than having a normal tuned bass port, and they're usually not damped on the inside to kill off stray high frequencies. Seems super-weird to me.
So, now we have to do a cabinet out of: oak, pine, ash, poplar, ect... all high end, solid pieces, perfectly cured, super tight seams and roboticly assembled....by hand. I'll expect the results by next week😐. 😆😆just messing around. You're such a 'sound' nerd, I love it🤘. I can never express in words how much you've inspired this 42 year old, "almost was", metal head to drop the dead weight and try recording all the pieces by myself. I'm still a newbie to mixing and stuff, but definitely enjoying the journey.
I love the real, no BS testing that you do. The fact that opinions, myths, and “musician dogma” mean nothing to you if they get in the way of getting the right sound for the job has earned my respect. Add in the fact that you break everything down in an open, honest, and transparent way and then you give out that information freely when you could just keep it for yourself shows not just how much class you have, but your love for the music itself. Thank you so much for what you do for all of us. Oh, and as a bassist myself (Please don’t hold that against me. I know how to change my strings AND tune my instrument!) that bass tone was just amazing!!! Please PLEASE tell us how you got it! Much love and respect to you for everything you do to pass on your knowledge!
I'm planning on building my own cab. 412. And I gotto say, these videos are very helpful. They inspired me to go forward with this project. I live in Jordan, and shipping a cab would cost thousands of dollars, shipping the speakers them selves is way cheaper. So DIY it is. Thanks Glenn
It's cool to see that MDF and Plywood had pretty negligible differences. I've honestly looked at cheap 2x12s for the home, but have stayed away from them due to being MDF. Kudos to opening my eyes on that, Glenn.
So basically, if I want to make a cabinet and I'm wondering what material to use for it, the answer is "yes". I mean, particle board wasn't quite as good, but I liked it too.
@@bigkevonbass @Bean Dog Studios my cab had a single handle on top that lasted six months of moving it around the garage until I bought a used pair of those things you mount into the sides which were a much better idea
I liked that particle board howl. I've joked about building a pedal that emulates the Windsor hum, but honestly I think you beat me to it AND improved it.
Back when we were all putting absurd systems in our cars, we used to build all kinds of custom enclosures. The biggest impact by far was always air space, followed by porting size, shape, length, etc. The stiffer the enclosure, the tighter the transient, clearer the high end, and more precise the low end. The material the speakers were mounted to had more impact than the rest of the enclosure, and the way that material was mounted, either floating or rigid, really effected some speakers.
The fascinating thing here for me is that though I can tell the differences when the visual aid is present, as soon as I closed my eyes in order to take them away, I immediately lost track of which cab we were on and which cab sounded like which... I just started headbanging to the riff. And this was on the isolated guitars track. When it comes to the full mix, I remained hypervigilant for a change in the guitar tone (by watching out for which SOUNDED like Cab A) and kept guessing there were changes when there actually was none. Ppl really do listen with their eyes and I now know to not waste my time on this tonewood stuff because even though the difference is there according to what my ears heard, it is so negligible that it doesn't justify paying several extra hundred dollars based on what the tonewood is. Thank you very much Glenn, you're doing important work for the consumer here!
I love this series. If it shows anything, it shows me that 40 years ago, when bands were tracked live, and the room was as important as the mic, the cabinet was more important than it is today. Even live, most touring bands are using front of house, and Ndsp modelers. Today, it’s almost redundant to have cabinets. Direct amp recording via technology, and direct tracking using modelers have kind of taken the amps, cab, and mic placements out of the recording process. If i were still playing live, I’d run a 1960B for the resonance it gives onstage. Again, thank you, Glenn. The time you put into these videos is greatly appreciated!
Glenn, Well done on the use of the scientific method. It truly shows how the density and inertness of the cab affects the final outcome of the driver: the approx 510 Hz "woooo" of the particle board while the plywood and MDF are much more clean and almost indistinguishable form each other. About the only thing I can offer is that you did a close mic of the drivers, which helps to isolate the drivers from the cab. Yes, I know it is because you are recording in the studio and that's how it's supposed to be done, but the whole "tonewood" debate is about how the wood colors/colours the sound, and in order to do that, you will need to back the mic up to at least 16" from the face in order to get the interactions from the cabinet. All else being equal - same cab design, same cab build quality, same placements, etc. etc., just like you did - the real difference now would be how the cab adds to the drivers as you pull away, since each material has different resonance properties. You just might find a bigger difference between the ply and MDF, and more "mush" from the particle board. Before anyone else drops in, yes, cab design for the specific drivers has A LOT to do with how they sound: sealed, ported, open back, they all load the drivers differently, and contribute to where breakup starts to happen and what the range of the driver will ultimately be. So, if you were to re-run the same experiment with the same parameters but change the mic distance to 16" (standard for measuring "regular home" speakers), I'd be curious what further differences you might find. Oh, and, Thank you Glenn. You F'ing ROCK!
Mechanical engineer here! First of all, thank you Gleen (or fuck you?) for making these awesome videos. I build custom cabs, mostly front loaded. The physical effect differences between front and rear loaded enclosures are well documented in almost any hifi enclosure design handbook. The main difference resides in the fact that rear loaded cabs are more focused in their projection. The wood cutoff acts as a tube, albeit being short and as lengthy as the baffle itself. This also creates a cavity effect in that space of air that accentuates certain resonances, mostly mids and highs, depending the the size of the cutoff. In front loaded cabs that doesn't happen, as the speaker cone isn't limited by that small cavity, so the spread is wider than in rear loaded cabs. Additionally, using the same enclosure, the volume of air trapped in a front loaded cab is larger than a rear loaded one, although its minimal. This affects the standing wave effects and the main resonance of the cab itself. And lastly, and purely speaking about mechanics and the forces experienced by the cab: a front loaded speaker pulls the entire structure on the same direction all the time, whereas a read loaded speaker pushes the baffle in one way and the rest of the baffle is pulled along with it, so there are some couterreacting forces going on there. Anyway, those are my two cents!
What should I do to tame some brightness in a 1x12 closed back made of 18mm Poplar with joint box and rear-loaded? Do you suggest damping the inside with some acoustic foam?
Crazy. I legitimately did not hear the difference between the cabs until you did some deep analysis on the solo tracks, and you were right...as soon as you isolated that midrange hum on the plywood cabinet you cannot un-hear it.
i still want to know what difference the cab even makes by just removing the cab from the test all together and just do a test with the speakers mounted to a baffle thats just mounted to a stand and then a test where you just float mount the speaker and mic it up that way
@@alexts4920 Yes, you still need a baffle but what he is talking about is open baffle design. Easiest way to do is to just buy a large sheet of plywood, brace it and make a hole in the center. The cutoff frequency for cancellation is exactly the wavelength from the speaker to the nearest edge. 1m square should be enough, the larger you make it the lower it goes. And i for sure would like to hear the difference, open baffle is theoretically the best kind of cabinet as it has no backpressure and depending on the room, no dominant resonant frequencies that are the result of the cabinet having a finite space.. The downside is that the finite space of the cabinet improves efficiency but that is not a problem in a studio, you can have terrible efficiency, you can use a kilowatt to produce 5 watts worth of sound. But of course, the sound we are used to comes from traditional cabs so... we might get better sound in every metric, except one: nostalgia..
That isnt a simple direct comparison cos you are going to an open back...and sides....sound. Maybe an sm57 on the cone will only pickup minimal difference but the room sound will be totally different.
I have an old pine 2x12 bandmaster cab that I use for a metal band. I had to put new speakers in it and then dial out the bass response by stapling quilt batting to the inside on the back piece that seals the cab. The batting tightens up the sound a lot. Not sure if this interests you at all but figured it was worth mentioning if anyone wants a really light 2x12 for live stuff.
LOL you're so right. When I watched the screen and knew when the cabs switched I "thought" I heard a difference. But when I looked away and listened I could not detect what I thought I heard before. Could be my speakers or mix but honestly I am getting the idea that the only place it makes any difference is live in the room. If at all. I don't believe it makes enough difference to honestly matter in the long run as a signal chain can be manipulated in so many ways that I feel this just comes down to weight, cost, and preference ultimately. SKAL!
Glenn thanks for all the cost saving tips!! Older vid, but I just built my own acoustic treatment for about $40/panel (glue, screws, paint and stapler included) for 8 panels and a total of 10hrs for building, sanding and painting the frames. The difference in the sound of drum kit recording was night and day! Appreciate it pal!
Thanks Glen, that was a really interesting experiment to follow. On a quick look at the relative stiffness ratings for the 3 materials, particleboard is the least stiff, then MDF then Ply. It kind of makes sense, particleboard has voids in it as it is made from many different sized bits of wood waste - from chips to dust. Strength and stiffness can vary along the sheet length. MDF is almost void free, but it tiny, unaligned fibres - so is known as amorphous or glassy in the materials science world. Almost the same strength in any direction. Ply can have more voids than MDF (based on quality grading) , but you can engineer in a lot of stiffness during the manufacture of it as well as prioritising stiffness in one direction over the other. So your comment on what the speakers have to push against is very relevant. Stiffer cab should mean less loss/greater efficiency - non-consistent voids in particleboard lead to losses and can introduce those off resonant frequencies. This may be different per cabinet based on construction and the particular piece of particleboard used. Additional bracing may help the particleboard cab to be better.
Glen, your videos have inspired me to go into audio engineering. I’ve been on the fence about it for a while, up until I started my band I knew I wanted to do something with music. Thanks for the inspiration and awesome videos
Almost every know worthy 4x12 is made out of plywood, yet they all sound different even though with the same speakers. An Engl cab (V30s) sounds very different from a Marshall cab (V30s) for example, even though it's using plywood and the same speakers. Whats different though is the construction, the size and the bracing on the inside of the cabinet. Thanks for this series, it's the most interesting one yet in my opinion. This is also the perfect timing to do a whole bunch more of experiments with thoes cabs you got there. Would be amazing to see more of this!
I’d really like to see if you can find a difference by using a caulk to seal the edges to make it air tight. I think they did that with the mustaine cabs a few years ago.
Fluff says that his Marshall cab got 100% sealed and it added a fuckload to the bottom end. Marshall’s mid-heavy tone is purely bc their cabs aren’t butthole-tight lmao
Just getting around to watching these. I build my own cabs and have to say that even I was surprised by how subtle the difference was! The plywood has a little more 'woof' to my ear. I think that's because the plywood is more rigid. The mdf and particle board will absorb a little bit more energy through vibration and bass frequencies have the most energy. I should also mention that the alternating wood layers are making it more stable to humidity and temp changes. Plywood might last you longer if you are moving your cab around a lot or touring. Plywood generally has better screw tearout strength too, so handles, wheels, etc shouldn't pull out or get wobbly as quickly.
GLEEEEEEEEEEEENN! Front loaded vs back loaded speakers in a 4x12 cab gives a volume of around three litres more air volume when the speakers are front loaded. I did those calculations like ten years back using the excellent free software WinISD which is a great tool when designing speakers. There are all kinds of funky parameters to tweak and it works both for hifi, lofi and nofi (read: guitar cabs) appliances. According to WinISD larger volume gives, not surprisingly, louder response in the lower frequency range. But when it comes to adding like three litres of volume to a 4x12 which already has like over 100 litres of volume you will probably not hear any or at best an utterly small difference. But in a recording situation front loaded speakers gives you more possibilities to mic up reeeeeeally close as it will allow the mic get closer to the speaker membrane by about an inch (if you have a grill/fabric in front of the speakers that is). And moving a mic back and forth an inch or so can make a huge difference in a record situation. I think front loaded speakers looks cooler as well. So for recording situations front loaded elements are better as they give more sonic possibilities. Plus that it looks cooler. Big kudos for your work, Glenn! 'Preciate it plenty! :)
I used to have an MDF constructed Marshall MX412A cab, which I sold, and bought a 1960A. I regret buying that cab because I've realized that the T75 speakers are just not my mojo. I now wish I had kept that MX412A cab and just bought some V30s or Greenbacks to replace the G12E-60 speakers it came with. Guess I'll just sel that 1960A and buy a Harley Benton V30 212. Thanks for all that info!
Other cabinet experiments I would be very interested in hearing: -Difference in thickness of the wood used in construction -Whether changing the height vs the width makes a difference (e.g. compare 1x1 to 1.5x0.5 to 0.5x1.5 (all arbitrary measurements) and see what changes) - Maybe see if recording a 2x12 on its side sounds different to one on the floor, does the floor affect resonance and tone? etc. -Difference in height / width change vs depth -Angled shape vs uniform shape I realise these would all be expensive to test, but it'd be great to nail down what really makes the changes.
I built my own 4x12 slant cab back in 1981. 3/4" plywood...built to lastStill using it with my 1978 JMP 2203. It's going to get 4 of the Celestion EVHs when I can master the art of not eating for 2 months.
So build my next cab out of particle board and boost at 500 hz when EQing. Got it. I remember reading somewhere EVH solely used birch cabs. I wonder if there’s actually something to that. It makes sense though that the cab material would impact the sound. Frequencies would be bouncing off the sides and some would get absorbed or reflected differently than others
Oooh. Hearing the difference between braced and not braced sounds great. Also I put some good speakers on an old crate blue voodoo cab and it sounds great! Great videos Glen! Nailed it this time around for sure! Greatly looking guard to the next video.
Cabinet B stood out to me during the first video as sounding most different of the 3 - my guess (and comment on video 1), however was that cabinet B was the plywood. Apparently only the baffle was plywood. hmm
I had two Peavey 112s. Both had G12H30's. One of them the baffle was destroyed by UPS in shipping. I replaced it with Birch and anchored the speaker the same as it was originally. There was a definite difference between the two cabs. Not better or worse, just different. I have used plenty of plywood and other types of cabs. The most interesting I had was a 112 that was completely plastic, like thick black stuff. It was heavy as hell and sounded great. The maker escapes me right now. Play what you like.
the most impressive in this vid, apart from the amount and quality of production work ? the musicians ! they are great ! told them those shoot-out are addictive not only for the knowledge Glenn is sharing, but also very much for their passion and talent ! thanks to the team. 🤘🤘🤘
You can get pressure treated mdf, it handles humidity with 0 problems. I have used it on speaker cabinets and subwoofers for HiFi and car audio for years, never going back to regular untreated mdf. What I can say from years of doing this is that volume of the enclosure is Key, and if you have a wented enclosure the shift in volume can be dramatic! I made a 2x15 cabinet inspired of the Old Randall cabs that Dimebag used, combined with a slightly deeper profile and two 6" aeroports, and that thing is like a possesed deamon screaming! I would just imagine that it is hard at best ro use for recording, but the unfiltered sound coming out of it is just insane.
Best tip I ever got regarding cabinets was to make sure the I took the wheels off for recording, placing on hard ground, not carpet. And to loosen the screws a little on the back of the cab to get a little movement on the back to increase resonance. Gave a nice little woof, like you would hear on the palm mutes on the Justice album. Especially when just touching the string about 1/4 from the nut on the low E, while palm muting.
I built some furnitures for my monitors last year half particle and part rral wood. I thought it would be very deaf but to my surprise it was too much resonant, noticeable while tiping with my fingers or knuckles. I had to modify it in different places, take away some parts, make some holes and add some holed pieces until I was satisfied with the resonance loss. The idea was I wanted the less resonance possible with the monitors. I also added some foam, rubber and eva for isolation.
With proper bracing and construction they will sound very similar assuming same internal enclosure volume. If you read this Glenn, you should try adding some sound damping such as open cell egg crate foam or rockwool to the back and sides of the enclosure. This will have a much larger impact on the tone. If you want to know more about enclosure design I'm pretty well versed. Also not all plywood mdf or particle board are the same. Cabinet grade plywood is much better than what you find at most home stores. Plywood is used in speaker cabs for a couple of easons over mdf or particle board. Plywood is more rigid, lighter, and holds up to moisture and abuse much better than mdf or particle board. MDF is less resonant than plywood and that is why it is used in hifi speakers, but that comes at a cost of weight due to higher density. MDF will absorb moisture and fall apart so it is not good for gigging. Should be fine for a proper studio though. Stay away from particle board. It is garbage and should never be used for anything you want to last.
Hey Glenn. For average frequency analysis, i think SPAN from Voxengo is a really good choice. It’s a free but really powerful analyzer with settings that you can tweak
Good on you, Glenn, for the time, trouble and cost of putting this shootout together. It was quite illuminating. I second the notion that if you're a gigging musician plywood is the way to go. It's both lighter and more resistant to damage than either MDF or (shudder) particle board. Fortunately, my days of lugging big cabs are well behind me... a 1X12 is all I need to hear myself on stage.
Dear Glenn: Re: your question at 8:57, this isn't a direct answer to your question, but your discussion made me realize it would be interesting to test with pure sinusoids. You'd then be able to easily hone in on where the weird rattling parasitic resonances are as you sweep the frequency. Admittedly pure sinusoids are not very metal. ;) Oh, wait a minute -- how about this: capture the impulse response of the cab, and then plot the spectrum of that impulse response using something like Audacity. The weird rattling probably is exhibiting some nonlinear behavior so it wouldn't be fully captured by a single impulse response, but it would start to get you in the ballpark of finding where the evil gremlins lie.
I have a Heil 4/12 that I drive with a Fender Dual Showman. I put a mattress pad , foam pad shaped like egg cartons , on the inside of the cabinet . That tightened up the low end substantially. So installing a deadened on the inside of the cabinet will definitely affect the tone
A simple way to find many serious resonances, rattles, and buzzes that doesn't require any extra equipment is to use a free tone generator (free app or website) with a very slow sinewave sweep up or down the audio spectrum, played loud. When you hear the sinewave sound being swallowed, or wobbling in volume, or sounding like a different waveform, you've got a resonance or a buzz or rattle. Sometimes you can hear a whistle or rushing sound of air going in and out of a small gap (or even a too-small bass port) when playing a low bass frequency. You want the sweep to be slow so that it's always playing a number of cycles at very close to each frequency, giving it time to tweak a resonance into exhibiting itself. Any anomaly you hear is probably also present in the music you listen to as well, when that frequency is present, but much harder to identify in a mix. You can also sometimes hear various things in the room rattle. Those things rattle while you listen to music, too.
So what you're looking for in terms of getting a full frequency image instead of real time is something called a Fourier Transform, I don't know of a program to do the analysis as the only time I've ever done it was with my own program that I made myself years ago, but you can run an audio file through it and it'll show the prevalence of each frequency across the board.
Voxengo span has an option to tweak the time setting of the spectral analyzer, which results in a pretty much static image if you push it to the max setting :) it also makes it possible to tweak other parameters of the graph like frequency smoothing etc. and it’s completely free!
Nailed it. Nicely explained. I stand by my view that material density is probably the primary aspect that is contributing to the tone differences. Will look forward to your follow up about the baffles.
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Hi Glenn! I really like this series. The difference between the particle-board and the other two was even bigger than I had expected for a close miced cab. I would imagine there could be a more noticeable difference in the room-tone between mdf and plywood, if the walls of the cabinets vibrate enough. That might be an intersting experiment, even though not that relevant for redording metal, I guess. Knowing very little about recording I guess a back-mic isn't really a thing with closed cabs. Bracing to control weird plate-resonances should work quite well. Even an internal strut that gets wedged between front and back might make a difference. Worked for a subwoofer I built years ago. But there the main goal was to get the plate-resonance above the frequency of the low-pass. No idea about the effects in a full range cab. Bitumen-like dampening mats as used in hifi-speakers are an other solution that comes to mind. My prediction regarding front vs back loaded: virtually no difference with a close mic, in the room maybe a little different high-end, depending on listening position.
Hi i have a question. Ola Englund has video comparising different amp and cabinets and conclusion was that the real difference in sound is in the cab not amp but all those cabinets had the same speakers vintage 30 but the difference between Mesa cab to others was huge. So my question is why. Why such difference between the sound of those cabinets with the same speakers in it?
Thanks for all the time and effort into this. The size plays a definite role. I stick with Mesa. If you use their single 12, it has some less desired sound, but when I play my REVV G20 on the curved 2x12’s keeping the same tone dialed in, it’s VERY noticeable.
Good job Glenn. My old shop had a vacuum table CNC milling machine. We had to mill the top and bottom of the MDF sacrifice board because it had a finish on it that air couldn't travel through. This got me thinking about how smooth or porous the wood is would change the sound. If you were to sand, paint or put adhesive vinyl on the inside of the cabs, what would that do to the sound. I know you might not want to go down this rabbit hole, but I thought it was worth mentioning.
If you are using ply wood and you want it to sound like MDF (but you are to cheap to by it) back your amp with as many coach pads as you can find. Even a futon mattress will work. This will help quiet the cabs resonance. Hope this helps.
Hey Glenn, thanks for doing all this research. I want to build a guitar cabinet. I don’t want to waste all my time and effort using poor quality materials, so thanks for saving me some troubles.
it's so damn interesting. i wasn't listening through the most optimal stuff for the test but to my ear A definitely had a different sound. B and C were so damn similar to one another. also what was interesting is, when the lead solo tone came in i was not able to tell a difference between any of them. only during the rhythm parts. I also had to very much concentrate and actively listen on the test video. if i was just casually listening. or if you had a cab change during a song and didn't say anything about it, i doubt anyone would really know
I'd like to see the same thing done but with a 1x12 cab, a 2x12, a 4x12 and an oversized. all same material, just different sizes. I imagine that's gonna have a bigger impact perhaps?
Absolutely. When designing cabs you have to consider the Thiele/Small parameters. It makes a pretty significant difference in the way the speaker responds and can be the difference between a crisp attack, a flubby tone or just plain ass.
@@khristopherkomodoensis4734 yeah! Come on Glenn! Do the research! For science! Maybe show where each would be applicable, in a variety of scenarios. I'd do it but I'm broke and not as smart as a studio engineer. 😀
This is a rabbit hole for sure. You have internal resonance frequencies to consider. Of the cabinet and the room. While not as specific as I’m sure subwoofers, each speaker is designed to function in a specific volume of air. Are these speakers as “Interchangeable” as we assume they are? So so many questions and variables to consider. Great video Glenn! Keep questioning the status quo for us!
Marshall was selling some imported cabs that no one wanted ( I believe code 50 ) for 300 bucks new for a 4x12. I bought one and loaded it with 4 celestion greenbacks. Sounds great and I saved around 500 bucks!
Even knowing the correct answers while watching and listening to this video with Sennheiser HD600 headphones, the difference is so subtle as not to matter. Just pick one and rock on, dude. It doesn't matter.
The idea behind cabs is to have a tonally inert material with a ton of mass that doesn't resonate or vibrate. Anyway you can achieve that lets the speaker do it's thing. I love these video series, it's great information for guys who are stuck in the loop of wanting/needing new gear because of XYZ excuses. We all need a change sometimes but all this proves is the tone really is in the transducers, speakers and performance.
If you really want to go down an audio rabbit hole: Speaker Cabinet design. Bass reflex (Modern P.A. and some bass guitar cabs) Folded horn (older Sub woofers and some bass guitar cabs) W horn (Really old subs) Horn loaded (old p.a. mids/highs and some old guitar cabs) Down fired cabs.. this is used for mainly Sub woofers but I've done it with guitar cabinets as well. Place your cabinet about 1 foot off the ground and have the speaker FACE the ground. It sounds silly, but the reflection off the floor is actually mildly louder than facing out. This is a variation of something called Corner loading. Where you face the speaker into a corner and the reflection off the walls fill the room better than the speaker facing out. It's a very old (1960's/70s) era technique to get more volume out of the lower powered P.As at the time. Works with guitar cabs as well.
You can use the “print screen “button on your keyboard and paste the information into a paint document. As for a program that does that, I have no idea.
As far as the cabs go the variation in size will change the sound fat more than the construction materials. However the construction material will make a huge difference in the cabinets durability over time. Pretty much the main difference between front loaded and rear loaded as far as I have ever been able to tell was the ease with which speaker changes could be made. Good video just proving that as far as sound is concerned the speaker is still the main marker of tone shift when a cabinet of the same dimensions is used
I know this will not be practical in any way, but I came across a build guide for desktop speakers made from concrete a long time ago. The reasoning behind this was, that "the solidity of the concrete helps to eliminate natural resonance of the speaker enclosure, thus producing a more linear sound". Due to weight and fragility aspects, I don't think it would be a viable option as a build material, but I'd find it interesting if and how a guitar cabinet made of concrete would sound different than a cab made of plywood or MDF
I would suggest sanding the interior surface of the particle board cabs to about 400 grit for further tests. MDF is exceptionally smooth and the cab interior surface reflections may be contributing to some of the tonal quality.
Naw. Acoustically, the difference is so minute that you'd never be able to hear it. Especially at 400 grit, that's a very fine grit, enough so that it would be like not sanding it at all. If you really want to rough it up try 80 grit, or better yet, 40 grit.
@@rbilleaud No, you misunderstood me, particle board can have a rough surface which might affect high frequency reflections. My point was to smooth it. MDF is extremely smooth, almost shiny.
I once did an A/B test between a Mesa Rectifier cab and a Blackstar HT cab. Both were 4x12 and both were loaded with V30's. The test was done in the room, without mic'ing the cabs. You could hear that both cabs had the same speakers, but the frequency range of Mesa cab was much "fuller" sounding. The Blackstar sounded like a badly mic'ed cab, like some frequencies were missing.
@@SpectreSoundStudios Are Mesa V30's voiced differently? Because i installed the V30's in the Blackstar cab myself. They were not some "China wannabe V30's".
In the final analysis, the difference was a bit stronger than i thought but in line with my thinking: solid is solid and that is what you want in a cabinet.. or guitar.. or anything really, solid is the best companion for a moving mass that produces a sound, whether it is a transducer or a string. Now.. next one: damping material used inside the cabinet, yes or no. Then there is one test i've always wanted to do.. using full range hifi concentric speakers.... The problem of course is that full range needs at least two drivers and concentric design is still two-way. But, is the linear response what we want, or is there a built-in curve...
The short answer: (re: front-loaded vs. rear-loaded) I decided on using a removable baffle because I have a diffuser built into my baffle. I also have front-reflex ports so that I can bolt (no screws or t-nuts) the baffle on tightly, by getting a wrench inside. I would advise that folks always use this bolting method even for removal of the rear of the cab in the case of rear-loaded speakers. Nothing worse than stripping those screws. An easy way is to make the bolts accessible is through handle ports on the side of the cab or a removable jack-plate. I also fixed the screen frames onto the baffle with Velcro so they can be smaller and don't have to be removed to remove the baffle. Also, If for some reason (and this sound like something Glenn would do) you wanted to try different baffle/diffuser configurations/materials, it would be a snap! The bolts are Phillips-head machine screws with massive washers (which are exposed and look cool/industrial). It's super easy to reach in and grab the nut/lock washer/big ass washer stack with just your fingers and remove the bolt with a screw gun. I had to do that a lot while in the construction/wiring/finishing stages.
Holy shit!! Finally a legitimate, scientific experiment on front loaded vs. rear loaded speakers! Can't believe I never thought to request that as an experiment lol SUPER stoked to see those results
This is why it bums me out that this is only a metal channel.
NOBODY else puts this kind of effort into testing and experimentation.
Nobody else is so beginner friendly and thorough.
Because other genres are brainwashed into thinking tone wood and pickups make the difference in tone.
Much of these applies to other genres. However.
Even in metal gear can sometimes occasionally be specific. In industrial metal they often use gear in weird not normal ways to get new tones.
A mixing board that's like 30 bucks and sounds like crap to create distortion.
Or tweaking some specifics inside the amps that actually do tweak sounds. You can sometimes mod amps to do some cool extra stuff.
But for clean tones. On acoustic guitars tone wood is real. But barely. Shape matter more.
The reason vintage stuff in electric tones world has such variance in the vintage stuff is looser tolerances.
You can get every bit in tolerances to clone any exact configuration physically for cheap. It doesn't have to be a price hike. Like 1200 for the most expensive amps with specific parts tolerances in the transformer or hand wiring scheme.
Speakers matter probably more then that in most cases. Cab design matters alot.
A few things can effect how strings vibrate. But nothing enough in a mix.
Here's example of design mattering most. Old gibsons. And one other historic brand I think gretch or Martin used a historic scale measure from the 1800s in their guitars till the 60s.
It's less accurate. But more about those subtle imperfections.
So it matters context wise. Can you make advantage of Any of the little subtle things that can even effect tone to see I'd they cut through the mix in your genre.
If you pitch correct and time align. Nah. If it's very raw with imperfections and feel. Yes. Cause if every note is a little less accurate but you have like perfect playing and stuff. And expressive playing. Bends can matter.
But sometimes hilariously the cheaper stuff sounds better. Or the less accurate stuff matters.
With modern instruments nah. Scale length. Amp or mic. Speakers. Cab design. Effects. Recording method.
Room design matters more. Digital can effect that to tune for the room easier.
But for general purpose. Alot of the same stuff still applies.
I have a theory on why pafs do sound quite a bit different. And again is tolerances related. But that wire is now impossible to get. And not worth it since you have no way of knowing how it'll turn out. But essentially tolerance along the wire being less concise effecting the individuals pole pieces magnetic factor differently in terms of how hot or clean they are which is about all you can effect. But that'll effect how each string breaks up when driven causing the differences. Combined with old scale and more hand made and looser tolerances on intonation factors and yeah.
Add in the coils being slightly different windings within each pick up. How hot and clean they are.
But also means it's cheap to clone anything besides the pickups. Which you can effect with an eq pedal.... lol.
@@donovanolguin6549I'm a metal guy, but I am still curious if there really is a difference in other styles. That said, tone wood for a solid body electric has never made sense to me.
You’re doing a great service for all guitar players and guitar recording engineers out there, even in non-metal genres. These series of videos are outstanding. 👍🏽
I agree, ive seen so many discussions and videos over the years that are all opinion based. What Glenn is doing is amazing and has actual clear results. We need more of this shit.
Glenn, I've been designing and building hifi and monitor cabinets for years (as I design the speakers) and bracing makes a massive difference. The best way to measure the cabs for resonance is a cheap contact accelerometer like the ACH1 you can get from Digikey or Mouser in the US.
Q for you, since you outed yourself as a designer: I've got a pair of 12s and a pair of 15s lying around. Do I build a 2-12 and a 2-15, or a pair of 12/15 cabinets? Predominantly bass guitar.
An old friend of mine used to design his own stereo speaker cabs as well. It seemed like every time I went over to his place he had a different iteration of speaker cabs. I think his final conclusion for best sound was the best speakers you could afford and the least resonant material you could make them out of, so he ended up making the cabs out of cement. I think the take away for me was get the heaviest cabs you can...they will resonate the least. For wood cabs he used 1" plywood with tons of bracing.
i remember stereophile magazine doing experiments with those and a waterfall plot back in the 1990's :)
@@GenJerDan I have been toying with a Roland JC with a 2x12 on one channel and a 15” Fullback equipped cab on the other! The only reasonI haven’t tried a 12x15 cab is the time and money to experiment with it.
Do you understand why guitar and bass cabs often have multiple identical drivers, and if it's just two, they're usually side-by-side? That seems like a recipe for maximizing comb filtering, which most speaker designers would studiously avoid. They're also usually open-backed rather than having a normal tuned bass port, and they're usually not damped on the inside to kill off stray high frequencies. Seems super-weird to me.
So, now we have to do a cabinet out of: oak, pine, ash, poplar, ect... all high end, solid pieces, perfectly cured, super tight seams and roboticly assembled....by hand. I'll expect the results by next week😐.
😆😆just messing around. You're such a 'sound' nerd, I love it🤘. I can never express in words how much you've inspired this 42 year old, "almost was", metal head to drop the dead weight and try recording all the pieces by myself. I'm still a newbie to mixing and stuff, but definitely enjoying the journey.
I love the real, no BS testing that you do. The fact that opinions, myths, and “musician dogma” mean nothing to you if they get in the way of getting the right sound for the job has earned my respect. Add in the fact that you break everything down in an open, honest, and transparent way and then you give out that information freely when you could just keep it for yourself shows not just how much class you have, but your love for the music itself. Thank you so much for what you do for all of us.
Oh, and as a bassist myself (Please don’t hold that against me. I know how to change my strings AND tune my instrument!) that bass tone was just amazing!!! Please PLEASE tell us how you got it!
Much love and respect to you for everything you do to pass on your knowledge!
GLEEEEEEEEEEEEEN! You are the metal myth busters! 🤘🏻
I'm planning on building my own cab. 412. And I gotto say, these videos are very helpful. They inspired me to go forward with this project.
I live in Jordan, and shipping a cab would cost thousands of dollars, shipping the speakers them selves is way cheaper. So DIY it is.
Thanks Glenn
I keep losing myself in the song and forget to listen to the cab changes.
It's cool to see that MDF and Plywood had pretty negligible differences. I've honestly looked at cheap 2x12s for the home, but have stayed away from them due to being MDF. Kudos to opening my eyes on that, Glenn.
MDF is heavy though, depending on how often you go out, it might be a factor.
@@bassyey I'm a bedroom guitarist these days. I'm lucky if my kids even watch me!
It's really interesting how the Plywood and MDF sounded similar !
Thanks for the energy and the work put in these videos Glenn. This is gold for us
So basically, if I want to make a cabinet and I'm wondering what material to use for it, the answer is "yes". I mean, particle board wasn't quite as good, but I liked it too.
Depends on what you're doing with the cab. If you want portable and rugged, the test suggests Plywood. If you're not moving it, MDF will work.
Don't use MDF. I made a 2x12" from that and it was a heavy bastard to lift.
@@BellsCuriosityShop good point, although my amp is pretty heavy, so I need something equally in my other hand so I'm not walking all crooked :D
@@BeanDogStudios good point, if you're hoofing round a valve amp with a massive transformer in it you'll need the heavier cab for balance!
@@bigkevonbass @Bean Dog Studios my cab had a single handle on top that lasted six months of moving it around the garage until I bought a used pair of those things you mount into the sides which were a much better idea
I liked that particle board howl. I've joked about building a pedal that emulates the Windsor hum, but honestly I think you beat me to it AND improved it.
Back when we were all putting absurd systems in our cars, we used to build all kinds of custom enclosures. The biggest impact by far was always air space, followed by porting size, shape, length, etc. The stiffer the enclosure, the tighter the transient, clearer the high end, and more precise the low end. The material the speakers were mounted to had more impact than the rest of the enclosure, and the way that material was mounted, either floating or rigid, really effected some speakers.
Thank you for putting the time in to accurately answer the MDF vs Plywood question I’ve had for years!
That was fun and informative. Thank you for all of the work you put into this, Glenn.
The fascinating thing here for me is that though I can tell the differences when the visual aid is present, as soon as I closed my eyes in order to take them away, I immediately lost track of which cab we were on and which cab sounded like which... I just started headbanging to the riff. And this was on the isolated guitars track. When it comes to the full mix, I remained hypervigilant for a change in the guitar tone (by watching out for which SOUNDED like Cab A) and kept guessing there were changes when there actually was none. Ppl really do listen with their eyes and I now know to not waste my time on this tonewood stuff because even though the difference is there according to what my ears heard, it is so negligible that it doesn't justify paying several extra hundred dollars based on what the tonewood is. Thank you very much Glenn, you're doing important work for the consumer here!
I love this series. If it shows anything, it shows me that 40 years ago, when bands were tracked live, and the room was as important as the mic, the cabinet was more important than it is today. Even live, most touring bands are using front of house, and Ndsp modelers.
Today, it’s almost redundant to have cabinets. Direct amp recording via technology, and direct tracking using modelers have kind of taken the amps, cab, and mic placements out of the recording process.
If i were still playing live, I’d run a 1960B for the resonance it gives onstage.
Again, thank you, Glenn. The time you put into these videos is greatly appreciated!
Glenn,
Well done on the use of the scientific method. It truly shows how the density and inertness of the cab affects the final outcome of the driver: the approx 510 Hz "woooo" of the particle board while the plywood and MDF are much more clean and almost indistinguishable form each other.
About the only thing I can offer is that you did a close mic of the drivers, which helps to isolate the drivers from the cab. Yes, I know it is because you are recording in the studio and that's how it's supposed to be done, but the whole "tonewood" debate is about how the wood colors/colours the sound, and in order to do that, you will need to back the mic up to at least 16" from the face in order to get the interactions from the cabinet. All else being equal - same cab design, same cab build quality, same placements, etc. etc., just like you did - the real difference now would be how the cab adds to the drivers as you pull away, since each material has different resonance properties. You just might find a bigger difference between the ply and MDF, and more "mush" from the particle board.
Before anyone else drops in, yes, cab design for the specific drivers has A LOT to do with how they sound: sealed, ported, open back, they all load the drivers differently, and contribute to where breakup starts to happen and what the range of the driver will ultimately be.
So, if you were to re-run the same experiment with the same parameters but change the mic distance to 16" (standard for measuring "regular home" speakers), I'd be curious what further differences you might find.
Oh, and, Thank you Glenn. You F'ing ROCK!
Mechanical engineer here! First of all, thank you Gleen (or fuck you?) for making these awesome videos.
I build custom cabs, mostly front loaded. The physical effect differences between front and rear loaded enclosures are well documented in almost any hifi enclosure design handbook. The main difference resides in the fact that rear loaded cabs are more focused in their projection. The wood cutoff acts as a tube, albeit being short and as lengthy as the baffle itself. This also creates a cavity effect in that space of air that accentuates certain resonances, mostly mids and highs, depending the the size of the cutoff.
In front loaded cabs that doesn't happen, as the speaker cone isn't limited by that small cavity, so the spread is wider than in rear loaded cabs.
Additionally, using the same enclosure, the volume of air trapped in a front loaded cab is larger than a rear loaded one, although its minimal. This affects the standing wave effects and the main resonance of the cab itself.
And lastly, and purely speaking about mechanics and the forces experienced by the cab: a front loaded speaker pulls the entire structure on the same direction all the time, whereas a read loaded speaker pushes the baffle in one way and the rest of the baffle is pulled along with it, so there are some couterreacting forces going on there.
Anyway, those are my two cents!
What should I do to tame some brightness in a 1x12 closed back made of 18mm Poplar with joint box and rear-loaded? Do you suggest damping the inside with some acoustic foam?
Great job on the data and the video Glenn. Awesome.
love how much the guy in the demo is enjoying jamming
This probably Glenn's best mix to date. Just thought we should all take a minute to appreciate it.
I can here the clear superiority (now that the answers are posted) of whatever is more expensive!!! It’s amazing how much easier that makes it!
Crazy. I legitimately did not hear the difference between the cabs until you did some deep analysis on the solo tracks, and you were right...as soon as you isolated that midrange hum on the plywood cabinet you cannot un-hear it.
I'm totally stealing that run starting at 4:17 - sounds so cool!
i still want to know what difference the cab even makes by just removing the cab from the test all together and just do a test with the speakers mounted to a baffle thats just mounted to a stand and then a test where you just float mount the speaker and mic it up that way
I tested the speaker sound without cabinet and it removes all bottom end. That works with every speaker and it sounds like an old radio.
Yes, and I wonder if it would sound any different from an open back cabinet.
@@alexts4920 Yes, you still need a baffle but what he is talking about is open baffle design. Easiest way to do is to just buy a large sheet of plywood, brace it and make a hole in the center. The cutoff frequency for cancellation is exactly the wavelength from the speaker to the nearest edge. 1m square should be enough, the larger you make it the lower it goes.
And i for sure would like to hear the difference, open baffle is theoretically the best kind of cabinet as it has no backpressure and depending on the room, no dominant resonant frequencies that are the result of the cabinet having a finite space.. The downside is that the finite space of the cabinet improves efficiency but that is not a problem in a studio, you can have terrible efficiency, you can use a kilowatt to produce 5 watts worth of sound. But of course, the sound we are used to comes from traditional cabs so... we might get better sound in every metric, except one: nostalgia..
I wonder if the differences were bigger on an oversized 412 cab, since they were barely noticeable, bit they still were.
That isnt a simple direct comparison cos you are going to an open back...and sides....sound. Maybe an sm57 on the cone will only pickup minimal difference but the room sound will be totally different.
I have an old pine 2x12 bandmaster cab that I use for a metal band. I had to put new speakers in it and then dial out the bass response by stapling quilt batting to the inside on the back piece that seals the cab. The batting tightens up the sound a lot. Not sure if this interests you at all but figured it was worth mentioning if anyone wants a really light 2x12 for live stuff.
LOL you're so right. When I watched the screen and knew when the cabs switched I "thought" I heard a difference. But when I looked away and listened I could not detect what I thought I heard before. Could be my speakers or mix but honestly I am getting the idea that the only place it makes any difference is live in the room. If at all. I don't believe it makes enough difference to honestly matter in the long run as a signal chain can be manipulated in so many ways that I feel this just comes down to weight, cost, and preference ultimately. SKAL!
Thank you for your dedication to amplification sciences.
This was one of the coolest experiments you've done here. Nice job bro.
9:00 Voxengo SPAN Plus. You can even overlay multiple tracks in different colors to show the differences.
This is great stuff, Glenn! Breaking new ground. Thank you for all your efforts!
Glenn thanks for all the cost saving tips!! Older vid, but I just built my own acoustic treatment for about $40/panel (glue, screws, paint and stapler included) for 8 panels and a total of 10hrs for building, sanding and painting the frames. The difference in the sound of drum kit recording was night and day! Appreciate it pal!
Thanks Glen, that was a really interesting experiment to follow.
On a quick look at the relative stiffness ratings for the 3 materials, particleboard is the least stiff, then MDF then Ply.
It kind of makes sense, particleboard has voids in it as it is made from many different sized bits of wood waste - from chips to dust. Strength and stiffness can vary along the sheet length.
MDF is almost void free, but it tiny, unaligned fibres - so is known as amorphous or glassy in the materials science world. Almost the same strength in any direction.
Ply can have more voids than MDF (based on quality grading) , but you can engineer in a lot of stiffness during the manufacture of it as well as prioritising stiffness in one direction over the other.
So your comment on what the speakers have to push against is very relevant.
Stiffer cab should mean less loss/greater efficiency - non-consistent voids in particleboard lead to losses and can introduce those off resonant frequencies.
This may be different per cabinet based on construction and the particular piece of particleboard used.
Additional bracing may help the particleboard cab to be better.
Glen, your videos have inspired me to go into audio engineering. I’ve been on the fence about it for a while, up until I started my band I knew I wanted to do something with music. Thanks for the inspiration and awesome videos
People bash on mdf cabs, but Ive used a 1x12 made mdf live for a few years and it's done very well for me.
Almost every know worthy 4x12 is made out of plywood, yet they all sound different even though with the same speakers. An Engl cab (V30s) sounds very different from a Marshall cab (V30s) for example, even though it's using plywood and the same speakers. Whats different though is the construction, the size and the bracing on the inside of the cabinet.
Thanks for this series, it's the most interesting one yet in my opinion.
This is also the perfect timing to do a whole bunch more of experiments with thoes cabs you got there. Would be amazing to see more of this!
this is the best tone that Glenn ever created
I’d really like to see if you can find a difference by using a caulk to seal the edges to make it air tight. I think they did that with the mustaine cabs a few years ago.
Fluff says that his Marshall cab got 100% sealed and it added a fuckload to the bottom end. Marshall’s mid-heavy tone is purely bc their cabs aren’t butthole-tight lmao
He can't, he has the caulk blocker pedal on
@@Ninjametal fuck yes
Just getting around to watching these. I build my own cabs and have to say that even I was surprised by how subtle the difference was! The plywood has a little more 'woof' to my ear. I think that's because the plywood is more rigid. The mdf and particle board will absorb a little bit more energy through vibration and bass frequencies have the most energy.
I should also mention that the alternating wood layers are making it more stable to humidity and temp changes. Plywood might last you longer if you are moving your cab around a lot or touring. Plywood generally has better screw tearout strength too, so handles, wheels, etc shouldn't pull out or get wobbly as quickly.
My band's drummer and I build my 2x12 out of MDF, that's why it sound so good. Cheers from Brazil!
GLEEEEEEEEEEEENN! Front loaded vs back loaded speakers in a 4x12 cab gives a volume of around three litres more air volume when the speakers are front loaded. I did those calculations like ten years back using the excellent free software WinISD which is a great tool when designing speakers. There are all kinds of funky parameters to tweak and it works both for hifi, lofi and nofi (read: guitar cabs) appliances. According to WinISD larger volume gives, not surprisingly, louder response in the lower frequency range. But when it comes to adding like three litres of volume to a 4x12 which already has like over 100 litres of volume you will probably not hear any or at best an utterly small difference.
But in a recording situation front loaded speakers gives you more possibilities to mic up reeeeeeally close as it will allow the mic get closer to the speaker membrane by about an inch (if you have a grill/fabric in front of the speakers that is). And moving a mic back and forth an inch or so can make a huge difference in a record situation. I think front loaded speakers looks cooler as well. So for recording situations front loaded elements are better as they give more sonic possibilities. Plus that it looks cooler.
Big kudos for your work, Glenn! 'Preciate it plenty! :)
I used to have an MDF constructed Marshall MX412A cab, which I sold, and bought a 1960A. I regret buying that cab because I've realized that the T75 speakers are just not my mojo. I now wish I had kept that MX412A cab and just bought some V30s or Greenbacks to replace the G12E-60 speakers it came with.
Guess I'll just sel that 1960A and buy a Harley Benton V30 212. Thanks for all that info!
Other cabinet experiments I would be very interested in hearing:
-Difference in thickness of the wood used in construction
-Whether changing the height vs the width makes a difference (e.g. compare 1x1 to 1.5x0.5 to 0.5x1.5 (all arbitrary measurements) and see what changes) - Maybe see if recording a 2x12 on its side sounds different to one on the floor, does the floor affect resonance and tone? etc.
-Difference in height / width change vs depth
-Angled shape vs uniform shape
I realise these would all be expensive to test, but it'd be great to nail down what really makes the changes.
I built my own 4x12 slant cab back in 1981. 3/4" plywood...built to lastStill using it with my 1978 JMP 2203. It's going to get 4 of the Celestion EVHs when I can master the art of not eating for 2 months.
So build my next cab out of particle board and boost at 500 hz when EQing. Got it.
I remember reading somewhere EVH solely used birch cabs. I wonder if there’s actually something to that.
It makes sense though that the cab material would impact the sound. Frequencies would be bouncing off the sides and some would get absorbed or reflected differently than others
8:21 The fact that you're able to string a full sentence together. Has us all baffled!
Geezuz, these recordings sound so good, regardless of the wood. Majoring in the Micro.
Oooh. Hearing the difference between braced and not braced sounds great.
Also I put some good speakers on an old crate blue voodoo cab and it sounds great!
Great videos Glen! Nailed it this time around for sure! Greatly looking guard to the next video.
Loved the videos on cabinet tone wood. I'll be waiting for the next in the series. Bracing the baffle.
Cabinet B stood out to me during the first video as sounding most different of the 3 - my guess (and comment on video 1), however was that cabinet B was the plywood. Apparently only the baffle was plywood. hmm
I had two Peavey 112s. Both had G12H30's. One of them the baffle was destroyed by UPS in shipping. I replaced it with Birch and anchored the speaker the same as it was originally. There was a definite difference between the two cabs. Not better or worse, just different. I have used plenty of plywood and other types of cabs. The most interesting I had was a 112 that was completely plastic, like thick black stuff. It was heavy as hell and sounded great. The maker escapes me right now. Play what you like.
I would also be interested to know the difference with those cabs as open back.
Oh good, I am not the only one wondering about this
the most impressive in this vid, apart from the amount and quality of production work ? the musicians ! they are great ! told them those shoot-out are addictive not only for the knowledge Glenn is sharing, but also very much for their passion and talent ! thanks to the team. 🤘🤘🤘
You can get pressure treated mdf, it handles humidity with 0 problems. I have used it on speaker cabinets and subwoofers for HiFi and car audio for years, never going back to regular untreated mdf. What I can say from years of doing this is that volume of the enclosure is Key, and if you have a wented enclosure the shift in volume can be dramatic! I made a 2x15 cabinet inspired of the Old Randall cabs that Dimebag used, combined with a slightly deeper profile and two 6" aeroports, and that thing is like a possesed deamon screaming! I would just imagine that it is hard at best ro use for recording, but the unfiltered sound coming out of it is just insane.
Hello Glen,...great job as always...dude you nailed it..great job..great video...you the man...
Best tip I ever got regarding cabinets was to make sure the I took the wheels off for recording, placing on hard ground, not carpet. And to loosen the screws a little on the back of the cab to get a little movement on the back to increase resonance.
Gave a nice little woof, like you would hear on the palm mutes on the Justice album. Especially when just touching the string about 1/4 from the nut on the low E, while palm muting.
I built some furnitures for my monitors last year half particle and part rral wood. I thought it would be very deaf but to my surprise it was too much resonant, noticeable while tiping with my fingers or knuckles. I had to modify it in different places, take away some parts, make some holes and add some holed pieces until I was satisfied with the resonance loss. The idea was I wanted the less resonance possible with the monitors. I also added some foam, rubber and eva for isolation.
I was getting a buzz in my right ear. When you went to the desktop it was way more pronounced. Makes me happy :)
Great video and comparison, please keep up the great work!
With proper bracing and construction they will sound very similar assuming same internal enclosure volume. If you read this Glenn, you should try adding some sound damping such as open cell egg crate foam or rockwool to the back and sides of the enclosure. This will have a much larger impact on the tone. If you want to know more about enclosure design I'm pretty well versed.
Also not all plywood mdf or particle board are the same. Cabinet grade plywood is much better than what you find at most home stores. Plywood is used in speaker cabs for a couple of easons over mdf or particle board. Plywood is more rigid, lighter, and holds up to moisture and abuse much better than mdf or particle board.
MDF is less resonant than plywood and that is why it is used in hifi speakers, but that comes at a cost of weight due to higher density. MDF will absorb moisture and fall apart so it is not good for gigging. Should be fine for a proper studio though.
Stay away from particle board. It is garbage and should never be used for anything you want to last.
Hey Glenn. For average frequency analysis, i think SPAN from Voxengo is a really good choice. It’s a free but really powerful analyzer with settings that you can tweak
Good on you, Glenn, for the time, trouble and cost of putting this shootout together. It was quite illuminating. I second the notion that if you're a gigging musician plywood is the way to go. It's both lighter and more resistant to damage than either MDF or (shudder) particle board. Fortunately, my days of lugging big cabs are well behind me... a 1X12 is all I need to hear myself on stage.
Amazing look at this topic Glenn! Great job man 🔥
Thanks Glenn. Just started the video, but I'm sure it's full of science and truth.
Dear Glenn: Re: your question at 8:57, this isn't a direct answer to your question, but your discussion made me realize it would be interesting to test with pure sinusoids. You'd then be able to easily hone in on where the weird rattling parasitic resonances are as you sweep the frequency. Admittedly pure sinusoids are not very metal. ;)
Oh, wait a minute -- how about this: capture the impulse response of the cab, and then plot the spectrum of that impulse response using something like Audacity. The weird rattling probably is exhibiting some nonlinear behavior so it wouldn't be fully captured by a single impulse response, but it would start to get you in the ballpark of finding where the evil gremlins lie.
I have a Heil 4/12 that I drive with a Fender Dual Showman. I put a mattress pad , foam pad shaped like egg cartons , on the inside of the cabinet . That tightened up the low end substantially. So installing a deadened on the inside of the cabinet will definitely affect the tone
A simple way to find many serious resonances, rattles, and buzzes that doesn't require any extra equipment is to use a free tone generator (free app or website) with a very slow sinewave sweep up or down the audio spectrum, played loud. When you hear the sinewave sound being swallowed, or wobbling in volume, or sounding like a different waveform, you've got a resonance or a buzz or rattle. Sometimes you can hear a whistle or rushing sound of air going in and out of a small gap (or even a too-small bass port) when playing a low bass frequency. You want the sweep to be slow so that it's always playing a number of cycles at very close to each frequency, giving it time to tweak a resonance into exhibiting itself. Any anomaly you hear is probably also present in the music you listen to as well, when that frequency is present, but much harder to identify in a mix. You can also sometimes hear various things in the room rattle. Those things rattle while you listen to music, too.
So what you're looking for in terms of getting a full frequency image instead of real time is something called a Fourier Transform, I don't know of a program to do the analysis as the only time I've ever done it was with my own program that I made myself years ago, but you can run an audio file through it and it'll show the prevalence of each frequency across the board.
I'm shocked, the MDF sounded brighter and more focused to me. Great vid!
Voxengo span has an option to tweak the time setting of the spectral analyzer, which results in a pretty much static image if you push it to the max setting :) it also makes it possible to tweak other parameters of the graph like frequency smoothing etc. and it’s completely free!
Thanks for doing the hard work. Loved these 2 video.
That was really interesting! I Askaig love the enthusiasm of the dude in the playthrough. His playing and music are really cool too.
Nailed it. Nicely explained. I stand by my view that material density is probably the primary aspect that is contributing to the tone differences. Will look forward to your follow up about the baffles.
Hi Glenn!
I really like this series. The difference between the particle-board and the other two was even bigger than I had expected for a close miced cab. I would imagine there could be a more noticeable difference in the room-tone between mdf and plywood, if the walls of the cabinets vibrate enough. That might be an intersting experiment, even though not that relevant for redording metal, I guess. Knowing very little about recording I guess a back-mic isn't really a thing with closed cabs.
Bracing to control weird plate-resonances should work quite well. Even an internal strut that gets wedged between front and back might make a difference. Worked for a subwoofer I built years ago. But there the main goal was to get the plate-resonance above the frequency of the low-pass. No idea about the effects in a full range cab. Bitumen-like dampening mats as used in hifi-speakers are an other solution that comes to mind.
My prediction regarding front vs back loaded: virtually no difference with a close mic, in the room maybe a little different high-end, depending on listening position.
Hi i have a question. Ola Englund has video comparising different amp and cabinets and conclusion was that the real difference in sound is in the cab not amp but all those cabinets had the same speakers vintage 30 but the difference between Mesa cab to others was huge. So my question is why. Why such difference between the sound of those cabinets with the same speakers in it?
Thanks for all the time and effort into this. The size plays a definite role. I stick with Mesa. If you use their single 12, it has some less desired sound, but when I play my REVV G20 on the curved 2x12’s keeping the same tone dialed in, it’s VERY noticeable.
Good job Glenn. My old shop had a vacuum table CNC milling machine. We had to mill the top and bottom of the MDF sacrifice board because it had a finish on it that air couldn't travel through. This got me thinking about how smooth or porous the wood is would change the sound. If you were to sand, paint or put adhesive vinyl on the inside of the cabs, what would that do to the sound. I know you might not want to go down this rabbit hole, but I thought it was worth mentioning.
If you are using ply wood and you want it to sound like MDF (but you are to cheap to by it) back your amp with as many coach pads as you can find. Even a futon mattress will work. This will help quiet the cabs resonance. Hope this helps.
Hey Glenn, thanks for doing all this research. I want to build a guitar cabinet. I don’t want to waste all my time and effort using poor quality materials, so thanks for saving me some troubles.
it's so damn interesting.
i wasn't listening through the most optimal stuff for the test but to my ear A definitely had a different sound. B and C were so damn similar to one another.
also what was interesting is, when the lead solo tone came in i was not able to tell a difference between any of them. only during the rhythm parts.
I also had to very much concentrate and actively listen on the test video. if i was just casually listening. or if you had a cab change during a song and didn't say anything about it, i doubt anyone would really know
I'd like to see the same thing done but with a 1x12 cab, a 2x12, a 4x12 and an oversized. all same material, just different sizes. I imagine that's gonna have a bigger impact perhaps?
Absolutely.
When designing cabs you have to consider the Thiele/Small parameters.
It makes a pretty significant difference in the way the speaker responds and can be the difference between a crisp attack, a flubby tone or just plain ass.
Maybe do two, one at a different size each, and one where the cab is the exact same size.
@@khristopherkomodoensis4734 yeah! Come on Glenn! Do the research! For science! Maybe show where each would be applicable, in a variety of scenarios. I'd do it but I'm broke and not as smart as a studio engineer. 😀
This is a rabbit hole for sure. You have internal resonance frequencies to consider. Of the cabinet and the room. While not as specific as I’m sure subwoofers, each speaker is designed to function in a specific volume of air. Are these speakers as “Interchangeable” as we assume they are? So so many questions and variables to consider. Great video Glenn! Keep questioning the status quo for us!
Glenn, awesome analysis. I'd love to see tone sweeps of all three cabinets. Be nice to see how they scope out.
Marshall was selling some imported cabs that no one wanted ( I believe code 50 ) for 300 bucks new for a 4x12. I bought one and loaded it with 4 celestion greenbacks. Sounds great and I saved around 500 bucks!
Even knowing the correct answers while watching and listening to this video with Sennheiser HD600 headphones, the difference is so subtle as not to matter. Just pick one and rock on, dude. It doesn't matter.
The idea behind cabs is to have a tonally inert material with a ton of mass that doesn't resonate or vibrate.
Anyway you can achieve that lets the speaker do it's thing.
I love these video series, it's great information for guys who are stuck in the loop of wanting/needing new gear because of XYZ excuses.
We all need a change sometimes but all this proves is the tone really is in the transducers, speakers and performance.
I used to build speaker cabinets in HS wood shop. I noticed more of a difference in 1/2", 3/4" and 1" thickness over type of wood.
If you really want to go down an audio rabbit hole:
Speaker Cabinet design.
Bass reflex (Modern P.A. and some bass guitar cabs)
Folded horn (older Sub woofers and some bass guitar cabs)
W horn (Really old subs)
Horn loaded (old p.a. mids/highs and some old guitar cabs)
Down fired cabs.. this is used for mainly Sub woofers but I've done it with guitar cabinets as well. Place your cabinet about 1 foot off the ground and have the speaker FACE the ground.
It sounds silly, but the reflection off the floor is actually mildly louder than facing out.
This is a variation of something called Corner loading.
Where you face the speaker into a corner and the reflection off the walls fill the room better than the speaker facing out.
It's a very old (1960's/70s) era technique to get more volume out of the lower powered P.As at the time.
Works with guitar cabs as well.
Great stuff. Love the experimentation.
You can use the “print screen “button on your keyboard and paste the information into a paint document. As for a program that does that, I have no idea.
Oh I get, plywood is good for solos, and particle board for tapping!!1
(great work Glenn!)
YESSSSS!!! Thanks Glenn, been waiting for this video. Great job covering this my dude! 👍🏻
As far as the cabs go the variation in size will change the sound fat more than the construction materials. However the construction material will make a huge difference in the cabinets durability over time. Pretty much the main difference between front loaded and rear loaded as far as I have ever been able to tell was the ease with which speaker changes could be made. Good video just proving that as far as sound is concerned the speaker is still the main marker of tone shift when a cabinet of the same dimensions is used
I know this will not be practical in any way, but I came across a build guide for desktop speakers made from concrete a long time ago.
The reasoning behind this was, that "the solidity of the concrete helps to eliminate natural resonance of the speaker enclosure, thus producing a more linear sound".
Due to weight and fragility aspects, I don't think it would be a viable option as a build material, but I'd find it interesting if and how a guitar cabinet made of concrete would sound different than a cab made of plywood or MDF
I would suggest sanding the interior surface of the particle board cabs to about 400 grit for further tests. MDF is exceptionally smooth and the cab interior surface reflections may be contributing to some of the tonal quality.
Naw. Acoustically, the difference is so minute that you'd never be able to hear it. Especially at 400 grit, that's a very fine grit, enough so that it would be like not sanding it at all. If you really want to rough it up try 80 grit, or better yet, 40 grit.
@@rbilleaud No, you misunderstood me, particle board can have a rough surface which might affect high frequency reflections. My point was to smooth it. MDF is extremely smooth, almost shiny.
I once did an A/B test between a Mesa Rectifier cab and a Blackstar HT cab. Both were 4x12 and both were loaded with V30's. The test was done in the room, without mic'ing the cabs. You could hear that both cabs had the same speakers, but the frequency range of Mesa cab was much "fuller" sounding. The Blackstar sounded like a badly mic'ed cab, like some frequencies were missing.
They’re different vintage 30s
@@SpectreSoundStudios Are Mesa V30's voiced differently? Because i installed the V30's in the Blackstar cab myself. They were not some "China wannabe V30's".
In the final analysis, the difference was a bit stronger than i thought but in line with my thinking: solid is solid and that is what you want in a cabinet.. or guitar.. or anything really, solid is the best companion for a moving mass that produces a sound, whether it is a transducer or a string.
Now.. next one: damping material used inside the cabinet, yes or no.
Then there is one test i've always wanted to do.. using full range hifi concentric speakers.... The problem of course is that full range needs at least two drivers and concentric design is still two-way. But, is the linear response what we want, or is there a built-in curve...
The short answer: (re: front-loaded vs. rear-loaded) I decided on using a removable baffle because I have a diffuser built into my baffle. I also have front-reflex ports so that I can bolt (no screws or t-nuts) the baffle on tightly, by getting a wrench inside. I would advise that folks always use this bolting method even for removal of the rear of the cab in the case of rear-loaded speakers. Nothing worse than stripping those screws. An easy way is to make the bolts accessible is through handle ports on the side of the cab or a removable jack-plate. I also fixed the screen frames onto the baffle with Velcro so they can be smaller and don't have to be removed to remove the baffle. Also, If for some reason (and this sound like something Glenn would do) you wanted to try different baffle/diffuser configurations/materials, it would be a snap!
The bolts are Phillips-head machine screws with massive washers (which are exposed and look cool/industrial). It's super easy to reach in and grab the nut/lock washer/big ass washer stack with just your fingers and remove the bolt with a screw gun. I had to do that a lot while in the construction/wiring/finishing stages.
Holy shit!! Finally a legitimate, scientific experiment on front loaded vs. rear loaded speakers! Can't believe I never thought to request that as an experiment lol SUPER stoked to see those results