Revealed: Cabinet Tonewood Shootout
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- čas přidán 7. 08. 2024
- Last week, we shot out three identical guitar cabinets with one difference: The type of wood they were made from. Here's what we found out.
0:00 we're back!
1:07 Analyze the data
2:34 Full mix - cabs revealed
3:52 Solo Tracks - Revealed
5:16 A Closer Look
8:33 Conclusion
11:08 What's next
Many thanks to Celestion for providing the incredible EVH Speakers: Check them out at these affiliate links:
Sweetwater: imp.i114863.net/orGnn
Thomann: www.thomann.de/intl/ca/celest...
About Spectre Sound Studios:
I'm Glenn Fricker, engineer here at Spectre Sound Studios. I love making records, and after doing it for sixteen years, I want to pass on what I've learned. On my channel you can find tutorials on how to record guitar, bass, real drums and vocals. There's reviews and demos of tube amps, amp sims, drums, mics, preamps, outboard gear, Electric Guitar, Bass Guitar, and plugin effects.
We've covered Moon on the Water, played Bias FX, given you the absolute best in Stupid Musician Texts, ranted & raved about bass guitar, and this channel is where The Eagle has Landed.
Everything you've wanted to learn about recording Hard Rock & Heavy Metal can be found right here on this channel!
I also respond to your comments & questions: The best make it into the SMG Viewer's Comments series of videos. Loads of fun, lots of laughs.
Thanks for checking out my channel & please subscribe!
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.
I think that size, shape, and construction techniques have a bigger role in the sound than the material.
Its both. That larger the area of the pieces, the more noticeable the difference in materials will be.
That's what she said😜🤘👍
im waiting for Glenn to do an April fools reveal.... PSYCHE!! it was all a DI recording with free plug ins...
That could be for a live performance up close, but the microphone is often so close to the speaker when the cabinet is mic'ed up that I doubt that anything about the cabinet makes a difference.
@@orlock20 sure it does. I have an open back 112 with a g12t75, and it sounds a lot different than my Marshall 412 with the same speaker
GLEEEEEEEEEEEEEN! You are the metal myth busters! 🤘🏻
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.
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!
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.
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!
For me I would build a studio cab using dense, and very freakin heavy, 1" MDF, along with appropriate bracing, and swap drivers depending on the tone I was looking for. BTW, you can vastly improve it's ability to withstand water/moisture by priming and painting it inside and out before covering the MDF. I worked in the competition car audio field for some time and I did this to all my builds. Now, for gigging, I would choose some top quality 3/4" hardwood plywood just due to it's durability but would increase my internal bracing. Yeah, it's all overkill, and no one would ever really hear a difference, but I would know it's the best it can be for the given scenario.
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.
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!
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
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!
Nice work guys!
Great stuff. Love the experimentation.
This is great stuff, Glenn! Breaking new ground. Thank you for all your efforts!
Thanks for doing the hard work. Loved these 2 video.
That was fun and informative. Thank you for all of the work you put into this, Glenn.
very informative vid, loved it, also those riffs that were played were so sick!!!
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?
This was a great shootout. Thanks for doing this. I learned a lot.
Great job on the data and the video Glenn. Awesome.
Great video and comparison, please keep up the great work!
Very interesting. Thanks for the research you're doing for all of us!
Amazing look at this topic Glenn! Great job man 🔥
This was one of the coolest experiments you've done here. Nice job bro.
That was a really well made video. Props for the work
Very informative video. Great info!! Love your T-shirt!!
Hell yeah!
I love this!
Fantastic experiment.
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
YESSSSS!!! Thanks Glenn, been waiting for this video. Great job covering this my dude! 👍🏻
Nailed it! Lol
Really great concept and execution, Glenn! I greatly look forward to the future vids in this series. Thanks!
this is why i subscribed, good stuff glenn!
Awesome content dude!!! You’re amazing
Great stuff. Thanks for putting in all the work for this experiment!! Spectre Digital is doing great things for the world of metal music.
Cool analysis. Thanks man!
thanks man, this is really nice. I love those null tests, so much value coming out of it. I hope you will have opportunities to make more of these.
Nice work! Real mind opener
Thank you for putting the time in to accurately answer the MDF vs Plywood question I’ve had for years!
Great stuff as always Glenn.
Great testing and well done!
Thank you!
Again great episode.
Loved the videos on cabinet tone wood. I'll be waiting for the next in the series. Bracing the baffle.
Thank you for your dedication to amplification sciences.
This was fantastic. Thanks for doing this.
Appreciate the efforts put into this. I have an old 4x10 Traynor cabinet that might just be coming back to life. Thinking of a 2x12 set up to swap different speakers out. Thanks again Glenn!!
Excellent work Glenn!!!
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
Hello Glen,...great job as always...dude you nailed it..great job..great video...you the man...
That was really interesting! I Askaig love the enthusiasm of the dude in the playthrough. His playing and music are really cool too.
Excellent video. Finding answers to the stuff that regular jagoffs maybe couldn't. Keep up the good work.
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. 🤘🤘🤘
All these tests and information regarding tone wood,speakers,and cabs I love it. As a pop/funk/blues player all of this has been informative and eye opening. You're doing the God's work Glenn! Now I don't have to waste money on snake oil. Cheers from South Carolina.
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!
I was waiting for this video so much.
Great work, Glen
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!
I'm totally stealing that run starting at 4:17 - sounds so cool!
After.hearing your blend of the Green back and EVH I have my order in. Killer tone is killer tone. Thanks Glenn from KY
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.
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.
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.
Good stuff!
Thank you Glen
Awesome video ! I have 2 lower end cabs (b52 & a peavey ) that I'm planning on keeping but switching out the speakers to see what different tones I can get out of them, I rarely see these type of videos but so glad you can get some sick tones with just about any cab, I ask some of my local guitar players and they swear the wood makes a huge difference. I'm going to ruin their day by showing them this video 🙃. Thanks GLENENENEN!!!!!
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!
Can't wait for the follow up. Thanks
Well done Glenn. Enjoy your Vegas trip.🤟
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 was getting a buzz in my right ear. When you went to the desktop it was way more pronounced. Makes me happy :)
I've been waiting for a cabinet comparison like this for a long time. Well done!!! I'm looking forward to bracing the particle board baffle to mitigate or eliminate that 500Hz hum.
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.
yess, have been waiting for this video!!
Glenn! Awesome videos about tone wood for guitars and speaker cabs. This video did make me wonder about how speaker cabs made out of hemp wood would sound.
Neat! I can't believe I got this, my ears are better than I thought :-D
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!
keep this up glenn!
Love this!
thank you Glen
My band's drummer and I build my 2x12 out of MDF, that's why it sound so good. Cheers from Brazil!
great info
Last week I said that C sounded the best to my ears, and it still stands, I've learned that I like Plywood :) Thanks for the video Glenn
Thanks Glenn. Just started the video, but I'm sure it's full of science and truth.
Thanks for your effort, man! I just get an old amp with the speaker blowed. Put on it a new celestion and its fire!
Very interesting!
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.
Great reveal. I’m happy that my ears worked. I.e. I preferred B&C over A. But I guessed wrong on the materials.
love how much the guy in the demo is enjoying jamming
This was a very interesting experiment to follow and I like where it's going with you expanding on the tests with more may-or-may-not-be guitar tone bullshit. Cheers and thank you so much for the valuable information!
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.
Glenn, awesome analysis. I'd love to see tone sweeps of all three cabinets. Be nice to see how they scope out.
Great vid
I'm shocked, the MDF sounded brighter and more focused to me. Great vid!
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.
I keep losing myself in the song and forget to listen to the cab changes.
Love those vids, looking forward to your next investigative / bullshit crushing report!
Geezuz, these recordings sound so good, regardless of the wood. Majoring in the Micro.
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!
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!