Calling All Good Sounding 4x12 Cab Owners

James Freeman

James Freeman

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For reference and archival purpose.

Please share 30 seconds of pink noise recording using a flat solid state power amp of your reference cab with an SM57 dead center at exactly 10cm (4 inches) away from the grille cloth.
If you record and share all 4 speakers in the cab we will have archival material for future reference.
*In FLAC 48kHz 24bit format please.

30 seconds of Pink Noise for download:
Code: 
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1DY55O01iJPzC-FA3cf85-L0B9b7hLoOs/view?usp=sharing
 
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laxu said:
What do you plan to do with this info?
Click to expand...
I can make any cab sound like any other cab with some basic DAW trickery, IRs, and knowledge of guitar speaker response, a'la Power Cab but more accurate and in a 4x12.
It allows me to hear and experience other people's real cabs via the magic of the internet.

For example:
1771582928885.png



Who's got a good sounding early 2000's Mesa 4x12, an SM57, and a flat solid state power amp?
That Mesa cab is the father of all Vintage 30 cabs, I want to collect its soul.

1771583612999.png
 
James Freeman said:
That Mesa cab is the father of all Vintage 30 cabs, I want to collect its soul.
Click to expand...
How can you account for the influence of things like the cabinet material, the baffle design and how its attached, various size differences, and of course, how all of those affect impedance interactions with any given amp?

The same goes for the room influence on the microphone, accounting for tolerance and drift variation in sm57's, amplifiers etc. Cabs radiate sound in a very wide area and the room will interact.

I think for some subtle match EQ something like this can work a little, but I'm also not convinced you'll get a better result than just dialling in whatever you are trying to do to sound as good as it can. Match EQ is generally pretty destructive to the time domain because it's dealing with a ton of narrow bands. Its like those IR's made by EQ matching to famous guitar tones, they sort of half work but they also sound extremely weird whenever you try and do anything with them.
 
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MirrorProfiles said:
How can you account for the influence of things like the cabinet material, the baffle design and how its attached, various size differences, and of course, how all of those affect impedance interactions with any given amp?
Click to expand...

I can't and I don't.
The focus is from 1.5kHz and above where the cab itself has less effect.
Typical 4x12 cabs have standing wave resonance at 600Hz and 1200Hz, above that it is mostly the speaker itself.

1960ax.png



MirrorProfiles said:
The same goes for the room influence on the microphone, accounting for tolerance and drift variation in sm57's, amplifiers etc.
Click to expand...

The SM57 probably the most consistent dynamic microphone in history, there's plenty of comparisons online including by you, I have two SM57's (2022 and 2026) and they are nigh on identical in sound, the audible difference between speakers far exceeds that of two SM57 from any era.

Dead center and 10cm (4") away is where the frequency response of a 12" speaker is most consistent with the SM57 in my experience.
Anything closer than 2" I see some cardioid interference from the mic, anything away from 5" we start to get room and near speakers sound and lose proximity effect.
I chose 4" for consistency between measurements specifically with the SM57, other mics respond differently.

distance.png
 
Framus 2x12 from 2011

Two Chinese Vintage 30 from 2011
Recorded with pink noise using a flat solid state power amp with an SM57 dead center of each speaker at exactly 10cm (4") away from the grille cloth.
Click to expand...

This cab demonstrates very well how Made in China Vintage 30 got their bad reputation.




20260220_140034.jpg
 
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James Freeman said:
I can't and I don't.
The focus is from 1.5kHz and above where the cab itself has less effect.
Typical 4x12 cabs have standing wave resonance at 600Hz and 1200Hz, above that it is mostly the speaker itself.

View attachment 59470




The SM57 probably the most consistent dynamic microphone in history, there's plenty of comparisons online including by you, I have two SM57's (2022 and 2026) and they are nigh on identical in sound, the audible difference between speakers far exceeds that of two SM57 from any era.

Dead center and 10cm (4") away is where the frequency response of a 12" speaker is most consistent with the SM57 in my experience.
Anything closer than 2" I see some cardioid interference from the mic, anything away from 5" we start to get room and near speakers sound and lose proximity effect.
I chose 4" for consistency between measurements specifically with the SM57, other mics respond differently.

View attachment 59471
Click to expand...
That makes sense, although I think a large part of what makes any particular cab sound the way it does is the sum of lots of small variables combining and interacting. This makes for a fun experiment and it will be interesting to see how the results all vary but I'm not sure I really see much practical use for it (personally). When you have a particular cab, there's essentially thousands of tiny little micro adjustments you make to hone in on the sound you're going for. The last thing I'm really trying to do is EQ match to something that it isn't. Its interesting to hear what the differences are and how they manifest but for actual use I want each cab to sound distinct, and I want to make unique engineering choices based on how any cab is sounding in a given situation.

Short version: You need a nice Mesa cabinet in your collection.
 
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You can actually pull this off with NAM if you use one cab's "wet" output as the input for another.
And it will account for the non-linearities as well vs a corrective IR.

@James Freeman I don't have a solid-state amp atm but what I can do is:

- I can hook up my 1960BV cab to a tube amp
- run the NAM sequence through its FX Return
- Capture the DI output as "1960BV.wav"
- hook up my "Mesa 4x12 OS Straight" to the same tube amp, same settings
- run the NAM sequence again & save the output as "MesaOS.wav"
- use the files for "Wet / Dry" training on Tone3000 (1960BV as DRY, MesaOS as WET)
- the resulting model ought to account for the differences between these 2 cabs when loading down the same poweramp

Let me know if that's something you'd want.

My Mesa cab's a 2008 build.
 
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Fuck me I completely forgot I already have a ton of reference with Fractal Dyna Cabs.

Apparently my own Framus 2x12 cab has the same speakers as Fractals Friedman 4x12 V30.
I know it's accurate due to having the same drop-off response with their "Dynamic 1", as we know the humble SM57 as almost no variation from unit to unit for the last 50+ years.

fractal dyna cabs.png
 
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