Wednesday, March 18, 2026

34 thoughts on “This totally changes the sound of your amp #guitar #guitaradvice #guitarlesson

  • Speakers are as important to tone as your pickups, but they’re the most overlooked, and taken for granted aspect to tone.

    Reply
  • Love hearing someone that actually knows it is the Speakers and Cab … not tubes, pu's or tone wood! Thank you!

    Reply
  • Just stuff your dirty laundry inside the back of it like everyone else does. Or do a Dave Davies and poke holes in the cone with a sharp stick.

    Reply
  • True!!
    I normally use a 1×12" cab during rehearsals and live, but for recording I have an oversized 2×12" cab (primarily closed but can be partially opened too) with a Celestion Vintage30 (Anniversary) and a lovely vintage Rola-Celestion G12H Greenback – both are very well played in, and the combination gives me plenty of options for micing, regardless of the style I'm currently playing!

    Reply
  • Would 2×12" speakers or even 1x 12" speakers work in a 4×12 Cabinet or is that large box simply WRONG soundwise with that amount of "free space" undamped in that box.

    Reply
  • Amps are like engines
    Speakers are the tires and suspension
    Lots of epic horsepower into a crap cabinet gives bad results … but a simple amp into a brilliant cab/speaker combo is always lovely

    Reply
  • Cool – I have a little 1×8, but I'm currently building a 1×12… Excited to hear it now!

    Reply
  • Friendly reminder that tone wood and pickups don't matter. Only real difference is single coil, p90s, and humbuckers. Don't waste money on new pickups unless your pickups are microphonic

    Reply
  • Would love to see you and Rick talk about recording in the 1950s specifically I Only Have Eyes For You. No overdubs apparently

    Reply
  • My #1 4X12 cab was a DL Monsoon – deep and chunky – roadie's called it the "dead body" because it was so heavy ???? – #2 was an old slanted Laney – The thing would give you a haircut if you were up front ????

    Reply
  • Hey Rhett, the cab, wood, covering, speaker amount, Ohms load, open/closed back all make a difference. Totally agree. The best cabinet for recording, as far as I know, hasn't been built in mass quantity. A very good friend in the 90s (he was 78 ) said he would teach me how to build a cab that would end all. The surround was made of ½ rock maple with tongue N groove joints and 45⁰ groove for interior locking pieces to wedge the TNG joing, NO Glue ! The shell without front and back could be stood on it was so strong. It was BIG, he showed me how to calculate how much air the speaker could move at max RMS, 10s, 12s, and 15s. We then made 4 individual inner separations that could be opened to work together, or closed to work independently. The inner doors were Peterbuilt cab fresh air doors with new rubber gaskets. The back had 4 round ports you could partially unscrew or remove, this gave access to open the inner ports. The magic (he said) was the front sound board. It was spruce and was slightly undersized and encapsulated in a steel commercial grade window surround. It was bolted into the surround using all thread from the outside. Nuts were tacked into the steel frame, the all thread from outside and drawn tight with stainless acorn nuts. Even after we buzzed holes for the speakers you could bounce ball bearings off of it. The speakers were not screwed in, we made spruce rings that compressed the speaker into a cork gasket. I made a control box on the back so you could use 1, or all the speakers. The advantage of this was you could run 4 different brand, size, and style of speaker with the flip of a set of toggle switches. I used a 10" Weber, 12" Weber, 12" early 60s Jensen, and a 12" Celestion. I never needed another cabinet, it did it all. You could run in parallel, series, or alone. I mic'ed it often with the 10 and 12 Webers. We'd balance it depending on head and guitar. I have 2 DAWS and a choice of speaker cab models but it doesn't stack up to that old box. I ended up leaving it with a friend when I moved and it got destroyed in his basement (water tank burst). I did build another one for a bassist buddy and he runs an 8, 10, 12 and a 15 all the time. I added car audio passive radiators that can be immobilized. It's a coffin for low lows and it stays tight with the 8 and 10. He runs a splitter into 4 heads. Just a monster setup. You've just got to be young to move it. I get a hernia just thinking about it. Maybe you could get somebody to build one, or better yet. Build it yourself over a summer. It's not that hard just finicky in the seals and details. Tongue oil and the wood was furniture grade.

    Reply
  • Agreed! Old Crate amps sounded terrible with their own speakers. Change them out or the whole cabinet and they were amazing.

    Reply
  • Wait, so you're telling me the biggest factor in how an amp sounds is all the different variables that change the sound of an amp?! I'm shook. ????

    Reply
  • To add to your comments, i was astonished when i found out just how many EPIC guitar solos and sounds from back in the day- were actually played through a small combo turned all the way up.

    We all saw the walls of stacks onstage, as well as the big hogh watt heads they were known for using. It was natural to assume that's what we were hearing. But…

    Imagine being in a small recording studio with that monster dimed- for hours and hours- while recording. Imagine LIVING near that studio, lol. You'd kill your hearing!!

    Makes way more sense, when you understand how tube amps work

    Reply
  • You always talk 5000$ stuff but the biggest sound difference is microphone and speaker placement, before just going yolo with high end stuff.

    Reply
  • Yes but is bigger always better? Is a Super better than a Vibrolux and that better than a Princeton?

    Reply

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *