Randall Isolation 12-C Cabinet

I received this new in 2009 w/ Celestion Vintage-30.

It has one XLR jack. I modified it and added another so I can run two mics.

I like the clam shell design of the top.

Have been attempting to capture live tube amp recorded sound in my home studio for years. I finally have it!

The typical problem for a recordist, is that you are often doing everything in one room, and typically DONT have a separate room to mic your cabinets. So you end up playing in the same room with your sequencer, monitoring using headphones so the monitors dont bleed. Also, in this kind of setup, its difficult to crank to eleven because of noise considerations. And you are never listening to the miced tone, only the in-room tone.

With the randall isolation cabinet, you can crank your amp to eleven, and listen to the miced tone through your monitors. Makes it easy to tweak the amp settings, and you can quickly make EQ changes on the board.

Honest to god, after years of trying, this is "the sound." Tone is record worthy.

This ends up being very inspirational while playing. Just put the randall in the closet and I dont hear it. REAL amp tone in a box. My amp doesnt sound good unless it is cranked, and this solves that.

This gets a 9 in tone because it is not perfect. I have noticed some overtones at highest volumes when mic is off axis. Also, this is working best with a Beyer hypercardiod mic. Sounds amazing. Only so-so with SM57 (dont like it in room either fwiw). So it limits your micing technique, but hypercardiods, right up on the cone sound great.

Ive gotta give this a ten for utility and great sound. This is the best guitar purchase I have made in the past ten years, solves lots of problems. Have been playing 20.

Sure it is not totally quiet in room, but it knocks the volume down so that you can hear your monitors, and the monitors dont bleed to the mics.

It limits mic placement and can get some overtones when miced off axis. But the sounds I am hearing are record-worthy and pro. Just like my amp in the room.

A separate iso room would be even better, but my plan is to use this for writing and recording with a reamp, and then re-record using full size cabinet, in-room during production.

It might be possible to improve upon the acoustics inside to avoid the overtones, reflections that I sometimes hear (say during soft harmonics) I currently solve this with mic placement.

The randall is the only ported design on the market. THere are other boxes that do the same thing. This is the one you want.

Modellers do not respond, play, sound or feel like a real tube amp. This is the real thing.

as the guy below mentioned,if you are sick of boring'tube amp' surrogates like Guitar Rig (bleah) and Pod,then you want a real tube amp and this iso cab. This cab has very good potential but as someone else noted,the internal material used for 'isolation' (sofa stuffing) is rubbish. I already get good authentic tone as it is,but I am soon going to buy some Auralex foam too. I am sure that with that,this good cab will be improved no end. The guys at Randall should have used acoustic foam,not this sofa stuff

the tone i try to get is early Troy Stetina / early Akira Takasaki ....that means a monstrous,dry and aggressive Marshall type sound

amps used:
a vintage Carlsbro PA 60 (you'd be surprised what an old 'pa' can do)
Charvel San Dimas,Tubescreamer,powerbrake

Ok,first off,my amp,although rated at 60 watts,has absurd volume levels,especially since I disconnect the negative feedback wire from all my amps. I use my amp at full volume to get the EL34 grind.
So I use a Weber powerbrake to tame the amp. I also used a cheap mic,Behringer xm8500, I didn't want to spend 100 bucks on a mic,especially considering that the Behringer is a fantastic mic for the price!

The tone is there. I want an heavy tone that isn't coming from a Mesa. I also used my fantastic Carlsbro with the new Ibanez Tube King,with which I boost the bass. I get a nice ,expressive,heavy and solid tone.

But I decided to invest in the Auralex foam and also to replace the Vintage 30 speaker of the Randall,with a GH-100, which I used some time ago,and gave me massive bottom end.

I have also compared the Randall to an Axetrak. The Axetrak is 5 times smaller than the Randall,and that in this case isn't such a good thing,because the Randall,especially for heavy ,massive 'wall of sound' tone,is a lot more indicated, BUT ,the new Axetrak model is isolated SO well!! Compared to the Randall,is quiet beyond belief,and that ISN'T due to the lesser bass response,but to the isolating properties of the Axetrak.

The Axetrak will do a great job for rock tones,but for metal,the Randall is my choice. However,that sofa stuffing is dreadful.

the best compromise ,if you play guitar in your apartment(especially heavy and rock guitar) and want a real guitar sound. The ISO 12 is basically an enclosed 1x12 cabinet

equipment used:

Carlsbro 100 Top all-tube 1970 monster,used with attenuator
Sound City 50 Plus
Marshall JCM 600
Northcourt 30 watt

my guitar sound is heavy 1980's guitars (Van Halen,early Malmsteen,Europe,etc)
Like everybody mentioned,this device is NOT absolutely quiet. It cuts the volume of a fourth or something like that,yet that makes a BIG difference when you use loud amps.
It also works very well with lower power amps (Northcourt).
Pros? It has a bigger sound than the Axetrak.
Cons? It's not nearly as quiet as the Axetrak. I have the axetrak too and it's at leasdt 5 times quieter. It gives a slightly smaller sound,but still usable. But because I am a sucker for 1980's heavy guitars,I need the biggest sound I can get in an apartment,so out of necessity more than choice,I choose the Randall.It's isolating material inside the cabinet is poor,though. It should be acoustic foam or whatever is next best,instead there's just a thin layer or the stuff that you get into sofas. That's not good,considering the cost.

I ??ve got a brandnew Randall Isolation Cab 21c built in 2007/2008 with a 12" Celestion Vintage 30 speaker, metal mic-stand (hard to use as it??s no goose-neck!) and carpet cover.

I do songwriting and recording at home in my study - mainly guitar-orientated things with Logic Pro. Have to take care of the sound level - acoustic guitar??s and vocals are cool, but not a tube-amp.

Got sick of having to use stuff like Guitar-Rig 3, POds and other surrogates - I mean, they sound ok but they are far off the real thing. So this promissing Isocabinet-solution started to attract me. After browsing the net I made up my mind for this Randall.

Ok, to make it clear - this cabinet is NOT absolutely quiet! But it reduces the level to a bearable stage -> you the mastervolume!

Amps with 15W or less will suit much better than my 60W Fender. And keep in mind -> cranking powertubes is not the only grail for tone.

As Camilo mentioned befor: Randall could have done the sealing far better - e.g. overlapping lid-edges and tight sealing.

So I will have to invest some additional labour and money to get it as quite as possible.

I believe it??s worth becaus all the sounds I have recorded so far are satisfying. Not boxy, no negative soundeffects (even without Auralex) - only a dry 12" tubeamp sound - overdriven or clean - that can be easily treated in Logic with reverb and eq.

Here is my favourite line-up:
Guitars used: Fender USA Strat, Epiphone Casino, Les Paul Goldtop
Amps: Fender Deville Tweed 60W
Recording: Shure SM57 or AKG C5600 -> Soundcraft Folio SX -> Joemeek optical-compression -> Focusrite Saffire Pro 10 -> Logic Pro 8

Using it only at home.

To be honest, what may go wrong? If the speaker blows (happens even in my "regular" combo amps), get a new one. It??s easy to install.

No need for support so far ...

Could be a 10 but 8 is still not bad.

Cons:
poor sealing -> lot??s of avoidable sound leackage
poor mic-stand -> a goose-neck would be awesome

Pros:
good sound

This cabinet helped me to improve my tone. It sounds better by far than any "virtual" guitaramp I have ever tried.

Randall Isolation Cab 12-C, circa "2004". Speaker is a Celestion Vintage 30. 1/4" in and out. XLR out. The microphone stand on mine is straight metal, "no plastic here". I use this cabinet at home for recording to "Cubase 5.1". I reconditioned the cab as per the previous persons post, except I did not build a separate plywood cab around it.

I am using a THD Univalve Amp to power this cab, for Guitars, I use a Brian Moore i2.13, a Ibanez 540 pII, and a Explorer. This cabinet definetely helps me get a miked tube sound without waking the neighbors.

I do not gig with this cabinet. Maybe Queensryche has the crew and know how, to use a "coffin cab" live, but I am just a pawn.

Never talked to Randall!

I use the AKG 3000B microphone in this cab, just like the previous post. I have not bought a mic/preamp/compressor yet. I am leaning towards the Focusrite Trackmaster Platinum, as opposed to the Bellari RP-503. Overall this cab does cut down the noise, I do not know if the Auralex Wedgie reconditioning is quieter than the stock Randall baffeling though. Maybe I should build a plywood box around it, with more Auralex conditioning? Anyway, this thing is built very solidly, "Quiet is as Quiet does". I dont't think your neigbors will complain unless you are running a 100 watt head through it. Stick to the lower wattage tube amps if you are worried about neighbors.

I have had this cabinet for about two weeks now. It has pros and cons.
I play anything from country to metal, with classical as my favorite. I still love metal, though.
This cab has a Celestion 12-C (60 watt?), two 1/4 jacks, and one xlr output jack.
I wish this thing had an airtight seal when closed. I guess the guys at Randall did not realize that carpet meeting carpet does not stop sound leakage. I do have a solution for the leakage, so read on...

Here are the amps I use, I tried them all with this box:
Marshall 9000 (2x50w)& 9002 (2x100w)
Boogie dual rectifier (Maverick)
Fender '65 twin
ADA MP1 and Marshall JMP1 preamps

Combinations of the above through an AKG c3000 b into a bellari rp503 tube preamp with analog compression into a vs-880. (Soon to be replaced with ProTools)

Gutars:
57 strat reissue, PRS pro-artist IV, an old Ibanez, Steinberger w/ trans-trem.

OK. First of all, this thing is not quiet. With the JMP-1 and one half of the 9000 (50 wats) on 11, the sound level is the same as, say an electric weed whacker. You can definately talk above it, and I see no problem using this in the daytime in an apartment, but it is still too loud for nightime use with my **shole neighbors. (They think so, anyway.) To Randall: airtight seals, airtight seals, airtight seals!
Did I mention this thing needs airtight seals?

When I first got it, I was very dissapointed. The sound conditioning they use in the box is cr@p, and my mikes sounded VERY reflective. I removed ALL of the material in the cab and replaced it with 2 inch auralex in alternating patterns. WOW!! Since I overlapped the edge of the lid, it actually made the cabinet a lot more quiet. After the chamber was conditioned, I GOT TONE!!!!!
As far a tone is concerned, this thing is now awesome. Period. As long as you roll off the really low frequencies (proximity effect on condenser mikes, you know...) this thing kicks ass. My dynamic microphones sounded like cr@p on clean but ok on distortion. My condensor made a night and day difference! Really amazing tone and it tracked to disk beautifully. Clean and dirt, you must use a condensor. The analog compressor is not a bad idea, either.

One bad thing: the internal rubber mike stand has plastic threads (read: strips easy), is difficult to maneuver, and makes me angry.

Be sure to remove your mike when making major adjustments because one slip, and there goes your speaker!

I'm not sure about this. I won't leave the cabinet locked down if I'm not using it, and I won't leave it open because I don't want dust on it. Just use common sense.

Ok to make this work in your house you'll need to build an isolation cabinet - for your isolation cabinet!

I used 3/4" plywood and built a box about 8 inches bigger than the cabinet itself. I put an auralex amp stand on a base, the ios 12-c on that, and then lower the box on top of the base and latch it down. You have to use silicone or some kind of caulk on all the seals, and I used layers of marine weatherstripping to secure the seal around the base. I ran a mike cable permanently through a hole in the second cab. And used some pressure latches I found a thome depot.
Now, full out, the most you hear is a distant whisper.

I'm giving this a six because of all the work I had to do.
But it has a TEN for tone now.