Remote Dead Box options

[tothemax]

I've been watching some of Tim Pierce's video's and he refers to his garage cab chamber where he has a couple of cab options remote from his recording work area. We have a pretty decent area under our house, kind of a cross between a basement and crawl space. About 6' tall and dry. I'm thinking that down the road it might be nice to build a simple version of what Tim has with a mic'd cab setup in a something like 5'x5' sound proof box under the house.

The issue I have is my studio is in a standalone shed about 20' away from the house. I'm in the process of upgrading the power to 220v and will be pulling new wire, I'll be pulling a cat5 network cable as well. I'm pretty sure I'll be maxing the buried conduit between the upgraded power and network cable. Not sure what would be the best way to get the signal to my console with minimum latency. I'm sure it's possible, just not something I'm familiar with. Trying to get my 2022 projects into the concept/design stages.

 

[silky smoove]

Presumably you’d want the amp head in your studio space, so you’d need to run a speaker power cable and at least one XLR cable. 20’ isn’t an impossible task for either. I’d put these in a separate conduit from the other things you’re running if possible.

the bigger problem will be the use of an iso box for bass. I’ve seen it done and on most cases the end users only liked the tone if the air space was absolutely stuffed with acoustic treatment which, in a way, kills the point of mic’ing a cab. No harm in trying it though.

 

[tothemax]

Might be a down the road solution as the conduit is already in the ground. When I set up the shed I used 3/4" conduit and pulled 15A wire thinking that would be good. Now five years down the road the practice "shed" has become a "studio" with AC and heat. So it's time to upgrade the wiring to 30A, to support the studio and other power demands. Appreciate the feedback...

 

[seamonkey]

Echo Chambers use to be big long chambers with speaker at one end and mic at the other.
Times have changed and it no longer makes sense.
You'll find many "echo chambers" and recording studios captured as impulse responses. It's the same thing, 100% captured in convolution.

 

[silky smoove]

Echo Chambers use to be big long chambers with speaker at one end and mic at the other.
Times have changed and it no longer makes sense.
You'll find many "echo chambers" and recording studios captured as impulse responses. It's the same thing, 100% captured in convolution.

An echo chamber and a dead box serve opposing purposes. One is for capturing a mic’d signal of a very dry source without room reflections, the other is about capturing nothing but room reflections. The OP wants the former, not an echo chamber.

 

[lokikallas]

Don’t run low voltage in the same conduit as high voltage or you are goingto have a bad time.

 

[Ostie]

Echo Chambers use to be big long chambers with speaker at one end and mic at the other.
Times have changed and it no longer makes sense.
You'll find many "echo chambers" and recording studios captured as impulse responses. It's the same thing, 100% captured in convolution.

Many years ago I did some recording in a studio that used a grain silo as an echo chamber. The mic was hoisted to the top, or anywhere in between, by a winch. I can’t remember what mic or cab was used, but they were interchangeable.

 

[dalahorse]

Don’t run low voltage in the same conduit as high voltage or you are goingto have a bad time.

In addition to safety concerns, running Cat-5 alongside power and other high and low voltage signal sources can introduce delay/jitter to your network and interference to your audio. Using optical for the network will solve the delay/jitter problem and reduce audio interference. Running cables in parallel in extremely close proximity over a long distance is not the best solution. If this project was mine, I'd install additional, larger (you never know when you'll need to add stuff!) conduits: One for power, one for speaker level, one for balanced audio, and one for network. If you go optical for network, pull it with the balanced audio. When you do your initial cable pulls, leave a pulling tape in each conduit to facilitate future expansion.

Good luck! It sounds like a very cool project.

 

[tothemax]

Really appreciate the input, and it definitely makes sense. Glad I posted while I was still brainstorming. I'll be pulling 10 gauge wire (10/3) for the power. My thoughts were that going with individual wire verse Romex would allow space for a network cable. I was thinking of using Cat 5e or 6e with the heavy insulation. The house WiFi is pretty weak in the studio (I guess I could add an extender). All food for thought...
The dead box is probably on hold for another day, when I have the time to add an additional audio conduit...

 

[dalahorse]

I was thinking of using Cat 5e or 6e with the heavy insulation.

Whether Cat-5e or 6, consider purchasing STP (shielded twisted pair) vs the most common UTP (unshielded) for the conduit pull. That should reduce interference, both created and received, by your network. If everything in the low voltage conduit is shielded and balanced, I imagine it will all work as intended with no problems.

The idea of having a dead box to mic a cranked amp is very cool. I wish I could build a huge one so I could play my drums any time I wanted, day or night.