… AxeTrak vs. Grendel Dead Room …
I own two guitar amp isolation cabinets that are very different. I decided to record some tracks with each one to document their differences.
The AxeTrak
The AxeTrak is a very small little box that has a speaker input, an XLR output (NOT phantom powered), an LED, and a switch. It is very simple and well built. When it runs, it is virtually silent.
It has an internal dynamic microphone that cannot be moved or adjusted in any way. There is a bass port, but I have yet to need any more bass out of the little guy, so I have always left it closed.
The Grendel Dead Room
The Grendel Dead Room is an enormous 80 pound speaker cabinet that contains your choice of various speaker makes. Mine has a Veteran 80 (a Warehouse Speaker clone of a popular British speaker).
Inside the cabinet, there are two mic mounts and dual XLR jacks. You can plug just about anything into it and feed the signal to a pair of jacks on the outside of the cabinet. It is very well built. The lid is sturdy and the hinges are all very strong. It is heavy.
The Test
I ran my hollow body Artcore guitar into my Bitmo Modded Blackheart 5 watt tube amp and fed both cabinets at the same time. All of the tone controls and gain control were set in the middle positions. For each test (low, mid and high gain), I used a different Bitmo voicing on the Blackheart to change the tone and gain structure.
The AxeTrak had the bass port closed and the “low cut” switch off. The Grendel Dead Room was miked with an off-axis 57 and a MXL V69G (just for the fun of it). Like I said before … you can put whatever you want in there. [Note – I do have a Blue Ball microphone that was a little difficult to position while using another mic in the cabinet.]
I recorded three different guitar parts. Make no mistake … I did not spend hours dialing in my dream tones for this test. Nor do I normally riff on two power chords. I just sat down and put everything on an even playing field. Here they are … you decide what you think.
[Recorded with a BLA MOTU 828mkII & SCA N72/C84]
Low Gain:
AxeTrak
[audio:ATLG.mp3]
Dead Room 57
[audio:DR57LG.mp3]
Dead Room V69G
[audio:DRV69LG.mp3]
Mid Gain:
AxeTrak
[audio:ATMG.mp3]
Dead Room 57
[audio:DRMG57.mp3]
Dead Room V69G
[audio:DRMGV69.mp3]
High Gain:
AxeTrak
[audio:ATHG.mp3]
Dead Room 57
[audio:DRHG57.mp3]
Dead Room V69G
[audio:DRHGV69.mp3]
All of the above samples are dry and unaltered in any way (no EQ or compression ect.). For more information of the AxeTrak or Dead Room, just type the appropriate word into the “search” box in the top right corner of my blog.