Has anyone tried to build an enclosure to dampen the volume and record with it?

Most of these I've seen (iso-boxes, isolation cabs) use a single 12" speaker. There are several commercially available units and lots of plans on the web to build your own.

http://www.amptone.com/index.html is a good place to start.

http://www.amptone.com/randallisolation.htm

http://www.jlhproducts.com/axetrak/main.asp is a neat idea - very small but gives great results.

The other alternative is an speaker emulator with load box, such as Palmer ADIG-LB or [[url=http://[/URL]="http://www.motherlo…"]Sequis Motherload[/]="http://www.motherlo…"]Sequis Motherload[/].

I don't expect you'll get much success trying to silence a 4 x12" and marshall, they were made to be heard! Blankets, pillows and an understairs cupboard or corner of a basement are your best bets.

G

I think he is talking about building an encloser put his existing cab in. For it to function properly the box would be huge and expensive. You would be better off getting a soundproofed 1x12 built for this purpose from Randall or Demeter.

Well I was thinking of putting it in front of the cab's grill only and seal any gaps with foam and of coarse putting foam also inside the enclosure, the dimensions would be right now 32"x32"x32" and should have a enough space inside to put 2 mics if I want to.

Foam inside the cab will alter the tone noticably and You would need to seal all gaps for the sound reduction to be effective

And don't forget to suspend it off the floor while also surrounding it with cinder blocks filled with sand. That should do it. Plywood and foam just won't cut it.

You dont need cinder blocks and sand to get the sound transmission loss you are looking for. The studio I recorded at a long time ago was what appeared to be a typical basement studio. I quickly found out though that these guys new their stuff. They turned their 3 car garage into a live room with vocal booth. They isolated it by creating a room inside a room. You could stand outside the garage and not here the drummer doing his takes at all. Well, in this live room they had an amp vault. They used it so guitarists and drummers could play together to the same click at the same time. They felt they could get a more emotional and powerful drum performance if the drummer felt like it was being done live. The vault reduced the bleed to zero. You could stand outside the thing when my half stack was cranked inside it and all you would hear is a very low bass rumble. They built it out of 2 different-sized layers of plywood and some foam. Their's was 7 feet tall, width and length was about 4'x4'. The door on the vault was a double door design. I'm sure someone else can explain better what that means. Anyways, sure it changed my tone a tad. But thats why the amp head is in the control room. You listen to what you are playing and hearing on the monitors and you adjust your tone accordingly. Not that hard.