Stub Mandrel

Just picked up a Trace Elliot GP11 V5 4x10 combo for £130 🙂

During the gig it went back and forth between elation and terror! The high point for me was everyone clapping along to Crazy Little Thing Called Love .. it was when I realised people were actually enjoying the music rather than just enjoying the event.

Have you looked at what I linked to?

Lots of 'real' rics on eBay it seems. Most look a bit healthier!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three-Day_Week I thought thos days were gone, but it's not hard to believe such a thing could happen again now!

🤣 It's an early one, the actual power seems a matter of speculation but not huge - I've seen both 150 watts and 200 watts quoted. I've also seen lots of comments that TE were 'conservative' in their power estimates...

I remember the three-day week... and I'm not even old!

Things have just got more complicated! I just won this for £131 on eBay: TRACE ELLIOT GP11 MK V Graphic Preamplifier 4x10" Bass Combo Amp. Pickup only, but it's only about 25 miles away. But my understanding is that the 4x10 is 8R and I can add another 8R cab...

You bloody millennials! 🤣

That's when 'new' designs started to come through, before then you had the choice of dated 'violin' style basses, SG type ones or Fenders. Suddenly you had a how load of more adventurous designs and features.

This thread has piqued* my interest! I have a Laney Pro-Bass head from the early 80s, one of the very early ones that doesn't even have a power output marked on it (s/n 1601, very crudely scratched on it!) It's a shameless rip-off of a Trace Elliot with overload LEDs, pre-shape, parametric EQ, 11-band EQ, cheesy compressor (it's worst feature), pre-post FX loops, DI and extra FX loop on the power amp. I actually like the sound and it's immense flexibility this gives, but it needs to be dialled for 'pub gig' volumes and then it become easy for things to get 'farty' - it hasn't really got enough headroom. I'm looking at getting/making a more efficient 300W 1x12 cab to replace one of my two guitar-oriented 2x12 120W cabs. Now this thread has me wondering about ripping out (carefully removing and putting in a safe place) the Laney power amp and PSU, and fitting a SMPSU and a 300 to 500W D-class module with fan cooling (because it's in a big 3/4" ply box). Any thoughts on suitable modules - I assume the ones on eBay for about £17 are not the ideal solution, but at what price point do they become robust and reliable? *Actually I was just looking for an excuse to use the most miss-spelled word on the whole internet!

Dare I mention 6-strings? I have an 80s Korean Tele with a plywood (but nicely finished) body and good neck (and a stacked DiMarzio by the bridge 👿) I'm tempted to buy one of these and have a go at veneering it, £55 off the 'bay:

Grown ups can decide if they want to buy fire-salvage or not! I thought his 'Hendrix' comment was quite funny 🙂 Plus I thought this topic was for 'weird' as well as wonderful...

Thanks! WinICD is sucking my brain out at the moment. In simple terms my problem is it sounds like I'm playing through guitar speakers unless I push the 40, 80 & 120 Hz sliders up to +6dB. Extended bass will give me more headroom for normal playing and the option to turn up if I need to, as I only have a 150W (it may even be 100W the power isn't actually written on it...) I've found these 12" MCM speakers, fairly cheap at CPC (about (£10 less than the Eminence Beta 12😞 This graph shows my current setup - Red, two MCM drivers in green, and one MCM in orange. All in the same size cabinet. This suggests a single MCM 12" in a 67 litre cabinet would work best for me. (For comparison the Eminence Beta 12 is 3dB down on the MCM from 40 to 60Hz). For a single driver excursion is under the red line down to 30Hz @ 150W. I realise that for these traces to be comparable they all need to be for the same nominal impedance. The appeal is I could test this by fitting an 8R one instead of two 16R mackenzies and blocking the hole, if that works. If these traces are accurate my aim of being able to 'flatten' the EQ curve and get more headroom should be achieved? If it works really well, I could get another driver and permanently convert the 'twin mac'.

It's possible to fight these strange urges... 🙂

Inspired by seeing and reading about some really good single 12 bass cabs, I've been looking at how to address the shortcomings of my own setup. Currently I have a 2x12 Pheonix guitar cab with two Celestions in it, probably 70s greenbacks but I haven't seen them for 30 years and its a lot of screws... I have a homebuilt 2x12 with two Mackenzie twin-cone PA speakers in it. Adding two modest ports to this has made it a bit bassier than the Phoenix but not as solid as I want. It's 3dB down at about 65Hz, assuming the Mckenzie 12 TCs of ~1980 are broadly similar to the Mackenzie MK Studio 12 100TC of today... I suspect that they are not as good as this! My thought is to make an 8R 1x12 cab to use with the 'twin mac' where in the past a big 15" cab would probably have been used.This means I don't need something with an extended response beyond 3KHz. I'm happier to bigger than 50 litres, and something about 700 x 550 x 300 would be about 85 litres and give a solid platform for the twin mac and with only one driver it will weight about the same. I've found this well specced driver for less than £50 on CPC: This are various experiments in WinISD, the dark line is the above driver - the benefit of using the equivalent 15" is questionable. (It knocks the spots off the slightly more expensive Eminence Beta 12A for this enclosure): At 150W (more than my amp will put into 8R) the max excursion at 31Hz is = to Xmax of 8mm. The 'power dip' is down to 55W at 60Hz, but from reading other threads that should be OK because the actual power is spread across many different frequencies. With four 80mm vents the air velocity stays below magic 11, but needs longer pipes than cabinet depth; I reckon 70mm pipes should be OK as I can 3D print ends flared out to ~80mm that should get rid of any 'whooshing' (Ignore the other plots!) Do these results look sensible? This is the first time I've use WinISD in anger and I might be making some really stupid mistakes.

So... what do you use them for?

One of these, obviously: https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/BIG-BUTT-004-BASS-made-in-USA/173889278327?hash=item287c9bd177:g:P2cAAOSw9iNbVddm

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/1966-FENDER-MUSTANG-USA-CHARCOAL-EDITION-a-la-JIMI-HENDRIX/123749903589?hash=item1cd011ace5:g:oakAAOSwBG1cxh5G This guy should be done for 'cruel and unusual punishment'...

I have read all the way from post 1 looking for the drawings. After about an hour and a half of reading (at times it felt like some ghastly clickbait trap trying to keep me digging deeper) I get to the end and find the drawing in post one isn't some speculative prototype but is the final design... >SOBS< Anyway, thanks for all your hard work @Phil Starr ! A few questions if I may ... I don't recall ever seeing the internal volume of the speaker and the drawing doesn't show the internal depth - I'd like to model it in WinISD for myself. I have two 2x12 cabs with guitar/PA speakers in. I had to guess which Mackenzie speaker was in the home made one and adding two ports to it seems to have helped a bit. I wondered about fitting a 15" speaker instead of the two 12s but it's a bit small (70 litres). Interestingly WinISD insists that a Eminence Beta 15 wouldn't work as well in it as a dirt cheap 15" for £17 from CPC... and neither of them are as good as the two 12" Mackenzies. My amp is a 150W Laney Probass of great age, which needs to be dialled to get decent volume, and with the bottem end of the EQ boosted a fair bit. I'm wondering if using your 1x12 design would boost bottom end and would be a good complement to a 2 x 12 as I could run both for 4R. Also, did you test your design with the Eminence Beta 12 in the end? It's about half the price of the beyma and I saw one graph that suggested it might be more efficient? Finally, reading your early comments, a Q >5 is good for an 'old school' tone - which is what I'm after I suppose. Is is worth me looking at a the Eminence Beta 15a in a bigger cab instead? Again, tahnks for the huge amount of work you've put into this!

A strip of oak from B&Q will set me back a lot less than finding some rosewood/ebony and slave my eco-conscience. Plus I can choose a nice looking bit.

What type of wood is the fretboard? is it Oak?

After you, folks: https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/1967-RICKENBACKER-4005-Bass-made-in-USA/173903831262?hash=item287d79e0de:g:C6EAAOSwNXpcDY15

Sorry to dig up an old thread... I've been trying to get The Riverhead sussed for years, but I'm not 100% sure I have it right, especially the harmonics. It's a great excuse for having 24 fret basses 🙂 Does anyone know if there is a tab for it.