Stub Mandrel

I don't doubt your honesty, but a friend who imports machinery has many examples of 'unused' features that must have been broken or wrong when the item was sold years before... 12 months is a fair time for people to be certain a product works. That said, it should be possible to explain this to an upset or frustrated customer and remain polite.

Possibly meant to indicate the level in dB? But relative to what... plus a true dB volume control is not silent at zero...

He's even more irritating than Davey 504!

My comment was light-hearted, in particular bass speakers are usually made with fidelity in mind. Guitar speakers are expected to 'break up' or at least strongly colour the sound when driven hard.

Yes, but tell that to a guitar player...

Check out his profile on Soundcloud, it's examples of his session work. Not flash, just very accomplished. You can criticise his YouTube if you wish, but don't assume he can't do what we try to do.

I think we should (1) be clear that @jazzyvee is very much a pro and (2) his post was a reaction to a response to his rig when he posted it on Facebook, he already concluded the port would be 'devoid of many frequencies' and wondered why anyone would want to mike it up.

Yes and yes. He's in at least two gigging bands, unlike many YT 'influencers'.

There can't be a right answer, because of different genres, playing techniques and styles, different basses and simple personal preferences. For me, my Orange Terror suits the music I play, and must score high on practicality, but I can see it not being other people's cup of tea.

I'm easy with either option! Have we ever considered setting aside an hour for an 'open mike' style session? Do wd have a drummist/guitarist...?

There's no reason to put up with a pirima donna, especially as there are decent guitarists desperate for a gig.

Did you play 'at the hop'? I'll get my coat...

This is a very interesting thread. Reality is, so many gigs are not on nice stages facing out into spacious auditoriums... We have a situation where pa is the BL's dad's hobby. So we get lots of PA in tiny venues. We don't get told to turn down and generally the feedback on sound quality is good. I don't know settings used. The PA is @Bill Fitzmaurice' pet nightmare - mackie with tops on sticks out of the subs. (High end mackie not 'thump'). Personally, I think we would be better without subs in pub gigs, actually I wouldn't di my bass as I have to keep my volume right down so the PA has some function... similarly the guitarist has a power soak on his 50W Marshall and effectively runs it at a handful of watts. He has tried going ampless, but wasn't happy with it. For his style overdriven vales are the way. In the pic below I could barely move around and with my cab up on a bench seat behind me and a cab by my head I had some very odd intermodulation effects that had me convinced I was in the wrong key a couple of times. I would bring a tiny hybrid 50W head to gigs like this but it has no di out. The alternative is to go ampless and just use a di box, but I would still need a monitor which is all my rig is functioning as in this situation. Larger gigs, my rig basically provides missing top end as I usually get a bass heavy pa sound that doesn't suit a three piece... If I'd have been setting up the PA, it would gave been two tops with vocals (there would have been space for me to gave a mic) and also snare and kick. It's almost always worth miking these even for small gigs if you want people to dance. Contrast with my other band. Similar size venue but more space for the band. Four vocals through the tops, nothing else. Everyone happy with the soundalthough I felt drums and vocals were a touch loud.

Very interesting. Below about 40Hz the driver would appear to be acting against the port, presumably due to the phase shift. Thinking about it that would be expected...

Eddie Tudorpole iirc Sounds a cool evening

Again today...

We were told the space for a band was tiny in a small pub. And we are a 5 piece... So, we gambled and just took a digital mixer, four mics and my two 'fun generation' powered 15s at just 150W rms each. Sounded fine according to the punters, but the videos people made suggest the guitars and bass were too quiet for the vocals and unmiked drums... I had struggled to set my volume as a touch one way too loud, a touch the other - silence. At least we know we can go really pa light if necessary.

Congratulations!

I would imagine you get a very dark sound, possibly with a big hump at the port tuning frequency as you suggest. No harmonics or top end to speak of... The port resonance affects the driver so dont expect more bottom end than you'd get from micing the speaker - just less top. For reggae my instinct would be to set crossover frequency high, mic the speaker fairly close to the dust cover. Maybe mix in a bit of di. I’m not a reggae bassist but my impression is that the sound is more in style/technique than in eq settings despite the reputation of just being bottom end.

I have a few nice guitars, made this using a squier neck and a Northern Guitars body blank. Got some secret sauce (e.g. di Marzio stacked humbucker from about 1985). But I'd probably choose my recently refretted 1976 Epiphone jumbo acoustic or my brother's 1962 SG Junior.

Too late... 😬

I'm always claiming great things for the classic rock band... so in the interests of full disclosure... In our defence this was third encore after about an hour's second set so we were cream crackered. Sound isn't great on my phone. VID-20240804-WA0001.mp4

Sound bigger than the one we did for them in the south! If they are just as welcoming you'll have a great time.