alexclaber

Presumably if I post here more people will see this thread. With almost 10,000 members on basschat does the winner require a majority?

If you want to maintain good horizontal dispersion then the answer is (b ). There are occasionally reasons to go for narrow dispersion, like where Steve Harris has a 2x2 cab arrangement of 4x12" cabs, so that only he hears the brunt of his midrange from his rig without it annoying his bandmates, but then that requires everyone has a proper monitor so they can hear the bass guitar well. So (a) and ( c) have their place if you're playing very big venues and your bandmates would rather just hear you through their monitors, not from your bass rig, but otherwise it's a bad idea. I wouldn't stack the Super Twelve on the Vintage - it's just so oversized and overkill! If you're using say a Super Twelve and a Compact personally I'd stack them vertically and stick the rack on top. If you can't manage that then stick the rack on the floor. You could also try putting the cabs side by side but cross-firing them, which should give a decent dispersion pattern, and then you can put the rack on the Compact for a tidy look. Just be aware that how you position your cabs has a huge effect upon how the sound disperses - suck it and see! I note you're currently using a Markbass 102+151 - the Super Twelve on its own will play louder with a powerful amp pushing it - I'd suggest considering a nice lightweight rackmount power amp instead of an amp head, especially as you already have a Pod XT Pro.

At long last, the shortlist for Barefaced Bassface 2010 has been chosen, the lucky thirteen are revealed! Please cast your votes. Voting will close when a winner appears obvious. If no winner appears obvious then we'll do that alternative vote thing so y'all can get some practice in before the next election. In the event of a tie we'll go to the tie-breaker questions. (I hope this has worked, I've never done a poll before...) 1 Token pick player with Sterling... (sunburst finish) 2 ...and another one! (natural finish) 3 Rock god - or from the dark side? (vocalist's mic intruding on left) 4 I could do this in my sleep... (fanned-fret Dingwall) 5 Am I really this awesome? Yes, so I shall slap. (black shirt, white tie) 6 House of pain? (dark t-shirt, paler trousers, Trace Elliot at back) 7 Blessed (double) bass (double bass!) 8 Welcome to the '80s jungle (headbandy thing, white strap) 9 Dude, I forgot my dentures (black Fender, singing?) 10 Strawberryblondefro... (upside down fretting hand!) 11 Attack position! (Chasing Safety? StingRay) 12 Hat? Check. D&G glasses? Check. Bassface? Check. (Streamer SII) 13 Cave bass. (5-string StingRay, Trace V4 on Eden) (Statistically it appears: Musicman Bass = Increased Bassface) Is that clear enough Mr Foxen? Tip for the next Bassface competition - it's not Basshair or Bassback - it's bassFACE!

[quote name='Sibob' post='849377' date='May 27 2010, 01:16 PM']regarding Valve amps and the super twelve.... What about amps with tubes in the preamp, but solid-state power amps?? Thanks Si[/quote] Tube preamps are absolutely fine. It's the transformer coupled output stage that's really the issue to be honest, not the valves, so I wouldn't recommend those Jonas Hellborg signature power amps either. It's quite a chameleon the Super Twelve, because it doesn't impose much of its own tone on your sound: Use one of those cunning amps that let you overdrive some valves, especially small power valves into a dummy load, which then pushes a s/s power amp of a few hundred watts into the Super Twelve and you'll get monster RAWK sounds. Use something squeaky clean like a Euphonic Audio or Epifani head, turn the tweeter up, and you'll get super smooth groovalicious slap action. Get any reasonably powerful head and roll all the treble and most of the mids off whilst cranking the bass and there you have all the reggae action you could want. Magic!

Does this look logical? largo - Fife, Scotland. razze06 - Edinburgh Conan - Newcastle, travels to Edinburgh/Fife wateroftyne - Tyneside-ish bassfunk - Manchester skychaserhigh - Stockport guyl - Stockport Protium - Runcorn Bass Culture - Chester daz - Chester tonyf - Solihull xzodar - Bristol baixo - Reading (or Slough) chris_b - Kingston upon Thames waltsdog - SW London Bottle - Cambridge freefaaall - Crawley If you've only just seen this thread (even if it's summer or autumn by now) then note where the cab is and if it hasn't gone past you, slot yourself into a geographically sensible space. For those further down the line, if you want to try a Compact but would rather try one as soon as possible, buy one and use it and it'll cost you £10 for us to get it collected if you don't like it, so in one sense you can hire a top quality cab for a month for a tenner! If you don't know if this cab could do what you want and only want to join the tour if the probability of it being suitable is fairly high, then email us a link to a youtube clip or two that represent your ideal tone and tell us what bass and amp you use. We should be able to give you a fairly accurate answer either confirming your choice or directing you to another of our cabs or to something else entirely. The Compact going on tour will be a silver cloth front one - old school baby. Take photos please - surely there can't be any "I don't have a digital camera" excuses nowadays? If you're truly 21st century then audio and video clips (especially of gigs and especially without PA support) are groovy too.

It's fine with it. If you push it too hard then the midrange protection should kick in before anything bad happens but that would involve seriously ear splitting amounts of fuzz. If anything it makes fuzz and distortion sound much more intense than when heard through the mellowising filter of a typical bass guitar woofer.

[quote name='Protium' post='836319' date='May 13 2010, 04:26 PM']Are you not continuing from the list in the other thread?[/quote] No. New cab, new list!

I doubt the Aguilar DB12"s are identical to any of the Eminence non-OEM models, however I believe it's the same driver as in the GS112. Based on that and the similar enclosure size (and probably tuning) and the success other bassists have had with upgrading GS112s by putting in a DeltaLiteII 2512 then that driver is a safe choice. Expect more midrange with EQ flat and greater maximum LF output and thus max SPL.

And now it's time for the Midget T tour. Please add yourself and your location if you'd like to try one. Once we have a decent list of basschatters and locations we'll work out a logical route. If you already own a Compact or a Midget and would like to hear what a two cab stack could do for you, feel free to join the tour. There's no such thing as a free lunch so in return for getting to try a fancy new cab, we'd like a post about your experiences with it, and we'd particularly like photos, videos or recordings, especially from gigs that you've used it on. To stop those further down the list from becoming very frustrated with the wait, please endeavour to move the cab on within a fortnight at the longest. Also, we'd like to send out a brief user guide to everyone on the list, so that those trying the cab get the best out of it - please email us at [email protected] before the tour starts. The cab will not be starting out here, it'll be Fedexed to the first person on the list and it'll inevitably end up miles away and need shipping back. Please keep the box, the additional cardboard packing materials and the polystyrene packing corners, and pass them on with the cab, so the final recipient and thus returnee doesn't have to improvise. That's all folks!

At long last we have some new Compacts spare! Please add yourself and your location if you'd like to try one. Please don't add yourself to the list if you're the kind of bassist that needs a tweeter for their tone because you'll be dissatisfied with the Compact - instead see the Midget T tour thread. Also, note the size of the Compact - if it's too big for you but you're thinking about going Barefaced, join the Midget T tour. Also, if you're in a LOUD band and currently use a rig which is significantly larger than the Compact then bear in mind you'll need more power for the Compact to keep up - Hoffman's Law and all that. Once we have a decent list of basschatters and locations we'll work out a logical route. If you already own a Compact or a Midget and would like to hear what a two cab stack could do for you, feel free to join the tour. There's no such thing as a free lunch so in return for getting to try a fancy new cab, we'd like a post about your experiences with it, and we'd particularly like photos, videos or recordings, especially from gigs that you've used it on. To stop those further down the list from becoming very frustrated with the wait, please endeavour to move the cab on within a fortnight at the longest. Also, we'd like to send out a brief user guide to everyone on the list, so that those trying the cab get the best out of it - please email us at [email protected] before the tour starts. The cab will not be starting out here, it'll be Fedexed to the first person on the list and it'll inevitably end up miles away and need shipping back. Please keep the box, the additional cardboard packing materials and the polystyrene packing corners, and pass them on with the cab, so the final recipient and thus returnee doesn't have to improvise. That's all folks!

[quote name='obbm' post='833383' date='May 10 2010, 06:24 PM']Could you explain why?[/quote] The big magnets that make it so sensitive despite the high excursion also make the impedance peaks at resonance very large - makes life easier for s/s amps but the opposite for transformer coupled amps. When it comes to valve amps and the Barefaced range we recommend the Vintage, the Big One or a stack consisting of two Compacts or a Midget and Compact.

[quote name='obbm' post='833326' date='May 10 2010, 05:48 PM']Points taken Alex. I must try one of these sometime. It might enable me to rationalise my cab collection. I couldn't borrow on for the weekend of July 3/4 could I? [/quote] If we have some spare then yes indeed. However I don't see it being valve amp friendly so it might result in more cabs rather than fewer!

[quote name='obbm' post='832904' date='May 10 2010, 11:17 AM']Being 5'6" tall, slightly built and well past my sell-by-date, carrying a cab of this size, regardless of weight, by a single handle is not practical.[/quote] That's why this cab has three handles - one on each side for lifting it in the way you describe plus one on the top for rolling it - and rollerblade style wheels so you can tilt and roll. If a significant proportion of owners didn't like the handles then we'd have a rethink - we ask our customers for feedback and based on what we hear the handles are a non-issue: In fact they all seem to love how easy the cabs are to move!

Hey y'all! About the width thing, having spent plenty of time with the rack width Big One and the slightly narrower than rack width Compact and new Super Twelve, those few inches make a significant difference in how easily you can get through doorways without skinning your knuckles. Also, if you put a lightweight round corner rackcase like an SKB or Gator on the Compact the difference isn't visually jarring, though I accept a traditional heavyweight rackcase would look too wide. But if you're buying a lightweight cab do you want to haul a heavyweight rack? We don't do custom cabs for anyone because of the time it would take to do them right but if someone has a great idea then it might cause a cab to happen, as with the Vintage (which is deliberately valve amp width - apart from a rare few monsters). Regarding the handles, if these strap handles compromised portability then we wouldn't use them. What would be the point of making a cab really light and then making the handles horrible to use? But when you're dealing with this little weight they're very effective. A hole in the side of the cab would be detrimental, especially with our bracing approach, and with a port up the side of the baffle like the Super Twelve then the recessed dish would obstruct the airflow. I know a lot of manufacturers don't care about that but we do. Nice to hear the positive feedback on the new model - first one is leaving tomorrow! Very pleased with the performance, sounds much bigger than I was expecting.

The extension speaker will make a big difference, not because of the extra power but because of the increased ability of the rig to move air (total cone area x cone excursion) as that is what is currently limiting you. Upgrading to speakers which are good enough to make a significant difference will be uneconomic as you'll then run into other limitations (amp power, port compression, etc). Before you go down that road, use the corner placement to increase your efficiency in the lows and also point your guitarist's amp at his head which will cause him to turn down, which means your drummer will hit less hard and the stage volume will drop. If you and your drummer are opposite your guitarist and his amp then both of you will hear him louder than he will, because the speaker fires the sound out in a narrow cone shape, straight past his legs, totally missing his ears but getting yours. It's not about 300W vs 450W vs 30W etc. It's about dB SPL which is a function of real world sensitivity (dB SPL @ 1m per W) and real world power handling, AND also about apparent loudness which is a function of frequency content, distortion content and other tonal issues. Guitar amps are incredibly sensitive so the low power doesn't matter, and incredibly loud sounding to the human ear for their actual dB output due to their tone. Bass amps, particularly if you like fat mellow tones, are the opposite - low sensitivity, restricted ability of the speakers to handle the higher power output of the amps so you can't use all the watts and still get clean sounds, and our ears are bad at hearing lower frequency oriented sounds. That's why PA subwoofers require much more power to drive them to equal SPL than PA tops. Stick some distortion on those PA tops (as with a guitar amp) and you need even less power.

[quote name='Musicman20' post='813606' date='Apr 21 2010, 11:39 AM']I've played a similar model to this in a rehearsal room with a LOUD punk band about a year ago. It had no lack of volume at all...reminded me of how loud the Trace combos are.[/quote] How loud this combo (or any rig) manages to play depends hugely on the tone that is wanted. If Graham wants a fat and clean old school sound then he's going to struggle to get that tone at high volume from two budget 10"s, however many watts the amp claims to be. Positioning the amp in the corner of the room, no more than 18" from the walls for maximum boundary reinforcement will get the most out of it, which might make the critical difference.

It's certainly perfectly workable if you have a separate amp driving the Compact. If the combo's amp is also pushing the Compact then you'll have to keep the volume down to stop the 12" in the combo farting out, which means you might only get as loud as with the Compact on its own, which rather defeats the purpose of the extra speaker!

I wouldn't expect a 300W bass combo to be capable of playing any louder than a 30W GUITAR amp, or a rock drummer. That's the reality of playing bass. And where you have the gain/volume knobs set gives no indication of how much extra output is available or how much power you're using.

If you already own a Compact I would generally recommend adding a Midget unless you need HUGE bottom. The Midget adds a useful amount of extra midrange punch, plus it's an absolutely tiny cab that will play louder than any other 1x12" you can buy - in fact I don't even know of any 2x10"s that are louder. You would thus have a tiny cab that is plenty loud enough for rehearsals, smaller gigs or even large gigs when you have subs, a mid-sized cab that can cover stuff where more bottom is needed and then the combined 15"+12" stack which will roar through the loudest rock band with more oomph and punch than the best 4x10"s. There aren't many Midgets out there compared to Compacts, what with it being a newer model but I feel they're getting a bit overlooked, probably due to the copy on our website suggesting the Compact is often a better choice. Yes, the Compact is more sensitive in the lows but the Midget can still roundly spank all 1x12"s and most 2x10"s when it comes to producing fat bottom thanks to its high excursion speaker and high flow port. It needs power to do so but how at least it can handle the power - other small cabs that can handle even close to 300W without exceeding Xmax are few and far between.

Chris makes a good point there, especially if the noise is just coming from one woofer. If you want to check the port tuning, lay the cab on its back, put a few grains of salt on one of the cones and sweep a sinewave through it until you reach the point of least vibration. It'll be somewhere between 30 and 80Hz. Post what you find and a tuning tweak can then be suggested. Insulation is always a good thing in speaker cabs - makes the midrange and treble much smoother and clearer due to damping out of phase reflections. I doubt you'd have much success making it a sealed cab as you'll lose so much bottom and then have to EQ that back in and get premature farting. But if you want to try it, try blocking the vent with lots of socks so it's airtight. You should expect the cab to perform better with the DeltaLites than with the original (Sica?) drivers, so if it's not measuring up then something is wrong.

[quote name='Charla' post='772552' date='Mar 12 2010, 10:48 AM']I think I'm pushing the drivers too hard, the cab sounds really good, nice tight sound, then when at volume (about half way on the master volume) the speaker starts to misbehave.[/quote] I think you're quite right. Only so much possible from a pair of 2510-IIs. Cab size/porting tweakery will get a bit more but not all that much.

Good question. Results to be decided once we've had time to go through the gallery of gurners!

You'll probably have lost a bit of treble from having removed the dustcap, but more importantly if it was a non-porous dustcap you may have also reduced the ability of the speaker to cool its voicecoil. My guess is that you're pushing the speaker to its limits at the moment so with continued similar use it's probably going to die at some point.

Also bear in mind that it's highly unlikely that either of your cabs would play any louder when powered with 500W rather than 300W. Why? Because although the thermally limited power handling may be more than 300W the excursion (i.e. volume displacement) limited power handling is likely to be significantly lower. With multi-driver cabs changing the wiring (and still maintaining equal power per driver) can only ever quadruple or quarter the impedance (depending on how they're originally wired), it can never double or halve the nominal impedance. Alex P.S. It's impedance, not ohmage!

[url="http://basschat.co.uk/index.php?showtopic=72603"]http://basschat.co.uk/index.php?showtopic=72603[/url] Alex