alexclaber

I think EBS have used the Beyma CP12N in some of their cabs: [url="http://www.europe-audio.com/Product.asp?Product_ID=105"]http://www.europe-audio.com/Product.asp?Product_ID=105[/url] Alex

I can't see more power making much difference unless you add more speakers at the same time. Slaving a power amp or head from your current Markbass head and then running one or two more EX112ERs should do the job. Think you might have to change the FX send internally to post EQ to drive the slave amp with the full tone of your head. Alex

[quote name='synaesthesia' post='578377' date='Aug 23 2009, 06:21 PM']OEM Eminence, with specs 'very close' to Gamma Pros.[/quote] Now that is interesting! Alex

[quote name='JTUK' post='577656' date='Aug 22 2009, 04:42 PM']Anyone have any comments about the difference between the DB range and GS range...Like-for-like speaker config accepted...??[/quote] DB are meant to have stiffer enclosures. I've heard it claimed that the speakers are identical, in which case the GS112 must be tuned quite a lot higher to get the bigger lows and thus make the midrange dip sound more obvious. I was wondering if they had heavier magnets on the DB cabs but according to the website (same magnet weight, same claimed sensitivity) that's not the case, so the less stiff cabs on the GS series must soak up quite a lot of midrange energy. Really cute cabs and the logo looks great with the retro look of the DB series. Alex

I think the stuff I write uses the ionian, aeolian, dorian, phygian, locrian or mixolydian as a starting point but then there's usually a load of dissonance as well, so pretty much any note or note combination is fair game. I used to actively think about this a long time ago but nowadays I just pick up the bass and start messing around. I'm quite prone to chromaticism and tritones. I'm not a soloist or jazz player, I just write songs. Alex

Usually two identical cabs stacked will sound a lot better by virtue of having more LF sensitivity and power handling, thus more output before they distort. The height of the stack will also make it easier to hear the tone. However if you don't like that tone then stacking a pair will make that more audible! Alex

And it's cute. I've always regretted never buying a tiny practice amp in the past, they seem very handy things to have around. Nowadays I'm too much of a purist and keep wanting a PJB Briefcase which isn't exactly an impulse buy! Alex

[quote name='nottswarwick' post='577231' date='Aug 22 2009, 12:00 AM']Surely then the cab should not be rated at 800W !!! and even using one channel of my power amp at 500W I need to be careful? And thus further more, 300w form Doods F1 should be a great match. Confused.[/quote] Well I believe manufacturers should quote a recommended amp power range which takes into account sensitivity, thermal power handling and excursion limited power handling. That 250-300W level is the point at which the woofers exceed 10% THD (total harmonic distortion) in the lows. The point of failure is quite a lot higher (same with all pro audio drivers - hi-fi drivers have Xlim (failure) barely greater than Xmax (10% THD)) but once you go past Xmax the speaker characteristics and thus the sound changes. Also as you're playing a bass, not a sine wave generator, your power demands are spread across a wide spectrum so to get 250W in the lows you might need 500W overall - hugely depends on your tone and of course how low your bass goes (low B and F# strings get pretty demanding in the 50-100Hz region). If you've got some nice earplugs or can stand a long way from the cab, bridge your amp into it and note how the tone changes as you crank up the volume from loud to really LOUD. It'll be particularly obvious on the attack of low notes. Some cabs make a clear farting sound, some get very growly, all get boomier and more compressed. This is where small cabs often fall down - it takes a certain amount of clean air moving ability to satisfy most bassists working with drummers and there's a tipping point where you go from always exceeding Xmax to only hitting it at fortissimo moments. Going back a decade that's exactly why 3x10"s came about. Unfortunately once you start getting technical it gets pretty complicated - a little knowledge is a dangerous thing... Alex

[quote name='nottswarwick' post='577195' date='Aug 21 2009, 11:20 PM']But the cab is rated at 800w - cue mis-informed statement, but in the PA world they reckon 1.5*RMS rating delivered to the cab is GOOD?[/quote] They do indeed. Well with PA tops you reach thermal limits before excursion limits (due to the lack of lows they're producing), so having more than enough power reduces the risk of clipping and thus damage to tweeters (not woofers, woofers don't give a damn about clipping). And with decent PA subs the woofers have big excursion limits and thus can handle that much movement without problems. Throw 1.5X rated power into a cheaper 'full-range' PA speaker and you'll get all manner of unhappy woofer noises just as you will with 99% of bass cabs. At the moment the 10" driver status quo is that the best neo 10"s can handle about 75W each in the lows in a typical cab alignment without over-excursion. The Acme, Berg HT, Ampeg HLF and Basson 10"s can handle more but with varying costs in midrange output and broadband sensitivity. You can get round this excursion limited power handling challenge by squishing them into a smaller cab a la Schroeder but that costs you in LF sensitivity, so what you gain on the one hand you lose on the other. If you're careful with the amount of lows you're putting out you can certainly try bridging the amp but if you're struggling to hear the mids you might also struggle to hear any sounds of complaint. Alex

[quote name='nottswarwick' post='577195' date='Aug 21 2009, 11:20 PM']I would seriously hope that one 4*10 would be enough for me. I am not in stadiums here lol. Re the mid scoop, this is indeed true. I am using a 50/50 blend setting, with quite a high setting on the presence knob - think bass sound like The Killers, or Town Called Malice, for the general idea for the band in question. Certainly cuts though.[/quote] The bass sound on that first Killers album, and every TV broadcast I heard from that era, is one of the best bass sounds I've ever heard. So anything like that should growl through beautifully, as long as your guitarist isn't masking that region - if you are depping with noisy guitarists I'd be prepared to shift your cutting frequencies to wherever there's a space in their sound, even if it means compromising on your tone - what's the point of a beautiful sound if no-one can hear it? Ugly but loud is much better! [quote name='nottswarwick' post='577195' date='Aug 21 2009, 11:20 PM']Angle wise, I was at 45 degrees above and to the side. I was just surprised that I made the QSC clip, at whcih point yes, it was loud enough.[/quote] Wow, you're WAY off-axis then, that's about 55 deg off-axis total. I don't have any measurements of what 4x10" cabs do off axis but they should perform a bit worse than a 21" driver in the difference between on and off-axis response. Notice how the midrange and treble response diminishes off-axis (that's 45 deg btw). So the first step is to point that speaker array at your ears without losing your boundary reinforcement in the lows. [quote name='nottswarwick' post='577195' date='Aug 21 2009, 11:20 PM']If I bridge it, I send 1200w into the 8 ohm cab, lol, sounds like a huge amount. And should be way more, way WAY more than is either necessary or indeed safe. Dunno, maybe I was not driving the amp hard enough with the sansamp level, but then I got the amp to clip, so surely I was?[/quote] Yes, you were. I don't think bridging is a good idea - even as little as 250W will take those woofers to Xmax. Alex

[quote name='nottswarwick' post='577193' date='Aug 21 2009, 11:12 PM']oh sansamp set with everything flat or at 12:00. I am not abusing it or doing anything daft[/quote] But isn't the default curve quite scooped, so flat actually isn't. Am wondering how much thermal power compression was getting you on the the gig. It's a weird and oft-forgetten thing that takes your 4 or 8 ohm cab and basically doubles or triples the impedance as you push it for prolonged periods at near full power. Something I plan to investigate more if I can design a test-rig that I can sneak into gigs without being taking out by men in white coats. Alex

[quote name='nottswarwick' post='577187' date='Aug 21 2009, 11:04 PM']I do alot of dep work, where I cannot really have a say in what goes on.[/quote] Ah, so experimentation is really not an option. Do you want to pick up where our emails left off?! Alex

[quote name='nottswarwick' post='577176' date='Aug 21 2009, 10:55 PM']Hi Alex - yes, it was. I actually found it on only a couple of gigs, where for some reason I was struggling. This was with a large fucntion band, with a huge PA, loud monitoring, monster loud drummer - in fact, all way too loud on stage (we all know that quieter onstage sound = better FOH, but this does not always translate). I believe the LM 2 limiter is a bit aggressive, but there we go. The reason I am now not convinced with my BDDI into RMX2450 plan - I did a gig on Sunday, and although I was NOT bridging the amp on this one, I was still delivering 500w into the 8 ohm 4*10. And I found that as the gig went on I really had to push the amp - it started clipping, so I had to back down a little. I dont use excesive low end - my tone is from the BDDI, full, round, top end bite and slight distortion. One thing has struck me though just looking at your FAQ section. The cab was to the side of a low stage, but on 4 stools about a foot off the floor. This may in fact have been why I struggled, as it was off the floor, and also I was about a foot off its axis. I do like the MB cabs. I know some dont, but I find they deliver at the gig, even if they maybe are not too refined at home, if you know what I mean?[/quote] Well the cab wasn't far enough from the floor to cost you in boundary reinforcement. If 500W into the 4x10" wasn't enough then what bothers me is it suggests the 4x10" isn't enough - more power just isn't going to eke any more output. That really is proper loud. The BDDI is quite mid-scooped though, so maybe that's your problem? Not enough happening in the punch and cut region. When you say you were a foot off-axis, what angle where your ears at relative to the on-axis position? (measured from the horn tweeter in the middle) I suspect the real problem is the drummer having his monitors too loud, thus causing him to play louder, thus causing a vicious cycle of volume escalation. What did you have coming through the monitors? Rather than chopping and changing gear I'd be patient and experiment with what you already have. Alex

I think it would be a really useful skill to have and if you have the time and inclination to learn to read I'd do so. I can decipher sheet music at a snail's pace (am better with rhythms than pitches, weirdly) and can read chord charts happily but I'd love to be able to score out horn parts quickly or read lead sheets when I have a go at jazz. I don't think anyone playing bass guitar is likely to end up developing amazing reading skills at the expense of listening or improvisation skills, it's not that kind of instrument - there's too much weight given to picking stuff up by ear or making up bass lines to go with charts, etc. One of my most useful skills in a band - apart from my ability to bore the pants off any annoying techheads or sound engineers - is being able to remember arrangements. I do notice though that when I write stuff down it's easy to use that as a crutch. Pino Palladino talked about 'trust chops' in an interview and I think that's a really great concept - trusting that you will know what to play next when you need to, even if you can't remember it in isolation. Like when you're driving somewhere you know the turnings to take when you get to them but you couldn't easily tell someone where the fifth junction is and what you do at it off the top of your head. So if you can read really well I'd also work on being able to remember a tune after the first run or two so you can get away from the paper. A keyboardist I know is doing pretty well for himself gigging in one of the biggest bands in the country and he is a great reader and a serious jazz player, but now earns his money playing big synth pads and squelchy keyboard hooks. I still believe his greatest asset as a player is that he gets on really well with everyone, seemingly loves all music, and always sounds 100% commited to every note he plays. But I bet it's a lot easier to justify picking that kind of person when they also have great ears and can read whatever's put in front of them. Alex

[quote name='raptor' post='577111' date='Aug 21 2009, 08:49 PM']hi so theres a trace elliott boxer for £35 on sale here . what are they like ?[/quote] Definitely worth £35 IMO! It won't be loud but it's small, cheap and they sound pretty decent thanks to having just the right EQ to de-honk the natural tone. Alex

[quote name='nottswarwick' post='577171' date='Aug 21 2009, 10:41 PM']although I was hitting the limiter with an LM2 into TWO 2*10 cabs - I did not make that clear. I may well have no option (financially) but to get the F1, and see how it is into my one 4*10 cab.[/quote] Was that the LMII into two 8 ohm MB 2x10"s? If so then I think you might have real problems then with the F1 into an 8 ohm 4x10". That does seem pretty loud though - are you boosting the lows much, as that's always the big eater of power? Alex

[quote name='JTUK' post='577104' date='Aug 21 2009, 08:45 PM']???? All on page 1 of this thread if you would care to look[/quote] Well there you go, I do beg your pardon! Alex

[quote name='BarnacleBob' post='577139' date='Aug 21 2009, 09:40 PM']I was surprised when i found out the 'proper matching' cab for the Fender 135 bassman top was hopeless and I have seen nice set-ups with a custom built cab with proper cloth/grill and logo added.[/quote] Old speakers were just so short of excursion - that's why hi-fi speakers had to be huge* if you wanted decent bass - and also why the SVT rig was designed to run TWO 8x10"s! * My grandfather has a pair of Goodmans 'acoustic resistor' coax 12" hi-fi cabs in his lounge - they're basically like pieces of furniture the size of high-backed armchairs. Now I think about it the 12" is no more than half the width of the baffle and they must be getting for four feet high, so basically like having two 4x12" bass cabs in your room (Mr Foxen and Joe Garcia can relate to this). And it's not a big room by any means. Not quite sure how he sneaked them in but they've been there since the '60s so I can't imagine the place without them and they sound incredible - flawed but ALIVE! They're 16 ohm cabs therefore his old amp could only deliver about 15W into them, which was ear-bleedingly loud. The acoustic resistor is actually an aperiodic port, designed to emulate the response of a sealed cab twice the size (the sealed cab version was the full nine cubic feet). Alex

A lot of bass amps seem to hit full power fairly early in the knob travel. However, you need to consider them as gain knobs, not volume knobs. So your bass produces an output voltage which varies between 0V (in between notes) and about 1V (sometimes higher but rarely that much more). Obviously this output voltage depends on how loud you play the note. The input gain then adds some more voltage, whilst EQ boost will add more. Then the master volume adds more gain, effectively adjusting the sensitivity of the power amp stage. The louder your bass and the higher you run the input/preamp gain, the sooner the master volume will hit clipping. The quieter your bass or the lower you run the preamp gain, the later the master volume will cause the power amp to clip. Also your playing technique has a huge effect on this - your dynamic control particularly - and your tonal preference. If you like any degree of growl or grind you can get away with quite a lot of power amp clipping (that's the characteristic GK growl). A lot of people talk about their amp having tons of headroom but such a situation is very rare, uncompressed bass guitar is so dynamic and bands are so loud that, unless you take a massive quantity of speakerage with you, you will end up clipping or hitting the limiters. Fortunately that's an inherent part of the sound of bass guitar - such growl and compression is often a good thing! Alex

I also used a TE410 combo when jamming with a nascent groove-rock-metal kind of band. Eb tuning, guitarist using the heaviest strings I've ever seen on a guitar - they felt like bass strings - me on my '87 Streamer and a very Bonham-esque drummer. Oh, and one of those singer things. At the time I always used to take my rig with me so it was a novelty using something else. Two things amazed me - firstly I'd never heard such punch from a bass rig and secondly that even when I tried adding a ton of boost with my onboard preamp the sound hardly got deeper/fatter at all - it was like it was oblivious to EQ, kind of "I'm making a damned good sound and I'm not having you change it." Worked really well for that band! Alex

[quote name='Musicman20' post='576898' date='Aug 21 2009, 05:16 PM']And, to quote a few experts on talkbass, you do lose something, every so slighty, with neo speakers. Thats why Ive seen a few guys buy neo cabs like the AE410 and then switch to the HS410.[/quote] The thing when comparing cabs is you can never compare a cab with speakers with neo magnets to a cab with identical speakers with ferrite magnets because they don't exist. The HS410 is a very interesting case in point because that's a High Sensitivity design (hence the name), which means it has shorter voice coils to increase the sensitivity at the expense of excursion limited power handling. This means it needs fewer watts to get loud but that it can't get as loud. Very good design for valve amps where you need to make the most from every watt and you haven't got enough power to push them much beyond Xmax. If you try an HT210 you'll notice that it sounds nothing like the HS210/410 - deeper lows, less strong midrange, smoother highs - and it needs more power to get loud but can handle more power and thus move more air. Why? Longer excursion heavier cone drivers. And that too has ferrite magnets. The AE210/410 on the other hand sit halfway between tonally, partly because at the moment you can't get a neo 10" from Eminence with such high excursion. And that cab has neo magnets. Magnet material is the last thing you need to worry about when considering tone. Alex

[quote name='KevinJazzBass' post='576850' date='Aug 21 2009, 04:39 PM']...I found my way to Aston 'Family Man' Barrett[/quote] Family Man is truly one of the greatest bass players ever. Every Wailers album is jammed full of hook heavy grooves with such a deep pulse and bounce. "I Shot The Sheriff" is a particular favourite of mine. Alex