Ian Savage

[quote name='njr911' timestamp='1374672297' post='2151612']
Damn! Ordered a pair of Behringer b grade 15's yesterday but they are sold out.

I'm thinking passive as it will work with our current head untill we can get the money for a powered mixer.

So should I go 8ohm speakers so i can add a sub later ?

Can you use powered monitors on a powered mixer ?
[/quote]

Right, my 2p-worth - as everyone's switching to lightweight power amps these days, there's some proper bargains to be had if you don't mind lugging a bit of weight. I'd be going for a 600W+ US-made Peavey or UK-made Studiomaster amp, personally - with 8-ohm 'tops' (12"ers will be fine if it's just for vocals) you'd be pulling at least 200W into each speaker, which should be a massive improvement on what you have at the moment.

HOWEVER, if you're seriously looking at adding a sub at a later date, my personal preference would be a more powerful amp (say, 800W minimum), so that when you get your sub if you make it a four-ohm job (a single well-placed sub is often more effective than a spaced pair, for reasons I shan't go into here) you can run your tops from one side of the amp and the sub from the other, with an active crossover unit between amp and desk. This will ensure that you can pull full power from a single amp, and still have 'proper' separation of the frequencies between sub and tops.

Another benefit of this is that you can just run a cheap-and-cheerful little mixer (Behringer would fit the bill nicely here) with enough mic inputs for your vocals, then as and when you add a sub and start micing more stuff up you can upgrade your desk as required (and have the option of putting a tidy little rack together, with desk, crossover and amp all in one place).

For passive speakers, Peavey again are worth looking at (EuroSys/HiSys go pretty cheap these days), as are EV (pricier, but worth it), JBL (if you're VERY careful not to drive them too hard or let them feed back too much, they tend to have fragile horns) and Studiomaster again - avoid Skytec / Phonic and their ilk, usually under-specced tat.

I reckon with some judicious eBaying you'd get a very useable and (equally importantly) upgradable mixer/amp/speakers setup for less than £300, leaving you some spare wedge (pardon the pun) for monitors. To answer your last question, yes, you can use powered/active monitors with a powered head, as long as the head has some kind of aux send or at the very least a 'slave out'. With a 'proper' mixing desk you're almost guaranteed to have a proper pre-fader aux send as well though, means you can get a different on-stage mix to what the punters hear should you desire - another advantage of the 'separates' approach.

Phew, I ramble - I'll be back in a bit if you need anything explaining further

Howzabout £35 posted, save me eBaying?

Cheap alternative to a Gramma pad is a sheet of ply resting on half-a-dozen chopped-in-half tennis balls. I used to use that as a drum riser/vibration reducer for my electronic drum kit, surprisingly effective.

My little den:



Mackie Satellite into a Mac Mini, nice and simple; main thing's the monitors though, HHB Circle 5s which I would actually cry if anything happened to. LOVE these speakers.

[quote name='barryman' timestamp='1374333976' post='2147731']
Just looking to buy a PA amp with which we need to be able to use a monitor speaker. Some amps seem to have just two speaker outputs, while some have slave or line out. Cam anyone explain to a non-techie like me what we need to have in order to get a monitor speaker as well as the normal speakers?[/quote]

Three options - if your 'normal' (which I take to mean front-of-house') speakers are eight ohms each, daisy-chaining those together will give you four ohms, which you can then run from one side of the power amp, and run your monitors from the other side.

[quote]
Am I right in thinking that a "line out" can be passed through another amp to power a monitor speaker?[/quote]

OR, if you have two amplifiers, do this.

The third and best option, if you have two amplifiers and a mixing desk with a spare auxilliary send, is to run your monitors from that - this way you can have a different mix onstage to what the punters hear out-front if you want to, can make the musicians' job easier.

[quote]
Also, if an amp has a "slave output", is that the same thing as a line out???[/quote]

Yes.

[quote]
Lastly, what is a DI output for??

[/quote]

On a bass amp, it's for feeding your signal directly into the PA system.

Blimey, that was quick - sold pending!

I accidentally typed 'Bon Marley' into a FB status the other day, now I want to start a tribute doing hair metal songs reggae-style.

Quite glad of that, I was seriously contemplating what I could get for a kidney...

Didn't get the slot in the band I was aiming for, so shan't actually have a use for this! Good condition (Velcro on base but I can fit some rubber feet if you'd prefer), pretty much exactly the same as this - shall get some actual pictures when I can find my camera cable!


[url="http://www.distrizic.com/118899-thickbox_default/pedale-wah-wah-pour-basse-morley-dual-bass-wah.jpg"]http://www.distrizic.com/118899-thickbox_default/pedale-wah-wah-pour-basse-morley-dual-bass-wah.jpg[/url]

Happy to get back what I paid, £35 if you can collect Birmingham-way or a fiver to post it in the UK?

My bass gear's nothing especially esoteric, so I reckon if I show I'd be better dragging a six-string and amp along for jamming purposes.

One last bump before the bay!

One last bump before the bay!

One last bump before eBay!

Annnnnd another one before eBay!

I'll be playing it by ear as to whether I can get, doing a 'take-it-as-it-comes' summer holiday this year so don't know when I'll be in the country - if I am I'm there! And Shell, car-share sounds good to me

[quote name='Mornats' timestamp='1374070313' post='2144961']
How thick would a basstrap have to be in the corner? Or, in other words, if I were to badger a mate into making some for me, what size should I be aiming for? If they can be portable, I can see them being much more practical.

[/quote]

Obviously a corner basstrap would have varying thicknesses as you go through the cross-section of it; it's only in any way effective on wavelengths up to around eight times its maximum depth, as a general rule. So if you want a trap to be effective down to 50Hz (wavelength of about 6.6m), you want it to be about 0.8m thick at its deepest point - enough to take a good chunk out of any room!

[quote name='51m0n' timestamp='1374059683' post='2144753']
You can always DIY some gobos and use them around your space; since they are free standing they can be positioned across corners as bass traps and just off walls as broadband absorption, and if you are tracking you can use them to mask the room from the thing you are recording....
[/quote]

I do have a couple of free-standing absorbers which I built in my dad's garage, just never got around to putting them up. Need to run a frequency response analysis of my room at some stage actually, it sounds fairly even to my ears but it'd be nice to know if the science backs me up (and maybe give me a tuned absorber project to have a go at over the summer...)

I'm lucky enough that in living on my own my recording setup IS my home entertainment setup, so the speakers I listen to far and away more often than any others are my monitors. I rent my flat so haven't been able to do much in terms of room treatment, but from getting to know my system inside-out I tend to be able to get decent mixes relatively easily.

Brand spanking new, had two pedals attached to it before I failed to get into the band that I was buidling a 'board for (ain't optimism great? :/) so no need for it now! Tags and all that jazz, £35 if you can collect from Birmingham (Moseley area or I can pop into town to meet up), or happily post for a fiver. One of these: [url="http://www.diago.co.uk/pedalboards/commuter-pedalboard.html"]http://www.diago.co.uk/pedalboards/commuter-pedalboard.html[/url], usually fifty quid or so plus postage...

I've got the WMS40 - good little unit (although the power supply for the one I bought was faulty), used it on mid-sized stages without problems. Never more than a few metres from my amp though, I tend to use wireless as much for avoiding getting shocks from microphones as for roaming the stage.

[quote name='seashell' timestamp='1373976901' post='2143730']
And you're a drummer as well IIRC!
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Kit-less at the minute though, sadly!

[quote name='Kev' timestamp='1373921960' post='2143304']
Fair enough! Looking it up, no idea where i got pentabuzz from...anyway, great bass!
[/quote]

Isn't that when you wait ages for a buzz and five turn up at once?

*coat*

[quote name='seashell' timestamp='1373908725' post='2143018']
This is all sounding rather good!

I'm free most Saturdays or Sundays over the coming weeks, so hopefully will be able to make it.
Maybe some of us could look at sharing transport from Brum?
[/quote]

Might be up for that Shell - guitarist myself too! Not sure if my amp's up to the job but we could find out...

You can pick up a Boss LS2 secondhand for £35-40, if you're bothered about output levels that'd probably work out cheaper and less faff than building one yourself with trim pots. Or just use icastle's method

[quote name='seashell' timestamp='1373834320' post='2142135']
Well done for strarting to get this off the ground.

The trouble with weekdays is that a lot of us have day jobs.
You're right that weekends can also be tricky as people have commiments and gigs etc.
But all the bashes I have been to before have been on a Saturday afternoon.
I'd struggle to get over to Staffs on a weekday.
[/quote]

Pretty much this; Stoke's a bit of a mission for me but I'll keep an eye on the thread!