Phil Starr

Thanks Dave, the more the merrier, I' having fun listening to a lot of these. We tried a couple of ELO and they didn't work too well for us (I don't think their heart was in it), Get It On is already one we do. hardly Rock but it'd be fun to have a little Glam section to the set for functions which someone suggested earlier.

Some nice suggestions coming in now, keep it rolling

That wasn't what I meant to say. It's just that we all pretty much know what the usual fare is and will play a fair few of those songs already, we certainly do especially at a function or at the end of a set. I don't need a list of those. Come to that I don't need a list of songs up to about 1980. I was earning a living as a DJ playing a lot of rock music at the time so my knowledge of that period isn't too bad. For me though a band that only plays the usual suspects rarely goes down that well. You'll be playing the same songs the audience heard last week and the week before. Even a covers band needs a bit of personality and there are thousands of great rock songs to choose from. My problem is that once I got to 1980 I switched off into other music so I don't know much about what to look at, a few ideas here that I can go off and listen to and find a way in. Anyway I appreciate all the suggestions and I'm listening to a lot of them. Keep them coming please.

Ha ha, there's four of the 'bingo songs' in the set already. They are the fillers I'd like to replace over time. Oh god, I've gigged 14 out of 24 in the last two years. Anyway I'm not looking for the 'usual suspects' we all know those songs. I personally don't mind playing old cover band classics like Long Train Running, Sex On Fire and the likes of Mustang Sally but I didn't bother listing most of them. MY guitarist and singer are the ones who want to do 'classic rock' but they don't really agree on what that is. For the guitarist it's 70's and even 60's stuff with lot's or guitar in it (quelle surprise) For the singer it's the big pomp rock songs, sort of stadium rock. Like I say I stopped listening to rock mid 70's so I suppose I'm looking for songs from the late 70's and 80's. Preferably with strong keyboard parts and some vocal harmonies to play to our strengths.

I think people are trying to give you input, and from a perspective of a lot of experience. The answer to your original question is that yes you can use two 4ohm cabs with a 2ohm capable amp without problems. Whether that is a sensible thing to do is another question. Intuitively more watts means more volume but that isn't always what you'll find in practice. The second part of your question is how to sensibly go about getting more headroom for undistorted sound at high levels. The most reliable way of doing this is to look at doubling your speakers up. Adding a 2x10 to an existing 2x10 at the same amp power will give you an extra 3dB, that's exactly like doubling the amp power. Adding a 4x10 to another 4x10 will add 3db, also the same as doubling the power so an 8x10 is going to be 6dB louder than a 2x10 using the same speakers. That's the equivalent of moving from a 300W amp to a 1200W amp. Go on adding 8x10's and your amp will eventually fill any space The other thing is that the power supply in your amp isn't up to running at 2ohms. The power should double when you halve the ohms but in your amp it won't because it's 'engine' isn't big enough. In practice if you drive it hard at 2ohms it will heat up and become less efficient, it'll slow down on the hills to extend the car analogy. The other thing is that volume isn't everything, it still has to sound good. All people are trying to say is that 300W should be enough, not all speakers are equally loud but choosing wisely and doubling up is the way to go. Going down to 2ohms is usually a sign that you've started from the wrong place.

I need some Basschat wisdom. I'm playing in a 'Classic Rock' covers band. Great vocalist, good strong backing vocals, decent keyboard player and competent but not virtuoso lead guitarist, keyboard player plays guitar as well for half the set. It's not really my genre any more, I lost interest in Rock in the mid seventies so my knowledge of it is pretty limited from then on but I'm a musical tart and will play anything. I just want to entertain and get plenty of bookings and appreciative audiences. Core set is below, what would go along with these to make a killer set? Final Countdown Jump Fool For Your Loving Hush Don't Stop Me Now Somebody To Love; Queen Rock And Roll Pour Some Sugar On Me All These Things That I Have Done Sanctuary

There's something in common with a lot of bands and I think U2 and Dire Straights are as good an example as any. These bands/musicians work bloody hard for years building up a following and a back catalogue of songs that they've been trialling with audiences for years. I saw Mark Knopfler half a dozen times playing with an earlier band Brewers Droop who seemed to be constantly touring, and giving people a really good nights entertainment. U2 were hardly an overnight success. It's not hard to think of other 'overnight successes' who were plugging away for years. Then when bands break they have all sorts of skills to keep the momentum going for a while. I wonder if this is one of the reasons so many bands never repeat their initial success, they run out of ready made material. Established bands play to audiences who want to hear their old hits and don't have the chance to try out new stuff, or if they do are playing to fans who will love anything however ordinary. Of course there's a lot of luck too, there are lots of good songs out there but sometimes it just takes a little magic in the vocal or hook line to make a song a classic. Even then it has to be noticed or picked up by someone and given some air play. I wonder how many songs are lost because no-one gets to the magic hook line. I'm gonna stick up for U2, there's a dozen or more songs of theirs I love, most of you too probably. I reckon any musician who comes up with even one classic song that gives millions of people happiness or pleasure, or maybe sees them through tough times has paid their way on this planet. Sod it, even someone who plays for peanuts in a pub band entertaining people has paid for their salt. I'm off to listen to U2's greatest hit's, I'll probably play the bass along with them

I feel I should have responded earlier but mis-read your post. I thought you were looking for a guitar speaker not a bass speaker. Don't worry about not being able to match specs to 'tone', even for those of us with a lot of experience it isn't an exact science. Thiele Small specs only really tell you about the bass quality. The frequency response chart will give an idea of the sound of the speaker but only if you are doing this a lot and in the end it's only an impression, we still need to build and listen. That Fane looks like a good little speaker, it would have been on my short list. I really don't think you will find this very satisfying though as an open backed design. With a short path from the back of the speaker to the front the sound from the back will cancel the sound from the front and you'll have no deep sounds. Also with no air load on the back of a speaker which has a relatively soft suspension you will have to down rate the power handling quite a lot maybe as low as 30w. This isn't a problem for home practice but you mustn't treat this as a 225W speaker if you are tempted to try it with a band. At the very least seal the cab with a wooden panel and some mastic. If you get adventurous you can try porting the cab, that will give you an extra 3dB of bass and a fuller sound. You can port through the blanking panel which would leave your cab intact if you wanted to return it to guitar duties later. Someone here will help you with any calculations.

I'd think a Barefaced 10 would be more than enough. I've gigged with a Hartke single 10 (in a Kickback combo) and it was easily adequate. This is a much lesser beast than the BF so you'll be fine. It might be worth getting a stand so you can tilt it to point at you

Start looking for another band. I had a similar experience with a band I 'joined' just over a year ago. The audition was postponed twice, so by the time I auditioned I'd learned the whole set. Audition went well as far as my bit was concerned but the singer didn't show and guitarist bandleader did the vocals. I got the spot but the bandleader rang next day to say the band had folded. Turns out the singer didn't want to continue and thought they'd never get a replacement bassist so he wouldn't have to break any bad news. The only way this band are going to get going is if you know another singer and are happy to take the initiative. If any of your band are any good then keep in touch, you never know when you'll need another musician

Hi Kevin, need a bit more detail really are your current tops active or passive? It's clear the subs are active but are you looking for a mixer amp to drive some passive tops or the whole kit. Yamaha make a nice system where the mixer amp fits in the back of one of the speakers The Stagepas 400i It has a big brother the 6ooi and an older relative the Stagepas 300 which is great for just vocals and acoustic instruments and should be available cheap second hand. If it's just the active mixer they used to do a nice mixer amp EMX512 a bit like a beefed up guitar amp, they've discontinued this but reliability is so good you should be able to buy with confidence. If not you are going down the Phonic/ Behringer route, I've had no problems personally with this stuff but I've seen a few in for repair so I'd rather look out for a used Yammy.

Thanks everyone, never thought I'd be playing classic rock but it's throwing up some interesting challenges, which I suppose is why it's good to keep an open mind. Lots to think about too. Basschat comes up trumps again and within a couple of hours.

In the Killers song it's just a couple of quick triplets (Octave Fifth) before you change down to the B it's in the drum pattern and it isn't observed every time so you can get away with just playing two beats which Marl Stoermer (just looked that up) does on the original recording s often as not. Yeah, practice will solve it but I'm interested to see all the options before getting into bad habits

Thanks Dan, I'm currently experimenting with three fingers but of course they aren't all the same length, so keeping it even is the problem. God obviously didn't play bass or he'd have arranged hands differently I've also caught myself 'double fingering' by flicking the string on the return stroke with my middle finger, that feels like cheating though. The advantage of the double flick is that my fingers return to where they would normally be for the rest of the pattern. Just off to google Steve Harris

I've come across a few songs recently where I need to play fast triplets. All These Things That I've Done: Killers, The Final Countdown, Jean Genie Etc. I play finger style and fast triplets don't seem to sit easily with a two finger style. How do people work around this. I've started to play with a pick but it's still feeling clumsy I'll persevere because it'll extend what I can do but in the meantime there have to be other ways of getting round this for a finger player.

It's possible anything loose in the room will rattle if you play loud through another cab. If your cab hits the tuning frequency of the broken cab it might even be quite loud. All I can suggest though is that you go through the usual checks. make sure nothing inside the cab is touching the cone, check the internal wiring in particular. then check that the driver is properly bolted down. Go right round the cone making sure everything is glued in place properly checking the corrugated surround and the central dust cap in particular. Also check the rest of the cab to see if anything is loose, it can be difficult to exactly locate where a rattle is coming from by ear. Good luck

Hi Al, replacing speakers is tricky in two ways, neither of them insuperable but you need to know. One is that speakers need to be matched to cabs especially in tuned/ported cabs. without doing that you won't get the best out of the speaker and at worst it can de-rate the power handling of the driver. People here will help you with what you need to do to re-tune the cab but it might mean taking a saw to the cab, difficult if you need to sell it later. The second is that all speakers have their own character and you won't know what they will sound like until they are bought and installed. If you are trying out your MB with the Tecamp then you can go on trying it out with other speakers without having to do any surgery. If you find a dream 1x12 in a cab the same size as your combo it might be simple to do a swap, or not. Would you be happy to take your amp out of the combo and make up a new sleeve for it so you could use it just as an amp? Or would you be better off selling the combo and buying a separates system? £350 plus whatever you get by selling your combo would buy you a lot of good possible choices. Maybe start with the MB III if you like that amp. I settled on the MB Tube after hearing a fellow BC'ers MB III. The problem is that if you alter your combo it will lose value, not a problem if you can do a straight swap and swap the original speaker back if you decide to sell. You might be lucky and be able to fit something like the Eminence 3012HO which is a lovely speaker, lightweight and great excursion/power handling without having to do too much to the cab. Add a second in an add on cab and you'd have huge sound and power handling if you needed that little bit more. I'd need to do some calculations to see if that would work and no-one can guarantee you'd like the sound, that would come down to personal taste.

There's this http://www.rcf.it/en_US/products/pro-speaker-systems/art-7-series/art-708-a-mk4 They used to do one in the 3 series too but that seems to have gone. I was going to suggest PMT too. One of the few places you get to try out PA gear with a reasonable range of stock.

Al the QSC is a whole lot more capable than the Wharfedale. I didn't think we were in that budget region. There's also the RCF to look at if that is your price range. Both fantastic speakers The Titan 's shortcomings are in the plastic mounded cab which resonates with high bass levels. My estimation is that at less than a metre from the drummer it won't need to be that loud though and it would be an order of magnitude better than the Behringer 205D in this respect. I still think it would do the original job of drummers monitor but you won't be playing bass straight through it. The advantage of any speaker with DSP is that they won't ever fart out. The limiters in the DSP will stop that happening, the QSC may even have multi channel limiters where the bass is limited separately, you'd have to look that up. If it has two channel mixing on the speaker the drummer could mix in the feed from the PA to their monitor. Dont believe the 1000W thing though, there isn't an 8" speaker on earth that could handle that. The figure you should be looking at is the output in dB which is way louder than you'd ever need,

Hi Al, I'm just about to set off so no time to answer now, but in the meantime a question. What exactly do you want from an upgrade? Sounds stupid but are you looking for different tone, more bass, greater volume or what?

It depends upon what you are trying to do, if you already own these speakers and are just curious then you'll end up with a working speaker, you'll have learned something and had some fun. If you have to buy these speakers then probably give it a miss. This is not a marriage made in heaven. The first thing is that the speakers have different sensitivities with the Beta being 2-3dB louder than the BP122 so they will dominate the sound. Secondly get the two frequency plots up on screen, all the lumps and bumps above 500Hz are what give the speakers their 'sound'. Where they line up the effect will be additive but few of the bumps line up exactly and what you will get is a smoothed out response. Add in the beaming Bill mentions and it's likely to be a dull sounding speaker though dominated by the Betas. Even if you already own the speakers I'd be tempted to build two 2x12's. That gives you the option of using them together, either cab separately and also as a stereo set up. Together you can use them as a vertical stack which gives better dispersal but if you want to investigate using them side by side as in a traditional 4x12 then that's an option too. If you don't already own the speakers then I'd go for four Betas.

Hope it works out Al. I've got a couple of the 12" versions, really reliable and sound great. Back to learning 'The Final Countdown'

I don't think the cut off frequency should be an issue for a monitor. All the important information about timing etc is carried by the mids and so long as the monitor carries everything above 120Hz I think that'd be fine. In any case the deep bass from your cab is Omni directional so the drummer would hear that. The problem is the speaker handling a lot of bass without distorting. You could use a filter but that makes it complex which won't be the solution you are looking for. One solution did pop up though. DJKit were offering the Wharfedale Titan 8 for little money this week, that's the passive but it occurred to me that the active one at around £180 would maybe do what you want, and it is stand mounted. 119dB spec so it'd drown out the drums if needed and the speakers are electronically protected from mis-use http://www.wharfedalepro.com/product-detail.php?pid=3

You are right to identify the need for a dedicated sound person. That makes one of the advantages of going through the PA less easy to achieve. The advantages of going through the PA are simple enough. Going through the PA means someone out where the audience are can balance the sound for them meaning the whole band sound better. Secondly any sound going on behind the mic line will be picked up by the vocal mics, including your bass. This muddies up the sound going through the PA and means you can never get a clean vocal feed. Then there is the issue of the sound level on stage. High levels damage your hearing long term and make it difficult for us to really hear each other well. Singers are often forced to belt out their vocals straining their voices and making it far harder to sing with any inflection or subtlety just to be heard over the racket. Without any help from the PA you have no choice about volume, it has to be loud enough for the audience. The only advantage of not going through the PA is simplicity. No mics or Di's means less to go wrong and setting up is simple enough for all to understand. Turn up until you are loud enough to match the drums and no-one is louder than each other and then just play. The balance will be the same for every song and whist it might not be perfect it shouldn't be too far out if every band member is sensible. This only works though in small venues if one of the instruments won't reach the back of a big venue you've pretty much got to accept low sound values or all go through the PA.

[quote name='Dan Dare' timestamp='1510337429' post='3405785'] A further suggestion re. band PA systems. Don't buy everything jointly. It can get complicated when people leave or the band splits and you have to sell it all (you rarely/never get what it's worth from a utility point of view) or get replacement members to buy into it. Best for individual members to own individual pieces of equipment - one owns the mixing desk, one the speakers (or one each), etc. That way, if you part company, you each take your own stuff with you and if someone leaves, they take what's theirs and the replacement member just has to provide similar. [/quote] This too