Phil Starr

It may be about which mixer you use. Some cheaper mixers use the jack input as a line level input and the XLR as a mic level input, which is much lower. If your amps DI output is line level it would be too high output for the XLR mic input. If the mixer has no way of padding (reducing) the input then you can't use it with the XLR to XLR connection. Using the jack connection is better as explained above because it is quieter. Using the DI will allow your guy to match the inputs and use a low noise connection. It means you lose control of what the bass sounds like out of the PA. It's also possible that he wants to do this because it's just what PA engineers do. We're control freaks and also creatures of habit. If you want to send your own eq'd sound then ask him why he can't just run your DI out straight into the XLR/mic input on the mixer. If it's a mismatch then you could use the DI box to pad down your post eq signal. Or if you trust him just let him get on with it, maybe get a long lead and go and listen to the bass through the PA, once he knows the sound you want he should be able to hit it pretty much every time.

[quote name='thebrig' timestamp='1509186434' post='3397191'] What is the better option, powered mixer/passive speakers, or the other way round? [/quote] In today's world it is probably better to use passive mixer/active speakers. If one active speaker goes dead then the other will let you finish the gig. Use active speakers and the amp will always match the speakers and protection can be built in, making the whole thing foolproof. However in practice you won't notice the difference at your price point, so long as your active mixer is powerful enough, and by buying used passive speakers you can probably get something that sounds better than you'd expect the other way round. If you can continue to use your existing mixer then blowing the whole of your budget on a pair of actives would give you an immediate improvement in sound and could be the sensible start of a planned upgrade programme which you could add to as you can afford it. you might find this useful [url="https://www.ultimate-guitar.com/forum/showthread.php?t=1591207"]https://www.ultimate...d.php?t=1591207[/url] it's a little out of date so some of the links might not work but the general principles are still good.

In ears? If that is unacceptable (personally I struggle with feeling isolated from the room with them) then you need to go back to first principles. You need monitoring for both yourself and the drummer, and presumably for the rest of the band? It's not clear what your bass amp is doing in your post. You say it isn't going through the PA so I assume it is loud enough for the audience, if so I'm not sure exactly why the drummer can't hear. One trick I've used to get the sound levels on stage down is to use a bass amp with the mid/highs up and bass rolled off. Then I DI the flat signal into the PA and with the bass boosted through the PA and the tops cut in mirror image to the on stage sound the audience get a balanced mix. It sounds good on stage too because the bass from the PA is audible. Boosting the mids in particular means the bass is much clearer and you can turn the stage monitor down lower, helped by angling the speaker at your (and drummer's) ears. I used a Hartke Kickback to do this. I gave this up in the end because although I liked it my drummers always liked a lot more trouser flapping bass than me. Those mini monitors are really only good for vocals. I've got the TC Voicelive version of the B205D and it's no better at bass. You are going to have to go for floor monitors or small PA speakers to get what you want. You could go for both of you using floor monitors, by angling them at your ears you can get the stage levels down and direct the mid/highs at your ears and away from your vocal/instrument mics.

It's true, my subs usually stay in the cupboard. At least half the times I've used them have been in the more 'lively' pub where they are really only there because they are harder to knock over than speaker stands

First of all I'd say go for something that you know will sound good, that seems obvious but probably means buying a well thought of brand. Secondly list your needs and allow for everything. For me a PA includes all the leads including spares mics, stands, floor monitors as well as the mixer amps and speakers. You may already have some/most of this but it's worth budgeting for everything you need. A brand new hi spec set of active speakers isn't going to sound good if you are using horrible vocal mics and your singer is out of tune because the vocal monitors aren't up to the job. If I was starting from scratch and money no object I'd go for a digital mixer and active speakers, but there's not yet a lot of this on the used market as you are in the early stages of people trading in their old systems. This means that there is a lot of old, heavy passive stuff out there which is very cheap at the moment and which sonically will equal most modern gear. the cost is weight and flexibility. Separate mixers, amps and speakers take longer to set up and knock down and mean more trips to the van but may be the best you can do in your price bracket. You can halve that effort by going for an active mixer like the Yamaha mentioned above. You could match that with a pair of Yamaha club series speakers like the S112V's and have a pretty good sounding basic PA for £300 leaving you money for any extras like monitors. I think you'll struggle to get a PA based on active speakers and a digital mixer at your budget. You could go for a couple of active speakers and use a very simple mixer which you'd update when funds allowed. In which case I'd definitely spend some time on researching the speakers and make sure they are what you want in your final system. RCF are the ones to beat at the moment but EV and Yamaha make some good kit too.

Slade, it does have a good bass line, genuinely fin to play IMO.

Great event last year. I'll look forward to it.

[quote name='Dan Dare' timestamp='1509029092' post='3396168'] Don't 4 5" speakers have exactly the same surface area as a single 10"? Area of a circle is Pi x r squared. So 2.5 x 2.5 x 3.142 x 4 = 78.55, the same as 5 x 5 x 3.142. [/quote]By and large for the same excursion the surround needs to be the same size for both sizes of speaker. So the cone of the 5" speaker is usually nearer 4" and the 10" speaker 9" very roughly.

You say the cab has never worked? If so I'd advise you check everything thoroughly before you start any rewiring. Do all the speakers work. It looks like they are all giving the right sort of resistance reading with your meter so that's a good sign but I'd test them all anyway by connecting them each in turn to a signal of about a watt or so to make sure they sound OK without any obvious distortion. You can just use any solid state amp and make up a lead with a couple of bare wires or better still some spade connectors on them. Connect each one up in turn with nothing else connected to the speaker. The volume you are looking for is about that of a domestic radio or TV. You'll lose some bass without the cab intact but you should get an otherwise clear tone out of them. If they all work like this then the fault is with the wires or the socket or possibly a fuse in the little circuit board on the back of the tweeter. Actually in your photo it looks like there might be a fuse missing, just saying.... Anyway each speaker is 8ohms, the nominal impedance is made up of the dc resistance that you have measured plus a little extra due to the inductance of the voice coil which varies with frequency so it's always higher than the DC resistance. Basically your cab is wired so the adjacent speakers are wired in series + to - making each pair 16ohms These pairs are then wired in parallel making 4ohms overall. All the spare +'s down one side are connected to the orange wire and the spare -'s down the other to the brown - wire. If you wire them up as shown then a test signal connected to the orange and brown wires should get all the 10's singing.

https://www.screwfix.com/p/ratchet-tie-down-straps-5m-x-25mm-2-pack/24567

That's really good news Geoff I hope you and the cabs spend many happy hours together

It's a shame there aren't better sites. Bandmix would be stupidly expensive if you simply let your payments keep on running. The mailing alerts function very poorly, I set up the criteria to only include local musicians and it included people over 100 miles away at times. the searching is crazy and some people come up multiple times when you search, all in all I'm unlikely to subscribe if so much of the software is so full of glitches. Join My Band probably suffers by being so simple and free. Any dreamer can put up details at no effort and so there is a lot of chaff amongst the wheat. Nonetheless if you read the ads carefully or put some effort into wording your own ads carefully it is possible to find people. Lemonrock is great for finding musicians/bands as nearly everyone on there is paying a sub to promote their band or their gigs. The only problem is that it is geographically patchy, Great for the West Country and some of the home counties but not much activity in large swathes of the country. The big problem though is musicians, I can't understand quite why they are so disorganised in the main.

There's nothing difficult about acoustic coupling. when the sound bounces off the floor it gets to your ears a fraction of a second later then the sound from the speaker because it's a longer journey. The further from the floor the greater the delay. If the speaker is close to the floor then the difference is very small compared to the wavelength and it doubles the sound you hear. As the frequency increases the wavelength gets smaller so there's a frequency where you get cancellation and there is a suckout instead of reinforcement. The frequency of this first suckout depends only upon the distance from the floor. There's another sort of coupling which is about anchoring the speaker to the floor. Playing loud on a wooden floor sometimes makes the floor resonate and a bit of decoupling is quite useful. On a soft floor the speaker will move around as you sometimes notice when your pint hits the floor or the speaker starts moving across the stage on it's castors. It is useful sometimes to be able to put the speaker flat on the stage. The solution is to simply make up a trolley with your castors using a board the size of your biggest speaker. On good surfaces you can simply push it on the trolley, if it's an uneven surface you can simply strap the speaker to the trolley and unstrap it at the other end if you wish. Or buy one of the ones that are designed for moving furniture. Having said that I use a folding sack truck.

What the hell is the cab made of? The two speakers are quite heavy at 5kg each but that leaves a 20kg cab??? I'd suggest a simple cab build yourself if those figures check out. You could build it out of 12- 18mm ply the same size as the GK and it would probably weigh in 5-10kg depending upon the exact ply you used and how much bracing you put in. If you go onto the eminence website they have designs for the Delta's if you wanted to build a 1x10 or two http://www.eminence.com/pdf/Delta_10A_cab.pdf

Sorry it's almost certainly your speakers. Sure they may be able to handle 250W but that is their thermal handling, They aren't going to handle the excursion at lower frequencies, as Bill has pointed out you have something smaller than a 10" single driver in effect. Your options are to roll off the bass, turn your amp down, use some compression, perhaps a limiter which will reduce the peaks, go through the PA or buy another or different speaker.

The new amp is 650 into 4 ohms not 8. That means around a 1dB increase in maximum output. 1dB is the minimum change ind sound level we can normally reliably detect. So no it isn't worth spending the money on. With that much power though you really shouldn't be struggling and people have mentioned the two things you could address. Use an HPF to remove the subsonics which you can't really hear but which will push your speaker to make farty noises and eventually damage them, or look to get a louder speaker.

Hi Steve, I'd probably walk away too in the end but I'd do some checks first. This place is within your stomping ground just, so it isn't far to go and some of the audience might be local. Having heard your band this sort of event is where you'd be ideal, you have a big sound and that sort of stage presence. For example I'd do the Axminster festival for free if the chance came up. five miles from my house, 2,000 plus people mainly locals, and I know where the profits go. I'd also challenge them a little, point out that you're a well established band with a full list of bookings so don't need their exposure. Don't do the warm up slot, ask if you can do a later slot and maybe say you'll do it for free but need expenses and then name your price, which needn't be much/any less than what you'd charge a small pub for example. I'd also check what attendance was like last year, no point if it's going to be no better than a busy pub. Are the other two up for this? In the end you get a feel for what is actually going on, it might well be someone chiselling away for a freebie or it may be genuine. The question is will it be fun and are you getting enough out of it to make it worth your while

Great problem to have, try them all. I plumped for a MB Tube 500, basically a LM3 with a tube in the pre amp, Gak have an offer on these at the mo. Haven't regretted buying it but there are so many more to try now.

[quote name='dmccombe7' timestamp='1508250525' post='3390849'] Just had a listen to White Rabbit and find it hard to see that go down well especially as a closing song. Afraid its not my cup of tea Blue. Dave [/quote] We play this from time to time, it never goes down badly and sometimes it's a stormer, people of a certain age often and dancers sometimes love the rhythm. Other times it's just a song no-one remembers and is a bit weird if it's the first time you've heard it. Probably a much bigger song in the States. It's a fun bass line too.

Curse you, I've just wasted 15mins on this. Loved it but ended up not getting his timing (tried drumming to it and there seems to be an extra beat somewhere) so I had to go and listen to the song (live version so different bass line) I'm now going to have to have a phone call to my drummer. I'm supposed to be doing some work.

[quote name='dmccombe7' timestamp='1507966644' post='3389002'] Did you give him an opportunity to resolve his issues or go straight to the sacking without him knowing. ? If he was a good drummer and an original member i would have said to him that his timing is starting to fail and he either needs to get it together or we would need to look at another drumer that can commit to the band. Think it very unfair to sack someone without offering them a chance to sort it. I would say that if you haven't given him a chance and just gone behind his back then that is sneaky and not acceptable in my opinion. The one thing you can't do is just put up with it and then sack him. Communication is vital in a band. Dave [/quote] This is very much my thought. We recently lost our drummer, he was actually sh*t hot most of the time but there were personality clashes and the band don't talk about anything serious. I thought we'd agreed our band leader would go and talk to him, he was probably on the point of leaving anyway but in the end he was sent an email full of self justification about why he wasn't wanted. If you are going to just sack someone at least make it quick and clear, only give reasons if someone asks. No-one really wants to hear a list of what's wrong if it's too late to change things. In another band I had problems with a guitarist not learning his parts. I asked him how committed he was as he clearly wasn't putting in a lot of work in the woodshed. He came back with the explanation that he was trying out with a number of bands to see which would fly and accepted he needed to commit more to us. We'll see but the discussion was only about music nothing personal and everyone is now clear. Actually I like the guy but that wasn't any part of the debate. We'll see how it works out and I guess if we make little progress then he might go back to his other bands. That's fair enough, it's all out in the open. Sometimes it's easier to say the hard things rather than run away, isn't it? Maybe I'm just a b*****d.

[quote name='Dr.Dave' timestamp='1508186628' post='3390418'] The interest is in making music. Playing bass is just a means to that end. If you never pick up a bass again but that choice means you continue to enjoy making music in other ways - why worry. [/quote] This, bass is all about making music with other people so follow where the music takes you. If it's bass that's good, if it is something else then so be it. Hang on to one bass and enough gear to be able to slip back in to bass if the need arises.

I ran a mobile disco back in the very early 70's. You can get people to dance to almost anything with the right beat, it only needs to be something they recognise or something with a predictable rhythm so they know when to move their feet. When the only thing you have to work a room is your choice of music it becomes quite an interesting art form. Audiences always surprise you with what they like and something that goes down well on one day will tank on another occasion but people are surprisingly empathic and once you've tuned in it's a lot of fun to take people on a journey just by playing music. Now I play bass (strictly covers) and the game hasn't changed much, though people dancing whilst you play is a new and different pleasure, what a buzz to have a room full of people dancing to your fingers I'm kind of amazed at the way covers bands choose their songs. The audience don't often get much of a thought. So many bands where a dominant band member forces a collection of their own favourite songs often dating from their own teenage years, filtered by the limitations of the band and padded out by a couple of Mustang Sallys 'for the audience'. Alterntively the covers bands who all play the same set simply because that's what all the other bands do, and they go down well. Rarely do things like 'can the singer really sing this well in the original key' come into the choices. The truth is that there are thousands of songs and dozens of genres that will get audiences tapping their feet, singing and dancing. Play it well and with conviction and the audiences have come out to have a good time, they're on your side pretty much. The deal is that you set out from the start to entertain them. Good live bands are putting on a show so your song choices need to be part of that show. You need light and shade, four big dance songs followed by a chance to get to the bar and get your breath back, then a big song to get them on their feet again. The truth is that an audience will happily dance along with a blues band one week and a punk band the next it the band deliver their songs well and with conviction. There's a kind of confidence that grow during an evening in a band that knows what it is doing and which makes contact with the rest of the room so for me the question whan adding new songs is fairly simple. How will this song improve the set for the audience, where does it fit in, how does it make us a better band?

The obvious recommendation is to use the Zoom B3N Like many basschatters I use the cheaper B1ON. It gives you all the emulations but in a less flexible way but it has an input so you can mix in the output from an IPod or a phone and play along with those. I can't see an input socket on the B3 so you might need a small mixer to do that if you want. At £50ish for the B1 it might be easier to buy one of those if this is something you might do. Some people use an outboard pre amp just as a effects unit to shape their sound but if the output is exactly what you want you could go directly into the PA for your bass. Alternatively some of us use a PA amp, much cheaper per watt, as our amp and run it directly from the outboard. As you surmise a stand alone pre amp is a duplication of the tone controls etc of the onboard pre amp but it gives you a wider range of shaping possibilities which some people love.

As someone who has been playing around with speaker design for quite a while I have a kind of rule of thumb which helps me predict what small changes in design will actually sound like in practice. A 1dB change in frequency response is just audible in an A/B test wher you have both systems (speakers in this case) next to each other and can switch quickly between the two. 3dB is generally noticeable anyway, you'd hear a difference in bass output between two speakers with a 3dB difference at 60Hz. Below that our ears are not very sensitive, at 30Hz I don't think anyone with an untrained ear would detect any difference that couldn't be fooled in a blind test. Of course 3dB is half the power so you are significantly reducing the demands you make on the speaker if you filter out the lows. If you use a ported speaker there are two vulnerabilities around the tuning frequencies. Wind noise in the port at the tuning frequency and uncontrolled and excessive excursion below the tuning frequency. Most bass cabs are tuned fairly close to 50Hz so a 3dB cut below this can only be a good thing and unlikely to be audible.