Phil Starr

Hi Geoff, I had a quick look at the Ashdown and I don't see why it wouldn't sound at least OK with the Beyma. It looks to be a similar sized cab to ours and I'm guessing tuned within the ranges we tried. If you could measure the depth of the port I could look at it properly for you. What exactly do you mean by "it isn't breathing smoothly at low frequencies"?

If you are doing covers I suspect it's about not knowing the song as much as being rhythm blind. There's a huge difference between being not being able to do something and never being able to do it. The difference is practice I don't think singing is as easy as it looks for most of us. I struggle to play bass and sing at the same time, especially when the chord changes don't line up with the sung line. Singers tend to be over confident, they can sing along with the original so they reckon they can do it to order. By now I'm imagining their confidence is shattered as it has been a topic of debate which probably doesn't help. With three weeks to go I'd be thinking of cancelling TBH, but you want practical suggestions. They have to listen to the songs over and over again at every available opportunity. Get another band member to cue them in either by counting them in or by playing a cue or even giving them a nod or a wink. Can they come in on time with a Karaoke track? If you can get backing tracks for your songs it gives them something solid to practice with. Sit down with them one to one and go through the problematic songs listening to the originals, pick out what the music does just before they come in . Get them to listen out for that cue and practice that entrance only. 3 weeks isn't much time, all any of you can do at this stage is to try your best (who booked in a gig before you were ready?) once it is over your singist needs to decide if they want to spend the hours working on each song to bring them up to scratch. If not it might be time to move on.

Whilst I don't know about basswood as a material for ply I would imagine it would be OK, a whole variety of plywoods are available here and often the only part of the plywood that is the named species are the face plies. One supplier over here offers a generic 'hardwood' ply which I prefer to birch ply anyway. Given the quality of Japan's carpentry and the use of a lot of indigenous semi-tropical timbers I wouldn't be surprised if it is very decent quality. We designed the cabs so you could build two out of an eight by four sheet so 18sq ft should be plenty.

surprised no-one has mentioned the biggest difference between the Gibson and the Epi's. Gibsons are really light basses. The Epi's are beasts. I have to say mine created quite a stir at every gig I took it to, just the look of it really, and I loved the sound it made, the sustain and the super fast narrow neck. In the end the neck dive and the twist spoiled it for me. I watched Martin Turner (Wishbone Ash https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mUolWNHxRiM ) last Friday and like most of the T-bird players he plays mainly with a pick and the bass on his thigh with his picking arm resting against the bass. I play finger style only and without that restraining arm they dive like crazy. I sold the Gibson, it was a waste to have a lovely bass unplayed, then I missed it and a Japanese T-bird came up, a Burny by Fernandes. It has the same light weight and fast neck, the sound is great but without that snarl the Gibson has when you dig in. If the OP is thinking about a purchase try the Epi and Gibson next to each other, it's a completely different experience. Personally I'd wait and see what Epiphone bring out next if a new model is due soon.

[quote name='geoffbyrne' timestamp='1495907223' post='3307512'] Hope not to derail..... I have a Beyma 212 - but am totally hopeless with tools. Anyone building these cabs for money? G. [/quote] It isn't too difficult to build these if you get the panels cut to size for you. If you can use a screwdriver the Mk1 pretty much assembles itself. B&Q will usually cut the panels and a smaller timber merchant will usually help. Some might even offer to cut the holes in the baffle for you.

You'll find designing cabs is a bit like wrestling a balloon. You force one problem into place and something pops out somewhere else. We've very much found that to be the case with designing the Basschat 12. The main thing I was trying to achieve in the Mk1 was a decent speaker that would be easy to build. If you follow the original thread you'll see I built both a tube ported box and one with a wooden slot port. I plumped for the tube ports because of the simplicity of the build and the ready availability in Europe of black downpipe of the right diameter. We ended up with four to keep the port noises down. The slot port version had a resonance when I dropped it, I couldn't leave it alone though and when I went back found it was down to a reflection off the port itself. I damped it down with some judicious stuffing and it could have been designed out with a taller narrower cab. Having built both I thought the tube port tube design was easier to make for someone with limited tools and woodworking experience. Since then working on the Mk2 we've found that a single port gives a lot less port noise than a group of four with the same cross sectional area. I'm not keen on four corner ports for that reason, but it does help stiffen the cab. Balloon wrestling again. My conclusion? I wouldn't worry too much about the ports. If you are a confident woodworker forming them out of wooden slots is fine. The four ports in the Mk1 have never made any audible noises at a gig, even when pushed hard, most/many manufacturers of bass cabs make slot ported designs and there are successful designs out there with corner ports.

The 3012HO is a bit wasted in a box that size. 35-40l is probably better. It will work in the Basschat 12 and you can change the shape to make it taller so long as you stick with the overall volume and the port dimensions. You could use the dimensions of the Mk 2 if you want and leave out the horn, Stevie spent some time working on the bracing and you could simply copy his. The Eminence Beta 12A-2 will work well in this cab. I can imagine getting hold of the Beyma we used would be nigh on impossible in Japan. My son works in Tokyo If you want help with the design just keep posting questions here.

[quote name='LewisK1975' timestamp='1495806826' post='3306773'] Interesting - I bought myself an AKG D5 and was ribbed by my bandmates for not buying an SM58. [/quote]The last laugh is yours I think. I inadvertently did an A to B test of these two when mixing for a friend. Her SM58 cut out and I swapped mid song with my AKG. The clarity and amount of detail that suddenly appeared was stunning. Not surprising really, the SM58 dates back to 1962 it was great in its time and has been a really reliable performer. Technology and materials science has moved on since then and Shure only make the SM58 because people won't let go. The Beta 58 is their modern offering and is way better than the old SM.

Hi Steve, yes mainly the D5's, feedback rejection is pretty good with them anyway. See you are down at the Marine tonight, I might make it down there if I can escape.

[quote name='Steve Browning' timestamp='1495788741' post='3306540'] Our side fills are Alto TX10s and they do the job perfectly. The drummer's one is, indeed, on a short speaker stand so he and I can hear the vocals etc. Works brilliantly. [/quote] Thanks Steve it's encouraging me to give it a go. Do you get any feedback problems?

[quote name='AdamWoodBass' timestamp='1495783767' post='3306485'] Only time I've used side fills is many years ago in an originals rock band. The frontman ran a really high end PA hire company so we were able to get on the bill for a lot of festivals and outdoor gigs. I'd say they are very useful because they fill the stage and you really get a sense of atmosphere to the gig, we also had wedges at the front but that was pretty much just for vocals. For the band it feels very natural and seems to add a little something to the gig. For the guy doing the front of house mix it's a nightmare from what I understand because they have to ensure the side fills don't bleed into the mix for the FoH system. Typically it's really useful outdoors where accoustics of a room aren't a factor but in a theater or something it can be a pain. [/quote] I grew up with the idea of sidefills bleeding into mic's being a problem, but that was in the days of SM58 mics and earlier. The dead spot for those cardioids is looking along the mic straight at the monitor. The AKG's and Sennheisers I use now are super cardioids where the dead spot is offset at about 135 degrees but they are pretty dead from the sides. I've a little personal vocal monitor for just my vocals and it works much better from the side than looking down the barrel. Much less feedback and somehow easier to pick out your voice when it comes from that direction. That's all got me thinking. Good to hear what you say about atmosphere too.

We play in a lot of cramped spaces in pubs with limited floor space and often poor acoustics. Band politics and funds won't allow in ears. We've also had a series of incidents where punters trip over floor monitors and catapult themselves into the band. Most of our mics are supercardioid rather than cardioid so monitors need to be to one side rather than straight ahead, so I'm thinking that a couple of small PA speakers at ear height would take up less space and potentially be clearer than our current line of floor monitors. Has anyone tried this?

Looks like you tried all the right things. If it's all been working OK through the Aux out then it's unlikely to be the speaker end so you are left with the mixer. Could be a connection problem or I suppose a software glitch. You did switch it off and on again! I don't know the Soundcraft, is it possible there's some way of muting the output?

In most cases 24dB/octave is going to be much better if what you want to do is clean out the crap without affecting your sound. Happy to give you the technical reasons if you want.

The most likely explanation is the leads, though it could be a socket. If there is a poor joint or an invisible break in the cable itself then just wiggling something can re-make the connection. If you've connected it up at home you'll have done a lot of wiggling and maybe swapped leads around. Intermittent faults are a bugger to find. Always carry some masking tape with you to gigs and you can mark the leads in any channel that fails, then you can investigate when you get home. There's also nothing to lose by squirting some switch cleaner into the sockets. Sensibly you could replace all the leads and eliminate them as suspects. Good luck

[quote name='Bill Fitzmaurice' timestamp='1495641564' post='3305548'] My living room is larger than that. Maybe I should start charging my guests for their drinks? I can't imagine a room that small being able to pay me enough to leave the house. As for subs, read what I actually posted. Low tend to make their way throughout the room no matter what its size. It's the directional mids and highs that need spreading about. [/quote]It's a cultural thing Bill, a lot of our pubs are in very old buildings, often converted domestic houses completely unsuitable for live music, but we go ahead anyway. It's more common for drums being too loud than needing any extra help, hence the pragmatic approach. Ideal isn't available to us so we do what works. My local dates back to the 14th century.

The 70's was considered the low point of Fenders by many, the CBS era, funny how things change. https://reverb.com/uk/news/fender-and-the-cbs-takeover I wonder if there are other reasons for the sound difference. The pups will vary, modern pups tend to be higher impedance/over-wound. That will limit the mids. Magnets do fade over time too depending upon the material so that could be a factor. I note some high end guitar manufacturers are baking woods to speed up the chemical cross linking of the wood fibres, old wood will do that naturally, and of course wood is bought in batches from all round the world as timber resources are depleted. Older slow grown and exotic timbers are just getting harder to find as species and habitats are destroyed. You have the excuse to try lots of basses though, good luck with the quest.

Late to the party I'm afraid. My need was exactly the same as yours, to keep away from the lights on or off scenario. I started on the Parbar route, four lights with the controller built into the pole with a foot controller. I wouldn't recommend these particularly, the built in programs are for discos and just change too quickly for most bands, not great for your big ballad You can set them to static but who needs four identical lights. I also got complaints for band members that they are quite bright shining into their eyes the beams are quite narrow. They ended up on the floor so I went out and bought a 12 light strip (something like this https://www.lighthouseaudiovisual.co.uk/ledj-pixel-storm-12-tri-batten-led-bar-67054-p.asp?gclid=COSA9oKTiNQCFQu4GwodrqMDLw ). It sits behind the drummer and lights up the whole rear wall. It's 12x3W triclour led and it's enough for the places we play, good strong colours, crucially it only responds to bass in the sound to light mode so keeps time with the closest bass source, kick or bass. I'm going to add a couple of static led par lights to give the stage a colour wash and some light when the music stops. I like the idea of just three lights and I use the parbar to light the audience, they are really excellent for this. The drummer has a little laser light which creates little points of red and green that swirl around us. That works well for a bit of atmosphere. As to brands I don't think there is a whole lot of variation short of the genuinely pro stuff which'll cost more than your PA. It all looks like it comes out of the same factory in China. Look out for the larger leds and COB lights as people have said. The Harley Bensons were only cheaper than the Chauvet, ADJ and Kam lights when I checked because the came with lesser stands and check you are getting a decent metal housing if you want it all to stand regular use. Outside of the main disco brands there is some remarkably cheap stuff on eBay but I've fought shy of trying it. I decide not to go the DMX controller route, just too distracting to fiddle with when I'm supposed to be playing bass.

[quote name='Jus Lukin' timestamp='1495564374' post='3304913'] It's probably more a question of dispersion in any speaker system, and how much one actually needs​ to hear the full range of any signal for a gig to work. And also whether​ one brand can improve on dispersion over another, or whether dispersion is a fixed factor of, say a 12" driver, regardless. I'd love to have some kind if solid answer, but as in your OP, it's pretty hotly contested! [/quote] Actually this thread has been quite civilised. I'm quite keen to hear people's actual experiences about what problems they've had so I can get a feel of how much they need to hear the full range of signal. I'll stick my neck out and try to explain the technical side of things, I declined to have a bash at that on the other thread when it all got a bit heated. The techies amongst you will see where I've glossed over a bit of detail and I'll be as accurate as I can but it'll be simplified. All the classic experiments on dispersion have used a rigid transducer (posh word for speaker, but think more like a tiny horn driver) which acts as a piston. They did this with the 'speaker' mounted at the end of a long tube the same diameter as the speaker and repeated it in free air and with it mounted in a large flat plate. That was to show what effect a speaker cab would have (sort of). What you find is that as the frequency goes up the radiation of higher frequencies narrows once you go past the point where the width of the speaker becomes a significant fraction of the wavelength. What is happening is that from the front all of the sound from the speaker reaches your ears at just about the same time. From the side some of the sound from the other side of the speaker takes a little longer and this interferes with what you hear. (I'm happy to explain this cancellation process but let's keep it short) In practice what this means for a 12" speaker is that up to around 500Hz gives a fairly flat radiation response and even at 1000Hz there isn't going to be too much loss of high frequencies 30degrees off axis. (This will vary with the cab a little) above 2000Hz in a practical speaker cab the response begins to be lobed and an off axis response will show quite big irregularities in the frequency response. If you go to the Faital site you can see this for yourself with the regular bumps in a falling response off axis http://www.faitalpro.com/en/products/LF_Loudspeakers/product_details/datasheet.php?id=101050110 If you are as nerdy as me you can compare speakers ad they do this for all their drivers. You can see they all have the same rough pattern but there are differences between drivers. Of course this is all theory, in practice practical speaker cones are made of paper and have to be light or they wouldn't make much noise. This means they bend. A typical 12" speaker will have a 2" voice coil, a corrugated surround at the edge and the cone will weigh about 40g. At 2000Hz it has to move forward then backward then return to zero 2,000 times a second. That initial push from the centre takes a fraction of a second to travel through the paper so there will be a time lag before the edge moves and there will be resistance to the movement at the edge, and a limit to how fast that 40g can be accelerated and decelerated. So the cone starts to flex and effectively only the middle of the cone keeps moving in time with the signal. Martin Colloms describes the cone vibration as contracting to the driving point with increasing frequency and offers an equivalent circuit diagram which is how speaker designers mathematically model speaker behaviour. (Win ISD works on a model like this) If you are really into this stuff then I'd recommend High Performance Loudspeakers by Martin Colloms pub Wiley as a good read. (how sad am I ) Speaker manufacturers have exploited this for years with hard metal domes and little 'whizzer cones' stuck straight onto the voice coil; used to extend frequency response. Cone materials are used to vary and control the flexing (Mark Bass use banana fibres in their pulp mix for example) and the thickness of the cones across their width is finely controlled, along with tricks like flared cones, conical cones and ribbed cones. The problem is that if you stick with pistonic cones you'd need to crossover at 500Hz, then you'd need to crossover again at 5,000 Hz as that speaker ceases to be pistonic, if you want to make a full range speaker. The holy grail of cone design is to have something that is well behaved enough under cone breakup to take you to the halfway frequency point where you can have a 2 way speaker to cover the whole range. It's what the cones do around that point which make a 2 way speaker design great or not. (maybe I've over simplified there) So to summarise, all 12's (all speaker sizes really) follow the same pattern of radiation but there are thing we can do to make crucial modifications and they don't all have the same off axis response.

[quote name='stingrayPete1977' timestamp='1495570735' post='3305012'] I did a gig last year with no monitoring at all for the first 7 or 8 songs, when I say no monitoring I'm taking no bass amp, no guitar amp and no wedges (which were going to be our sole monitoring), nothing for vocals at all! Oh dear that was tricky [/quote] Been there too, we had a second gig two hours after appearing at a beer festival so it suited me to use the floor monitors and save time so we could scoot off. The sound tech set the monitors up perfectly and then switched them out once we started, she put them back on after the first song but well down compared with the set up levels. Like playing with your pants round your ankles!

[quote name='BigRedX' timestamp='1495531452' post='3304442'] I'm assuming that bassists who aren't being put through the PA are playing in bands that own their own system? [/quote] I don't think it's quite as simple as that. It's probably almost always true that people who use a professional sound engineer will be steered towards a proper front of house mix, with stage levels kept as low as possible and backline as monitors only. For pub gigs (and the like) even with your own PA pragmatism rules. With no-one mixing out front many of the advantages of 'everything through the PA' will have gone. A full mix means miking up the drums, with a lot of extra complexity, and small venues don't demand high levels to fill the room so the onstage levels are bearable. With often one poor band member setting up the PA time to set up and knock down needs to be reduced, so even if the PA is up to it you won't necessarily put anything more than vocals through. Stage space and access for loading become issues too. Keeping it simple makes a sensible compromise Personally I've a range of PA including a choice of multiple tops and subs available. I've used my biggest set up with up to 2,000 people so it's adequate for most things. I don't use the full set up down at the Dog and Duck and most of the times it's everything mixed to the drums (heavy sticks confiscated ) and just vocal PA through the smallest lightest tops. I could put bass through the tops and that'd be my first choice but the rest of the band (drummers especially) usually like a lot of bass so I end up with backline I could do way better mixing out front and cutting the backline out of the vocal mics but the places we play wouldn't stand the cost of a sound engineer and wouldn't thank you for setting up whist they are finishing serving food, we still get compliments on our sound from time to time.

[quote name='chris_b' timestamp='1495525439' post='3304378'] 8 ohm 410 and 210's are fine to run together. It doesn't matter that the 410 is receiving half the power of the 210, just make sure you are working within the 210's power range and all will be good. A 4 ohm 410 and 8 ohm 210 is a more even set up. All speakers will receive the same amount of power. You need an amp that goes to 2.67 ohms for this though. [/quote] +1 The maximum power handling of the 102+104 combination (at 8 ohms each) will be 800W AES, exactly the same as the 4x10 on its own. You will halve the power between the two cabs decreasing the maximum sound output from the 4x10 but you will of course get some extra sound output from the 2x10 and probably some extra output from the amplifier which will be driving into 4ohms. The net effect is that you will have a 2x10 sitting on top at close to ear level, your sound level will be more or less the same and you'll be £505 lighter in the wallet. If you want a 2x10 to use on it's own then you could buy anything, if you want it for the look then that's up to you, if you want more sound then get another 104.

[quote name='Gottastopbuyinggear' timestamp='1495402768' post='3303538'] I modelled the Faital driver in that box after modelling the 4 ohm version but it came out looking pretty bad. It could be my lack of knowledge, though, so I'd be interested to see the results if someone with a little more expertise tried modelling it - it's possible I made a mess of entering the parameters into WinISD. [/quote] If I get time this evening I'll have a look. Still struggling with a Whitesnake bass line though.

[quote name='RichardH' timestamp='1495359826' post='3303170'] Been having a good old read through this thread. Out of interest I overlaid the published frequency responses of the Beyma and Faital drivers over each other. A lot of similarities, though the Faital seems to have a bit more further up the frequency range. ...and here is the 407 vs the 407N Not sure how much interest there is out there for the lightweight option of the neo drivers mentioned above, as there's no point in people putting the time into crossover design if there's no takers, but it's certainly tickled my interest.... At the risk of derailing the thread, I'm currently using a Genz Neox 212T, and find it a bit of a big old beast to lug around sometimes - hence the interest in a 2 cab solution. I know what has been said earlier in the thread about not stacking a pair of these 1x12s, but I wonder if as a second cab one where to use a non tweeter version upside down (so the 12" drivers are in close proximity) might work better than "just" plonking them on top of each other. [/quote] That's an interesting bit of work Richard, thanks for sharing it. The tonal balance will clearly be different for the two speakers. One persons 'a bit more high up' is another persons 'a bit less low down'. If you were using a single driver then I personally prefer a bit of emphasis in the 1-2kHz area, but the design brief was to have a flat response which is why I went for the Beyma. There's anything up to a 6dB difference in sensitivity between the two drivers so you'd absolutely hear the difference. I've a personal little interest/belief and that is that the smaller lumps and dips in response have the potential to affect the voicing quite dramatically. There are two points on your graph I'd pick out, at 680Hz the Beyma dips and the Faital peaks. If you play a note which excites that frequency then one speaker is going to emphasise the note and the other is going to very slightly de-emphasise it. In other words the speaker itself is going to add to the voicing of any bass run around that point. Over time you may even get to anticipate it in your playing. The other point is at 2kHz where the position is reversed and the Beyma peaks, there are loads of others too. Having two horns widely spaced is going to do things to the dispersion of a speaker with some 'interesting' comb filter effects. I have however in the past used a couple of PA cabs with the Beyma and some P-Audio Horns as my bass speakers and they did sound very good, both for me and the audience. More recently at the SW Bass Bash we tried the Mk2 tweetered speaker on top of the MK1 and it did sound very impressive, although the listening conditions weren't ideal. If I wanted to design a modular 2x12 I think that's the path I'd go down. You'd have plenty of power handling/output low down and a single horn raised up dealing with the top end with the possibility of using either cab on it's own. As to using the Faital neo units, well that becomes a different design. The Beyma is fairly light and the Basschat Mk1 is an easy one hand lift. The design spec for that cab was for something cheap and simple to build that would compete with mid range commercial units. Saving an extra 3kg or whatever it works out at would be a worthwhile exercise but Stevie and I are amateurs so we have to think about which projects we are going to pay for next. If you decide to go ahead with a lightweight design I'll happily contribute ideas and I'm pretty sure everyone else will contribute too.

I've some sympathy for Alex here. I modeled the Faital Pro driver and it's a lovely driver with a nice flat response in a relatively small cab. In addition it's got a really good excursion figure compared with a lot of speakers in its class so it'll maintain it's output better than some. A lot of the 'opposition' have extraordinary claims about output from their class D amps but have fairly limited power supplies. I couldn't find another cab comparable in weight. This looks like a good driver in a very decent cab. The problem is the clearly unsupportable claims being made around the industry. More than one manufacturer gives both the maximum output and the efficiency of the cab. Two at least quote their cabs as 99dB/W and the power as 1000W or 1200W (effectively you add 30dB @ 1000W) which gives their maximum output as 129dB. They are claiming 134dB maximum output. What's a competitor to do? Make the same dubious claims or stick to the truth and risk people making decisions based on fake numbers?