Phil Starr

You'll find two of these enough for most venues and one is good enough for the smaller pubs. A pair of the 50l cabs work well outdoors where the decent bass output helps with the losses you get from not having any wall reinforcement. Anything above that level and you and the drums will be miked up so no problems with the larger festival type events. I've yet to gig the smaller cabs so nothing to report as yet from direct experience. If you are based in the West Country you could always come and try them.

That sounds so familiar. There's not many clubs I'd willingly go back to.

Hi Johnny, I'm asking this just to check you are making the best decision for your needs. Would you be better off with the original mark 1 design, a 50l cab? It was specifically designed to be used with a 19" rack mount amp with no overhang and it will give you more bass than this mini speaker. The technique for building remains the same and you can build two 50l cabs out of a single 8'x4' sheet of ply. I have been gigging two of those stacked horizontally with a full sized Hartke 3500 for a couple of years before I moved on to my MB Tube 500. The Hartke was the amp I designed them to go with. You'll get some overhang with some amps even with these two minis placed on their sides not with the bigger speakers. The only reason I went for the smaller cab is that I play in some difficult spaces where too much bass is more of a problem than too little. The fact that you use a full size and weight amp suggests that full size speakers might be your thing. Even the 50l (14kg) cabs are a single handed lift for me, so they aren't exactly huge. The only problem with placing the speakers horizontally is that they are quite small and the top one will only be at waist height. There's no problems for the audience who will hear them properly but if you are closer to them you may miss out on some of the upper frequencies. bigger cabs get a bit higher and closer to your ears. As to the positioning on the baffle, it is better if the speakers are off centre as that reduces some of the resonances, however with a very small cab there isn't a lot of movement you can achieve and still fit everything in. So. the worst place for the speaker is plumb dead centre but sometimes it's the only practical solution. The positioning of the ports is less critical. So long as they don't get too close to the sides anywhere will do you can mount them in the rear panel if you prefer. This is the link to the original design thread, I've copied the dimensions into the first post so you can see them more easily

I think it's as simple as knowing the population size, the more people the more they need entertainment and the arts. the bigger the market the greater the opportunities. Every now and then there's a lucky coincidence of great musicians that come together and a 'scene' arises in one town. London and Liverpool in the early 60's, Coventry in the late 70's Manchester in the 80's but you can't really plan for that. No-one has mentioned Bristol yet so I will, lively musically with a bit of an alternative feel. good Luck

I've no doubts that a frontman/woman is better if they are concentrating on the audience than looking down but in the end the most important thing is that everyone is enjoying themselves. Most bands aren't full time professionals so expecting some sort of ideal isn't really sensible. Having the singer going to the wrong part of the song or breaking time when they mess up is pretty disruptive so it all comes down to compromise. iPads are less obtrusive and I'm seeing them more and more, do it if you have to I guess.

I don't think there's a strict line Les and open mic's and jam sessions are as varied as the musicians that go there. My experience is that each feels different and both are often mis-described. The minimum requirement for an open mic is just that, a mic and a small PA. Most of them just have acoustic acts and sometimes even comedians and poetry readings, a few are essentially folk venues, it's worth checking. The minimum for a jam session is that at some point a few people will get together and play. Jamming in the sense of playing a completely unprepared 'standard' with musicians jumping in and out, and improvising seems fairly rare. You'd normally expect jam sessions to be electric, have some sort of back line provided and a drum kit, but that varies. How cliquey they are depends upon the host and to an extent upon the landlord/lady. Many bands use it as an excuse for practice in public and the standard can be quite good, because they are used to playing together. They'll often welcome other acts as this gives them a break and of course over time the musicians all get to know each other and the songs a good host will notice anyone walking in with an instrument and try to include them once they know what they do but it is like trying to break into any conversation between friends, tricky to get started. Open mic's tend to be a bit more open, the host will have a rough idea of how many performers they have and divide the time fairly between them, but they will also know who amongst their regulars will be good and who will clear the bar so some people may get more than others. If anything is billed as an open mic it is worth always taking some sort of amp as a bassist, preferably a smallish combo as the PA may not be up to handling bass. The venue may affect how open the event is, the host is usually paid or gets a portion of the bar takings, if the manager wants to entertain his or her regulars then they are going to expect the host to keep the standard of music up so 'better' acts are going to get more time.

No news of the review yet, I've messaged Derreybass but still waiting for a response, he's not on here that often.

Right, you're still trying it out, good idea. 12" speakers only handle around 300w whatever they say about 1000W amplifiers but EV's are good and you have the subs so all in all the PA should be louder than the RM's, certainly a match. The RM's sounded to me like they have a mid bias which makes them pretty punchy, that's if they were the same ones that we tried out at the bass bash a few weeks back. (Thanks Ashdown). We were very impressed with the RM's at the price, and that voicing works really well in difficult rooms. Maybe that is what you are missing. You ought to be able to get something similar back using the Ashdown graphic. I'd start with the 30Hz right down and a touch of boost at 100Hz then maybe tweak the mids a little.

I'd be really surprised if lack of output is the problem. You don't say what the EV's are and the Wattage ratings are probably 'peak' rather than RMS values but even so.... Firstly power, or at least the way we perceive it is subjective. In this case the obvious thing is that with a traditional backline you are much closer to the sound source, often standing a metre or so away and right in front of it, often your bass stack is on the floor and backed against a wall so there will be a lot of bass reinforcement. The PA is in front of you and pointing away from your ears. Over the years you have got used to bathing in a warm fug of bass and your own bass being the loudest thing you hear, if you change over to the PA than it is going to sound very strange for a while until you adjust. For the audience the bass will sound great if you get it right and the band will sound better without all that bass going through the vocal mics. Secondly your bass amp is never going to have a flat response, most of us spend years looking for a combination of bass, strings, pickups amps and speakers that combine to give the sound you want. It's a bit much to expect to regain that 'perfection' in a few weeks. My favourite sound was through a Hartke 3500 I use the Zoom sim to get that back via a Zoom B1ON, could you find something to get your sound? Amp sims work well through the PA. You don't mention stage monitors or in ears, are you really only monitoring through the PA? A small floor monitor might be the answer.

That looks fine, + to + all the way through. If both speakers are working and there is plenty of bass it's good.

If you have wired this all correctly (it looks like you have) then the speakers are in parallel and the combined impedance is 4ohms. Well done by the way. I'm so pleased your cab worked out well enough for you to build a second. You'll be amazed at just how much that second speaker does for your sound.

Dan is right, ply is used as it is quite tough and takes a lot of knocks which is important when you move it around a lot. It is also lighter than MDF. MDF is more consistent, less elastic and denser so is sonically better. The biggest problem is that it reacts badley to moisture. If it is going to sit in a rehearsal room it'll be fine. Id use it in preference for a hi fi design.

I don't know at the moment in that I haven't modelled them, I'll try to have a look at a few of the readily available models and let you know.

The glue was PVA (white glue) from Lidl's pretty much any woodworking glue is going to be stronger than plywood so don't worry too much. I'll measure up the speaker later, The speaker is on the centre line but spaced for the ports the ports are just kept away from the walls but the position isn't critical The blade was one designed for curved cuts Bosch T101AO There isn't any wadding at the moment, I'll experiment and let you know what works well. It's just pin to plus sleeve to minus sorry about the sound, I wasn't operating the camera which cut out about halfway through and lost the sound a bit after re starting. I forgot to press record on my Zoom

I'd say you've got to try them. At the recent South West bass bash Ashdown loaned us some of their latest offerings. Stevie and Chienmortbb were very impressed and I think Stevie bought an Ashdown. On the other hand one of the other guys there hoovered up every lightweight that wasn't nailed down to try with his own rig, at the end of the day his favourite was my Mark Bass Tube 500. As someone has already said class D amps are getting pretty sorted so there aren't any bad ones out there, it's just about finding the one that suits your needs, style and sound.

Try one, I've gigged a fair bit with one and had no problems, I'll admit the first time I took two cabs but just left one unplugged but it was all good. Thre's no bracing at present and the panels aren't too bad, being smaller they are intrinsically more rigid and the edge bracing of the battens helps as I said during the build. I'm going to run a signal sweep through them and look for any resonances that need treating and let people know.

That's the advantage of a home build, you could build it out of a veneered board and have pretty much a furniture finish. Build two and put a glass top on and you'd have the worlds loudest coffee table

It does that job nicely it has a really full sound but without the wooliness you get sometimes in a small room. And of course it will keep up with a drum kit in the rehearsal room so you get both. My cab weighs in at just over 11kg but is an easy carry as much because of it's size and dimensions as it's weight.

Double what you charge a public venue? More for extras like learning a 'special' song, travelling further than usual, providing a disco, lighting the auditorium and so on.

It's a good question. I suspect those people in gigging covers band score well for high numbers. At one point I was in three covers bands and had 120 songs I was gigging regularly. Covers bands also tend to do a lot of fairly straightforward songs. I ticked 200+ on the basis of that being about how many I could take to a first jam through of songs or offer at an open mic. For me I'd want to be in a situation where if the singer went to the wrong part of the song or the guitarist broke time I could return them to some semblance of sensible That would at least halve that number. Playing any song when the band are bob on is much easier than playing when people slip up. How often have I played a song perfectly? Never, so maybe I should have ticked zero. I loved the comment about going mind-blank in the middle of a song though, I guess it happens to all of us but such a scary thing at the time. Incidentally this came up on another forum and all the guitarists said they never forgot a song, made me feel quite inadequate but strangely I've rarely met a guitarist who can remember an arrangement

Derrey's cab review I borrowed Phil's quick build cab one Sunday afternoon as it turned out that he was practising at the venue I was to be playing in that evening with a worship band. Normally I play through a Barefaced Big Baby 2 and a Peavey Mini Mega 1000w amp. The hall in question is very lively accoustically and can very boomy and difficult at times to hear what is being played particularly on bass. Bearing in mind what Phil had in mind when he designed the cab I was quite intrigued as to how it would behave in the room in question. The Big Baby also has masses of low down response and massive volume when required. I started playing the first few numbers through my normal set up things were useable but a bit on the boomy side then I switched to Phil's cab for the final numbers it was quite noticeable how the sound was came through and was easier to hear as the small cab handled the mid range and higher bass without the muddiness. I think the design he set out to make worked very well and met the requirements he laid down. I did miss the real low down response of the Big Baby at times but it was easier to hear what was being played through Phil's cab in the very tricky conditions the hall presented. A couple of these small cabs would be very useable and a relatively cheap high quality set for any one. Highly recommended. Having seen him make it at the Bass Bash a quick answer as well. Well done Phil.

I'm not sure how interested anyone will be in this cab but I'll offer it up for comments and questions in the hope that some of you might find it useful. At the recent South West Bass Bash I demonstrated just about the simplest way to self build a bass cab. I took 42 minutes from the first glue to a working cab, my aim was to demonstrate just how easy building your own cab can be. It was really just built for a demonstration and I didn't expect to use the cab much but it turned out better than I expected, so I thought I'd share the design. This cab is effectively the little brother of the cab I designed on here a couple or years ago, 14kg, 350W, 122dB and costing about£150 to build. You can find the information here https://www.basschat.co.uk/topic/227904-1x12-cab-design-diary The original cab was a 50l cab based upon the Beyma SM212 driver and designed to produce lot's of deep well controlled bass with a neutral uncoloured response, several people here have built versions of the cab and I've been gigging it for two years. My problem with the original cab has been that in rooms with poor acoustics there has been too much bass and I was tending to dial down the deep bass and boost the upper bass. It sounds great in non resonant rooms and out of doors but has way too much bass if you are shoved into the corner of a low ceilinged room. Since I had promised to demonstrate a cab build anyway I thought I'd squeeze the Beyma into a smaller cab which would reduce it's bass output but give it a 2dB boost in the lower mids/upper bass which I thought would help cut through in difficult spaces. UPDATE It looks like Beyma are about to pull the SM212. Coincidentally I've just been given a Beyma 12CMV2 to try in this cab, it has the same magnet but with a heavier cone, stiffer suspension and a new voice coil. It also has a pressed steel chassis and is considerably cheaper. The good news is that in this cab it actually sounds better. The bass response is basically unchanged, but one of the frequency anomalies of the SM212 has gone and there is a broad boost in output in the upper mids which makes the sound lighter and more detailed. I'm still investigating and haven't tried it at a gig for COVID reasons but I'm happy to recommend this speaker if anyone is thinking of a build. If I get more information I'll put it here. If you do fancy building one yourself then the panels for the cab are 2x 374mmx290mm, 2 450mmx 290mm and 2 450mmx350mm (all 12mm ply) the front baffle is set back 30mm to allow for the grille so internally the cab is 350mmx450mmx236mm. the ports are made of drainpipe/downpipe which is 64mm internal diameter 160mm long You should be able to build it from these dimensions and the video. thanks to WoodinBlack for filming this. I loaned the cab to derreybass who has written a review, many thanks to him too. I'll save a space under for the review and put up some more pics when I get my upload problems sorted. Thanks also to Mrs Scrumpy for lunch which is far too obvious in the video

I'm wondering if this is down to the rise of the DJ as music maker. People are coming into music after starting as DJ's. Conventionally their music, if it's an original song, starts with a sampled/midi beat and the rest of the track is built upon that. The lines between them and conventional musicians has become completely blurred as some of them sing and or work with other musicians to make music. It's a small step to mix for bands. There's even a pathway now; by studying music tech at university. The sonic signature of music has changed, Drum and Bass is a thing of course but drum and bass dominate modern music the way guitar used to in the 60's and 70's. You don't hear screaming guitar solo's in a lot of mainstream music. If the engineers coming out of college have been trained in this way and are brought up with this drum sound then you can see why they would favour it when mixing. It's comparable with modern drummers, I played with a succession of talented kid drummers in my first band (all teachers so they 'borrowed' the schools best young drummer) none of them could play a shuffle at first, it just wasn't something they were hearing, to be fair I've known older drummers who can't play anything else

I'm thinking room acoustics rather than your bass was the problem, that and unfamiliarity with the gear. It's surprising how much processing our brains do which we are unaware of. Playing our own gear with our own bands we don't need to hear much to know what is going on, jamming with strangers in an open mic, well you just need more to work with. You said the sound out front was good for the other bassist, chances were it was OK out there for you too. There just isn't time or opportunity at this sort of thing to get out front or even to move around much, you were probably jammed into a corner right on top of the cab with it pointing at your knees, possibly with a low ceiling just to compound things. The trouble is there are enough mids but they aren't coming your way. If you re eq and adjust your volumes then all you will do is make the mix right where you are but wrong for everyone else. Get someone else whose ears you trust out in the audience to tell you if it sounds ok. If possible try tilting the cab back to point at you or try to move further away from the cab to capture more of what the audience are hearing.

There is nothing different in many ways between a PA bass driver and the driver in a dedicated bass cab, they are governed by the same laws of physics. In a sense they both have to do the same job, reproduce the sound of the deepest instruments in the band, usually the bass. At the moment technology has reached the stage where a single 12 can produce enough power to enable the bass to match an unamplified drum kit, two can do this fairly easily. A 15" speaker with it's extra surface area will be slightly more efficient all other things being equal and will need slightly less excursion to achieve the same sound level. In practice all things are rarely equal and it's the implementation of the design that makes one speaker 'better' than another. The thing is to use your judgement, have a listen to the speakers just as you would audition a dedicated bass cab. if they were perfect all FRFR speakers would sound identical and clearly they don't. If you regularly struggle with a single 12" bass cab then you are going to struggle with a single 12" PA cab, and in all probability your band are too loud on stage. I've given a thorough audition to those RCF's and at the moment they beat the Yamahas hands down on the midrange transparency at least to my ears, but the proof of he speaker is in the listening.