Phil Starr

I'm jealous, I've been in a couple of female fronted rock bands but the old lags on guitar were too stuck in their ways to learn a new song. and refused to listen to anything with a girl singer post 1975. There was a fabulous version of I kissed a Girl from Jools Holland 2008 where the session guys really rocked it up but Youtube have deleted it. It brought the house down for us. This was a great one for us, guitard excepted, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=txBfhpm1jI0 this would probably work https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rHBxJCq99jA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=INKwtDSC2gY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BMOgSdc8OAI What's up never failed us, Mercy is the female fronted Mustang Sally if you need a banker. There's a few Eurythmics. Black Velvet, Piece of My Heart. Loads of Fleetwood Mac. Weak As I Am (Skunk Anansie) worked well. Anything AC/DC does work well with a female vocalist. There's a mashup of Rolling in the Deep you could do https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-dkN_84EGj0 There's actually too much to choose from, we've no idea of your singers range or how closely you want to do 80's/90's stuff.

Apologies yet again, life keeps getting in the way. There's some good drawings here which should help people build the cabs and a couple of people have already had a go and seem happy with the results. I really will get round to a decent step by step guide and [b]mikel[/b] if you want to start then I'm happy to talk you through any problems. Rather than make this thread any longer post up a thread in the build diaries and other people can follow your progress. The fee is to post a review of your speaker once it is finished Good luck

Yep good idea to tell us where you are, there are shops which still demo and people who will share their expertise and give a go on their rigs. Firstly always go for the sound, no try, no buy. We all have different tastes and play different styles of music. I'd go lightweight unless you are looking to do this on the cheap. People generally are replacing their old heavy gear and the used prices for big heavy cabs and amps has fallen. Certainly don't buy heavyweight gear new as it will lose value the moment you swipe the credit card. I'd say go for a couple of 1x12" cabs as your starting point. A single 12 so long as you aren't looking at bargain basement will keep up with a drummer, so your practice rig is a single speaker and your amp. then if you are playing at a bigger venue you can take the second speaker, that should take you louder than the drums so if you play stadiums then they'd be miked up and so would you. A single 12 is usually a one handed carry and probably the smallest cab so will fit easily into your mini. Slightly larger a 1x15 or 2x10 will also be a good basis for a modular two cab flexible rig if size and weight are not a problem. 1x12's are pretty popular now so you have a wide range to choose from and should be able to find ones whose sound you like. I reckon to go for a lightweight amp with about 300W, preferably into 8ohms unless you don't mind the extra weight. I went for the Little Mark Tube but there are loads to choose from and we all have our favourites. The biggest thing though is budget, I've essentially recommended a £1000 rig if you bought new. You'd better tell us what you want to spend before we ask you to remortgage

I'm not really surprised at any of this. Alex has always been spot on and totally honest with his posts here, and in his BGM articles but he makes his living by selling speakers and has to indulge in advertising talk on his website. Barefaced sell very well engineered cabs with great drivers, but there is no magic speaker genie. The 'sound ' of a cab is down to taste and what suits upon the music you play. The independents have pioneered lightweight high excursion speakers, the big boys manufacturing in China were bound to catch up with 'me too' products. My guess, and I'd love someone to provide me with both cabs to dissect, is that the biggest differences are in the bracing of the cabs, which you'd probably only notice in critical applications and in excursion which you'd only notice if you attempt to drive very high power levels at very low frequencies, and most of us won't so long as we have enough speakers. Two good twelves should have enough for 95% of us. You really need to be careful with these power specs. The limiting factor for power dissipation is how quickly the heat can be removed from the coil. Most of this is transferred via the magnets and tiny neo magnets need lots of fins to compete with ceramic magnets. Most designs also use the air movement around the coil to ventilate heat away but this has its limits too. Ultimately around 350W is the most a 12" speaker can dissipate, whatever the manufacturers claim. Anything much higher is always a peak figure. In any case the real limiting figure is usually excursion, There aren't many speakers I've modelled over the years that aren't excursion limited down to 200W or usually less in the lower octaves somewhere, and all of them will fail if you put 400W of 33Hz through them continuously, not that you ever would. There's no such thing as a 700W continuous 12" speaker.

It's an interesting question. If you mean can I play any song from our set without making a mistake so long as no-one else cocks up then yes I can. Myself and drums are the only ones who play without notes which vary from music stands to crib notes on the floor. the ones with notes or sheet music are the ones who cock up most. And yes, music stands are bloody unprofessional. Could i play them solo, well it depends upon the song, at initial rehearsals I could tell you how many bars/song structures, anything we've taken to the recording studio I could probably play to a click track because I learned that at the time. Most of our songs I would guess I need the cues from the rest of the band. For the rest I think I rely upon muscle memory more than anything conscious, so that I must remember the song as a whole rather than broken down. Whichever way you remember your music there has to be one constant, it's better when you practice.

There are lots of ideas above for you to try and I'd suggest actually trying them to see if you can find that elusive sound you hear in your head. Seriously, what we are all doing here is pretty much a series of thought experiments. you'd be better off just trying things out in actual experiments Mixing two entirely different speakers doesn't give easily predictable results as neither of them will have a flat frequency response. Instead they have some frequencies they emphasize and some they only do weakly. If you mixed two speakers where the peaks coincide they will jump out at you when you play them, if the troughs coincide then they'll be even weaker, more usually they won't line up and you lose a lot of the character of both speakers. Another thing is in BFM's earlier post "[color=#282828][font=helvetica, arial, sans-serif][size=3]It's not what they're missing, it's what they have" [size=4]By adding the bass back in with bass speakers you shift the balance of the sound and the top end will be masked a little, at least subjectively. You could lose the clarity you seek simply by adding in bass. That brings us to the final problem, we don't really have a great set of words to describe our subjective experience of sounds. Look at previous debates about 'heft' I for one am convinced we weren't all talking about the same thing. You've clearly heard something you like and you want to add it to your sound. The answer to this is to try stuff out, we can point you into the right direction technically but in the end there aren't sets of equations to guide you.[/size][/size][/font][/color] [color=#282828][font=helvetica, arial, sans-serif]To answer your question directly. I'd use an electronic crossover first. You can then sweep the crossover frequency up and down until you find the one that works best, once you've done that you can then go away and build a passive crossover for that frequency. If all you really want is the deep bass that would damage the guitar speakers but will fill out the sound you could just crossover at 100-150Hz ie just use a sub not a bass speaker, or use the bass speaker as a sub. [/font][/color] [color=#282828][font=helvetica, arial, sans-serif]I'd start off just running the bass gear you have with the guitar gear you have and tweak the eq on both. That on it's own will keep you busy for a while with all sorts of options. Then try the same thing using an active crossover which you can borrow from someone's PA which will give you a whole range of other sounds. Then you'll know which sounds best to you and not be guessing.[/font][/color] [color=#282828][font=helvetica, arial, sans-serif]Go on, it'll be fun [/font][/color]

Playing at the less accomplished end of the scale myself I've been in bands that make most of the mistakes. Good or bad I tend to be the one to try to pull the band together when somone wanders of time. I think that sitting in the pocket as most of us do we are oten the only ones listening to all of the rest of the band. 9/10 times keeping time is the best thing to do. Something like a missed ending to a drum fill for example. If you and Mr drums skip a beat then the rest o the band are going to be thrown so don't go there, but thereare going to be times when one of the other band members goes off time with a drum mistake and I'd go with them even if it meant breaking time. I'd almost never not go with the vocals though, IMO that just sounds awful. Console yourself that the audience rarely notice that sort of mistake. Mostly I find that you and a drummer grow to learn each others ways and it becomes second nature.

it's pretty much true of most set ups that anything that boosts bass at audible frequencies will also boost inaudible subsonics as well. Subsonics at any real volume will undo any speaker in a ported cab. Unless you are absolutely confident of the operating conditions of your speaker it is worth looking at something (a Thumpinator) which will filter out the subsonics. Go on the Eminence website and look at their own designs, almost all of them will specify a high pass filter if you want to use a speaker with high power bass. That's not special to Eminence, just that they tell you about it. The Beta 12 specified as 250w is limited to just 100W/150W for bass unless you use a high pass filter http://www.eminence.com/pdf/Beta_12A-2_cab.pdf If you want to use bass boost or boosting fx then you need a filter or lots of speakers to be safe.

[quote name='mrtcat' timestamp='1477232296' post='3160716'] Many pub landlords / ladies are just really disorganised. [/quote] That's as likely as anything in my experience. It stinks, and I'd have been backing you but getting on with your band mates and supporting the majority decision is worth an awful lot more than one bad gig. Bad luck, it's a horrible and unnecessary situation.

No idea what the new ones are like but I tried the old ones out and wasn't completely convinced by the vocal sound, they may have fixed this. You talk about dodgy used stuff but how about decent used gear. If you use EV for the PA and could track down some used ones as monitors then you'd have all the redundancy you'd need. In a years time you'd be sitting on a pair of used EV's rather than used Truesonics so you'd only be buying a years grace. just a thought.

Hi John, I'm not sure excurted is a word Anyway I'd message them back to ask if they could re-cone the speaker back to original and what that might cost. If it is cheaper than a new speaker then it would be worth doing as all the important bits will be new with just the magnet and frame saved from the original, and you'll get some sort of guarantee. Finding out what had gone wrong would be a bonus too. You could conceivably argue that you did not exceed the excursion limits and use the WinISD plots as evidence but it would be hard to prove either way what happened in terms of how much 41Hz fundamental reached your speaker.

Whoah guys, there's more than one way to skin a cat. There isn't a one size fits all solution to a question like this, it's more a question of what you gain and what you lose. I'm as techie as you get but we shouldn't forget the squishy organic bits of a band either, usually the weakest link in getting a good sound. There's no doubt in my mind that you can get a good sound with backline plus vocal PA. It has the big advantage of simplicity, everyone takes responsibility for their own sound. Set bass to match drums, guitar to them and vocals to sit on top. Use the same settings as last time as a starting point and adjust to the room. This works really well if a band have little technical expertise but if you have to turn up for any reason then it will get too loud on stage with multiple problems starting. I've equally no doubt that for the very best sound a fully mixed set up with low sound levels on stage and probably in-ears will be better, and can be adjusted to the smallest pub or a stadium. The trouble is it takes time and a little understanding to set up and you need to invest more in the kit. If you don't have someone with the expertise the opportunities to get the sound wrong are greater too. If you don't have the time, money or expertise to set it all up properly then it isn't a good solution so KISS. For me the biggest issue is the drums. Once you add in 5 or more mics for just the kit you are probably moving to the territory of having someone mixing FOH and then adding in problems of preserving the guitarist precious 'tone'. Add in the problems of on-stage monitoring and you've a level of complexity that can be difficult to cope with. However a backline/vocal PA has problems too. All the backline will be picked up by the vocal mics and muddy the sound, stage sound levels will tend to be too high and poor room acoustics can end up ruining the on stage sound. Low ceilings and bass are my personal bugbear. So personally I've settled on a small backline amp just capable of comfortably sitting in with the drums and with guitarists similarly equipped.That gives us the option of playing with just backline in small venues and provides our personal on stage monitoring and tone shaping options. Mic up the cabs for guitarists, kick mic for the drums and DI for me and we can go properly mixed. So far we haven't needed to mic the drums very often but for that many people I'd expect a PA provided. Even then it's been better when I have a little control over my own stage monitoring even if the audience only hear me through the PA. That doesn't mean I think other people have it wrong, I have heard other bands sounding great with all sorts of set ups. However, going back to Molan's original post, Ampeg 8x10 in a pub with an unmiked kit, really!

[quote name='stevie' timestamp='1476950782' post='3158659'] Sorry to disappoint you, Frank, but I can't explain it either. It doesn't make any sense to me at all. The only thing I can think of is that the 12ohm cabinet isn't actually 12 ohms, but 16 ohms. It was a perfectly sensible question though. [/quote] [quote name='LewisK1975' timestamp='1476953400' post='3158685'] Found this on TalkBass from Alex, hope he doesn't mind me quoting this.. [color=#191919][font=Lato, Arial, sans-serif][size=3] Therefore we could offer a lower impedance alternative for SVT users (a great recording or small gig cab!) Due to the parallel wiring we'd need a different crossover and this crossover would have no capacitive component (reducing the negative phase angle) and would also raise the magnitude of the impedance at mid/high frequencies. This means that the lower impedance version would be a particularly easy load for its nominal impedance - so I did some modelling of a variety of 4 ohm bass cabs on the market, particularly focusing on the impedance minima and the phase angle at those points. We compared our model of the Two10 low impedance version to those cabs and it came out very well, especially considering that a simplistic analysis would declare it to be slightly lower nominal impedance. We need to test what happens in practice with a variety of solidstate amps whose minimum load is 4 ohms but based on all our measurements, simulations and the comparisons with other bass cabs I think it should be fine and thus can be deemed a 4 ohm nominal design. [/size][/font][/color][right]Last edited: May 14, 2014[/right] [color=#191919][font=Lato, Arial, sans-serif][size=3][color=#717171][url="https://www.talkbass.com/members/alexclaber.17037/"]alexclaber[/url], [url="https://www.talkbass.com/threads/barefaced-69er-thread.823993/page-11#post-15894787"]May 14, 2014[/url][/color] [url="https://www.talkbass.com/threads/barefaced-69er-thread.823993/page-11#post-15894787"]#203[/url][/size][/font][/color] [/quote] I think he's saying it's 3ohms but that it doesn't matter much Stevie. Which it won't to be honest. He may also be saying the crossover adds an ohm

[quote name='drTStingray' timestamp='1476903780' post='3158380'] The speaker coil power compression is interesting - I was not aware of that and have noticed when using one rather than two 2 X 10s. I had put it down to everyone else turning up but maybe not. [/quote] Yep, a few of the speaker manufacturers put up their thermal compression figures. Losing 3db at high temperatures is not too unusual and IME it absolutely happens under gig conditions. As you say it's quite possible that we put it down to other people turning up when we lose the bass halfway through the second set.

To answer your question directly I don't think anyone here is paid what they are 'worth' for playing music. There's an excess of supply over demand. I put in 20 hours a week on bass and I get £50 in a good week. This is more personal though. For years you've been telling us how great your band leader is and how good your slot in the band. Has that changed or has one well paid gig gone to your head? It seems that the only way to realise your dream is to leave your current band behind. Well, there's no harm in looking but have a good look first. I know nothing about the scene in the USA but from your descriptions it doesn't look too different from here. There are very few touring bands that work five nights a week. Even huge international acts rarely sell out night after night, there's usually a tour organised for a few months with gigs mainly at weekends. 20 gigs is a big tour. The tour ends and the name band go back home or into the studio until it is time for next years show, the session musicians go and look for the next job. My wife has a saying, "don't put out your dirty underwear until you know you have clean". If you don't have an offer that gives you what you want then giving up a band where you say you are happy doesn't make an awful lot of sense. For years you have been saying how happy you are in a band where your leader organises everything and you just turn up and do a professional job of entertaining an audience. A man has a right to change but you've never struck me as a gambler.

[font=helvetica, arial, sans-serif][color=#282828]There's another factor in this which we haven't discussed much here. I didn't put it into my over-long last post which was probably already complex enough. Anyway here goes. [/color][/font] [color=#282828][font=helvetica, arial, sans-serif]TimR mentions 1000W into thermally limited speakers. When you pass 1000W through a 2" voice coil it gets hot, really hot. This increases the resistance in the coil so your 4ohm speaker can become a 16ohm speaker, so the power falls to 250W and the sound level falls. In extreme cases this [b]power compression[/b] can be as much as 6dB. Running a modern ultra powered amp into compact speakers is going to give you more power compression than the old ways of low power into lots of speakers. It may be that running out of oomph (or should that be heft?) halfway through a gig with class D isn't down to lack of watts but too many watts into limited speakers which have over-heated. Google power compression in speakers This is what JBL have to say [/font][/color] [size=3][color=#000000][font=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]"Speaker voice coils are made of copper or aluminum. As these voice coils increase in temperature during normal operation, the DC resistance of the voice coil increases. Greater voice coil resistance means less power transfer from the amplifier. As a result, the speaker will not play as loud when it's "warmed up" as it did when it was "cold". Some speakers may exhibit 3 to 6 dB of power compression. This means that power compression can have the same effect as taking away half of your PA!"[/font][/color][/size]

[quote name='mikel' timestamp='1476736171' post='3156874'] Still no real answer to my question. Why a 1000 watt solid state amp when an old 100 watt valve amp can make your ears bleed? Why is a 1000 watt solid state not producing twice the DBs of a 100 watt valve? [/quote] I think you've got the answers all here already. Firstly as a number of people are saying you are comparing a remembered sound with what you are actually hearing today. Old time amps often struggled and when I engineered in the early seventies just getting enough volume was a real struggle. We resorted to lots of speakers and often large horn designs to make the most of every watt. Typically we'd go for speakers with 102dB/watt so you'd get 122dB from your 'typical' 100W bass amp. Few bassists use genuine 1000W amps, in reality 3-500W are more common especially if you stop looking at the advertising and look up the continuous RMS spec in the manuals. Through a modern bass speaker which may only produce 96dB/W that's also 122dB. A lot of modern cabs are also producing a much cleaner sound without so many huge peaks and troughs in the frequency response so they will sound less 'shouty'. I really don't think your 100W valve amp would hold a candle to a 1000W amp through the same speakers. The second thing is that when you are playing at 100W you aren't actually using all those watts. Lets say your loudest sound is a deafening (literally) 120dB, that first part of the loudest note at the beginning of the bar in your loudest song. Now imagine the quietest sound the audience will hear as you let a note sustain into fade below the hubbub of a gig at the end of the song. That might be 80dB. You've got a dynamic range then of 40dB and your average volume is 100dB. This means your modern speaker needs 4W to make your average sound, well within the capabilities of either the 100W valver or the 1000W ss amp. The rest is your headroom for louder sounds. If you drive the amps to an average power of 10W then you will want the amp to reach 20db higher or 100x the power of 1000W, which your 1000W solid state amp will do but your valve amp won't and neither will the 3-500W class D. The difference is that the 500W amp will distort nastily and sound bad unless you compress the signal. 3dB of compression won't be noticeable for a fraction of a second so you won't notice. The valve amp has a trick up it's sleeve though. It kind of compresses the power peaks naturally and so doesn't distort as much, and because of the way the distortion is structured 10% of valve distortion is acceptable in a way that 10% distortion in a SS amp isn't. So yes, your 100W amp through an 8x10 is going to match/beat a 400W classD through a 2x10, but swap the speakers round and it'll be entirely outclassed for volume. I'd beat you up a flight of stairs with my stuff though To answer your question I think subjectively through the same speaker you could probably get a similar volume with acceptable distortion from roughly half the valve watts so your 100W amp might well equal a 200W SS amp. They'd almost certainly sound very different and I admit I'd probably prefer the valve amp if you offered to carry it.

[quote name='Kyron' timestamp='1476570362' post='3155377'] So... My question to the experts: Is there a modern speaker/cab that can provide the clarity and sharp response from the Vintage 30 fitted to my ENGL combo, but is designed to withstand bass frequencies? [/quote] [quote name='Bill Fitzmaurice' timestamp='1476583449' post='3155420'] Another option is to put a guitar combo atop a regular bass rig. Since you'd have two amps that opens up all sorts of possibilities, including getting Chris Squire's signature tone the same way that he did. [/quote] With the gear you have this has to be worth a try, it'll cost you nothing other than time. Roll off the bass going to the guitar combo and then tweak the eq on the bass amp to get the balance of bass you want to achieve. If you like the sound enough it might be worth pursuing a single box solution long term. It'll be fun to try. Alternatively you could try using the guitar amp as your on stage monitor and feed a mixture of miked up cab and DI to the PA to get your bass sound at the volume you'd like.

just had a quick look at the manual, it looks like there might be a fuse sandwiched between the mains socket and the mains switch. If so you should find it mounted in a carrier which you can pop out with a screwdriver. Failing that there might be an internal fuse but you'd need to disassemble the speaker to take the amp out. Unless you are confident you can deal with mains electricity and also how to use a multimeter it might be a better idea to leave this to a tech.

If you really want to pursue this then the conventional approach is to use lots of speakers, using twice as many means you only need half the excursion. This is the basis of 4x12 cabs for bass and 8x10's for that matter. The first question to ask yourself is what it is you like about the guitar tone, the brightness is probably down to the presence peak of the Vintage 30 in the 1-3kHz range http://celestion.com/product/1/vintage_30/ that is not much different to a similar peak in the Eminence Beta 12 which does have more power handling and more bass. http://www.eminence.com/pdf/Beta_12A.pdf . The other thing you might be liking is the lack of lower octave fundamental (the frequencies below 100Hz) which mask a lot of the other frequencies and can make things woolly sounding. It wouldn't be difficult to design out the deep bass frequencies or just to eq that way. A couple of Beta 12's in a sealed cab might give you a sound you'd like. Until recently Celestion used to make just the speaker you would have wanted with their Green Label models but they have recently reduced their bass speaker range with the introduction of the Pulse speakers. I suspect there are other good drivers to look at though. If you need them I have some of the T/S parameters for the vintage 30, sadly not the Xmax [b] Vintage 30 8ohm[/b] D – 0.26m Re – 7.3ohm Fs – 75Hz Qms – 9.3 Qts – 0.43 Qes – 0.47 Mmt – 29g Cms – 0.18mm/N Vas – 72litres Bl – 14Tm Rms – 1.35kg/s

The Beyma SM212 is a useful driver and gives the best Xmax performance in the price range. However for a 4x12 the Eminence beta is worth a look too, it has a nice midrange peak and in the right box would give a good punchy sound. It only escaped recommendation for our design because of the better Xmax of the Beyma which you need for a 1x12 on its own but which is less important with a 4x12. Give us some indication of the size of your cab and we can give better advice.

As ever there won't be a simple yes/no answer to this. Every design is going to have a weak link in the chain, more liable to break than something else. The Hartke mentioned above for example has some heavy capacitors mounted straight onto a thin bit of circuit board and if it is banged about it will break there. Who would know? Someone has mentioned capacitors and electrolytic do need to be switched on and charged up from time to time. My Exposure hi fi amp recommends leaving it on and it has basically been on for thirty years apart from a couple of house moves. It still sounds good though my ears haven't fared so well. Valves however evaporate some of the metal parts inside when they are switched on and these slowly deposit inside the glass. Eventually they need to be replaced so leaving them on doesn't make sense if you aren't using them, but neither does turning them on and off four times a gig. They are also prone to direct damage if you move them whilst still warm. However for most components two factors comeminto play. When stored they are likely to get damp and corrode, using them will warm them and dry them out. At the same time using them warms them and the rate of all the breakdown of the components will double for every 10degree temperature rise. That's down to simple physics as the molecules that make up everything double their random movement with increased temperature. Confusing?

Just that, I'm looking for something to do tonight in Orpington and none of the pubs seem to want to advertise on line. There's got to be someone here playing, a link to your band's site would be good too.

Bad luck. It looks like you shouldn't have a problem. You should be able to just use the cab as a cab and it looks from the manual as if all the sockets are just normal parallel sockets. Just make sure you take a couple of spare speaker leads.. The Hartke may only take jack leads. Let's hope ot is still all working when you get there. Of course with something dropped like that even the cab might have suffered, can you go straight through the pa at a pinch?