Phil Starr

Maybe if I make it to the Festival this year!

[quote name='Beer of the Bass' timestamp='1459420936' post='3016324'] I'm still keeping the SM212 in mind as a possible option for my DIY cabs (which have Eminence Betas currently), but I'd want to spend some more time with the Betas before deciding if actually have a need to change. If I end up in a louder band some time, that might tip the balance... [/quote] Honestly I don't think the SM212 would be an upgrade, just different. The efficiency is roughly the same. The SM212 has a better xmax so will handle deep bass at higher power before farting out but the Beta isn't bad at that. At the other end the Beta has a nicely shaped upper mid peak and the SM212 a flatter response and slightly better top but I'd be reluctant to call one 'better' in that respect, just different. The extra Xmax and the cast chassis of the SM212 edged it for me at the time but I'd happily see people use the Beta. If curiosity overcomes you I suggest you try just one of the SM212's

[quote name='Chienmortbb' timestamp='1459352767' post='3015714'] Once we have the design sorted and drawn with instructions, are we going to do a group buy on the drivers? [/quote]I suppose there is no harm in asking Blue Aran or LMC audio if there is enough interest. Interestingly enough I've changed the amp I gig with from my Hartke 3500 to a LM Tube 500. I was using a 15" Deltalite with the Hartke but the Beyma sounds better with the LM Tube. I suppose that means I'm interested in a couple more myself. Anyone else interested?

I braced the rear panel, which is the biggest, with a couple of offcuts of the 3/4" ply glued along the longest length of the panel roughly 1/5th of the width in from each edge. This is the panel most likely to vibrate badly and the vane bracing just stiffens it up a little, it's fairly hard in such a small cab to brace it meaningfully front to back. I'm going to brace the side panels with a couple of broomhandle/dowels, just glued in place, again you could use off cuts of the ply, I have a lot of timber around so the dowel is to hand for me. There isn't too much flexibility in positioning the braces here either as they'll have to be clear of the speaker and the ports. The whole point of the 3/4 (18mm) ply was to reduce the need for pracing and to keep it really simple. The unbraced panels are really fairly dead with the exception of the rear panel. The material I use for a gasket to seal the baffle is the closed foam sold by all the DIY chains for sealing windows and doors against drafts. I always leave my baffles just screwed in place so I can get access to the inside should I need it, much easier than access through the speaker cutout.

1. Don't Panic, it may settle down, gigging all weekend knackers us all, well me anyway. 2. See a doctor, don't look for medical advice on the internet. Ask your GP for referral to a specialist, GPs won't have any special training in this area, keep on until you reach a specialist. Tell your doctors you are a professional musician even if you are only semi-pro. 3. Stop doing whatever gave you White Finger. 4. Nothing wrong with a pick. What goes on in your head is every bit as important to the music as what goes on with your fingers. Good luck and keep on playing!

Seriously, if you couldn't hear the drummer then within a few years your hearing is going to be so shot you soon won't be able hear anything, even when the music stops. Having volume wars is just ultimately stupid. If you can't hear the drums then you are up at about 110dB. That's going to cause irreversible hearing loss in minutes. http://dangerousdecibels.org/education/information-center/decibel-exposure-time-guidelines/ In addition you'll have a c**p vocal sound because all that noise will be bleeding through your vocal mics. You guys need to talk, preferably before you lose any more midrange and high frequencies from your hearing!

What do you want out of music? It takes all sorts in this funny old world. I love performing, happy to have a hobby that pays but I just love an audience, musically I'm just a tart, I'd play anything pretty much for a decent audience. For other people it's about the money and yet others it can be about the music or sometimes just about mastering a skill. One of my best friends spends hours on his guitar perfecting music he will never play in front of another soul and he thinks I'm crazy playing Mustang Sally! There's nothing wrong in going for what you want, if anything the crime is not finding what you want. Recognise reality but within that enjoy what you do and look out for opportunities when they come along. For me those realities are that covers are more likely to bring you paid gigs than original songs, no band will give you everything you want from music and you will never find another musician who will share your musical ambitions exactly. Almost no-one ever 'makes it' in music and scratching a living is hard and you'll have to make more compromises if you do want a living from music. So, don't expect any single project to give you ultimate fulfillment. One band might give you the joy of live performance in front of an enthusiastic audience, another the challenge of composition and a third the chance to play the music you love. Stop worrying about the things you aren't getting out of a project and enjoy what you can. Move on when you are no longer enjoying a project and think of your music as a journey, there's things you want to see and do, but you won't be able to do them all at once.

Really hard to diagnose with this distance, intermittent faults are always tricky anyway. One problem with the 3500's is the power supply, there's a separate set of caps and associated components for the pre-amps and the caps are just soldered into the boards with no support. Over time the weight of the cap pushes the track off the board and will also find out any poor solder joints. That's what caused the crackle in mine and when I went online I found a number of people with similar problems. The best way to find an intermittent fault I find is with a freezer spray. The nozzle will allow you to rapidly cool one component at a time. Cooling the dodgy component or joint will usually create the fault at will or even cause the amp to cut out momentarily. The other thing with an old Hartke is that there may be a series of faults. having said that once i cured my power supply faults mine has gone on strong. Good luck though

A lot is down to taste and the only way to find out is by trying them. Sooo hard to describe a 'sound' for strings beyond a simple 'bright' or mellow. FWIW I go for strings that maintain a good tone over time. Just over a year ago I started a comparison between Elixirs and my 'normal' Dean Markley Blue Steels, unfortunately one on a P and one on a J. Not dissimilar at the start with the blue Steels being just a touch brighter. After a year I'd say the Dean Markleys had kept their sound slightly better than the Elixirs. These are still expensive strings but a lot cheaper than the elixirs, so that's a win in my book. I ought to restring now but I'm curious as to how they fare over an even longer time. Both are still perfectly acceptable though, and more lively than the Rotosounds I used to use would have been after 4 months use.

Andy in Axe music Axminster is worth a shout if you are this end of Dorset.

You say 'some' passive monitors. So that's not the ones that don't do the job? What are they by the way? What do you want your monitors to do? Are they just for the singer(s) or do you need them for the whole band to hear. I've been using little personal monitors recently and find them excellent for helping you pitch your voice. And yes, you can use the Hartke to drive the speakers but the only way of knowing what they sound like will be to try them. Use the FX return if there is one.

[quote name='sunburstjazz1967' timestamp='1458985766' post='3012565'] We have a behringer xair18 mixer (18 channels) and a pair of RCF 735s for front of house, OK they are expensive tops but they remove the need for subs unless you are a Motorhead tribute act, a pair of DB opera 10s as monitors which on their own would be good tops paired with our old passive subs and a poweramp, as the desk is digital it can handle 4 individual monitor mixes or in ear monitors (5 with the headphone out used for the drummer on wired in ears), as the desk is digital we can if required for any bigger gigs use it to EQ a killer kick drum with gate and compression like a pro gig then send that to our old Peavey PA and two old bass bins so we get the extra thump of the subs but the tight modern mix! So the whole PA consists of; Two RCF 735s Two DB Opera 10s One mixer smaller than a breeze block 4 10 metre xlr cables 2 10 metre 4 gang extension cables Oh and a tablet to control it, that's it, done, more power and clarity than a pile of old passive stuff and the desk alone in old money would cost ££££££s to get all the features it has, in built FX and digital plugins etc, 31 band EQ per output, multiple monitor mixes etc etc. If you play the same venues again just re load the mix you saved from the last time and bingo perfect mix! I have never heard vocals as clear at ANY pub gig as from the 735s as they have 3" voice coils allowing the 15" speaker to deal mainly with the guitar, bass and drums. They look like regular old Mackie tops but I am fairly sure I am going to ditch my amp totally as they are that good, if you went for 745s (£1000 each) there would not be many pub and small function bands with a better PA really, and all in two easy lifts! [/quote] That looks like the sort of set up the OP should be looking at. Those RCF's are quality and short of a fully pro touring rig are pretty much state of the art at present (no pun intended). Left out of my original post, but hinted at in this post is the question of monitors. Your options are floor monitors, personal monitors like the MackieSRM150/BehringerBD205D or TC FX150 or in ears. One of the things that will influence your choice of digital mixers over trad is that they offer a lot of monitor channels which you only get in fairly big analogue mixers.

[quote name='lojo' timestamp='1458890047' post='3011825'] Cheers Drums,bass,guitar,keys,vox x 2 Would be handy to have a few spare for extra vox / brass etc Budget flexible but interested what minimum to meet requirements is I realise small might not be the right word , but looking for smallish cabinets / wedges and hopefully minimal power leads [/quote] Great, though a budget would be great still. A function band would normally go out with a few thousand ponds worth of kit but a pub band a few hundreds worth so there is quite a range. The biggest decision is whether the sound the audience hears will be from the back line or from the PA. Most pub bands and a few smaller function bands will opt for the former. This leaves just vocals and any acoustic instruments going through the PA with Drums acoustically and bass/guitars through their own stacks. A few bands will put a little bit of kick drum through the PA as well. This is really simple and cheaper (good sound isn't cheap)and can be set up and run without a sound engineer. The other classic set up is with everything going through the PA. This lets you reduce the sound levels on stage with all sorts of advantages but you'll need a bigger PA as effectively it will have to give all the sound output of bass and guitars as well as what it is already doing. Then the on stage monitors will need to be much better as this is most of what you will hear when you are playing. Getting the mix becomes complex enough that a sound engineer becomes part of the equation if you want to exploit your new system fully. That's when you go for a digital mixer. Smallish implies you will go for something without bass bins? That means probably keeping bass and drums out of the PA where possible. The simplest system would be to have active speakers and active monitors, with a passive deck, that means a mains lead to each speaker and monitor. If you genuinely want to reduce mains leads then an active desk with passive speakers will reduce the mains leads by two. Using passives and amps will increase the spaghetti but that will all be concentrated in one corner. One trick is to use the same speakers for mains as for monitors. A couple of 12" mains and a couple of the same speakers for monitors means in an emergency you can swap speakers around and use a monitor as an emergency PA without any loss of the audience's experience. You could even carry a single spare which would act as either monitor or main. A couple of RCF's or K12's etc will handle most PA requirements and make great monitors, but at a price. You are going to need at least 16 channels for mixing but make sure those are mic channels. Stereo channels aren't always useful unless you run a separate drum mixer. I use a Yamaha mixer but Mackie, Soundcraft, Allen and Heath all make good kit. I'd probably look at digital mixers now though, but you'll need some technical expertise to get the most out of them.

Try Andy at Axe Music, Axminster [color=#373E4D][font=helvetica, arial, sans-serif][size=3]01297 631609. Lovely man to deal with.[/size][/font][/color]

[quote name='AndrewJordan' timestamp='1458754149' post='3010569'] Just curious about this. There seems to be a lot of love on here for 12" drivered cabs. I have heard plenty of 10s and 15s but never knowingly heard 12s. Can anyone describe the typical sound of a modern 1 or 2x12 cab? [/quote] There are plenty of exceptions to the rule but cone size isn't an insignificant factor in speaker design. Neither is it the only one. If all other things are equal then a big cone is going to be heavier, floppier and will move more air than a small one. It's possible with bigger magnets, better suspensions different cone materials and so on to overcome some of the limitations of very large cones or very small ones but often with the introduction of new compromises. For those of us using midrange (in price) mass produced drivers the compromises tend to be similar and the sounds of speakers of particular sizes, whilst varied, tend to clump together. This is then exaggerated by the way manufacturers tend to make 'me too' products. With current technology (improved speaker materials, cheap high powered bass amps and better PA's) you can get more sound out of smaller speakers so that the main reason for huge high efficiency speakers is long gone. A couple of 12's, even fairly modest ones, will cover an awful lot of most peoples needs in terms of volume and bass extension whereas a couple of modest 10's won't and 15's aren't strictly needed by most people. That's why we are currently coalescing around a couple of 12's. A single decent one will often be enough for rehearsals and small gigs, two for something more demanding and 12's aren't too difficult to transport. The sound of even bass speakers is largely down to the way they handle mid-range which is less dependant upon cone size (other than dispersion). Ultimately the best way to choose is by listening to the cabs and by keeping an open mind.

It would probably be better to tell us what your priorities are in a practice amp. If it is 'killer tone' then a practice amp probably isn't the way to go. All amps can be turned down low and the reasons most of us go for them is cost, simplicity and lack of space. I doubt many of us use a practice amp for practice. Many will ether use headphones or some version of something big enough to at least handle a rehearsal. The Roland is going to set you back £190 so it isn't cheap and you could get something fairly good on the used market for that. I'm a fan of Roland's design and quality however. If a battery powered amp is what you want there aren't a lot of options. I doubt you are going to do justice to your Stingray with it though. For headphone practice you can't do much better than the Zoom B1ON which includes a tuner, metronome, drum machine and effects along with a good sounding headphone amp and the ability to mix in from an mp3 player. It runs on batteries too, all for about £45 For compact practice with a nice meaty sound there are a bunch of small combo's to choose from. I use a Hartke Kickback which I picked up barely used for £125. They are a bit bigger than a practice amp but sound great even at low volumes. Plenty of other small combo's to choose from but i haven't tried them.

New to the MB and still exploring what it can do but I'm finding more and more that I use the filters more than the tone controls which are left flat. Mind you I don't use the filters much either except at home, 10 o'clock is pretty extreme for me.

[quote name='blue' timestamp='1458610621' post='3009140'] Good legitimate ads for bass players are generally not advertised to the General public. What your probably responding to are start up bands Usually these folks have no band experience and are not intact long enough to see their first gig. Blue [/quote] Most of the ads are from Lemonrock, a site you don't have over the pond. It's a site for gigging pub bands over here and strong in our area. It's a paid for site and you can check the bands gig bookings, most show their set lists and have mp3's. The people I've been contacting are all gigging bands. Apart from the female singer. I've been looking at one of your other threads where you talked about ads. As you said there's a code.

[quote name='Truckstop' timestamp='1458551780' post='3008404'] Sounds to me like you need to fashion yourself into a band leader. Sometimes, a band needs someone who prods the others and gets them working. I share these duties with the singer in my band. We keep the conversation going in our WhatsApp group, remind everyone of the songs we're learning and keep everyone focused at rehearsals. In my experiences, there's always one person that does the PA, organised rehearsals, gets gigs etc. You need to be that person! [/quote] Ha ha, that's the problem. I was the default band leader in my last two bands. I've also chaired a major political organisation, stood for parliament etc etc. Say it quietly, I'm a bit bossy. I have an organisational tendency.That's probably why my band fell apart, I intended for once to be a passenger, play bass and let others take the load. I found I can't hold back once things start going wrong. Nobody loves a smarty pants. But you are probably right.

Simples. our ears don't hear all sounds at the same volume. We are very sensitive to sounds in the middle of the human voice range and very insensitive to the extremes of frequency. The engineers meters are equally sensitive to all sounds within their operating range. You are interested in how your bass mixes in with the other instruments, they are only interested in recording the bass at the optimum level. They'll mix you in and adjust your volume later. If one sound had a lot of mids you would hear that as louder and want to turn down to match the drums or whatever. If the other sound had a predominance of bass then its levels would likely be quite high and his meters would register that as overloading and leading to distortion. He could turn the gain down on the desk of course but if he was happy with the levels he wouldn't want you changing anything. You can hear how perceived volume changes with frequency by just moving the slider away from the centre here http://plasticity.szynalski.com/tone-generator.htm

It's all an act, though most acting is taking something already in yourself and building on it. Artificial smiles are not easy to make look good but movement helps make you look engaged. If you tap your feet anyway then emphasize the movement maybe, dance a little if that is something you are comfortable with. Maybe something as simple as exchanging a few words with other band members between songs, or even a glance and a smile during songs will make you seem more animated. We're all different, I found playing bass behind my head, dropping my Line 6 radio link on the floor and scrabbling around at the singer's feet looking for the batteries got a lot of attention. Maybe not though

Thanks for the sympathy everyone and at least I now know 'm not the only one who's ever experienced the non replies. JTUK I think a 'Random' is now a thing and should be capitalised. Sadly I'm now one of the first official Randoms. The other thing is that my last band were gigging fairly frequently and so I lost track of a lot of fellow musicians and I need to get back networking again, Oh well, I have a mate coming down this week to play a few songs and we'll probably hit the open mic's, it's performance of sorts....

You need to look at the beam angle. These say 120 degrees which is a bit wider than the ones in the photo which are certainly less than 60. Most of the PAR lights are only 5-30 degrees and are spotlights rather than floodlights. The power will be plenty. I must admit to looking at these as a very cheap solution for floodlighting. you might be better off with some of the newer COB floods with a 15-100 degree angle but they will cost a lot more. http://www.dv247.com/lighting-and-effects/lightmaxx-flat-par-cob-32w-rgb--212105

[quote name='phil.c60' timestamp='1458471112' post='3007788'] Just gone though the same thing myself - replied to an ad for a band that seemed like a good side project to go alongside my main band, waited five days, sent a follow up email which resulted in a message suggesting a phone conversation at a prearranged time:guess what, that didn't happen either. Two days later got a phone call, was asked to send some mp3s which I did ten days ago, haven't heard a thing. Perhaps the mp3s didn't go down well and I am a really crap player and I just don't realise it. Still, a "thanks but no thanks" would be nice. If they can't organise a simple thing like this, I doubt they can organise a band on a continuing basis well enough to keep me interested. [/quote] [quote name='JamesBass' timestamp='1458472977' post='3007809'] I've been on the look out for a regular gigging covers/function band for a long time, I've gone through all sorts of iterations, even booked rooms for only myself and my two mates to turn up, luckily one of them is my very good friend and utterly reliable drummer! Move on to today, and I've prepared(not taken much effort as I know all the songs) for what is meant to be an audition today, last conversation was a few days ago, but I'm still waiting for where this is meant to be! I'll not go as I'm not being messed about and having things arranged last minute. I have other projects I work on and I have a life, messing around with organising people is fast becoming a huge bane in my life! Perhaps it's time I went purely for the cruise work... [/quote] Well not just me then, organising an audition and involving you in a fair amount of 'homework' then failing to keep up their end just isn't fair. There may be a good reason but you'd think they'd contact you and let you know and organise another day. Phil, you know they won't have listened to the mp3's don't you. Putting yourself up for any job is a bit stressful. Sometime down the line you are going to have to show people what you can do and be judged on it. You also have to manage your hopes and a possible let down, so just a simple thanks or no thanks and doing things promptly makes it much easier for the person who is waiting. Shame you are all bass players really or we could make a hell of a covers band

[color=#282828][font=helvetica, arial, sans-serif]"Is it just that musicians are disorganised?"[/font][/color] [color=#282828]"Compromise is the key if you want to get on."[/color] [color=#282828]Oh well, one out of two isn't bad. Compromise not my strong suit[/color] [color=#282828]The trouble with the band was lack of organisation and a little bit of delusion. Chaos over every practice, until I introduced the novel idea of booking a practice room. No PA or lights until I set them up. Four or five new songs for a practice but then turning up each having only looked at one and different ones at that and so on. I was getting increasingly grumpy about the lack of commitment and organisation and I kind of let them know it. So no way back. Shame, the singer was good.[/color] [list] [*] [/list]