Phil Starr

[quote name='mrtcat' timestamp='1444551659' post='2883917'] How cool would it be to be in the situation where the drums are an issue in a pub because they're too quiet. With a decent portable pa with a sub or two and some restraint from bass and guitars and you will be able to engineer a really good full sound foh. Plus your hearing should benefit too. [/quote] I know, I want her drummer.

I don't think this is anything to do with valve sound either. The amps are just eq'd differently. this is really just another variation on the 'it sounds great at home' theme we've had on here several times. Deep bass is difficult to control, depends upon room acoustics and a bass sound that is great with the rest of the band sounds horrible when soloed.

[quote name='Dad3353' timestamp='1444260052' post='2881760'] I'm not entirely comfortable arguing on behalf of the OP, so I'll let her do through the medium of her preceding post... It seems that the concept has been tried and tested, albeit with less than ideal cabs (ie: the bass stack...). If, with those levels, it's suitable for their needs, what else is there to say..? Whatever the room, if a bass stack gives the right sound, the proposed cabs will do the same, surely..? All that's required is to reinforce (I assume quite lightly...) the bass drum, and maybe (even[i] that's[/i] only a 'maybe'...) put the overheads through the back, just enough to get the drummer heard a bit more. [/quote] Hi Dad, (seems odd saying that as I'm probably your age or maybe even older ) I'm not really trying to have an argument (shades of Monty Python here) but trying to help Jennie get the best sound she can. My concern is that what she is suggesting has drawbacks she won't always be able to get around. She describes her band as a power trio and says the audience lose the drums sometimes, which kind of indicates normal pub volumes at least. If she buys these speakers she will get a better sound by using them as a conventional PA, for the reasons I've explained. (keeping stage sound levels down and a clean vocal feed.) If all she is trying to achieve is more drums out front then this is the way to go, with the drums out front. If she wants to put drums through the PA then she has options. The Mackies she has can handle drums if she adds a sub or she can get PA speakers that can handle more bass (including the Barefaced). All I'm trying to do is clarify what her choices are and why. The set up she has tried may have worked OK it just isn't the best and won't work in every space she plays.

That helps a bit. In fact I'm a little jealous as the 'usual problem' is the drums being so loud you have to turn everything else up to be heard. It seems you are happy with your on stage sound but need a bit more drums out front, you have the mics but the PA won't cope with drums. Right? Your best bet if you want a good sound is to keep your current on stage levels and put the drums through a PA which will cope. I'd imagine the Mackies will cope with the overheads but that the kick is overwhelming them with demands to shift more air than they are happy doing. Your choice is either to add some subs with a crossover which stops the bass going through the Mackies or to upgrade the Mackies. Once you do this you can put some bass and guitar through the PA for bigger gigs if you need to. There are three good reasons this is the better bet. More sound on stage means turning up the vocal monitors, or not hearing the vocals. It means more unwanted sounds feeding into the vocal mic and muddying your sound and it means your hearing will be damaged in the medium to long term unless you wear earplugs. If you had no money then I'd admire your ingenuity and say go for using the bass stack in this way if it works for you. If you are going to spend hundreds of pounds or more then you might as well get the best result you can. [quote][color=#282828][font=helvetica, arial, sans-serif]If it's too loud on 'stage', it's too loud for the venue,[/font][/color][/quote] Not really, sound drops off at the rate of 6dB every time you double the distance so if you want 90dB (loudish hi fi) at the back of a venue you need an uncomfortable level of well over 100dB on stage.

[quote name='Mudpup' timestamp='1444214325' post='2881135'] Zoom B1ON [url="http://www.gak.co.uk/en/zoom-b1on-bass-effects-pedals/104730?gclid=CPmG_f6UsMgCFWaK2wodAO0AOw"]http://www.gak.co.uk...CFWaK2wodAO0AOw[/url] Link inludes free headphones! Best £40 you'll ever spend - aux in, phones out, amp modelling, fx, tuner, looper, drum machine. Easy to use, batteries last ages. [/quote] Quite right. I've tried a few options, this is the best, complete stand alone solution, sounds good Drum machine/metronome is useful as is tuner and iPod sounds great through it. Tidy little package as well. Can't believe it is so cheap.

[quote] I'm thinking of getting a couple of those Barefaced FR800 powered PA speakers to use as "sort of subs" for our PA.[/quote] I think this works out at well over £2000, for that you have a range of options. I don't doubt that these are great but you ought to look at other speakers. The FR800 is just a PA speaker though I'm sure it is probably a very good one. If Barefaced is what you want then you could use the LF800 as a "sort of sub" . In the end though the Barefaced are just good PA speakers and there are other high end alternatives. If you did buy them then using them in place of the Mackies would be the best way to use them as someone else has suggested [quote] if you put bass and guitar through the FOH you start to lose headroom for the vocals - you have to push things and feedback can creep in. We wouldn't be using these as "subs" in the truest sense, as they are full range and are cable of more than just the low notes I gather - but they will add some sub-like stuff I suspect.[/quote] The reason subs give you more headroom is that you are splitting the signal and this has two effects. One is that with say, 40% of the power going to the subs and 60% to the tops both have an easier time of it. The second is that with no need to make any treble you can use a speaker designed only for deep bass. Without the deep bass the excursion of the tops is reduced and with it distortion. The point is that it only works if you stop bass going to the tops and the treble going to the subs. [quote] We would be putting them at the back and putting mainly the vocals out of the FOH tops and then the bass, guitar, kick and drum overhead mic out of the FR800s at the back. When I say "at the back" the pub and club "stages" we play are usually not more than a few yards in depth. There are six aux outs from the desk which will allow us to run, in effect, four main outs - the two usual ones to the FOH tops and two more to the FR800 devices. Doing it this way would even give us the opportunity of going DI and not having a bass or even guitar cab on stage (power trio format).[/quote] This is where it gets confusing. You are basically using the FR800's for bass and drums, this means the main thing you will have changed is that you will have more drum sounds on stage. Is this what you want to achieve? It will mean a messier vocal sound because the vocal mic will pick up any sound that reaches it, you'll have a lot of drums coming through the vocal mic. If you do persuade the guitarist to use a DI system then that creates some additional problem. I think you need to make a decision. Are you trying to sort out the PA overload problem so you can put the drums through the PA successfully, are you trying to get a better bass stack or are you aiming to replace the backline with stage monitors? Each one will have a different solution giving you three different purchases you might make. I've tried putting drums through the bass stack by the way, it's horrible; you lose a lot of what you hear of the bass and the sound you hear is dominated by drums, you'll hear less of the vox and guitar and with the drums coming from your stack instead of to one side you lose information. [quote]I wonder what y'all think of where I should place them. The world and his wife seems to put subs up front with the FOH tops - which I have been reading isn't the greatest idea. I see some "experts" saying that you should put them at the back. Will this work - and would we have to worry about any sort of feedback from the drum mics and the FR800 placement at the back?[/quote] You [b]will [/b]increase feedback problems. Amplifying drums and having them coming from the back line means at least a 3dB increase in the on stage sound level and guitar and vox will have to turn up too to re-balance the on stage sound levels so. Probably you'll end up with an extra 6dB on stage. Apart from the long term damage to your hearing ( this is 4x the power damaging your ears) I doubt if you have 6dB of headroom before feedback in the average pub space. The battle is to keep as much sound as possible off stage, not to add to it. You could easily spend half your money on a couple of 'proper' subs and the other half on a new bass stack rather than £2000+ on what you are suggesting and this would sound better. Alternatively you could simply replace the Mackies with the FR800's as has been suggested.

This was the tone that made me want to play bass, almost anything on the album but the tone, the tone. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6wAv0TplhNY

[quote name='Painy' timestamp='1443699248' post='2876952'] Heavy? Well I have 2 of these heads (I have 2 due to the impedance of my cabs) which have been relegated to the roll of a backup now that my Ampeg is back up and running. However, I have now used one of the boxes to re-house my Ampeg and have therefore created this monster. Heavy? Just a tad! [/quote] Don't suppose you've weighed it? then we can work out the weight of the cab.

[quote name='ebenezer' timestamp='1443982043' post='2879201'] the kappalite is a superb driver, but i would be inclined to buy a cheaper eminence ceramic 200-250w .... far cheaper and will still sound good. the cab design will not be optimised for the kappalite! [/quote] I've modelled the Kappalite in this size cab. It's a fairly good match for volume, without knowing the tuning I can't be certain but the probability of a tuning around 50Hz means it could (stress could) be a reasonable match. I can check for the OP before you buy if you wish but an original speaker would still be the best bet. The cheaper Eminences with smaller magnets tend to be high Q designs less well suited to smaller cabs, again without checking I'm not commenting on individual speakers but the mismatch is likelier to be greater. It also depends upon what sort of sound you are after.

I love this stuff. I once had the joy of running a disco for a mix of Brazilian and Argentinian mature students on a summer course at Reading University. I provided the gear they brought the music. There is a whole world of music out there we know little or nothing of. Sadly it was a good night and I never tracked down any of the music, which would have been difficult anyway in 1970's Britain. The nearest I got was Malo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qb742vrWzTg fabulous.

The best bet is always to replace with the original driver, that way the cab retains it's value and you have a driver that matches the box. Mixing drivers in a stack will change your overall sound too and in an unpredictable way. Contact Eden and see how much it costs [url="http://www.edenamps.com/support/support.php?Country=UK"]http://www.edenamps.....php?Country=UK[/url] If you really want to go ahead then you are looking for a speaker with a decent sized magnet to work well in a small box or the cab could end up being a bit boomier than you like and it will be worth giving a few measurements so someone can model how recommended speakers work in your cab. The kappalite would work well and is readily available. Blue Aran is a likely first look. The trouble is price £200, might be cheaper to go with the Eden http://www.bluearan.com/index.php?id=EMIKLIT3012HO&browsemode=manufacturer

[quote name='Happy Jack' timestamp='1443795906' post='2877791'] You have a problem with ZZ Top? [/quote]

The practicalities are the same whatever. None of us sees ourselves as timewasters. As you say there are a lot of delusional people out there and I'm sure I'm as guilty as anyone. Half the world thinks they are better than they really are whilst the other half think they are pretty much rubbish. So the 'timewasters turn up and the perfect fit stays at home rather than waste your time because they don't think they'll pass muster. So, yes word your ad carefully, talk to people before auditioning to weed out the ones who just won't fit. Ask about who they've played with before, how often they've gigged or whatever else is important to you. Someone with no recordings of themselves in a band clearly haven't been gigging long for example. We always give a list of a wide range of songs for example, we aim for some songs they are unlikely to have learned, so the person too lazy or casual to have practised at home will show up straight away. In the end though you are dealing with people, with all the quirks and inadequacies we all share one way or another. Frankly if you decide half of humanity is just there to frustrate you before you start then I don't want to meet you, never mind share a rehearsal room. 'No timewasters' just says BEWARE, big ego, I always want my own way, to me. Any musician auditioning is also auditioning you, the reason they give for not wanting to continue might just be them being polite.

Great news

[quote name='Happy Jack' timestamp='1443779296' post='2877577'] "No time wasters."? Pah ... that's nothing compared to "Must be committed.". [/quote] [quote name='TransistorBassMan' timestamp='1443780191' post='2877587'] My old band used to state "timewasters welcome" in our Melody Maker ads [/quote] You're on fire this morning

Is it just me? I hate ads where people say this. What an appalling attitude to the rest of humanity. If you don't ultimately buy my stuff or fit my needs exactly you are wasting my time, which is clearly more valuable than yours. There's an ad for a bass player that says little more than brilliant bass player wanted for great band, no time wasters. I'm not criticising them specifically there are millions of these ads. They may be lovely people and this is just a throwaway line, or it may be they've had a few people turn up who weren't good enough , but I for one would never deal with anyone who thought I had nothing better to do than waste their time. I can't honestly believe there is a legion of people out there who think, 'I know what, I'll answer that ad for something I don't want for no better reason than I want to waste a complete strangers time'. Sure there are all sorts of dreamers and ditherers out there but that's humanity. Musicians are probably more likely to be dreamers than most, I don't know, but I'm not about to ring someone who thinks their time is more sacred than mine. Rant over, just me?

I'll get along if I can, it would be nice to meet you all. I'll bring along the 12" cabs I've been designing on the Amps and Cabs forum. http://basschat.co.uk/topic/227904-1x12-cab-design-diary/

[quote name='obbm' timestamp='1443302370' post='2873781'] Today's Cab Shoot Out at the SE Bass Bash got me wondering if one gets conditioned to certain sized speakers. For some years now I have used cabs with 12" speakers, I have briefly deviated to 10", 15" and even 5" but I always find that the sound that pleases me most comes from 12" drivers and I invariably return to using them. Have I become conditioned to 12" and unable to accept anything else or is it something more fundamental in their sonic characteristics? [/quote] Sorry obbm we've wandered off the point. Do we get conditioned? I think we do, both in a practical sense and a psychoacoustic way. Firstly we are odd creatures accumulating a lot of trial and error optimisation without realising we are doing it, and we become creatures of habit. This probably serves us well when gigging as setting up can be a bit chaotic. We go for the tried and trusted eq, tweak for the room acoustics and away we go. Experience makes you quite good at that but change speakers and you start a new learning curve. It'll take a while for you to get used to a new speaker and achieve a good sound consistently. If I'm right and most mid price pro speakers have similar drivers there will be a generic 12" 'sound'. The second thing is that as creatures of habit we like the familiar. I'll bet a lot of us are still playing with the tones used in the recordings of our youth. (Playing mostly songs in 4/4 and a Western tone scale and I,IV,V,vi if truth be told) so after a little experimentation we settle down to 'our tone' and just look for incremental improvements. It's been interesting designing speakers for other bass players. The 12" I've been designing here has more, cleaner and deeper bass and more top than almost all the non horn 12" commercial units out there which I know from the measurements we've taken. It was what people asked for but the people who've tried it have had mixed responses, they hear the extra clarity but don't know what to do with it. I've gigged them regularly but my graphic eq now looks like the response of an old fashioned 8x10. Even I obviously like the sound of lots of cheap speakers. One of my projects is now going to have to be to design a 1x12 that sounds like an ancient 4x10! Of course it may not just be us. My live sound is set up to work with the rest of the band and if they all set up to sound like their heroes then I've got to fit in with that. The price of playing covers i suppose.

[quote name='Dad3353' timestamp='1443460045' post='2874905'] Headphones and ear-buds, including in-ear monitors, have (usually...) far different 'speaker' sizes compared to bass cabs, but are often well able to given a fine rendition of all the frequencies. It's obvious (it seems to me...) that speaker diameter is a factor, but only a relatively small one, in judging how any speaker or cab will perform. Now drum sizes, that's different. Bass drums, floor toms, rack toms, snares, piccolos... Not just diameter, but depth, too..! A whole field of debate, even before considering material (tone-wood..? steel..? aluminium..? perspex..?...). There's a subject for debate if ever there was one... [/quote] Relatively small factor? well it would be interesting to see earbuds used for bass No doubt the next project for the chap who built the 4x15. 20,000 earbuds built onto a convex baffle?!!!! I've a 5" driver in my hi fi which goes deeper than my bass cabs and has an Xmax of 11mm. The limit is on it's efficiency and the maximum volume it can produce. Closer to us the Phil Jones bass amps produce a lovely bass, just not so much of it. That's kind of the point I'm making, speakers are designed to do different jobs and you make different compromises to suit the application. To create deep bass at high volumes you need to be able to move a lot of air, that means cone area and excursion. If you decrease one you have to increase the other. In turn this will change the efficiency of the speaker and you'll need more power or a better magnet or a bit of both. All these things have a knock on effect on the design and the sound. There are a few people on here who seem to want it to be heavy v's light, single cones v's 8x10's 10's v 15's. The truth is that there are a number of design concepts that come up with different solutions when designing bass speakers. All of them contain compromises because of the physics but they aren't right or wrong, just different answers to slightly different questions. Cone area is one of the things you consider amongst others.

[quote name='discreet' timestamp='1443439099' post='2874608'] Just out of interest, why do you believe this statement to be true? It is obvious from this and other threads elsewhere that some people think that speaker size has [i]no[/i] bearing on tone - and that other people think speaker size [i]definitely[/i] has a bearing on tone. Clearly both these statements can't be true. I know which I [i]think [/i]is correct, but I don't have enough knowledge of physics or electronics or bass cab construction to make a decision about which statement is [i]actually [/i]correct, so in the end I can only go by what I read on teh internetz. Meanwhile, I'm going to judge bass cabs on a cab-by-cab basis and go with the one I like the sound of in a live band situation, regardless of speaker size and regardless of how many speakers are in the cab. Oh wait, I did that a year ago. As you were. [/quote] First of all you are right, in the final judgement the way the cab sounds is the crucial factor. You only need to know the rest if you want to design cabs, though it is sometimes interesting to understand what is going on under the bonnet to keep the car analogy going a little longer. I think the reason the advice about speaker size was first given was genuinely to open people's eyes to other possibilities when choosing cabs. If they made the assumption that only 10's would do then they would miss out on auditioning 12's and 15's and perhaps miss out on the cab that would suit them best. I think Alex may have been concerned about selling the original compact but what he said is true for all bass cabs and speakers in general. All speakers, whatever their diameter don't necessarily sound the same. Somehow this became size doesn't matter and that you don't get a lot of similar sounding 10's or 15's or that somehow size isn't part of speaker design. The effects range from the obvious to the more subtle. A big speaker is going to have a big cone and with the same thickness of paper pulp it will be heavier. Increasing the mass of the cone will lower the frequency it resonates at and this is a major determinant of it's bass response (but not the only one). It's just like using a thicker string, at the same tension it plays lower so it's easier to make it play low, and just like a string you can tune it to a range of frequencies. It goes beyond this, a bigger mass is harder to move, so unless you change other things you get less sound, usually you use a bigger magnet but that's another variable. It is also harder to accelerate and decelerate a bigger mass with the same force applied so transient response will be different A bigger cone will shift more air and make a louder sound when the speaker moves to it's limits. It also has greater efficiency. There will also be knock on effects. A bigger cone with the same thickness of paper/pulp will be floppier and will flex more at higher frequencies, so frequencies other than the bass will be altered by changing cone size, this will affect the relative levels of bass and top. You can adjust the thickness of the cone but there are practical limits, too little pulp and the cone flexes too easily and handling of bass is impaired, too much and it becomes too heavy to be practical. There is a goldilocks point where it is just right for a particular application so designs tend to cluster together for practical reasons. At this point it can become much more complex, you can use something other than paper, dope the paper with other materials, lay it down at varying thickness across the cone or use plant fibres from a variety of different plants all of which affect sound. Then if you decide you want to achieve a certain sound level at a certain frequency with a small driver you will have to design an appropriate voice coil because of your decision over the cone size, this in turn will affect the design of the magnet and the suspension. All these things have to be taken into account in designing a new speaker and size is one of the essential variables to be considered. Just as you wouldn't choose to race a vehicle just based on engine size or you might end up racing with a truck. You'd be equally foolish to say it doesn't matter what size the engine is too.

[quote name='chris_b' timestamp='1443353449' post='2874019'] And Alex comes in for even more criticism! <sigh> [/quote] [quote name='discreet' timestamp='1443354523' post='2874030'] I <sigh> along with you. I really don't understand why Alex comes in for so much flak on here and elsewhere. [/quote] [quote name='Bill Fitzmaurice' timestamp='1443360673' post='2874092'] It's because Alex tells it like it is, and people don't like having their pre-conceived subjective notions countered with factual objectivity. Where driver size is concerned this is pretty much definitive: [url="http://barefacedbass.com/technical-information/speaker-size-frequency-response.htm"]http://barefacedbass...cy-response.htm[/url] But the ranks of those who'd rather cling to unfounded myth is legion, in any field. [/quote] Oh dear, I hope no one is accusing me of criticising Alex. This isn't personal and I avoided naming him talking only of the laws of physics which aren't swayed by opinion, apparently. For the record what I said was that Alex's (for it was he) statements are fair and I was specifically referring to the article Bill has provided the link to. The one above. It is frequently misunderstood and misquoted as saying size doesn't matter, and quite correctly it says it does matter. The opening paragraph talks about volume displacement which is cone area times excursion and even the advantages of larger cone area. The second paragraph talks about transient response and force being mass times acceleration, all basic physics correctly and clearly explained, concluding that you can get good transient response from a high mass cone if you use a bigger magnet. Implicit in this is that with the same magnet the smaller cone will have the better transient response. So again Alex is correctly saying size matters, but adding it isn't the only thing that matters. For the record Alex's articles for BGM are well written and he carefully simplifies some of the science to write some nicely crafted articles. It is sometimes difficult to simplify science and to stay true to the underlying concepts and Alex is scrupulous in what he writes. I'm a fan. I'm sorry to be so picky but I taught sciences for most of my working life and can't help correcting the 'homework' of lazy pupils. Science works by isolating single variables and in speaker design cone area is one of the crucial variables. I don't know how you would calculate Vd without cone area or efficiency or resonant frequency independently of Mms (cone mass of course is directly related to size). Oh, and there is so much more that is affected directly or indirectly by cone size. Alex uses the analogy with cars and compares the high mass high energy Bugatti Veyron with the lower mass lower energy VW Golf (doesn't say if it is diesel ) The point I was making is that there are a lot of Golf like family hatchbacks out there, everyone does a Golf like car and we all have expectations when we look at a medium sized hatchback with a 1.9 diesel engine. Similarly most speaker manufacturers have 10,12 and 15" drivers with thin cones and modest magnets, pressed chassis and two or three roll surrounds and they all perform in a similar way. Those people who think 10 and 15's have a sound are often simply stating what they hear. The only problem they might have is that there is the odd Bugatti out there and the only way of finding out is by listening. Those who believe size doesn't matter are going to have to listen to a lot of similar sounding speakers to track down 'the one' Anyone who says cone size doesn't matter is just flat wrong, and is one of the myth makers. Size matters, it just isn't the only thing.

A couple of years ago a mate bought a couple of these for a cheap PA. I offered to take them apart and see if they could be easily improved, thinking that at the price a bit of bracing/damping/upgraded crossover/horn driver might give a cheap improvement of sound. Nothing doing the drivers looked to be pretty good at the price point, proper 2nd order crossover and a well constructed cab, unbelievable at the price. I wouldn't think the bass driver would be a high excursion one but I won't be sniffy about these, at the price there is no way you could match them with a self build. I never tried them with a bass but I'd expect them to struggle with high levels but two of them might have enough to match a drummer.

[quote name='discreet' timestamp='1443305277' post='2873806'] Totally agree, loved the 10s cabs available at recent auditions - though I find myself using 12s more often than not. I wonder if there is actually a technical reason for the 10s preference? [/quote] There is a bit of a myth on Basschat about the sound of different speaker sizes. That size doesn't matter. It can do and often does but it is possible to get round this. Speaker design is about choosing compromises. You can make a 10 go deep but you will have to compromise other things. Manufacturers tend to come up with similar solutions so their offerings tend to sound similar to each other, but they don't have to. One particular manufacturer on here has said you shouldn't make assumptions about sound based on size alone, and that is fair if you set out to do something different. It's a long way from this to say that size has no effect on sound.

OK I re read your post If it's broke .... fix it seems to be what applies here. If it is tripping then there is a fault, and it will go wrong at the most inconvenient time. This is possibly a power supply or earthing fault so safety may be involved. Switch cleaner isn't going to do it, that is for poor contacts and cutting out not the protection tripping. It could be almost anything including spiders inside the amp but you need it checked out by someone competent. Forgive me but I don't think that's a DIY job for you. Sorry if my first post put you off, I should have read your post more carefully.

Well there's no physics there at all and the claims aren't that big, twice the volume is probably 3dB. Twice the energy but only just noticeably louder. My guess is that this is just multiband compression, he talks about mastering techniques in the studio applied to clubs. The peaks in bass output are being reduced and the average levels raised. There's nothing new there but the way it is being implemented may be improved. think AER Amp One or any PA with DSP