Phil Starr

There's some fairly simple physics here. If you stand to the side of a speaker it will take longer for the sound to arrive at your ears from the most distant speaker, a few thousandths of a second. In this time the speaker may have traveled forwards and now be travelling back. This means the sound from one speaker is out of phase with the nearer speaker and the sounds will cancel and you will hear very little. All this depends upon the frequency and the exact dimensions. In practice this means that any frequency where the furthest parts of the moving cones are more than one wavelength are radiated in an increasingly tight beam of sound, all your mids and highs. Placing your cabs next to each other will mean only people in line will hear your sound properly. Put another way stacking speakers vertically means the sound is radiated in a broad flat beam across the audience, on their side and the beam is narrow and pointing at the ceiling and floor.

Deep bass is your enemy here. Anything above 80Hz or so is unlikely to exceed the excursion limits of most speakers and this is what is going to damage most of them. This means rolling off the bass is going to be your best bet of keeping away from the point where the speaker gets damaged. A Thumpinator or similar bass filter (high pass filter) as mentioned will be a great addition and/or roll off the bass with your eq. Really avoid things like octavers or anything which gives you extra bass. The next thing is to watch your volume, if the drums are unmiked and you are slotting in just below them in volume then it is moderately unlikely you will be using too much power. Most cabs will more or less match a drummer with 200W or less driving them. Avoid 4ohm speakers, doubling the impedance will roughly halve the power your amp produces. In the end there are no guarantees though, these are just ways of reducing risk, if you put 900W through a 250W speaker you are going to damage it.

Hi Garry, yes I was going to just send some drawings but Stevie has offered to run some tests on the cab asap so I'm holding back until I know there are no further mods to be made. I'm hoping that will be as soon as I get back from Japan. I'll pm you now.

Hi Chienmortbb I'm keen to meet up with anyone who can tryout the cabs and indeed others i have already built or planned. I'm off to Japan for a fortnight but will get my head round it as soon as I get back. I'm hoping to get some technical measurements made as soon as I get back from Japan. Like so many people who don't do this for a living life keeps getting in the way.

Thanks for putting together a fun test. I picked it up too late to make a fool of myself. As said the only point is that you can't really tell, which many of us knew already. If nobody could tell and we all guessed at random then 1/6 should have guessed right, a lot more than 2 people, I think what this shows is that at least with these speakers listener bias is more important than speaker size. FWIW I guessed the 10's right but thought A was the 15. My professional opinion would have been that I had a 1 in 6 chance of getting it right. Good fun though.

I'd defend Basschat in terms of net etiquette. Nearly everyone is polite and helpful, tolerant of newbies and constructive. If anyone does overstep the mark there is usually a storm of 'calm down' posts and support for the wronged party. Bassists seem a pretty decent bunch. I've even enjoyed the political debates in Off Topic, the odd iffy comment but a lot of very well informed peopleand certainly one step up from the average pub conversation. The most heated debates seem to be over technical issues but no worse than you get in academic debates anywhere. There does seem to be a fall off in forums generally. Lemonrock has lost its forum after days at a time when no-one really posted and Ultimate Guitar is a very quiet place nowadays. I guess with people using their phones more ephemeral chatting is taking place but Basschat still seems strong to me and if you have a genuine problem there is usually help to be found here.

Doesn't it depend upon what you are rehearsing? If we are learning new songs, especially at the initial play through, we will rehearse at lower volumes and in a circle so we can hear each other better and communicate easily. If we've had a break in gigging and are just refreshing the set we'd use the full stage gear including monitors but not the full PA. Again probably in a circle, but not always. From time to time, usually if we want to change the PA set up, we'll have a 'technical rehearsal' with the full PA.

[quote name='Bill Fitzmaurice' timestamp='1426975282' post='2724416'] He did just as he should have, as with the cab on the floor aiming straight out the audience is within the cone shaped midrange and high frequency dispersion pattern, while he is not. Tilting it back both he and the audience will be within said cone. [/quote] Spot on. The problem is that outside the cone he wasn't hearing what the audience heard.

I've been checking mics a lot. A few years back I had the Samson Q7, Behringer XM and an SM58 together. As everyone said the sounds are fairly similar and if anything the Shure is the very slightly weaker sounding, the other two being very slightly more open sounding, but you wouldn't notice this if your PA is less than fairly high end. In which case you ought to be using better mics anyway. The Shure has the worst feedback rejection of the three (just) but the best handling noise (again only just) They really do sound very similar. The SM58 is a cardioid and the other two are super cardioids so the SM58 is better if you don't have good mic technique or can't keep still like me. I've had to resolder a couple of Behringers as the internal wiring is poor, a simple fix if you can solder but would cost you as much as the mic if you had to pay someone to do it, no problems with the Q7. I've A/B checked the SM58 against the AKG D5 which is a whole lot better and equally as well built at about £60 it's a great mic, I bought a second. Well worth £30 extra. Again it's super cardioid so better feedback rejection but more demanding of good technique and a strong proximity effect. you might need to move your monitors if feedback is a problem. With a cardioid you need the mon's in line supers you put them off line at 135degrees. Yesterday I checked out the D5 against the Shure and the Sennheiser E835 (£60) and the E935 (£140) and the EV ND967. The d5 has a more open sound than either of the Sennheisers, I didn't think the E835 had much to offer over the Shure really other than being nearly half the price. The E935 doesn't sound as good with my voice as the D5 but has good detail in the mids and a nice rounded sound noticeably an upgrade from the Shure but more expensive. It's going to replace the D5 for me though, because it does sound nice and it is much less demanding of good technique. I move around when I am singing and playing bass which is a problem with a tight pickup pattern like the D5. The EV is a step up again in sound, if i sang lead rather than a few backing vocals I'd go for that but I don't have a great voice and no-one needs to hear me that clearly, in any case it is too expensive for your needs. If you want something cheap and cheerful go for the Q7, if you know someone who solders the Behringer. If you want to sound better and don't jump around like a Jack in a box then buy the D5 and relegate the Shure to being a spare, it really does have a great sound for that money

I think 'cheaper' and 'more fun' won't be the same thing. It's almost always cheaper to buy a second hand cab than to build one. If you want a small box to put a speaker in one of the smaller wooden 10" PA cabs might be good. The Pro Sound made by Maplin come in fairly well made boxes if you can find a damaged one it will cost peanuts and it'll have all the connectors. The Basslite is fairly pricey so you might want to look at something else though it goes well in a smaller box.

There's probably two areas you can operate in depending upon your skill. As I think everyone is indicating £250 is the going rate for pub bands and 40 gigs a year is pretty good but achievable for a decent band. Pretty much all the gigs are Friday and Sat nights. A lot of pubs are small and there is a demand for solo acts and duos, these can also work the bigger pubs on weekdays and Sundays. The other 'scene' for covers is weddings and functions, again the £1000 mark is probably a fair median depending upon the quality of the band. The demands upon the professionalism of the band are much higher, but I guess this is the same anywhere and there are of course semi-professional bands who use the pub gigs as shop windows to get the more lucrative functions. Bands have to expect to carry their own PA and increasingly lighting to provide a ready made show. 2x45mins won't really be enough, 9-12 with a 20 min break is more the norm nowadays. Pubs are struggling to make profits and there are a lot of pretty good bands here so don't expect too much but it isn't impossible to build a reputation and gig regularly. If you are looking at the area north of London then have a look at www.lemonrock.com which is a great site for pub bands, we get about half our gigs from LR and in areas where it is strong it is well worth looking at.

[quote name='JoeEvans' timestamp='1426458197' post='2718283'] ... if it's a big budget gig you need to put on a good show so you might be rehearsing extra thoroughly; ... [/quote] [quote name='discreet' timestamp='1426458349' post='2718286'] What if it's NOT a big budget gig? Would you put on a mediocre show and do half-assed rehearsals..? [/quote] Both good points, you shouldn't stand up on a stage and give any audience 60%, however we all know that if you are booked for a wedding/corporate there are extra demands, reliability being one of them. Charging is so difficult to get right, if you included all your costs in gear, travel, practice time etc and then charged minimum wage then band fees would price live music out of the reach of nearly all but the biggest music pubs. In the end though I want the pub scene to thrive and the pub to make a modest profit, so prices are pitched at what the market can bear. In the area I live we do charge slightly differently for the busier town centre pubs compared with the smaller country pubs. No doubt if we were in a wealthier area playing bigger busier pubs we'd charge a bit more for that too, but very simple economics drive band fees for this sort of gig For anything corporate or private we charge something more realistic, effectively double our normal fee. If it is a ticketed event there's no reason for the band to be working for less than the bar staff or caterers.

There's a lot of not too well informed advice here, well meaning enough. TimR has it about right especially with respect to earth. The important thing is to ensure all your equipment and the truck are at the same earth potential and that the gear you are using is all properly wired. An RCD will help but isn't foolproof. The size of the generator has been mentioned. Add up the total wattage of your gear including any lights or other electrical equipment. Add another 50% and that should tell you the size of genny you need. I doubt the total of your gear is much over 1000W and even a quite small generator will be 2k so you shouldn't have a problem. the only problem I've had is that the voltage will fall before you over load the generator and this could cause some problems, hence the need to add 50%. Generators are noisy, as are trucks, you might need more power to be heard than you expect. Without any reflecting walls and floors the bass in particular is lost, take your biggest rig for bass. You really need to be supported if the truck stops suddenly and your gear needs to be strapped down too. No point in being held steady if you are hit by a flying 20lb bass amp! There are regulations about all this and you should ask the organisers about insurance, public liability may not cover you if you are part of the event. In Somerset we have annual competitions for floats in all the local towns. PA systems are built into the trucks and tend to be rated in kilowatts. Anyone standing on the truck usually has a harness fixed to metal work and the floats are all inspected for safety, Marshalls ensure the trucks never exceed walking pace. You can see some of the cages and harnesses on this https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qaBHwy0DAIE&feature=youtu.be

Good luck and don't feel bad. For most of them being in a band and some recreational playing was enough, you've probably ended that for them and you can't blame them for being fed up. You aren't responsible for their happiness though. I've been in exactly that situation with my previous two bands, pushing them into gigging which they quite enjoyed but weren't bothered about it being too often. I too took on the PA and all the other organisation as I tried to push the bands forwards. Gigging is a real commitment though, It takes out most of the weekend as far as the family is concerned and lot's of preparation and compromises on the set and many people struggle with performing in public. There's only so far you can push people and you gave it a good go. You'd be surprised at how popular a gigging bassist with a full PA and organising skills can be. I'm now with a band that gig twice as often as before and our diary is growing and I've had inquiries/offers from other bands. I'm grateful to my previous band members though, they lit the candle and put up with my awful bass playing whist I grew my skills. Most of us are still friends. Your guitarist might be a keeper too. Good luck

I use the B205 and it does the job. A friend uses the TC helicon and I have to say I wish i'd gone for that, lots of voice processing, i think a better sound and mounts onto the stand better. I think the Mackie is pretty similar to the Behringer, I've tried it in the shops but not gigged with it. If you want a used Behringer and can meet up in Exeter I suppose i could upgrade to the TC. PM me if you are interested. Either way the great thing about all these is you can give yourself as much monitor as you want without throwing the monitor mix out for the rest of the band, I've never heard myself so clearly

Looks like the one my 99 American Deluxe P came with.

You can use a single 12 for most gigs, I've been gigging with the prototype basschat 12 I've been developing and haven't really needed more than one cab. The proviso is that it has to have a decent long throw driver, the amp has to be well powered and I wouldn't want to use any bass boost. Two of these are killers though. One for small gigs, two for big and you are covered.

If you like the sound then go for it. The Cab is unlikely to shake itself to bits but if it is thin walled and unbraced then it the walls will vibrate and make a noise of their own colouring the sound, but the coloured sound was what you liked. Similarly I don't suppose the speaker had a huge magnet at that weight and that affects the sound too, but you liked the sound. I think what you are saying that this is the cab to beat for you, go on looking to check there is nothing in your price bracket you prefer but if this is your favourite then ..... Talk to Mansons, they are my local shop too and I've always found them really helpful, they may offer you a money back return or a chance to loan the speaker, it's worth asking, they can only say no.

http://www.behringer.com/EN/Products/1002B.aspx cna be battery powered but is probably a bit excessive. Vox amplug thingy I went for the B1on, its neat and probably the cheapest option. Drum machine/metronome and tuner built in too.

I'd say give up trying to start your own band. It's hard to find one person committed to gigging who isn't already gigging, to find four or five is nothing short of a miracle. I'm the organising type and I'm reluctant to take it on again. The trouble is that so many people dream of gigging but in reality only think of themselves and their playing in front of a live audience. Once they've lived their dreams a few times it's enough. Gigging most weekends is a whole extra level and takes huge commitment. No judgement on those people for whom six gigs a year is enough though, but if you want to gig more than that then find people who share that aim. The best way to do this is to join a band who are already gigging regularly, because for every band who has lost a less than committed singer there's another who has just lost their bassist. Start going to the local gigs and start networking, just talk to the bands, let them know you play, male a note of what they play and make sure you could make a stab at the stuff you hear most of them play. If the call comes you'll need half a dozen songs or more to jam at an audition but you will probably only get a fortnight to learn the rest of their set. The more bands you see the greater chance that you'll find one that needs you. Scan the ads use the internet but there's nothing like first hand knowledge. Bands get so desperate that even I get to be the bassist even though I have very little skill, just Mr Reliable with a good attitude.

Of course Bill is right about the mids and highs but as he himself has said on several threads the 80-120Hz region is pretty important when it comes to our perception of bass, so depending on the height you raise the cab there will probably be a subtle but detectable suckout. My experience is that this usually ends up cleaning up the front of house sound, but this of course depends upon lots of other factors with room acoustics being the most important usually. Just warning you it might sound a little different really.

[quote name='Caledonian_Enterprises' timestamp='1424729086' post='2699859'] Thanks for discussing with your band , its still early stages as you can see, all i can say is the setup will weigh no more than 24kg (possible 20kg) and the sound range will be between 94db and 113db. if you have any other contacts then id welcome their thoughts too. What band are you in?? [/quote] I'm a bit worried about the lack of any science here. Sound range doesn't have any meaning really. You'd need to be able to produce peaks of 120dB to keep the bass as loud as the drummer, a minimum requirement giving you an average sound level of around 100dB. If these were sensitivity figures @1W and 1m then you won't achieve 113db without a substantial horn design. The mass figures don't seem feasible either. The Eminence Beta 10 for example weighs 3.1 kg so that is 12.4kg for a 4x10. which leaves you with 11.6kg for the rest of the cab. The density of perspex is 1.16g/cm3 meaning your 4x10 will weigh 25kg if you make it out of 15mm material. the Youngs moduluus of perspex is between 1.8-3.1 GPa, birch ply 13.8GPa so ply is many times stiffer so you'd need to increase the thickness of the cab by using a lot more perspex if you want the same performance. Speaker cabinet sizes are matched to the drivers and your sketch designs are about 120l. This is reasonable for a 4x10 but huge for a 1x15 by modern standards, more like a 70's design. For a 1x12 it's silly. in any case you'd be looking to match your cab to the speaker you chose not starting with a cab size and looking for a speaker to go in it, unless looks count for everything and sound very little. Without wishing to damp your enthusiasm there's also the cost. A sheet of perspex is going to cost a lot. £721 for a 3x2m sheet of 15mm acrylic on eBay. You would get two cabs out of that if you are lucky. So a 4x10 is going to come in at £240 for the speakers and £360 for the perspex plus labour, distribution costs, and a profit for the retailer. You'd want the materials costs to be about 1/3 of the retail price at most so you are looking at a retail price of probably about £2000 for just one 4x10 adding in the cost of your lights. If you try to make these it will blow your student loan/whatever in no time, not to mention the 1000's of hours it will take you to prototype. Sorry this looks like a demolition job but I really wouldn't want you to risk all this time expense and effort on something that can't really be made to work. If this is a paper design exercise and it won't matter that you conclude the project is impractical

"It's dull and I'm lazy" are the only reasons not to do this from time to time. That's me guilty as charged Seriously I use a drum machine which I find much more engaging to play with. The Zoom B1ON takes care of that with some good basic patterns at a knock down price. I probably ought to use it more often but a decent session even once a month tightens everything up.

[quote name='icastle' timestamp='1424911088' post='2701962'] I've tried those tilt back style combos a few times and have always struggled with them. Science probably doesn't say so, but it seems to me that pointing the cabinet at the ceiling instead of where your audience is creates a whole different set of problems to overcome. My experience of them is that they sound fine where you're stood but have a tendency to be a little muddy sounding and quiet when you wander out front to hear whats happening. Obviously, it's something you can learn to compensate for as you become accustomed to using it, but I'm a lazy git. [/quote] The science says the upper frequencies go where the speaker points, so this is right. The kickbacks are really most useful when you go through the PA for the audience and only need a 'bit more me' on stage.

It's a great idea, at small gigs I sometimes only connect the top cab in my stack and the bottom one simply acts as a stand. You'll actually get less boom as the floor acts as a kind of mirror reflecting sound into the room, moving the speaker off the floor lessens this effect.