Phil Starr

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

Like most things musical it is down to both taste and physics. Play a bass straight through a flat system like the PA and it sounds OK. Play electric guitar through the PA with no FX and it sounds very ordinary to say the least https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H8dZwXnMrRU The technical side is simple. We don't hear bass well and loudspeakers are very inefficient at turning electricity into sound at bass frequencies. Simply you need to move a lot of air. An AC30 is bloody loud a 30W bass amp is a practice amp. Roughly speaking you are going to need at least 10dB more power which is 10x as much. You might get away with 15 or 20W of valve guitar amp through a loud driver at a pub gig but this translates to 150-200W of bass amp. A 200W transformer is heavy, two of them in each valve amp. High power valves like KT88's are expensive and you'll need at least four. If you want a clean uncompressed bass sound you'd want some headroom too so that means either really efficient and large speakers (8x10's?) or 400W+ amps. You need lots of thick copper wire to make a transformer so weight saving is difficult. Toroidals are lighter but there is a bottom limit. You could use a switch mode power supply (I suppose theoretically you could use a switch mode output conversion if you wanted to lose the valve sound, but what would be the point. ) Valves will always be more expensive to manufacture than solid state devices and so there is a limit to how much you could shave off the prices, no-one is going to start to mass produce them again. There isn't a cheap lightweight way of making a 200W valve amp I'm afraid, and there never will be.

How about something like Dakota, it's a fairly simple verse/chorus structure, four chords (the way most cover bands approach it) and pretty much eight to the beat. Audiences love it so you'll feel good about it and the band will already know it. Gimme Some Lovin Spencer Davies is another where the bass is really simple but an important part of the song, the first song I played in public. I'd second asking for a set list being easier all round though. they may even have one on their website so try stalking the band

Lovely man, one of life's real gentlemen. I remember the first time I heard him, he came on introduced as a 'plectrum guitarist' in the open mic section of our local folk club in 1969. The host was a bit of a joker. I still cannot believe the sheer amount of sound he got out of the guitar that night, brilliant. If one of those gigs already booked is down my way I'm definitely off to see him again.

Amps aren't really serviceable in the way things with moving parts are. There are parts which are more likely to fail than others but nothing that can be serviced, unless you are using a valve amp where valves can be replaced and quiescent currents re-set possibly. If you are dealing with a vintage valve amp then we know that the capacitors fail over time so a 're-cap' can be a good idea but that is more re-build than service. The idea of servicing a solid state amp that is working perfectly is a nonsense, equally if you know it is playing up then you need to have the fault identified and the part replaced before you dream of gigging with it. I wouldn't even use switch cleaner on something working as you could disturb a bit of dirt which would create a problem as a worse case. If it is crackling and you can find the bit that is doing it then it's a minimal risk DIY job, so try a bit of contact cleaner if you are happy to give it a go. Here's the thing Everything works perfectly................don't fix it Something is wrong...........................fix it I hate the idea that non technical people shell out decent money to a tech who should be straight with them.

I've got the Line6 G30. No problems at all but the battery door is as naff as everyone says. Studiospares have an offer on the Sennheiser version https://www.studiospares.com/Microphones/Mics-Wireless/Sennheiser-XSW72-E-CH70-Instrument-System_473530.htm

I guess Mansons were one of them. Bit of a drive but Andy in Axe Music, Axminster is really helpful. http://www.axe-music.co.uk/

I tried the Alto floor monitors, the new concentric ones aren't as good sounding as the Wharfedale EVP's or the Behringers though they are smaller and probably do the job. With the personal monitors I tried the Behringers and the Mackies, nothing to choose between them I thought but I'm upgrading my Behringer to one of the TC Voicesolo. The behringer/mackie/WPM-1 can be mounted on the mic stand but the stands are then completely unstable. You really need them on a separate stand. The Voicesolo is more stable as it clips to the stand.

[quote name='Beer of the Bass' timestamp='1442680822' post='2868747'] I miss the one Fender that I've owned, a Highway One Jazz. It was just a nice plain, simple bass that played well and sounded like a Jazz, but somehow the whole package was satisfying. [/quote] Love my Highway One Jazz, in Daphne Blue. When I set out I thought, no point buying Fender, you'll just pay for the name. Then I went into Mansons in Exeter to while away an hour or so whilst my better half shopped for clothes, Tried out the second hand but unused (bought for a daughter who didn't use it) Highway and it just felt right, still does. £400 too so a bit of a bargain.

It's always a struggle but the difference when you get it right is a complete step up in the sound for you and the audience. Go at it systematically and try and engineer in the solution from the start, all your gear interacts on stage so you need to make it all work together and the more complex it is the harder you have to work. Once you have a plan then you can buy a bit at a time to add up to your complete system. In answer to your question, go active. in fact, unless you have a sound engineer go only for monitors where you can reach the volume control from the stage, ie on the front of the speaker. You really don't need to be carrying extra amps and have extra cabling nowadays and the active stuff will work with any mixer. I used some active PA speakers for a while and they were good but with the knob hidden away on the back it was a pain if one of them needed adjustment because of feedback halfway through the set. Who in the band needs to hear what? Anyone singing needs to hear their own voice in the monitors and most people want their voice to be louder than everyone elses. The only way to do this is to have personal monitors. The little ones on stands work well because putting them close to the singer means they don't spill out into the other singers sonic space too much. We use the Behringer B205D's, they work and we've only had one of the three give a problem, which was fixed by Behringer. We put the mic in these so people can control their own volumes, then send the signal to the desk. The problem then is the singers can hear the vocals but the rest of the band can't, at least not very well. We use a couple of floor wedges for the rest of the band, The drummer has his own monitor if stage space allows. Again I use Behringer's, the B1320's. They actually sound pretty good with vocals, a touch too bassy but a bit of bass cut works to correct this. Nicely made to be fair and no problems to date. They won't go as loud as EV's and the like, despite the huge power claims but they go loud enough that they can cause feedback so no extra volume would be any use unless we suddenly start playing huge stages. They were on offer at the time at DV247. The big disadvantage of this approach is that giving singers the chance to adjust their own volumes doesn't help the feedback control. I'm a fascist when it comes to gear so my band are fairly good. The other issue is that with five monitors running it can be hard to locate the ones causing any issues, but you learn your gear over time. The real solution to feedback however is to turn down on stage and persuading drummers that dynamics and attack are not the same as volume. Good luck with that