Phil Starr

Firstly have a careful look at the drivers, the most common fault is the adhesive breaking down, look to see if the dust cap (the dome in the middle of the speaker) is coming away or the cone is separating from the corrugated surround. These can be stuck back down with Copydex a latex based adhesive. Even small tears in the cone can be repaired by laminating small pieces of tissue over the tear with copydex. The other problem may be distortion in the coil caused by heat or the hammering of the cone on the back of the magnet, this will be obvious if you gently push the cone backwards as you will hear it/feel it rubbing against the inside of the magnet. Push it evenly from all sides as pushing from one side will make it rub anyway. Pushing with a large mug or glass can work well but be gentle, 2mm should be enough to show any problem. This can't be repaired. If you want to keep the cab as it is then only the original drivers will give the same sound, you could try contacting Fender . If you want to keep the cab but with a different sound then you could try substitute speakers and plenty of people here will guide you through that process. Most bass cabs are tuned to roughly 40-50Hz and the T/S parameters of most drivers are similar enough for a wide range of speakers to work in most cabs. Getting the speaker matched to the cab shouldn't be too much of a problem so long as someone does the calculations/modelling however the rest of the frequency range won't be the same so the speaker will sound different, maybe better or worse. If you want to pursue this then we need to know the exact dimensions of the port and the internal dimensions of the cab.

I don't think the little mixer will be the problem. Those speakers at that price are likely to be very limited. I note that they are rated at 113dB peak, if you are playing with a drummer then you really need to achieve 120dB to give your vocals any headroom at all. Given that it costs me £50 to build a box it's likely to have very poor speakers in. There's no horn and my hi fi speakers go as loud as these. They'll just be loud enough to play acoustically but not with a band. They aren't likely to sound too good either. I've the full range of kit and sometimes when we play smaller venues I limit myself to using the amp from a Yamaha Stagepas 300, a very simple 4channel mixer amp with only bass,treble and volume on each channel, but I put this through some proper PA speakers. (Yamaha S112V's) this raises the output from 113dB to 120dB meaning the amp has plenty of headroom and isn't constantly distorting. If you want to keep to that sort of budget you might want to go for the amp but look for some used PA speakers. There are some bargains out there but avoid Peavey PA speakers, dead reliable but the horn drivers they use are awful. No vocal clarity at all. Their amps are great.

Lemonrock started in the St Albans area and then joined up with a project in the southwest, it's expanding gradually and if you go on the site statistics there's a map of where the members are http://www.lemonrock.com/statistics.php does look like a bit of a hole in the Midlands at the moment. If it does get established in your area it's a great resource, we get most of our work from it with no need to cold call venues and they email 500+ local music fans each time we gig.

[quote name='tauzero' timestamp='1421461247' post='2661663'] Although this is focussed on hi-fi systems, the principle is the same: [url="http://www.audioholics.com/loudspeaker-design/speaker-break-in-fact-or-fiction"]http://www.audioholi...fact-or-fiction[/url] [/quote] Thanks, that's an interesting article. Pretty much confirming what most of us are saying, there will be changes but whether they will be audible in any practical situation is debatable, and you don't need much running in time to get those changes.

Stick some ads in the local guitar shops and chat with the manager who will know most of your local guitarists. Lemonrock.com is a great place to look as it is a site where gigging pub bands tout there wares, so the ratio of gigging musicians to bedroom players and dreamers is better http://www.lemonrock.com/ads.php. If you have your own PA etc then it's worth mentioning, semi pro musicians will be looking for hassle free berths rather than multiple problems. If your old players can keep playing for a while that helps as gigging bands will find it easier to recruit than ones who have had a break from gigging. A few weeks won't matter but months off makes you almost a start up band. My advice is to really stick out for the right person, the band will ultimately change with new members but so many guitarists aren't too flexible and seem to want to play a lot of classic rock. They take on a band out of desperation to keep gigging but then can't resist the pull of their own needs and interests. Make sure they are fully signed up to your classic punk. If they don't already know a big chunk of your set then just chat and find out why? Keep the auditions business like, give them a list of four or five songs which will test a range of skills and give them your set list and let them choose a couple too. If they haven't bothered to learn the ones you sent then they aren't taking it seriously. Good luck

There's an old thread about this where one of the basschatters (Stevie) did some measurements to show that the effects of running in a speaker are negligible. In any case just using the speaker will run it in so it's not something you can avoid and not probably something to worry about. FWIW it's easy to see how people are fooled into thinking they hear changes that aren't there. Our brains are much more sophisticated sound processors than any DSP. The usual reason given for 'running in' is to soften the suspension but I suspect changes to the cone are more significant as these will affect the higher frequencies to which we are more sensitive. We know that the cross linking bonds in wood fibre cones change with time and are affected by temperature and particularly humidity and it may be this rather than the suspensions that are causing the sound to change. It's interesting and i have two identical speakers one of which I'm using and one keeping for some comparative measurements to see if I can detect any changes over time but I'm a white coated nerd, the average bassist probably shouldn't worry about it.

Hair driers work but heat guns work better, though they also can melt cables! touching up with a soldering iron works a treat.

OK, without any details about the amp it's difficult to be specific. The amps power is limited by the voltage swing, you'll only get 5watts out of a 12 volt amplifier unless it is operating in bridge mode in which case you'll get 20W into 4ohms. Nominal 12V car batteries give 14V so you might get a smidgin more. What this means is that if your practice amp was a 15W amp it might not be as loud once you start using a 12V supply. Most transistor amps will work over a wide range of voltages so they'll work OK, if the voltage is too low then the transistors aren't biased properly and you'll get distortion/no noise, too high and you'll burn out the transistors. If the old supply was working you'd be able to measure the voltage and decide if 24V would be a better match. As it stands it might work or it might burn out the amp. If the practice amp is 20W into 4 ohms it might be running on a 25V supply so 24V off a battery might work well. I guess this is just for reasonably quiet personal practice away from home. 5W might be enough, if you don't mind losing something you got for free you could take a risk with 24V but by the time you smell burning you'll probably be too late.

Santa gave me a G30 wireless unit for Christmas and at the first gig I'm enjoying the total freedom to clown around when the bass disappears into a dull clacking sound. Quick change of lead, same result; signal leds lit up like a Christmas tree and signal getting through but still a dull clack. Out comes the old leads and plug in direct. Still the same sound. Total panic, thank god I brought the spare bass but as i reach out for the new bass I notice my tie, it's the first time I've worn a tie at a gig, which has managed not only to get caught in the strings but to weave itself over the E under the A and back over the G. [size=4] [/size]

It's probably easier to think of these as comb filtering problems. If you have two points radiating the same coherent wave energy then you get potential interference off axis due to the time delay between the two waves. Basically if the sound (or light or any other wave) has to travel further from one point than the other then it is going to arrive at a different part of the wave. If the difference is half a wavelength then the sound wave from one part of the speaker which is moving forwards arrives at the same time as the wave from the other side moving backwards, resulting in no sound at that frequency.There's loads of stuff on this if you google it but it soon gets into the maths http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comb_filter http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interference_%28wave_propagation%29 The phase problems we normally think of are just down to the distance separating the furthest points that are radiating the sound if they are less than a wavelength apart then no problem at that frequency. Above that you get cancellation off axis and eventually lobing. if the speakers are lined up vertically then the additional fall in off axis response will occur only in the vertical plane. So get the speakers as close as possible and put one on top of the other. There are loads of other comb filtering issues due to reflections from nearby hard surfaces reflecting sounds and even by diffraction from the cabinet edges.

Bill's spot on. If you look at the frequency plot on the SM212 spec sheet you'll see lots of minor lumps and bumps as well as the generally flattish overall shape. A different speaker will have its own lumps and bumps and they won't line up. Where they do you'll get the extra output you'd expect, where they don't one speaker will fill in for the falling output of the other. If the manufacturers charts were completely accurate and also made under exactly the same test conditions then you could theoretically line up the response charts and work out the combined response. In practice there are so many little resonances, and incomplete data, so the process isn't practicable. Even if you could do this it wouldn't really tell you subjectively what the speaker will sound like, the only way is to try it really. You don't really need to worry about amplifier load against frequency, most amps aren't going to struggle with two 8ohm speakers and it is the impedance chart and not the frequency response chart you should be looking at to determine load. Phase problems won't differ because you use different brands, that's really just about the distance between the radiating parts of the speaker, additional speakers will lose the top end response off axis more quickly because of this but it would be much the same for any two speakers of this size. I recognise the bug though, you want to try something different this time because you can. You'll end up with a perfectly useable 1x10 and the two speakers might work OK with each other they'll certainly make a louder noise. Sensibly another identical speaker would preserve your sound and give you a lot of headroom. I've gigged that set up and it is impressive, but if it were me curiosity would probably trump common sense. The best value mid price 10 seems to be the Beyma SM110, give it a look at least.

I confess to not having read all three pages so apologies if this isn't new. Our problem is indecision, people suggest loads of songs but we are all too polite to say 'that's awful' so the suggestion get's repeated forever or the awful song gets tried and sticks because we are all too polite again. Just as a bit of fun I started a selection process with an online survey, we all suggested three songs each and then individually ranked the 15 suggestions and tried the top 5. It was remarkably successful. It's anonymous so no hard feelings. To be a top five song at least three people need to love it and no-one hates it if it is to make the top three. It's quick and easy and no endless debating. We had a list of songs within a day of putting the survey up. Three of the five made the set after we jammed them out. What's interesting is how it affects band members, they think of what the rest of the band would like when making suggestions and what the audience will like when voting. Any obscure favourite songs just didn't get votes. We used https://www.smartsurvey.co.uk/ We're doing a couple more rounds

You do get what you pay for to an extent but the cheaper brands are improving. The Altos are reviewing well and although I haven't heard them the Behringers are improving. The technical problem with cheap speakers is that of expensive magnets and tight tolerance manufacturing. Cheap speakers tend to be limited in the bass levels they can produce, as a result the bass can be light or they can reduce the efficiency so the speaker keeps a good balanced response but won't go so loud. The Mackie Thumps do this, I've heard them sounding great with singer songwriter stuff but they just won't go as loud as the SRM's. The Alto's go to 123dB peak against 127db for the RCF's and you'll notice the 4dB if you are playing with a full rock band. I've heard the 112's and they are OK. good value but not up to the better makers, at over twice the price and not as good as your Mackies, the 110's will sound different of course. Do try them before you buy. To get an idea there's a direct sound comparison between JBL full price speakers and the Altos here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Iz-GnQ7PyhQ Another budget brand to go for might be Wharfedale. I recently bought some Titan12D's from Andertons for the ridiculously low offer price of £139 ea to use as backup floor monitors. They are an easy one hand carry and the vocal sound is amazing, if the cabinet didn't resonate like crazy on bass I'd use them as my main tops. Your singer isn't daft, three identical speakers using one as monitor is a great idea. For all the reasons suggested I think actives are the way to go. You could of course go for two RCF's and use one of the mackies on the floor until you can afford a third RCF but do try them before you buy.

There are advantages in going for active speakers, building the amp in means all the protection circuitry, eq and the crossover can be much more accurately matched to the speakers, this should make them more reliable and idiot proof, though if you put in poor drivers as the recent batches of Mackies seem to have they can still cause problems. The weight shouldn't be an issue with class D amps and switch mode power supplies either. Having said that a powered mixer and well specified passives should work just as well. The extra separate amp gives you advantages in redundancy and upgrading but if you buy right then you shouldn't need to do this anyway. The time you save setting up and knocking down after a gig is worth having too. Edit The RCF's you suggest are great I haven't heard the others. You won't notice any volume difference unless you decide to put bass and drums through them, the limited area of the speakers will then mean you need subs but they'll sit on these quite happily so no problems then either.

Nothing wrong with what you are proposing but if I was buying new and my tech knowledge was limited I'd go for a passive mixer and a couple of active tops. Having the amp matched to the speakers has technical and practical advantages which are worthwhile. They don't come up used very often though and people are unloading their old passives so they are relatively cheap used at the moment. Not all passives are equal though, the EV's mentioned above would be a good choice or some used Yamaha SM112V's would be cheap and use easily replaceable Eminence speakers if they ever go wrong. Not strictly accurate but they give a great vocal sound. If you want to read up on options http://www.ultimate-guitar.com/forum/showthread.php?t=1591207

I'd say you are looking at this the wrong way. If you changed to a different 2x15 you'd have a different sound. You might find it better or worse, massive or maybe not as massive as your current cab. Technically there is no reason at all for a 2x12 not to be able to do what you want but all of them are going to sound different to your current cab. That would be true of a new speaker of any size/combination. So, stop thinking about it and start trying out new speakers. Reject then ones you don't like the sound of and come up with a shortlist then compare them with each other and your original cab, then the answer will be clear.

If you are based in Taunton then it might be worth going to PMT in Bristol where they stock a lot of these speakers and you can try them out. I'd go for the RCF's every time, I did a straight comparison with the Yamahas and the RCF's are just a lot clearer on vocals because of using better drive units. I'd also back up the recommendation to go for 10's, or 12's at the biggest the 15" drivers suffer in the midrange which is the most important bit for vocals. The mackie Thumps are a cheaper speaker and a lot less sensitive than the SRM's

I'd second the sheer awfulness of the Peavey horn drivers in what are otherwise great value for money speakers.

When does a covers band start being a function band? One of the better places to look for genuinely working covers bands is Lemonrock.com , essentially a site for covers bands to advertise their gigs and tout for more. They'll range from weekend warriors up to professional function bands but they are all pretty much gigging bands as they pay to join, which cuts out a lot of the dreamers and bedroom players. I suspect the fully pro function bands expect you to read and advertise elsewhere, but there are plenty of the more professional covers bands doing mainly functions and charging good money for it.

Well the sound that got me hooked was Jamerson's playing but this tone from Martin Turner https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mUolWNHxRiM&list=PLHUOhawG5U2JW49r2Y11cIO8syOskd7j-&index=9 With a bit of this from the same man https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ia73dAETiGk

It's simple to wire with switched jack sockets, just wire the sockets in series so they short when the plug is pulled out.

[quote name='Beer of the Bass' timestamp='1418907073' post='2634677'] I've been pondering my gear needs and having a look over this thread. Currently I have a 2x12" cab loaded with a pair of 4-ohm B&C 12HPL64 drivers, wired in series for 8 ohms. This has good sensitivity and gets plenty loud enough for my needs even with moderately powered amps. The lows aren't massive on paper (it's 3dB down at around 75Hz), but in practice they're more than sufficient and I often roll off the bass EQ on the amp. It's a very light cab for its size and capabilities, but I think that most of what I do could be covered with a 1x12", occasionally adding a second one where needed. Portability is very important to me, as I live upstairs in a city centre flat. With that in mind, I've been looking at a few different options for one or two smaller cabs and comparing the specs against my current 2x12". In terms of tone, I don't need or want highs in the tweeter region but I like to hear plenty of upper mid, and I'm not bothered with trying to produce the lowest fundamentals. With that as background, would it be a crazy idea to think about reducing the volume of the cab using the SM212? Playing around with WinISD, reducing the volume to around 35-40 litres gives a midbass bump of just over 1dB (depending on tuning). Having played cabs with larger bumps, I feel that could be workable. Using the same volume but plugging the ports for a sealed design gives the expected smooth roll-off, but the maximum SPL of a pair of them is still very close to my existing 2x12" which has always been enough for me. It wouldn't be too hard to build one and try it both ways. Obviously these would be a compromise compared to the 50 litre design presented here, but it seems this could be an acceptable trade-off for my particular needs. [/quote] B & C drivers are as good as pretty much anything out there, so why not just try them in the smaller cab. I'm just having lunch so all I've done is look at the T/S parameters but I think they'd behave better in the 35l cab than the SM212's. Qts and Vas are lower than the SM212 which helps. Xmax for the SM212 is better and the frequency response is flatter but the response peak in the B&C is probably much better for a bass. The only problem I can see is that a single one would be 4 ohms and you'd need to wire one of the cabs so you could get a series connection to use them as a pair, they are Neo too so there's a weight saving, nice drivers.

I recently joined a new band, 30 new songs in a couple of months in my case. I was talking to our guitarist about how he coped and he pointed out that so long as the bass, drums and rhythm section keep going he can drop out or just chord out sections where he is unsure, solo's generally come over a simple chord sequence or even stay on one chord. Normally I find the basics of a song take half the time to learn, the last 5% takes almost as long as the rest of the song. As a bassist you pretty much have to know the whole song so the demands are slightly different.

You probably won't get everything you want at your price bracket. Lightweight stuff is fairly new and there isn't a glut second hand. Light,loud and cheap don't come together to make either. Cheap speakers lack the ability to move enough air to make loud bass sounds bigger or two speakers get there but at the cost of double the weight. this applies whether you have a combo or a separate amp. the compromise I use when I need light weight or something for a small stage is a Harke kickback (other amps are available) but the trick is to roll off the bass, which enables you to turn up without over driving the speaker. Pushing it against a back wall or even better into a corner means the walls reflect bass back into the room giving a bit of bass boost to compensate for the roll off in eq. If you can put a bit of bass through the PA then give it a bass boost to compensate for the cut of your stage amp. If that tone isn't acceptable then you only have two alternatives, play quieter or save up for a better combo. None of us has yet found a way of being loud, light, bassy and cheap. Sorry

K&M make good quality mic stands https://www.studiospares.com/Accessories/Stands-Mic/KM-21020-Mic-Stand-and-Boom-Black_408860.htm For a fraction of the price you can get the Studiospares own brand made in China version which is OK. You can get spares for both brands too.