Phil Starr

[quote name='chris_b' timestamp='1448584776' post='2916716'] Phil, I'm not disagreeing with you. But some people seem to be questioning the use of more powerful amps and observing you don't need more than 200 watts. My view is that if I was using 200 watts I'd have a 500 watt amp just ticking over and not a 200 watt amp running flat out. [/quote] No, I didn't think you were but genuinely didn't get what you were saying Having a technical background I'm happy to have an amp that covers me for all my needs and I don't personally fret too much about Power ratings, Amplifier watts are so cheap nowadays that no-one really needs to go around with too few watts. Most bass amps seem to cluster around the 300W into 4ohm level and that really is plenty to keep up with the band. The difference between 200W and 300W isn't really significant either so if I was looking for a new amp and it sounded great but was 'only' 200W it just wouldn't put me off. If I played a five string and used lots of bass boost and knew my speakers were inefficient if might be an issue but like you I wonder what situation people are playing in where they 'need' 500W. On a pure technical level the just over 1dB increase in going from 2 to 300W just doesn't make the difference people think. Equally amps come with a volume control so if it costs little different you might as well go for a powerful amp and turn it down a little. My advice has always been to choose based on sound not the specs.

[quote name='mr zed' timestamp='1448276966' post='2914036'] I seem to recall a string manufacturer (Dean Markley?) Cryogenically treating bass strings. Did anyone try them & if so did this process help to keep the twang for longer? [/quote] Yep their Blue Steels. They certainly last much better than Roto's without that initial zing, which I don't like much anyway. I'm running a set of these at the moment on a Jazz against some Elixirs on my P. I preferred the sound of the Blue Steels at first though the sound is similar to the Elixirs. I'd say the Elixirs are sounding a little better now after 6 months so the BS's must be degrading a little. I love the sound of month old Roto 66's but found I needed to change them after 3 months when they ent dead, I reckon year old Dean Markley BS's sounded better than three month old Roto's if that helps, so worth the extra cost IMO.

[quote name='chris_b' timestamp='1448561604' post='2916508'] Are you suggesting that is 200w out of a 200w amp? [/quote] Sorry i don't really understand what you are asking 200W gives you 23dB over 1W. So 200W into a speaker that gives 97dB per watt will give 120dB so long as the speaker will handle 200W, which is roughly the same volume as a drummer. That's all I was saying.

[quote name='Beer of the Bass' timestamp='1448548250' post='2916360'] Discussion of amp requirements on bass forums always seems strangely unrelated to the world I tend to gig in! I have never owned a rig capable of more than 200 watts, but any time I've lacked volume or headroom it was as much down to the speakers as the amp. Out of the gear I've owned, a combo doing around 130 watts into an undersized sealed 1x12" often ran out of steam, and a 200 watt SS head into a ported 1x10" could also be underwhelming in some contexts (but great for others). I started playing with a 50 watt valve head into a sealed 1x15" and that was often dirtier than I wanted it. But a 100 watt valve head or the 200 watt SS head into a reasonably efficient ported 2x12" seemed enough for pretty much everything I've done. Some of those bands have been with drummers who in my opinion are quite loud, though I've never played in the heavier rock or metal genres. Have I just been extremely lucky with my bandmates? [/quote] Not really, just look at what you are comparing. 130W into a single sealed 12 with 200W into a ported 2x12. Now even if the speakers were identical you are comparing chalk and cheese. I'll explain A ported cab will give you an extra 3dB of bass, 3dB is like turning from 10 to 11 200W will give you nearly an extra 3dB as you have nearly doubled the power so now you've turned to 12! Doubling the speakers you've now got mutual coupling, so better efficiency and you've possibly halved the impedance to 4ohms, so you've got between 3 and 6dB extra volume. Add all this together and you've potentially added 12dB but at least 10dB. That's twice as loud, which you'd need to use 10x the power to achieve with your sealed 12. Good luck with putting 1300W through a single 12. But, you are right about the strange powers people seem to think they need. 120dB is going to get you to the volume of a drummer. You don't need to be louder than the drums. 200W through a decently efficient but unexceptional speaker will give you 120dB.

[quote name='SPHDS' timestamp='1448478778' post='2915801'] Now...there's an idea.....! ;-) Cheers for all the advice! To be fair, we are making a point to try and play at as low a volume as possible in practice - small room, so trying to be able to 'hear' ourselves (Vocals and Axes) trying to minimise feedback through the PA etc....one of our guitarist's amp is being run at about 25W (Vox Valvetronix with some weird variable power jobbie on it......) so the Ashdown is hardly conscious, let alone breaking a sweat.....even when the drummer is 'on one......' (you try telling an Italian to calm down......) So would something about 50W cope in the mix? [/quote] Well it depends upon just how low they turn down. You are going to lose 3dB, which is the equivalent of turning it down a notch. If you had super efficient speakers you'd get away with it but smaller speakers tend to be less efficient at bass. If you then went for a 1x10 you'd lose at least another 3dB. If you go that low what you gain in amplifier weight you'd lose in needing bigger speakers probably. Coincidentally I'm looking for a lightweight, compact solution for the odd practice and open mic and semi acoustic gigs. It's the combination of wattage, speaker efficiency and tone that determine whether something cuts through or not. My single 12" cabs I use for gigs would go loud enough with 50W but you don't get speakers like that in most combo's. Another solution is to look for a lightweight cab and a lightweight amp. I'm looking at a Little Mark 111. If you can spare £1000 then there's always the AER Amp One

Get the drummer to carry the amp for you Seriously, if he is going to go at gig levels then you are pretty much forced to play at gig levels. I rehearse with a 1x10 Hartke kickback with the bass rolled off and the mids forward, but unless you are going to go for something a lot higher in price than the Ashdown anything much smaller is going to struggle, unless you can get them to ease off on the volume. Which you should for all sorts of other reasons of course.

Here's my experience. Playing an instrument as a beginner is boring once you get over the original burst of enthusiasm. There are only a few things you can do so unless you are OCD constant repetition of a few riffs, scales or simple songs just isn't very rewarding. Keep going and of course one or two songs expands to a dozen then much, much more. Now your practice isn't boring and it's easier to do more as a result. At this point you can start looking for other people to play with and that brings its own pleasures. When I was younger I never had the staying power to stick with an instrument long enough to cross that hump. Coming back to it I just managed to get to the point where I could contribute to a band, started gigging a few months later and I can't imagine ever being bored again. So, choose an instrument and stick with it. Learn whole songs, nothing wrong with scales except they are so dull. Playing along with whole songs is fun. Bass and drums aren't really solo instruments so get out playing with other people as soon as you can. Intellectually you know that but realising it emotionally the first time you play in a band and it works is a whole other level.

Maybe it's a velcro jacket

As a gigging covers band we also only need a slightly more polished version of what we do live. I've always just gone in recorded a few live takes and then overdubbed the guide vocal from the original take. Cost is a factor when you are probably only getting £250 a gig. All three of my bands have had a very similar experience. You go in and spend a couple of hours setting up, mainly on the drums. Then we run through a song, record a take, listen and go again if we aren't happy. Then singers go in and record the vocals. We've only needed the second take once luckily enough so generally we've comfortably got 5 songs down by lunchtime, and usually just the three best are mixed down by the end of the afternoon. When I'm looking for a studio just some examples of the engineers work and a guide to price is all I need, and someone who'll ring back promptly. Surprisingly some studios still don't offer a very well maintained web site. The first time you have no idea how efficient the process can be so a cost per hour can look daunting. A special offer of say four hours recording with a mix of the best three songs looks a lot less scary if you haven't done it before. I'd go on the local music websites and do a 'special offer' there. Round here Lemonrock would reach just about all the local gigging, and hence semi pro, bands but I don't know which cover your area.

[quote name='Paul S' timestamp='1448264700' post='2913945'] Above waist level? This fella used to, don't suppose many people pointed and laughed. [/quote] Right elbow clamped to the bass body left hand clinging to neck, I recognise that stance

[quote name='Twincam' timestamp='1448241649' post='2913927'] I'm wondering what the point of amps in the 50 to 100w? [/quote] I reckon that's a more reasonable question than the original one. 50W is 6dB less loud than a 200W amp and that is significant. If your speakers produce a fairly typical 96dB per watt then thats a total of 119dB for the 200W amp but only 113dB for a 50W amp. you need about 120dB as a rule of thumb to match a drummer and you won't notice 1dB either way. We don't always play with drummers of course, rock isn't the only music so you don't always need a huge amp and I have a 1x10 120W combo bought especially for just that use. I could imagine using something like the Roland Cube for the same job and a lot of upright bass players use small amps to just beef up their sound. Never say never. However a lot of manufacturers offer these small combo's and they are a con, too loud for home practice not enough for most gigs, driven by marketing to young bassists starting out (and parents who are often actually paying) who don't have the knowledge to know that 50W isn't twice as good as 25W.

i've had a look at that speaker from Thomann, it's not suitable and your bass will blow it in no time it's for backgroud music in shops and restaurants. If that is your budget you are going to struggle. You can't afford a WEM Dominator but the guitar versions speakers won't handle bass either. The Roland Cube is an interesting suggestion. A friend has the 50W guitar version and it has a fairly flat basic response which you need for bass and relies on the inbuilt simulation software to make guitar like sounds. A high quality acoustic guitar amp would do the same but without the built in SIM's. However few speakers designed for guitar will really handle bass except at very low levels and I don't think you want to be shelling out for replacements every few months. A small PA or single active PA speaker is a good idea combined with something that will give you guitar tones. The Zoom G1ON or G1XON are great value and fab little units https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HiDu1Sa0ngU If you are going for a single combo rather than the PA idea I'd go for a bass amp with a G1ON or similar.

[quote name='blue' timestamp='1447452557' post='2907834'] What is neck dive? I gig with a 1991 Gibson Thunderbird. I just put it on and play. Nothing is diving. Blue [/quote] It may not be a problem for you, and I'm happy to hear that. That doesn't alter the fact that the centre of gravity of a T'bird is well to the right of the centre point between the two strap buttons (in a right handed bass). It's also slightly forward of the centre line hence the bass twists. If you use a normal strap and walk around without holding your T'bird the neck will dive and eventually make contact with the floor. The number of T'birds for sale with repaired necks is testament to that and is one of the first things to check if you buy a used one. The forums are full of discussion about this and people (including eventually Gibson) have routinely moved the upper strap button to cure the problem you say doesn't exist. I'm sure you can get used to anything and I understand why people love this bass. Apart from looking cool they have a great sound, wonderful sustain a fabulous neck and weigh nothing compared to the usual culprits. I run the PA as well as playing bass, I dance and get the audience clapping along during our show so a bass that moves is no good for me at a practical level. I need both hands for my performance. Clamping the strap to the body effectively creates a new fixing point for the strap and the centre of gravity then sits on the centre line for the two strap fixings, problem cured.

Stop worrying about it. Bill is of course spot on, the current increases as you reduce the impedance and with it the heating in the output stages of your solid state amp. However they are designed with this in mind usually with lots of output transistors working in parallel and lots of heatsinking and often a cooling fan. On top of this there will be protection circuits which detect temperature rises and reduce the output power accordingly. Digital (actually switching but who cares) amps are often more efficient than traditional solid state amps so don't get so hot, but the same principles are used. My reservation is operating amps down below 4ohms. Some amps won't handle that current and that really is a lot of amperage for components to handle. At least check before inflicting this on your amp. Generally you'd just use a different amp and speakers or double up if you want to engineer that much sound and I can't think you'd need to go to 2ohms outside of a specialist PA application. Wear and tear isn't something to think about with solid state amps. there aren't any moving parts (cooling fans excepted) so nothing to wear. Components will degrade over time but they'll do this anyway even if you keep the amp in a box. Some degrade slower and some quicker with no use but basically I doubt you'd see much difference between a 20 year old amp with heavy use at 4 ohms and one used rarely at 8ohms.

As everyone has said look at spl levels first, and unlike bass speakers you can usually find these out. Unless you have a pressing reason not to then I'd go for an active system preferably with some sort of DSP (digital signal processing) built in. With the amp and speaker designed to work together and a computer controlling the output so you can't damage the speakers you are going to squeeze every last drop out of the drive units. Incidentally this is why you get such variation in wattage ratings, basically a 12" drive unit can only handle around 300W (and not that much in the bottom octave) and produce a sound level of around 127dB. However if you limit the frequencies and only apply power for a few thousandths of a second and then compress all the frequencies that might damage the speaker you can kind of cheat by upping the average power and then trimming the signal all but inaudibly to cover the peaks. The DSP computer does all this automatically but sound engineers have been doing this manually for years. It then pays to fit a 1000W amp to a 300W speaker but the amp will only need to give short bursts at this level. Neither the built in amp or the speaker are really 1000W but that's a bit irrelevant, they go really loud and the DSP stops them blowing or even distorting too much, however badly you treat them. you won't notice a lot of difference between ones rated 300W, 600W or 1000W. I'm another who would go for RCF especially the ones with the 2" horn drivers. I auditioned most of the major brands a year ago and they really stood out in the way they reproduced middle frequencies and edged it over QSC's IMO. Much better than Yamaha, EV, JBL, Mackie and the like. However any of these can give you a good sound which will be more likely to be limited by the mic's you use and the lack of time, and often skill, a pub band has to set up and get a decent mix.

Good luck

[quote name='Beer of the Bass' timestamp='1447534959' post='2908455'] Is there an issue fitting in enough port area with that volume? I've noticed when playing around with WinISD that it can be a bit of a juggling act with smaller cabinets. [/quote] Yes, though at a practical level the potential length of the ports is at least as tricky the port can end up longer than the cab! i ended up with quite small ports which potentially give you a bit of port noise at low frequencies. It's all about which compromises you choose to make The proof of the cab is in the hearing

You need to completely bypass the tweeter. The easiest and reversible way to do this is as follows. Open up the cab probably by removing the 12" speaker. Locate the tweeter, main driver, speaker socket, and crossover. you should have a set of two wires going from the socket to the crossover and then one set going to the tweeter from the crossover and one set going from the crossover to the main driver. If not then don't panic but ask again. If you can solder then I'd desolder the main speaker connection at the speaker and the lead to the crossover at the socket. Then I'd connect the speaker directly to the socket with new wires. That way you can simply resolder the cab back to original and remove your new wires if you want to sell your cab. If you can't solder and don't mind bodging in a less than ideal way then what you can do is cut the lead/wires from the socket to the crossover a few centimetres from the crossover and the leads to the main speaker also close to the crossover. Now if you are lucky they will be colour coded the same way. Connect the cut leads together so that like goes to like. It is essential that the connection is completely secure and that the exposed joins can't touch and short circuit or you could blow your amp. It's messy but you could use connector block (chocolate box) or some crimp connectors as used in car electrics (I can feel Bill shuddering at this point). Don't trim the wires in case you want to reconnect them. If you get the wires the wrong way round the speaker will work but if you use it with a second correctly wired speaker you will lose all your bass. If this happens reverse the connections to the main speaker. Try the speaker at VERY LOW VOLUME whilst it is still out of the cab, it will sound tinny but you at least will know it is working. Finally tidy up all the loose wires inside or they will rattle once you start playing and put the cab back together. Alternatively take it to a tech who will do the job in 20 mins and only charge a few quid. It's not a difficult job but it has to be at your own risk. Do you feel lucky

Funnily enough you've caught me messing around on WinISD with smaller cabs. A 35l cab looks interesting, roughly 1dB up from 100-200Hz but 3dB down at 40-70Hz. I think if I really wanted to go for a lightweight cab then reducing the size and compromising on deep bass looks interesting, you'd lose about 3kg and the panels would be inherently more rigid. I find that size affects portability just as much as weight.

[quote name='stevie' timestamp='1447511926' post='2908204'] On the matter of cutting the holes for the port tubes, I bought an adjustable hole cutter recently for less than a fiver which may not be the last word in pro tools, but will do the job perfectly well. It might take a few tries on some scrap pieces of wood to get the size spot-on, but it's not too difficult to do. [url="http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Handy-Adjustable-Metal-Hole-Saw-Round-Circle-Cutter-DIY-Tools-Accessory-/252069704389"]http://www.ebay.co.u...y-/252069704389[/url] [/quote] I use one of these http://www.toolstation.com/shop/p45494?table=no either look good for the job. Building the slot port design was slightly trickier than building the tube ported design so I'd agree with the decision to go that way. I'll offer notes on how to build the slot ported design as others may prefer to build that. It does look very nice IMO but I'd rather go the trouble free route.

Don't buy a bass amp. Clean is a subjective term, what you are asking for is flat. The sound of the bass DI'd into the PA, though when you hear your bass through a ruler flat system you may decide you did want subjectively 'clean'. Your best bet for the DI'd sound is a PA amp and speaker. For that budget you could buy something like a single RCF or similar. Maybe a good quality floor monitor. I'm guessing that you have monitored through good quality headphones? If not I'd try it just to check that this really is the sound you want. Don't go for a cheap quality PA though, the bass drivers often won't handle high levels of bass due to limited excursion on the bass driver.

[quote name='LukeFRC' timestamp='1447357499' post='2907082'] forgive me for daftness - and maybe it's something simple - but maybe the ports and 15mm are a better method of construction? (and lighter) [/quote] Not daft at all and I'm trying to modify the design by absorbing people's comments so they are all welcome I've given details of both so people can make a choice if they want to construct one of these. I'll include notes of both in the final write up too. Personally I prefer the 18mm construction with the tube ports, but I have a proper hole saw to cut the ports. Both cabs are an easy carry anyway.

[quote name='Thunderpaws' timestamp='1447353666' post='2907030'] What type of woodwork joint did you use for the slot port at the sides and with the bracing? Could it be vibrating at certain frequencies? [/quote] I think it's probably a standing wave problem as explained above. The joints are all reinforced butt joints, chosen to be easy to replicate for a home builder with limited tools.

[quote name='tauzero' timestamp='1447363858' post='2907161'] Taking a simplistic approach, the wavelength at 750Hz (which is where it looks like the resonance peak is) is about 46cm, so are there any bits of the cab that measure 46cm apart, or possibly 23cm? [/quote] Not simplistic at all. The baffle is about 45x40cm with the shelf of the port at the end of the baffle, so that is the simplest explanation and that critical point had no damping material at the time of the test so that will be my first port of call. I think we have set up some extra standing wave resonances in the changes we made to this cab. It's a problem with small cabs with biggish drivers that you end up with all the dimensions determined primarily by the need to get everything in and not by acoustic considerations. I'm also gong to put in some simple cross bracing into the 18mm cab. I had particularly wanted to compare an unbraced 18mm cab with a fairly heavily braced 12mm cab. Interestingly the 12mm cab vibrates far more than the 18mm cab and you can both hear it and feel it with your fingers. A single test on similar but not identical cabs proves nothing of course but I've always argued that mass is an important factor in panel resonance. What I've found so far bears this out.

Yes, the 18mm slotted which is the green one on the graph. Stevie's initial thought was that it was the driver, since the volume of the box and the tuning were the same. It now looks like it is something about the box which is creating the resonance. Frustrating but I'm glad we found it before publishing the design. We are investigating..... I'm hoping it is something simple.