Phil Starr

[quote name='Mykesbass' timestamp='1453208123' post='2957364'] I'm sure I'm not the only bass player who has had the accusing glare followed by "Why weren't you playing in the verse" from a guitarist in Alright Now [/quote] so true

Remember they can't play without a bassist I used to play cricket, couldn't bat, couldn't catch and only bowled a reliable medium pace but I joined a mate's team and played for 15 years. We eventually went a couple of seasons without a loss. Other people were the stars but 10 men against 11 and you lose every time. The point is that's what I do in covers bands as a bassist, keep an end going and plug up the holes. If you can lay down a steady rhythm and remember the chord sequence it won't matter if you play little more than root or root-fifth at first. For a covers band going out and fulfilling gigs is the most important thing in most bands. I've auditioned a few musicians for our covers band. We either send out the set list and let them choose or send out a list of four or five easy songs but covering our range of styles. You normally only get a week or so notice so you wouldn't expect anyone to have time for preparing more than that. It's pretty obvious from the start if they've put in any effort or are winging it and also if they are nervous. It just shows. Don't spread yourself too thin, four good songs will be better than a dozen poor ones All you need is a couple of minutes when everyone forgets they are auditioning and just get into a song and it's a good audition. Seeing that you fit in personally and don't have ego problems is probably much more important than messing up a bass fill. I auditioned with strangers a couple of years ago, god knows why they chose me, they told me after that they had looked at 16 bassists and I cant believe at least 10 of them weren't technically better players than me. I was enthusiastic, made lots of contact with the drummer, followed the singer when she was singing and the guitarist in his solos and rocked out with the rhythm guitarist, that seemed enough. If the band were looking for something different I doubt if I'd have been happy with them. you'll be fine so long as it's the right band for you. Good Luck

For me it's the lyrics first every time, if there are any. But I know I am in a small minority, I'm the only member of any of the bands I've played in who has any idea of what our songs are about. Including the singers one of which was an English and Drama teacher. In fact my first band had four English teachers in and they never had any idea what the songs were about. That gave me some fun when we performed Lou Reed's Vicious in front of 400 parents and children (it's about sado-masochism for our younger readers) I don't know how a singer can sing lyrics without meaning, I find it bizarre. It also leads to embarrassing discussions, I won't do certain songs because the lyrics are either dodgy, like the racist song Sweet home Alabama or just because the lyrics are really stupid. Currently about to fall out with the band because I can't face playing Alanis Morissette's Ironic. Funnily enough I listen to a lot of instrumental music and weep buckets when listening to some orchestral music. The Elgar Cello Concerto for instance gets me every time. Music alone really does have meaning and for me music gives the emotion and words the sense, the combination can be sublime.

You've had most of the factors; just vocals or instrument as well, experience, complexity (key changes etc), your willingness to use some of his songs etc. One thing you haven't mentioned is how much time he and you have to dedicate to the task, a weekend warrior is going to take longer than a full-time musician. In a start up band with a friend we set out to learn 3 songs a week. That worked out as one song we already both knew and two new ones a week. That takes you to 10 weeks or three months with a little slippage. That was hard work especially for Dom who worked full time. However neither of us are pro musicians. The trouble is that asking won't tell you much about the candidates, some musicians are hopeless dreamers even if they are talented and will offer to gig next week. Others who are more cautious won't want to let you down and will tell you six months, even if they are thinking 12 weeks. You might be better off talking about how they will go about learning the set and how the rest of the band can support them. So 12 weeks is do-able by most of us if we are committed. Any quicker might be possible with the right person and any longer might indicate either a lack of time or possibly commitment and you ought to explore that with them.

The advantages you'll gain will be something a little less than an extra 6db in overall sound output and a modular rig. Not knowing the excursion isn't really an issue, it hasn't worried you not knowing it for your current speaker and without knowing the frequency response of your bass, the eq you use and so on we don't know if excursion is a problem with this set up. In any case adding a second similar speaker to share the load will reduce the excursion for all the speakers at the same sound level. Bass extension probably won't change much but we don't know anything other than the vague 40-15,000Hz spec, how the cabs roll off at low frequencies isn't stated. In any case we don't know if you want more deep bass. This wouldn't be the best way to get it though. BFM is right about the tweeters but I'd assume you'd turn the one in the bottom cab off. The main objection to buying the 12 is that you need to try the speakers together before you know how it will sound. If you like your sound then another 2x10 would make sense, if you don't then auditioning other speakers might be more sensible. You might even want to think about 2 112's Listen before parting with your cash.

[quote name='CamdenRob' timestamp='1452673840' post='2952184'] Yes I only ask as with the new berg neo series coming out the old one (of which I have a 2x10) is going cheap and I quite fancied adding a 112 for the odd occasion I gig without PA support. I'm guessing there may also be issues with there being two 10s getting half the load and only one 112 there too though? I'm not really clued up on these things [/quote] OK that is clearer. If the 2x10 and the 112 are both 8ohms then there won't be a problem so long as both can handle half the amps power output. If either cab is 4ohms you could damage your amp or end up with reduced output. As above the sound you get will be different from either speaker on it's own, the only way is to try them together, preferably before buying and only if they are both 8ohms

It's fairly simple. The 'sound' of any instrument speaker is a result of peaks and troughs in their frequency responses. No speaker is truly even across the whole range so some sounds the bass produces will be emphasised whist others are washed out. Sometimes the very lowest and highest frequencies are so quiet they might just as well be missing altogether. the usual reason for mixing two different speakers is to get the best of both. However the troughs and peaks of one never line up with the troughs and peaks of the other so you can often end up losing the bits you like. Mixing speakers is a matter of trying things out without being able to predict the results, and that is irrespective of whether they are the same brand or different brands, they just have to be different. There's nothing bad about it, it's just a bit pot luck. some combinations work and others don't. It's an expensive way of trying to get 'the sound' though, better to find a speaker that does what you want and then get two if you want that sound but louder. There's a little bit of nonsense on Basschat about all this. A couple of designers on here selling their designs have made some broad statements which are then repeated by fans who love their products but without the deeper understanding of those who made the original statements. One word of caution though, there are a few technical issues about matching impedance, power handling and sensitivity which could cause problems. I'm really assuming that you would be mixing two 8ohm speakers of broadly similar sensitivity with each capable of handling at least half of the amps power.

[quote name='Lw.' timestamp='1452611615' post='2951639'] Put them in the loft as "they may become useful one day", only down side is when you move house & the other half see's them. Good-bye my trusty Laney combo, you served me well (she took it to the tip). Can you guess what I kind of need at the moment too? That's right, a cheap combo! [/quote] There's an [color=#282828][font=helvetica, arial, sans-serif]mk2 te commando 100w amp someone;'s trying to get rid of somewhere [/font][/color]

The B1on is a real boon. I've previously used a range of other options but this is the best so far. Aux input for learning songs, metronome and drum patterns built in for jamming or tightening up your timing, no need to find a tuner cos that's there too, plenty of headroom on the headphone output, and runs on rechargeables for a week or more so one less lead to bother about. The amp sims give you a pleasing sound through the headphones, it's easily robust enough for home use and it's cheap too. I sit next to my wife whilst she watches telly and it doesn't disturb her so long as I don't sing along It's one self contained box that does everything.

Good luck, this is an existential question for most of us. Be clear what you want and what you have to sell. Wedding/function band? How many gigs a year and how much do they pay? If you are offering several thousand pounds a year in opportunities you are looking for a professional/semi pro singer, probably trained and certainly experienced. The more gigs you do and the better paid they are the quicker you are likely to recruit. It may be worth chasing up local vocal coaches who often supplement their incomes with function work and who will also know a lot of local singers. There are professional magazines too if you can afford to advertise. The biggest problem with recruitment is that most musicians either lack confidence or are deluded as to their own talents. That means sometimes good people undersell themselves but more often you can't find good people amongst the hundreds who think fronting a band is just about holding a tune. Equally genuine singers looking for bands won't know how good you are unless you give them good factual information, including ideally recordings and video of the band. Try Bandmix as above but look for those with audio, if they have no recordings of themselves then they are either inexperienced, not computer literate or disorganised, it also saves the problem of auditioning someone who is clearly unsuitable. Sadly there are only 9 people active on Bandmix in the last 6 weeks around Edinburgh with audio. Bandmix charges for you to contact people and to put up useful stuff about yourselves so there may be other reasons why they haven't audio but that then turns up a lot of dreamers rather than useful contacts. Join My Band generally has a lot of contacts on but is completely unstructured so you have to wade through a lot of ads to find people, and you ads disappear after only a few days as new ones come in. you can buy ads that will stay at the top of the front page for a while. This is where you need to be be completely clear about what you are looking for. If you are looking to do a couple of gigs a week and are doing weddings where reliability and solid technique are important you want to weed out anyone who has little experience. I've found good people through this site but there are everything from kids starting out to professional session musicians there. I know a lot of function bands down here have a roster of singers and other musicians. you may have to look at deps who, if they regularly work for you, will become almost part of the band. Good luck.

[quote name='stevebasshead' timestamp='1452041454' post='2945902'] But (to the OP) don't make the mistake I did on my first ever speaker repair, don't use superglue. Use something which dries less brittle so the repair lasts... [/quote] I use Copydex for these sort of minor repairs to speakers, it's latex based so stays flexible and sticks well to cloth and paper pulp.

good luck with this. The Eminence Beta 12A-2 is perfectly adequate as a driver with a pleasing peak in the midrange and it will have a bit of bass warmth in a 45l cab so should sound nice. you'll only find it's limitations with high sound levels containing lots of deep bass where the excursion limits become important but that's probably at a level way higher than a drummer if you are using two. No-one sees the backs on stage so i rarely Tolex them for my own use. I'm a big fan of Tuff Cab having used it on one of my prototypes and it is wearing well on my gigging speaker, It's a whole lot easier than covering with Vinyl and you don't notice any difference on stage TBH.

About 40 gigs a year. Four basses an American Deluxe P, a Highway One Jazz with a J-Retro fitted and two i don't gig with, the Cort which was my starter bass and a Burny MIJ Thunderbird. I tend to use the J at home but the P for gigs with my current band who play all the corny pop-rock covers. The J sat more nicely in the mix with my previous band who were more pop orientated. The Cort sits in the van 'just in case' but i've never had a bass let me down.

[quote name='TimR' timestamp='1451900787' post='2944319'] I think the title of the thread is misleading. The objective is to gig with good music to an audience. What is different is you're creating a product that you don't know whether there will be a market for. In a business sense it's suicide, although you're not going to be investing hundreds of pounds in it so it's not a massive risk financially and could be well worth it. It's the kind of thing you see on the apprentice. "I want you to create a product from scratch and sell it." It's really backwards thinking. Really you should spot a gap, do some market research, see if there is an audience, then sell. [/quote]an intelligent comment though I disagree a little with your conclusions but gigging to an audience with good music you care about? No reason why that couldn't work. Over the years in covers bands I've noticed the strangest of songs going down well. It's hard to go wrong with Sex on Fire/Mustang Sally but my current band go down a storm with Hit The Road Jack, the one before with a fairly obscure Matchbox 20 song and you never know what the song of the night will be. It's different every gig. Most bands play some songs with more conviction than others and the audience will pick up on this. Play a song well, with energy and commitment and there's no reason why you can't take an audience with you. There's thousands of brilliant songs no-one covers which could form a great set. I sometimes think the covers market in the UK is a bit short sighted. The majority of bands seem to stick to a diet of 40 year old 'classic rock' with SOF and Dakota thrown in. That attracts a very limited audience, mainly male and middle aged. Nothing wrong with that other than they are all competing for the same audience so there is little money to be shared around. On the weekends where I don't gig I like to listen to live music. The trouble is I don't want to hear the 50th band in a row churning out their version of 'classic rock', not because I don't love the music of my own youth but because I'm just looking for something with a little variety. If it's all that is on offer I stay at home. So I think the OP could find gigs to be rewarding and an audience for their music. Not by ignoring the audience but by taking them with them. I'd love to listen to a band playing music they love well and introducing me to songs I didn't know or hadn't heard recently. If covers bands were more adventurous there might be a brighter future in what we do.

I've written an introductory guide in another forum http://www.ultimate-guitar.com/forum/showthread.php?p=31138246#post31138246 hope it is useful. My advice would be to start off with something relatively simple that will just do your vocals, then add as you go along. As well as mics/leads/stands you'll probably need some sort of vocal monitor so your singer will hear themselves over the band, you did say Foo Fighters didn't you ?! Best bet is probably a fairly cheap mixer and powered speakers to start. Probably 12"+horns The Behringer mixer is OK (I've used the 1204) but the Yamaha MG series mixers sound a bit better. The Mackie SRM's are OK but Yamaha,EV,JBL and Wharfedale are just as good. RCF and QSC are a step up. The Peaveys are cheap and reliable but the sound of old Peaveys is not up to modern standards. If you don't mind fiddling with separate amps and a few extra cables there's a lot of old passive speakers up for sale with a good sound for little money. I was using Yamaha S112V's until recently and they sound as good as pretty much any other pub band, we got a lot of encouraging comments about our vocal sound. We started with the Samson Q7 a few years back and they do the job at a bargain price but I'd recommend the AKG D5 at it's current price as a vocal mic. Bargain.

The cab I had was fitted with speakers that had aluminium domes. They weren't marked and there are a wide range of models produced over the years sharing the same magnet but with all sorts of variations of drivers. The 1501DT has an aluminium dome and i assumed that's what they were but I've also used a 1505DT. the original ally ones certainly had more bite and the 1505 is designed for bass with an immense old school sound. Xmax (excursion) is 4mm which is better than some of the other models. I have no data on the 1508. Others may come along with more information.

Does this include all the songs your band say they want to play but no-one else gets round to learning? (sigh)

Hmm one reason people are snappy about things is that they are feeling very defensive and threatened. You've said this guy is a learner and well down on the skills the rest of your band have. He may be incredibly tense in a band situation and covering that in bluster, talking about his tone may well be just a misplaced plea to be considered seriously as a musician. Do the other guys want to keep him in whist he develops? If so then you probably need to work together to bring him round. Guitarist and singers rarely really listen to what the rest of the band are doing, ("do you like the new bass line for that song?", "sorry I didn't notice")

Typically we've wandered off the OP's request a little. There's no reason why one of these mini line array systems couldn't be made to work. For vocals or indeed most of what a band needs you don't need to go up to anything like 20kHz and with a compact sub. there's the possibility of crossing over at pretty much any point you want so something like a 3" main speaker can handle the frequency range pretty well. The technical advantage of any line array, a shaped radiation pattern with a reduced dropping off in sound level with distance from the speaker is all good too. There's some technical hurdles though. Most of the speakers designed for use in these systems are of fairly low efficiency so you need a lot of them, pushing up the size and cost of the final system. If you've typically got a 3" speaker then the voice coil is small and the power handling reduced so again lots of speakers. Even a 3" speaker will be limited at the top end so you have to compromise the design or think about a tweeter. Conversely high frequency horns are really efficient, 110dB for 1W isn't unusual, so this is a really cheap way of producing high level high frequency sounds. Then there's that phrase 'compact sub' Smaller speakers are less efficient at producing bass and limiting the cab size ultimately reduces bass output. A lot of these systems use DSP to boost the bass so the response stays level, Eventually a small bass speaker, however good, runs out of excursion so the DSP will manage and ultimately limit bass getting through to the speaker. Ultimately this means these systems are limited in total sound output. You could get round it by spending a lot of money on exotic drivers and doubling up on subs but then you are getting into really high end prices. In the end they can be great for the acoustic performer or restrained acts but not for a full blooded rock band unless you are prepared to pay thousands. I looked into designing a system like this for myself. It just makes more sense to use something like 8+horns as satellites and a smallish conventional sub but crossing over at a slightly higher frequency than the usual 100Hz if you want something you can use with the usual pub band as you can get compact but loud at a bearable cost. the RCF ART408 goes to 126dB so with a sub might be a good approach http://www.rcf.it/en_US/products/pro-speaker-systems/art-4-series/art-408-a-mkii This is a useful article [url="http://www.soundonsound.com/sos/dec12/articles/spotlight-1212.htm"]http://www.soundonso...tlight-1212.htm[/url]

Just noticed they also do a cardioid version https://www.studiospares.com/product/469490?mc_cid=b3b45623b1&mc_eid=b1b33547eb £10 more but probably better if you play and sing at the same time as they are likely to be slightly less sensitive to people like me who can't stand still whilst singing. Might be more waht you are used to if you've moved from the SM58 which is also cardioid. It uses the same capsule though so should sound similar.

[quote name='skidder652003' timestamp='1450202646' post='2930512'] Yep got 3 of them, great mics! Bombproof [/quote] Steve is a famous breaker of speakers, if he says they are bomb proof........

Hmm choosing speakers on the basis of the colour? I'd think protecting his car is about size and weight rather than being grey and plastic. The other option to plastic is wood which is heavier and less forgiving when you bang things. The solution for a smaller lighter better sounding PA than the Mackie's is a quality speaker and probably a 10. The QSC K10 and the RCF 710 keep coming up for a reason. They are probably the smallest speakers that will reliably do what you want and both sound great. Add a sub and you are good for almost any situation indoors.

There's few of us can stay with a band which is doing less than it's best, whatever the niggle. I'm one for talking about things, talk to the other band members first, one of them may have an opinion and/or the ability to influence the errant guitarist. A band only works if you work together. State your problems simply and calmly if you get compromise then great. If not you have to decide whether it is something you can put up with or leave. One word of warning, once you have raised an issue you can't put it back in the box. It looks like I might be leaving my band today

If you are in a band with a drummer who uses normal sticks the Bose is going to struggle. What is he going to put through the PA? just his vocals or anything else. What is his budget? Frankly I think he'd probably be better off with a couple of grey boxes in terms of functionality. If he goes for RCF or QSC's then he could go down to a 10" box like the RCF HD 10-A's and these might fit into his house and sound better than the Mackies as well as being smaller. If he is just practising at home then why set up the PA? He could just get a personal monitor (I use the TC Voice Solo) which just clips onto a stand and can be used as a live monitor. It has a decent sound and goes loud enough to push you well into feedback levels, even set on the floor in a decent sized room (20'x16'). It also allows you to mix in backing tracks.

B1ON does everything you want, runs for days on batteries including rechargeables and has all sorts of useful extras including a metronome, drum patterns and a tuner. Sounds good through headphones too and is plenty loud enough and you can get a good mix whatever bass you use. It's one of those things that just works. Well made for the price too.