Phil Starr

[quote name='skidder652003' timestamp='1423167941' post='2681785'] Hey Phil, I can bring the ampeg head to test the cab would be great if you could sort this matey! [/quote] Hi Steve, This looks like a runner now. We've been playing a few gigs down your way recently, mostly private functions in the Rec but you'd be welcome if you get a gap in your own gigs. Hope it's going well with you. Phil

Your speaker cab won't hum by itself, it is coming in from the amp, though the amp may in turn be amplifying something coming in from the bass. There are really three most likely sources of hum the most common is through the long stretches of wire (mainly your leads and the wire in the pup's) before you reach the amp picking up radiation, radio waves usually but direct pickup of magnetic fields is also possible. The second possible source is in earth loops. The third is introduces via your power supply in the amp (or anything else you have connected) Do you use fx, unplug them all and see if the problem clears, even the tuner! Do you get hum with nothing plugged in to the amp or is it only when the guitar is plugged in? Leave the amp on for a while with nothing plugged in and the gain high whilst you get on with something else If it doesn't hum the amp isn't likely to be the problem You've said you've tried other leads, basses and amps and sometimes it goes. I've found when people bring me this problem that they haven't been very systematic (it's usually under panic conditions at a gig). What other gear is near your amp? I've had the transformer in one amp radiating so much hum it is picked up in the next one. Do you have cooling fans in any amp that come on and go off when it is cool, Basically you need to be able to create the hum at will to know what is causing it. Coincidentally my mobile has just made my computer speakers buzz, another source of intermittent strange noises. good luck, let me know what you find.

[quote name='Nicko' timestamp='1423063555' post='2680197'] I'm not sure why I keep seeing the same discussion on 10, 12 or 15". Is it placebo or is it science? What really matters is whether you're happy with the sound. I appreciate you have limited access to decent music shops but please do yourself a favour and actually go and try the kit out before you decide. I can't honestly say that I hear much difference between equivalent speakers, same manufacturer of different sizes [/quote] This is the best advice ever. Don't obsess about the diameter of the speaker, or brand or the dodgy published specs, for just about everybody it is best to just listen to the kit and if it sounds good to you it is good. However as one of those people with a bit of science it is frustrating that people keep repeating the same old folklore, including some of those who pose as experts. The science is really very simple and the headline is that size matters, but not that much. Much like gender specific parts of the human body. If you want an analogy it is probably better to think in terms of cars and vans. Does the size of the engine matter, Yes, it does. If you want something to go faster you put in a bigger engine. Does that mean a London Bus can go faster than a Formula 1 car? No it doesn't. Do all 1.5litre engines behave the same way? Again obviously not. Engine designers have a lot of variables like compression ratios, fuel systems and so on that they can tweak to produce engines that will do different jobs. Speaker designers look at coil designs, magnet systems, suspensions and the like to do different jobs too. You wouldn't choose a vehicle solely on the basis of engine size unless you want to transport your bands gear in a Porche solely because it has a bigger engine than the Transit van you looked at first. Taking the car analogy further, manufacturers do it for the money. You could make cars in an infinite variety of cars but there are a preponderance of just a few types, the stylish mini, the sensible economical hatchback, the Chelsea tractor and so on. Most cars are just 'me too' variations on a successful theme. So most speaker manufacturers will make you a 2x10, and to match there rivals they will make them a similar size and then put in similar drivers so they can match their rivals costs. Guess what, they sound pretty similar too. Hopefully this helps people understand a little. Speaker size does matter, just like engine size, but all 10" speakers aren't the same any more than all 1.5l engines produce the same power and torque. Beware of anyone giving you an absolute statement, all other things being equal a 15 will be louder than a 10, but there are 'quiet' 15's and loud 10's. Even the statement about dispersion is wrong, not all 15's or any other size speaker have the same dispersion as they don't all act as rigid pistons. All things being equal bigger speakers will be louder, bassier, heavier, have less treble and worse dispersion but all things won't be equal so you have to try them. If you think 15's have a 'sound' then you are only half right. A lot of 15's sound fairly similar but there are plenty of exceptions. Mostly they are more expensive.

The limiting factor with what you have is the power available. The PV 15's will easily handle the kick, especially if the 15's have the Black Widow drivers but you will run out of power before the speakers run out of excursion. You could fiddle around with the eq, filter off the power hungry low bass from the kick and boost the 80-150Hz range to give a good thump, then roll off the top end to lose a bit of the slap. The other thing to look at is the mic placement, move it around and you'll be surprised how the sound changes, just shoving it anywhere in front of the kick isn't good enough really if you want a decent tone. Old PV speakers aren't particularly good for vocals either. They are fantastically reliable, esp for the money but the horn drivers just don't cut it for vocals IMO. I'd look to change up the whole system at some point rather than spending on something which does a job but ultimately needs upgrading completely if you want a better sound. Homework for you https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uyQhWj2xuB0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jOHduVBqGeM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=crp0yx24io4

[quote name='yorks5stringer' timestamp='1422875903' post='2677715'] I'll come along.... if I'm not gigging which would be unlikely...! [/quote] That'd be good, I'll see who might make it then look for a pub central to as many people as possible.

[quote name='Woodinblack' timestamp='1422873082' post='2677664'] I would assume it would be a lot harder getting people on a weekend evening as it restricts the range of the people who can attend, but if you want to organise something, then put out a prospective day and location and see who can attend. I certainly couldn't do exeter on a weekday, but maybe there are a few people down that area. [/quote] Whereabouts in Somerset are you? I'd have thought quite near here You don't get more bottom end than Chard

HELP I'm desperate to organise a meet up to try out the Basschat 1x12 speakers I've designed. [url="http://basschat.co.uk/topic/227904-1x12-cab-design-diary/"]http://basschat.co.u...b-design-diary/[/url] This could be part of the meet up you are talking about or an extra that you'd all be welcome to. I live halfway between Chard and Axminster but practice with my band in Exeter and I'd be happy to do the organisation. Effectively you'd be testing out the beta version of the cabs for me before I build the final version and release the designs, which will be provided free of charge to everyone via Basschat. I'd bring along some basses (American Deluxe P and highway one J) and an amp but would love any other amps/basses to test the speakers with. Ideally I'd want to get on and organise this quickly so the designs can go out, and midweek would be great as one of the delays has been busy weekends gigging but I'm pretty flexible. TBH if I thought I'd get half a dozen people I'd go ahead.

Fair Question. The position I'm in is that I've been successfully gigging the prototypes for several months but so far have failed to get anyone else to try the speakers. I'd prefer to give other bassists the chance to try them out and comment before I release the design, in case they need a bit of tweaking. I'm down on the Somerset/Devon/Dorset border and ideally I'd like to set up an evening in a local pub, set up and let people come along and have a try. I'd even provide the basses! (American Deluxe P, Highway One J, Japanese T'Bird) If anyone is up for that let me know.

Open Mics are a bit Marmite (you either love em or hate em Blue) I love the idea of musicians getting together just to play music and everyone doing a 'turn', but i'm just an old hippie really. If I'm on holiday in the UK I'll look out for them as an excuse to have a fun evening in the pub chatting with local musicians. We even got invited to appear on the local radio station last year after playing at a pub in Penzance The music standard is so variable, but I love that. I really enjoy watching people progress from their first song in public through to an accomplished set a couple of years later and my experience is that musicians are a pretty supportive bunch. Round here in the Dorset/Somerset area a number of open mics are run under the banner of Howl Open Mics. Pretty much acoustic and I was about the first to take a bass along I think. A lot more since then though. We used it to get a set together, learn three songs at rehearsal then down to the pub to try them out on an audience. Elijah the host is pretty fair in trying to get everyone who wants up on stage, there's a bunch of regulars who he'll manage to fill the gaps and/or lift the show but there's priority to get new people on and lots of support for nervous performers. Good musicians will often accompany others but it's generally more about people doing their songs than a jam session. We got gigs out of it and I played a couple more with a band formed from people I met at the open mics. I get along to fewer now because of band rehearsals and gigs but it's great to get started or to get back into music after a break and I miss the camaraderie a bit. Open mics vary from a house band doing their practice in public with a couple of mates singing a song or two through an open jam session to a series of acoustic guitarist/singers doing corny covers. You just have to go along and take pot luck but I'm a fan, and any chance to play, well I'm still keen.

Nothing much original to add in the way of songs but I think an encore needs to bring a definite ending. If you've been rocking and the audience have all been up dancing then more of the same simply brings them asking for.... more of the same, so you have the same problem until you run out of songs or you leave them still asking for more, and ultimately without their proper climax (ooh er ). Play them a big sing along anthem and they seem to go home happy. With my last band With Or Without you did the trick and the added bonus is that you can repeat the chorus until they can sing no more. Hit the Road Jack works for us in the current band again because it stands out as different from everything that went before. My Indy/Pop band finished with All Along the Watchtower with the guitarist shredding until they'd had enough, again it worked because it was a change of pace/genre. In my disco days we ended with My Old Man's a Dustman, which really was a little different, but it worked strangely.

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