Phil Starr

The stew mac video was really helpful [url="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rTVScFJoe24"]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rTVScFJoe24[/url] . In the end I did the lot with superglue, actually it polishes to a higher shine than the lacquer. The patches show but only because they are not yellowed and because the wood was stained. I could have sanded out the stains before I filled but since I am only interested in playability not cosmetics I decided to leave as much wood and lacquer untouched as possible. I had six cigarette butt sized dings (god knows how he did that) and it took me about two hours to do the lot once I had the technique worked out. You can see all the dings though they are a lot less obvious, you can't feel them at all even when you know they are there.

Don't use scotchbrite or wire wool. You need something flat or you will sand unevenly and end up with something which has bumps in the surface. The idea is to only remove high spots and fill the low ones and you can only do that with a flat surface. Use wet and dry start with 400 grade (careful with this as it removes the lacquer quickly) and then work up through 600 grade 1000 grade and 1500, then T-cut. This restores the shine to new. The sticky surface is either just accumulated filth but more probably someone has tried to oil a lacquered surface or used spray polish on a wax polish. White spirit should clean it off.

OK, not happy with the results yet but here's my take. The nail varnish I've reservations about, it takes ages to go hard and as you have to build it up in layers it is going to take days. Because my bass has a poly finish I think cellulose isn't a good match so I don't think I'd use it again, however I can remove it any time with some nail varnish remover so it is a temporary fix and it does fill the hole. I'm going to leave it in one dink and see how it finishes up once I have finished filling and sanding. The superglue is much quicker, easier to apply and it sets hard rapidly so you can build up several layers in an afternoon. It also cuts back easily using a scraper ready for final sanding. I'm using a Stanley blade with sellotape over each end as a 2 thou spacer and to protect the good areas of lacquer then 400/600/1000 grade wet and dry followed by T-cut to bring the final polish back. The superglue is clearer than the original lacquer which is slightly yellowed as Lawrence has said, so the patch is visible though it feels great already without the final polish. I've a couple of dinks left so i might try some polyurethane varnish to see if I can get a better colour match. In my case the wood has discoloured because the dinks are quite old. If you have to do this repair do it quickly before sticky fingers meet unprotected wood! This isn't going to be an invisible repair but it does already look much better and it has improved the feel so that it plays without me feeling any dinks.

Thanks Lawrence, I've pretty much decided to take your advice and I've started a test with one of the smaller dinks using my daughter's nail varnish. I think I might try superglue as well. Can't believe i'm experimenting on a £1000 bass! I'll let you all know how it comes out.

Thanks for the responses, I've been researching a little. Nitro cellulose is an easy repair it seems. If the dinks are just in the finish then you can just build it up with more nitro cellulose lacquer including the right sort of car touch up and clear nail varnish. If the wood is dented but not broken then the fibres can be steamed by applying a damp/wet cloth and then a hot iron. I wish mine was nitro now. Plenty of how to videos on youtube including one by Stuart MacDonald of StuMac. Mine is definitely Poly of some sort, acetone doesn't touch it at all. You can get the poly lacquers easily enough from car parts shops and also Axminster Power Tools which does a good mail order service. The trouble is knowing which poly finish you are dealing with, Some are two part some single part, some solvent based and some water based. I'm guessing polyester polyurethane and acrylic. The other problem is that they vary in solids content and they are shy about this too. Nitro cellulose is good because the lacquer redissolves in the solvent and then cross links with the new lacquer so it is a complete repair. I'm guessing there is no way of cross linking polyurethane with new polyurethane, polyester with polyester or acrylic/acrylic. That is assuming I can find out what finish I have, I guess an email to Fender might tell me. Having said that I've successfully drop filled dinks in furniture with poyurethane varnish, which is slightly yellow due to the alkyd resins in the varnish. Superglue is looking favourite at the moment, though my local tech tells me it is difficult to get a high gloss finish on it. In the end I think I might be happy with just a smooth join that I can't feel when playing, no-one else sees the back of the neck after all and i can get it resprayed professionally if I do get keen at a later date Any more thoughts welcome and thanks for the ideas so far

I've just bought a new Fender P-bass with some small but irritating lacquer chips which I'd like to repair. I'm a competent craftsman generally but have never worked on a musical instrument before. I haven't decided whether to do the repair myself or put it into a local luthier. What type of lacquer do Fender use? Where can I obtain supplies? (It's an American Deluxe with a heavily lacquered maple neck/rosewood fretboard and the chips are on the back of the neck) Any tips on how to go about this welcome. if it was antique furniture i'd be confident but a bass is more important than that.

Our singer wasn't very loud, so I guess we used more gain than most. When you can pay as much for an inductor as you do for a much bigger mains transformer you begin to wonder about the cost, but they are difficult to track down at all, I wondered about winding my own but I found it difficult to track down cores for the higher values. My S112's both had the Delta12A driver [url="http://www.eminence.com/pdf/Delta_12A.pdf"]http://www.eminence.com/pdf/Delta_12A.pdf[/url] I'd rejected these as PA speakers in my home brews because of the peak, The cone break up is pretty uncontrolled it seems and i decided that designing a crossover to tame it was going to be too difficult. Back on track though, any other suggestions for a small but sweet sounding compression driver capable of 120dB?

[quote name='Count Bassy' timestamp='1383758079' post='2268686'] I have two of the Kam Mk1 Par bars and they have worked great in slightly darkened room or stage area, but don't do much if the pub has all its house lights on. The newer ones are more powerful so can only be better. Of course there are better/more powerful ones out there (I've got some of those as well), but the difference between no lights and a couple of ParBars is tremendous. [/quote] I guess the more powerful ones are the 7x3W tri-led lights which seem to be about £100 a set more expensive. Are they worth the difference? One or two reviews suggest they are a bit overpowering on full power, though I don't propose pointing them at anyone's eyes. I'd rather put the £100 towards bass gear but it'd kill me to think I'd bought something inadequate or even just a bit limp for the sake of £100. What do you think? Anyone regretted either purchasing the lower powered ones or wishing they'd not bought the mega ones? thanks for al the responses so far.

There's a few reasons why people might think a 4ohm speaker sounds 'better' but in the end there is probably more myth and magic than hard fact. 1.There is an increase in total power, usually a couple of dB's. This is just noticeable and could be the difference between running into distortion or not. Mainly not though, and the difference in volume is tiny. As Bill has said in most cases the limits are just as likely to be the speakers so the amp power is often not the problem. 2. The drivers aren't the same, to get the different impedance the voice coils and sometimes the magnets are changed. This changes the sound and the speakers parameters. If they are put into the same sized cabs the frequency responses won't be the same, neither will the excursion limits. 3. We instinctively like louder sounds (which is why modern recordings are compressed to hell) If you A/B the 4ohm speaker with the 8 it will be louder, if you don't adjust the volume and sound 'nicer'. Adjust the volumes to be the same and the preference disappears. 4. People aren't very objective, which is why we need double blind tests. If all the experts tell you that (for example) oxygen free copper wire sounds better then it isn't long before everyone hears a difference that can't be measured. So there may be a grain of truth, 4 and 8 ohm speakers may sound different and 50% of the time you might prefer the 4's but the differences are mainly slight and I doubt anyone would notice if you did the listening test whilst the amp sat next to a drummer, never mind a guitarists half stack. It's not a sensible way to choose a speaker cab.

Mine are IV's too but they have the same drivers as the S112V's I used to borrow before I bought them, They sound the same too. For a long time I liked the mid-range peak as it punched the vocals right forward, and they by no means sounded bad in practice, a bit harsh when the room was empty but vocal articulation came over well when the room was packed. The trouble came when I added subs and started putting the whole mix through, the guitars always sounded harsh. We always had limited gain before feedback too because of the peaky response. It is standard practice in hi-fi cabs with 2nd order crossovers to reverse the tweeter because of the phase shift in the crossover, so I tried it and yes it sounds better both in an A/B comparison and in a live performance. What did you do about inductors? I found them hard to source and expensive and in the end had them wound by IPLacoustics.

PS don't you think it is shocking that you and I (and any number of others on here) could design a better crossover than Yamaha in a design that must have sold in tens of thousands?

Thanks for this Lawrence, one I hadn't looked at. It has quite a droop in the upper frequencies but that could help in a monitor. You are happy with the sound and clean mids are what a decent monitor needs more than extreme highs. The only downside for me is that I was looking for something to drop into my existing cabs without needing a new baffle, the upside is that you seem to be suggesting a pretty decent result with something that in my case started as a cheap and cheerful solution to a problem using bits left from other projects. I've used Yamaha S112V and S115's as monitors, the 12's are far too mid biased due to the horrible peak in the EM delta's and lack of intelligent crossover design. The S115's are much better but just too big for the small stages we play. I've had some experiences with matching drivers to horns and experienced exactly what you describe. I bought a bunch of cheap plastic moulded horns and tried them with the horn drivers I was using with really quite dramatic differences in the subjective results. Most of them have flat sides with sharp angles in the flare which I understand you might need to do if you were forming them from sheet materials but which seems crazy in a moulded component. Did you see my post about the yamahas? I've reversed the polarity of my horn drivers in my S112's which has knocked the nasty mid peak back a bit, really cleaned up the vocals and tamed some of the feedback problems.

I'm after upgrading our stage monitors by replacing the compression units in our horns. They don't need to create more than 120db so the drivers I usually use are overkill, too big and heavy and a waste to have something capable of 130dB padded right back. The thing is to find something that sounds as good as possible and without any nasties which would make the monitors feedback prone. Crossover frequency isn't a problem as I'll design and build my own. 1" screw on preferred as then I can use the existing horns Any recommendations?

OK, we too have to take the plunge into lighting. We want to keep it simple, just to liven up our visuals without adding to the set up time or the already cluttered stage area so the four Led cans on a controller/ParBar type lights will suit us just fine. One question is what level of light to go for. They don't all quote light output so it is hard to compare but the choice seems to be between the 3x3W tri-leds (PowerBar and equivalent) and the ones with 10mm leds (ParBar). I saw a band recently using the ParBars and they seemed bright enough. Would the more powerful lights give greater intensity of colour? Would they prove too bright in a usually restricted stage area. I know I could get a proper controller to dim them but to be honest I want to plug, forget and play. If i can get away with a ParBar then that's great, more to spend on bass gear. What are your experiences?

If you want little, and more than adequate for a pub then you have to try the AER amp one unless the cost is too great. It's a one off that you need to eliminate from your enquiries, tiny, manageable and sounds fabulous.

I've had problems with my 3500. The problem seems to be mainly with all the smoothing caps in the power supply that are not securely mounted and heavy enough to move when the amp is carried around. I bought a complete new set of caps and meant to replace them and mount them properly at the same time, but of course since then the amp has behaved perfectly and I can't be troubled to open it all up again.

Proel are a perfectly respectable company who use decent quality components [url="http://www.performing-musician.com/pm/dec09/articles/proelflash.htm"]http://www.performing-musician.com/pm/dec09/articles/proelflash.htm[/url] The BBC do use them as I've seen them in use at their Edinburgh festival stage and i guess they will have been chosen on price/performance. I'd still use the RCF's though.

QTX is the cheapest Chinese generic PA. Tou'll see it badged with other names too. It does a job at a price and sounds ok so long as you don't push too hard. As you've spotted it tends to be pushed over hard by quoting 'music power' When you read on it does tell you what the RMS wattages are. The other bit of the equation is that the speakers are very limited, small magnets so efficiency is low and short voice coils so bass excursion is poor so they overload fairly early on. To be honest it is exceptionally good for the money but limited by its budget. The RCF's are top of the range speakers well known for great vocal sound, get them and then look for subs in the future if you need to put bass and drums through the PA. they'll be a lot louder than the QTX's.

[quote name='The Dark Lord' timestamp='1382528556' post='2253189'] I understand what you are saying, but there is another point to consider. When you play in a pub, with the backline so close to the singers, the full range of the band (including drums, bass and guitar amps) will be picked up via the vocal mics and then projected into the room via the tops and subs. So, you do get value from having them. It's not massive, but it is in there and part of the whole sound mix. If you ever take a recoding out from the desk at a gig on one of the vocal channels, you'll hear what I mean. I may only get one sub for the moment - and add a second if it goes well. [/quote] [quote name='Alec' timestamp='1382529776' post='2253212'] Pretty much any mics other than kick, floor-tom and bass, I'd be applying a HPF to. Certainly to vocal mics. So there would be negligable bottom end in the vocal mics. And, anyway, it's the last thing you want. You do use a HPF on your vocal channels, right? [/quote] Hope you weren't taking offence at the expensive speaker stand comment, it was meant to be a joke. Alec's right though, you should be using your filters as a matter of course, in any case the real problem with bass is the excursion it causes small speakers and this only really becomes a problem below 50-70 Hz. In your case most vocal mics don't pick that up anyway and I hope you aren't operating at levels where the drums and backline are coming through your vocal mics at anything like the same volume as your vocals, Even if you have no LF cut on your desk and you are using an unusual full range mic for vocals any bleed through is not going to cause your speakers a problem unless it is within a few dB of your vocals. you really don't need subs for the use you describe .

[quote name='crez5150' timestamp='1382530435' post='2253228'] Yeah I have.... Though I do work for EV so I would expect you to think me biased. For the money there is nothing that can touch them. A really good quality low cost active speaker. My advice is to go and have a listen at your local dealer..... They have become our best selling product which is amazing since it was only launched at the Messe this year. Couple of things.... it's a very different product to the ELX... thats got a different power stage, speaker and enclosure. ZLX is a completely brand new product in every respect. They are plenty loud enough for use on their own or as a mid/high top in a system. From every dealer we demo'd these too they all agree they give the RCF boxes a good run for their money. The RCF boxes are excellent but the EV ZLX are approx £120 per pair cheaper than the RCF units [/quote] That's my point really. The EV's he is looking at are engineered to a price and there is a limit to their capability as a result. In this case the efficiency. I'm making no comment on the internals I can only see what is on the EV website. EV say the amps are the same power, are you saying that is a mistake? I'm not knocking EV whose stuff I generally like, I've just been singing through my EV mic, so much better than the SM58. I've recently said its a make to look at. One of the ways in which manufacturers can save a little on costs is to cut the size of the speaker magnets which has implications for bass power handling and efficiency. With DSP the excursion limiting is not going to damage the speaker but the bass will probably be more compressed with this model compared with the more expensive EV or some of the rivals. Most speakers in this market boast output figures around the 130dB mark, this one is 4db lower so maximum volume is going to be noticeably less. Since we don't know what maximum volumes the user will need or whether bass is going to be a problem I'm not making a recommendation but I just wanted the OP to know what to look for, and what they would get by buying the next model up or an alternative. 126dB is seriously loud but a tad short of current standards, it may sound lovely, you can send me one to test if you want I don't work for EV or anyone else .

[quote name='The Dark Lord' timestamp='1382370760' post='2251344'] Yes indeed. When I say that cost is not the main criterion in this case, your bloke up there a couple of posts back is correct. What we're really after is something that is portable, powerful enough AND very easy to set up. I'm shifting towards the Mackie DLM thing. My guess would be 2 x DLM12 units as tops connected via poles to 2 x DLM12S units as subs. Then 2 x DLM8 units as monitors - all tied together by one of the DL806 mixers. That looks like a good option. [/quote] This doesn't look like a bad choice. Mackie was the trendy brand with the SRM450's and then people fell out of love as everyone else raised their game and they transferred their manufacture. This doesn't make them dire, just less trendy. The acid test is to go and listen to them, if you like the way they sound then go for it. You could probably get the same, or similar capability by mixing and matching from a range of manufacturers but on paper this is a very capable option. If you are only going to use them for vocals why buy the subs? They make very expensive stands and if you only use them for vocals they won't make a sound as you can't sing that low. You could also add them later if you decide to start putting bass and kick through your PA.

Hi Matt, there's lots of issues here but the first one is to try and sort out what you are trying to achieve. If it is the best sound on a small budget then sadly self build isn't the way to go. Second hand will always be cheaper. For example there have been several Peavey BXBW 15's with the better Black Widow speaker on Ebay which have gone for comfortably below £100. The bare speakers cost nearly half as much again without the cab! There are lots of other used bargains too, and you can try them and hear the sound yourself before you buy. If you want to build as a learning experience then that is a different matter. You can get something quite usable at a price not too much more than used and a lot of knowledge and satisfaction. If you are looking for something high end then it is possible to build and save money over a new speaker. There are lots of people here who will give you advice and support and if you follow that advice it is unlikely to go completely pear shaped but it just isn't the cheapest option. So, build and learn or Ebay and play?

Don't get too carried away by the power rating, if you look carefully the output in decibels is 126dB underneath is the ELX with the same power rating but 132db output which will be noticeably louder. The RCF Art 312 is rated at 400W but gives out 127dB. 126dB is pretty loud but this is obviously fitted with their less capable speakers compared with the elx112. If that is what you can afford then there's nothing wrong with that but just be aware of what is on offer and compare dB not watts. The great thing about all of these is the protection given to the speakers by having DSP, they should prove to be more reliable as you won't be able to overload them. I've not used the EV's but a lot of bands do use them round here and I've heard some nice sounds coming out of them, not sure they were these models though. you might find this interesting [url="http://www.soundonsound.com/sos/may12/articles/yamaha-dxr.htm"]http://www.soundonsound.com/sos/may12/articles/yamaha-dxr.htm[/url] and there might be reviews of some of the other offerings on the same site. All of these are going to sound much better than what you have. Make a short list and go and listen to them before choosing.

You ought to give us a budget really. I can't see you compromising the sound at all, those Peaveys aren't great sounding. EV,JBL, Yamaha are all likely to be better and the RCF's a lot better,

Hi, I'm not going to add to the endless list of brands but to try to home in exactly what you want to achieve. In your OP you indicate that price is not the main driver behind your choice, You talk about a system but most of the talk has been about speakers. You talk about only putting vocals through the PA. You've discovered the limitations of the Bose. In going for the Bose you seem to be looking for an off the shelf, set up and forget solution. Certainly as far as the amps and speakers are concerned, is this fair? How much do you want something high end and how much do you want to just buy something that just works well and that you have confidence in so you can get on with the music? Are you looking to buy a VW Golf or a Ferrari? I don't think you mentioned mixers, I assume you are happy with what you have? How much do you want something high end and how much do you want to just buy something that just works well and that you have confidence in so you can get on with the music? Are you looking to buy a VW Golf or a Ferrari?Are you really only ever going to put vocals through the PA? This is critical as the requirements for vocals are very different to those for almost anything else a band does. Most of the information in vocals is carried in the 300-3000Hz range with almost no low frequency sound needed. This means that 15's and even 12's will have serious shortcomings and the quality of the horns and the crossovers becomes much more important. The shortcomings of larger speakers for vocals are simple enough. Large cones can't radiate high frequencies without the sound from one part of the cone interfering with the sound from another part and above the frequencies whose wavelength corresponds to the diameter of the cone the sound is increasingly beamed. On top of that the mass of a large cone becomes difficult to move around quickly enough to accurately reproduce high frequencies.The problem with the crossovers is that they introduce distortions of their own around the crossover frequency and that sits right in the middle of the frequencies critical to vocals. Unfortunately there are few systems out there that are engineered with this in mind. the biggest problem is getting sufficient volume out of a small speaker. I'm assuming you will go for an active speaker with a built in amp and crossover. The active crossover is much more likely to give you a clear sound through the midrange and you really don't need to carry all the extra boxes and wiring that people are suggesting. Have a look at three alternatives, systems with small satellites as tops such as the HK Elements system [url="http://www.soundonsound.com/sos/aug11/articles/hk-elements.htm"]http://www.soundonsound.com/sos/aug11/articles/hk-elements.htm[/url], speakers with a dedicated mid range driver and thirdly, as some of the louder 10"+horn speakers like the RCF Art series [url="http://www.rcf.it/en_US/products/pro-speaker-systems/art-7-series/art-710-a-mk-ii"]http://www.rcf.it/en_US/products/pro-speaker-systems/art-7-series/art-710-a-mk-ii[/url]. Mainly though you need to have a listen to your shortlist. As you can see one persons 'dire sound' is another's nirvana. Mainly I suspect down to putting different demands upon the PA's in question.