Phil Starr

Grille for the BassChat 8 Somebody, I can't remember who, used one of the round grilles for an 18" speaker and hammered it flat, I copied that idea for my cab it's a great way of buying just enough perforated metal to do the job and is purpose designed. it even comes in black £6 https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/126150460308

Any sort of obstruction in front of the speaker affects the sound and if you listen to music then there is an audible difference when you remove the grille. Most Hi-fi buffs will remove them for critical listening and you never see them on studio monitors. However practicality reigns and bare paper cones would last minutes in most gigs never mind rattling around in the back of the van. Quite apart from the resistance to air movement the holes each act as diffraction points and a metal grilla as a diffraction grating. The hole size is important as is the ratio of open space. The effect is most evident at high frequencies and is clearly audible. I look for holes that are as big as possible whilst keeping anything as big as a pencil out. I'd avoid anything with more than 40% of the area covered so not all perforated metal sheet is suitable. Fortunately there isn't much high frequency coming from a bass speaker and so the sound isn't too badly distorted by the grille. Most commercial grilles will be OK so have a look at what the manufacturers do and you should be OK. However I do look at some cabs and wonder if style over substance isn't creeping in. You really don't need to put the badge in front of the cone.

One of the speakers parameters is Xmax which is the furthest the coil can move and stay within the magnetic field. Like a lot of these things which determine maximum power there are slightly different ways of measuring this but that's a technical thing which isn't really relevant to the cab builder. Basically Xmax is the furthest the coil and cone can move and beyond this point the speaker will start to distort and the coil will begin to overheat as it is outside the magnet which also acts as a chunky metal heatsink. Xmax is 5.5mm for the Fane 8-225 so that means the cone will move 5.5mm forward and 5.5mm back or 11mm in total at full power. so, 6mm clearance for the grille is needed. If you look carefull at the speaker you'll so that the cone is set back from the gasket and the frame by a few mm, roughly speaking the cone sits level with the front of the baffle so if the grille clears the speaker frame by 3mm you'll havbe your 5.5mm clearance. In practice you can allow a little more and 10mm in front of the baffle is what I would use as a minimum. Metal grilles get bent in use and pushed inwards so 12-15mm is my usual clearance. Oh I've just spotted David's @Mottlefeeder post. All he says is true. Some manufacturers do give figures like Xlim or even Xdamage to indicate the extreme excursion point. Fane don't give this figure for the 8-225 in their current spec sheet. 10-15mm clearance of the front of the baffle will be enough.

It's likely that the video shows one of the built in effects and these are usually accessible from the internal programming accessible from the four buttons on the back. On mine the display shows a four character code: 1J-- to 8J-- are all chases (which I think is the Knight Rider thing). The two last digints control the speed so 1J00 is slow and 1J20 is super fast changing the first number gives a different chase so there are 8 options and you just have to plough through them to find something you like. If this sounds like gobbledegook it is and the manual will be in mangled translation from Mandarin, no two lights are the same so if you want a second get it ordered before they re-stock. The good news is that it starts to make some sort of sense and once you've got on top of this light the next one will seem simpler (probably ) Make note of any settings you like so you can get back to them

I'm not sure if what you have is the same as mine. It looks like the same case and set of lights but the programming may be different. Mine operates in1,2,3,4,6,7,12, and 24 channel modes depending upon whether you want individual control of one, two, three four or eight sections seperately. some modes give you access to the built in programs too. I also have a remote control. On the rear panel I can select the built in programs and adjust things like speed and sensitivity of the sound to light. Start off by finding the intensity controls for red green and blue, you can then at least control the colours and their intensity from the rear panel and via DMX if you choose. There should be a 3 channel mode which does this.

I think you'll be pleased with that, it's a lot of light for the money. You'll probably not want it shining onto your faces though, full on it is pretty bright.

On the serious side, don't solder your mains cable, if you do want to tidy up the wire ends (and escaping strandd of mains cables are a hazard) then you can use a crimp connector over the stripped ends. You often find these on the few wired plugs around. I prefer wired rather than moulded plugs as I often chnage out the mains cable, either because of wanting a different length but also so I can change to a nice flexible cable rather than the overly stiff plastic that a lot of gear comes with. However I don't think I've ever had a moulded mains cable actually break and wonder why I look down on moulded mic/guitar cables which frequently need re-soldering?

I think I still have one of these alongside a bayonet plug to connect a plugboard to a light fitting The good old days 😲

Interesting Al it's very close to what I am aiming for at the moment.There's a really strong colour wash on the stage. If you look at the steps at the front there is a strong shadow so you can work out that the lights are in front of and above the stage shining down. One red one blue,and both floods rather than spots. Pretty powerful too from the general colour cast. there are fills up by the mics and an uplighter on the banner at the back plus something behind the drummer lighting up that cornere where the bass amp is. All the 'action' is on the T-bat behind the kit. Looks like four scanners and possobly a laser/strobe combination. Then four chasers mounted upright whcih look like the 24 segment bars you've ordered from Ali Express set to one of the chases. They've also got a couple of decent sized PAR's below the bar. It's doung some heavy lifting! This is a decent sized stage which opens up the possibilities. I'm still playing the pubs where this sort of set up would have to be smaller for space reasons, so what I'm trying to do is this sort of thing but modular, so this would be my full set up. For the red/blue stage wash I'm currently using a couple of the light bars like yours but mounted vertically on stands so the tops of the lights are at head height. I've dug out my 200W floods though, which have a 40deg angle and when I get space I want to try them to get a more intense colour wash. They are about 6-10 times brighter than your 24 light strips so significant lamps you cant really use in small spaces. BTW I bought a couple of the 24way bars. I''m going to try them as uplighter/colour washes at the side of the stage on the slow fade and as static colour to see what works best. So at the moment it's bars for the small stages and the big floods if we get to play somewhere nice and spacious. For mid stage I've got up to six of the generic strips they are using, the refinement I've added are the stands which raise them to head height. The guitarist brought them from his band and I bought them off him when he left. The height makes them more visible on a crowded stage. I'm really interested in the T bar those guys have at the back behind the drummer. It looks to be nearly the width of the drum kit with five fairly bulky lamps mounted. I've looked at building a square arch behind our drums and ordered one from G4M it was damaged and not as described so I returned it but as well as weighing 10kg more than the one I ordered it was too big for the job. I've been toying with the idea of T bars there but the widest are 1.2m. I'm currently using a 4-way PAR bar in that position. Two lighting stands either side of the drummer would let me hang the banner cutting down on the frame for that so I'm looking for a hardware option that would be quick to set up. I should have gone for a banner like theirs. This is all a pretty big investment and of time as well as money. Hopefully I can sell off some of the stuff I don't use once I've settled on a system.

Honestly I don't think you need to worry about reliability and stability or indeed the lack of physical controls. I think it probably worried us all before we made the switch to digital only for us to find it wasn't really an issue at all, except for the time when I forgot the iPad Apparently they haven't fixed operator errors completely. All the processing is going on inside the mixer so you really don't need anything super powered to work as the control surface. A decent responsive touch screen is good but I've got a 15year old iPad which still hold enough charge for 8 hours operating (probably more but I've never needed to push it) and it works flawlessly, not least because Apple don't do updates. My two year old iPad only ever caused a problem with an Apple update which tethered my phone in preference to the mixer if I was offline for a couple of hours, they really don't want you disconnected from the internet.

Thanks this is just what I was looking for, it fulfills the 'Christmas Present' part of the brief in looking more satisfying than a set of 'wires' and being in just about the right price range. The little diamond files from Ali Express are what I would buy myself for a one off job so many thanks to @kodiakblair and @tauzero for their advice too. Let's see what Santa brings

Because most of my cabs never get truly finished I've a lot of loose wires in many cabs, and vibrating wires do happen but not often. I usually fix one end to the speaker itself with cable ties leaving enough slack to avoid stressing the connections but tight enough not to flap around. I bury the other end under any wadding and that stops that moving. I don't leave a lot of slack though, just enough to be able to remove the drive unit easily

I want to bring the string height down a little on some of my basses. I'm looking at nut files and they seem to be either less than £10 or over £200 with little in between. There are also some sets of two or three with plastic handles labelled sizes 3-5 without saying what 3-5 actually means in mm or inches. There are also setsof needle files for general purpose use but I already have sets of these, and I've seen people wrapping old strings in sandpaper and using that as a tool. It's Christmas and peopleare asking what to buy me. There's nething I really want but if I could find something that would make the job easier then files in the £20-30 range would be a great present I'd actually use. I hate the idea of people wasting money on something I wouldn't use. Any suggstions?

all the answers are good. The thing is that you really don't need to oversize. The resistance of the cable is going to be close to zero because you are dealing with a really short length. As to power handling you hve to remember the speaker is playing music not continuous current. Most of the time there is little or no signal and any note you play decays quite quickly. It's normal to think in terms of a duty cycle of 15-20% but that is allowing for a considerable safety margin, under 10% might be more 'real world' use so 20W for your 225W speaker would be a more reasonable rating. The voice coil of your speaker is wound with hair thin copper wire only slightly thicker than the strands in your cables and that doesn't burn out in normal use. Like @Stub Mandrel I use a couple of cores from any mains cable laying around most of the time, even 1mm lighting cable is plenty big enough. The reason speaker cables use thicker wire is to keep resistance to a minimum on longer cable runs. That's not relevant for the 40cm wire inside the cab.

CPC Farnell? V https://cpc.farnell.com/c/splitters/iec-splitters Studiospares used to be good for this sort of stuff before the takeover, they used to do a sort of IEC daisy chain thing. Terralec are good for leads but nothing very useful listed there as far as I could see at the moment.

I love that John, I find myself doing the same thing sometimes. We haven't mentioned the Sontronics much. I've got an older Sontronics I actually won at a raffle at the South West Bass Bash a few years back. It's the same body as the Solo but a cardioid and I think it might have beenthe predecessor of the Solo. It's a nice mic up with the quality of my Senny E935 but the Solo is cheaper. You need to warn people about the build quality of the Sontronics they make all other mics look flimsy, real heft. Made in the UK too.

I've just checked and cab sized pieces are still available. They also sell wholesale so you may need to re navigate their site.

I'm not sure you need to worry abnout sacrificing the bolts. the T-nuts will be well below the surface you are painting and you could always use blu-tac/chewing gum/plasticine to cover the nut, it's all going to be invisible once the speaker is fitted. I don't really like t-nuts much so I'm shifting to furniture nuts in future the t-nuts sometimes overhang the narrow strip of baffle left once you've cut the speaker hole so I'm hoping these will be neater

I was in Carlisle last week

I've fitted a few cabs now with 'Fender' cloth sourced from China, which appears to be identical with the cloth sold by the specialist dealers in the UK. What i didn't realise was that many of the 'Fender' cloths are shrink to fit. A bit of a shame as I warmed mine up to make it more flexible and it didn't fit after that. Fortunately I did buy enough for a spare. It's a joy to fit as you don't have to tension it as you staple. Just fit it nice and straight and let the hair dryer pull it into shape. Oddly they don't tell you the cloth is shrink fit so you'd have to test a small piece before fitting it. The 'Marshall' cloth is the old fashioned stiff stuff and much harder to work with http://www.kldguitar.com/Home/cph is where I ordered my cloth

I think that is right, the test was through Yamaha Club series speakers S112IV if my memory serves, and these had a real midrange peak due to the Eminence Delta's they used. At the time they were so much better than the Peveys everyone else used I quite liked them but they had to have affected what we were doing so hardly a fair test. My own anecdotal experience

Interestingly (to me anyway) I tried a mic shoot out with one of my bands who were using some ..... less than good mics. They included an SM58 and a XM8500 as well as a Samson of some sort. generally the band preferred the 8500 to the SM58 though I did have to resolder the Behringer to make it work! The Behringer does have a brighter sound and the resonance peaks are in a different place which could sound tinny if untamed. The shure had a lot less handling noise but the Behringer rejected feedback slightly better. Shockingly there are Three Behringer mics below the XM8500 as well as the XM1800 which is sold in packs of three. The singers husband went out and bought a Shure KSM9 sadly he didn't ask me and I didn't have phantom power at the time so it was never used in anger.

2 minutes from me, you'll have to call in for a cup of something some time Actually if you want to drop in I could lend you a Micromon I don't use it very oten, just to tempt reluctant singers to try in-ears

The Behringer Micromon MA400 is what you want. You can also feed in a monitor input so she can hear everything else and/or practice to backing tracks at home. Merry Christmas

I'm going to put this out there just once, in case Rob gets swamped. This is a really generous and genuine offer. Rob very kindly printed me a new grip for an ancient but expensive microphone, where the plastic had crumbled with age. He really represents the best of the BassChat community.