Phil Starr

[quote name='alexclaber' timestamp='1346950984' post='1795292'] I have a suspicion that a thin-wall but heavily braced panel can exhibit high rigidity at lower frequencies, thus giving good lows but the sections between the braces can have a degree of damped flexibility at higher frequencies which can absorb unwanted midrange, especially if those braces are positioned to give each part of each panel a different resonant frequency whose harmonics are an non-coincident as possible with each other panel section. Unfortunately I haven't had a chance to scientifically test this but it makes sense from a mechanical engineering perspective and it certainly sounds good in practice! [/quote] I think I agree with this in part. moving resonances up moves them away from the low frequencies where the highest energy inputs are in the cab so the problem is reduced. Critical positioning of the braces to spread the panel resonances has to help too as you won't have a single resonance dominating as with an undamped panel. Having said that we are much more sensitive to sound in the midranges which adds another layer of complexity. The bit I am less happy with is the transmission of sound. My understanding is that the energy is absorbed by the panel and that some of it is converted into kinetic energy in the panel, some will be transmitted laterally within the panel and some vertical movement of the panel will occur which will drive the air outside the panel. This will be frequency dependent so the net effect is that the panel acts as effectively as a frequency dependent filter. The absorption of sound in the panel will depend upon its composition, some will be turned into heat. Ply is quite a lively material compared with MDF or chipboard and is even used in cheap guitars and cajon fronts for this reason. The laterally transmitted energy will either be reflected if it meets a hard junction or absorbed at a soft junction. I would guess that how panels are fixed to each other and how braces are attached is crucial. It's a pretty complex system. I would guess that nowhere near all these resonances would be heard in a real life situation though. A friend of mine has just been appointed to Land Rover to work on this in their cars, I'll have to bore her on this when she gets back to see what modelling they do.

[quote name='JPJ' timestamp='1346779817' post='1793144'] So if rigidity of the cabinet is the goal, why is nobody using ultra lightweight aluminium honeycomb panels? I can vouch for the rigidity of this stuff and you can get it foam filled so no nasty voids to excite. [/quote] It's been done for hi fi speakers the Celestion SL 600 was the first I knew about. Quite a successful design though I found it a little dry sounding, it had an early metal dome tweeter if my memory is good and it cost an arm and a leg. The thing is that you have to eventually engineer to a budget and you rapidly reach the point of diminishing returns. There's little point in spending an extra £1000 to get the ultimate rigid and light cab when the difference on stage is almost inaudible when compared with the best existing conventional speakers. Give most of us £3000 to spend on guitar amp and cab and the bulk would go on the bass, not many of us would spend £2000 of that on a cab however good.

Hi Alex, I don't think we've swapped ideas before but can i add my bit to your fan club here. I have always loved your articles in BGM, intelligent, honest and stimulating. [quote name='alexclaber' timestamp='1345204768' post='1774928'] Phil, if you maintain (or increase) stiffness through bracing, whilst lowering mass, you raise the resonance of the panels to the point that they are no longer excited by pressure but instead excited by the backwave, and the backwave and the resulting panel emittance can be damped effectively, unlike pressure changes which you don't want to damp (as they excite the port).[/quote] [quote name='alexclaber' timestamp='1345204768' post='1774928']Personally I consider panel resonance in a loudspeaker a horrible thing unless it's being used to cancel unwanted energy - the last thing I'd want is significant acoustic energy radiating from a panel, with particular consideration being given to how it screws up transient response. [/quote] I can't disagree with any of this at a factual level and the little science training I have wouldn't let me want to do it any other way anyway. the sound from any panel is going to be distorted in so many ways. [quote name='alexclaber' timestamp='1345204768' post='1774928'] In the process you also reduce the backwave reflection which exits through the cone. [/quote] I'm not sure this is right though, surely an inelastic reflection conserves energy and is the most efficient way of reflecting the sound back through the cone and setting up standing waves.. (Assuming it is parallel to the baffle) A thin flexible panel would radiate some energy backwards and lose some as heat. The best way of avoiding this would be to have no rear panel as in some transmission line cabs or by using an angled panel behind the cone. I think all I wanted to say to the OP was to give some indication of the weight saving to be gained and what significant changes in sound might occur. Using the current drivers and going for the lightest option 12mm Poplar with some judicious lightweight bracing might save 6kg or thereabouts. Panel resonances would be bound to change upwards as you say and would probably clean up the sound a little but I wouldn't expect there to be a dramatic change in sound.

Anything technical has to be sorted by the bassist is the rule, well just about. We use Yamaha S112's and S118 subs. I used to leave the subs behind because of the size but now I leave the bass stack behind and just use a Hartke kickback for monitoring and let the subs do the work Overall the sound is much better with the bass through the PA and the subs though big enough have a smaller footprint than the stands. The compression driver in the S112's is a gem and the vocal quality is really clean and sharp. As an amp I use a Peavey IPR1600 for its light weight but for years I used a Behringer EP2500 which worked without a hiccup and i keep as backup. We use either a Phonic active mixer with the amps driving the monitors or an ancient Yamaha mixer before this we used a Behringer Xenyx which never let us down but we ran out of channels. The vocalist likes a clean monitor and uses a Yamaha Stagepas 300 for monitors with the rest of the band monitoring through some cheap PA speakers. They are the next upgrade I think. Mic's are mainly SM58's but I want to move to AKG's as the none I use sounds so much better than the Shures. I'd really recommend the Yamaha speakers and the IPR1600 Our FOH sound is probably better than most bands I hear especially the vocal sound but we need a little more talent mainly. It really is crap trying to mix from onstage though and my bass playing suffers whilst I try to tweak the balance. It is much better when we have someone mixing from the front.

It's very simple, however cross you are just be factual, If they asked you to hold for an unreasonably long time then just say so. If they delay with someone else then that person is warned by you and they won't be able to do it again. There's no reason to be rude of over the top, one sentence from you will stop them being able to do this in the future and saying nothing means they will do the same again in all probability.

Yep, it is a whizzer cone, they used to be very common in the sixties and seventies and the aim is to increase high frequencies. Speakers used to be much more expensive compared with income and one speaker was expected to cover the full frequency range. They don't have lower mass as one of the respondents says in the above link. The main cone + whizzer obviously weighing more than the cone on its own. Large paper cones flex especially at high frequencies so the middle of the cone may be moving more than the outside. Speaker designers have always exploited this to get a controlled frequency response and the whizzer is a way of trying to get a bit more top end. Other manufacturers do this by adding an aluminium dome to the centre of the speaker or by doping the dust cap with something to make it more rigid. Peavey do this with their Black Widows for bass guitar.

[quote name='stefBclef' timestamp='1345491629' post='1778177'] Well I just bought a Peavey 410 and a Peavey 115 TVX so I think I probably have enough heavy Peavey gear for now! But out of interest, how much is your mate looking for and where are they based? [/quote] He lives just outside Reading, I've no idea how much he wants though only that he sold it on ebay but the buyer didn't turn up. I'll ask though.

If you are interested I have a mate with a Peavey 2x15 which he is trying to sell. I used to use it with the MkIII and it sounded great. Didn't enjoy gigs up a flight of stairs too much though.

Stevie's comment got me thinking, I'm an old fashioned boy and my cabs tend to be made of 18mm birch ply or even high density Chipboard, a much underrated material for cabs. The sound transmitted by the panels of a cab is moderately difficult to predict but will depend upon the mass of the panel, the flexibility, the dimensions and any damping. In the end a high mass will have a lower resonance and move less for the same applied energy so a 3/4" panel will 'sound' less than a 1/2" panel. (I said I was old fashioned) Birch ply has a density of about 690kg/m3 and Poplar about 520kg/m3. If you drop from 18mm to 15mm with birch ply and your cab has about 2m2 of board in it you'll save about 4.2kg if you go as low as 12mm then it will be 8.3kg. Swapping birch ply for poplar (18mm) will save you 3.4kg I haven't checked the Young's modulus for the various plys (Basically how bendy they are) so I don't know which timber will be more resonant. I might look that up too. Using thinner panels would mean you need to add some bracing and this would add more weight to the cab so in practice you wouldn't get the full weight saving unless you were happy to live with a more resonant cab. Cab resonance isn't always a bad thing however; it all adds to the 'sound' of your cab which will change subtly with the use of different panel materials and damping. I think the character of the Hartke drivers would still be strongly evident though.

The problem is that class AB amps produce a fair bit of waste heat and heat causes breakdown of transistors. I used to build amps and a 200W amp needed a 150x100mm heatsink with finned fins to dissipate the heat anything beyond this was pretty difficult to dissipate efficiently. As bass amps have become more powerful passive heatsinking becomes impractical. Class D is more efficient and so produces less waste heat. Combine this with a switch mode power supply and the heat produced inside the amp is much lower. The designer of the Peavey IPR 1600 claims his amp will run without a fan [url="http://www.avsforum.com/t/1150665/peavey-ipr-class-d-amps/420"]http://www.avsforum.com/t/1150665/peavey-ipr-class-d-amps/420[/url] but it is included because the public wouldn't have confidence in the amp without a fan. If he is right we may see a return to passive heatsinking. Perhaps you should use a 100W amp or less for practice at home.

Hi Dave, I used to build this sort of thing and still have some of my old power amps but it doesn't make sense economically any more. You could buy a 100W RMS a side amp for around the £100 mark which is cheaper than the components. For £224 you could buy the Thomann t-amp which is 4x500W to run FOH and the monitors or tops and bass bins with a crossover. Again you can buy a ready made electronic crossover for less than £100. It bugs me to say it but the days of home building to save money are gone except for building high end speaker cabs. If you are home building for fun then go for it, of course.

The truth is that many of the current crop of power amps are fantastic value for money. I ran a Behringer EP1500 for years without a hiccup and then an EP2500 which i still use. the only problem is the weight, but that is inevitable if you have a conventional power supply and want it to meet it's specs. I have a Peavey IPR1600 which I now use all the time simply because of the weight, There is very little difference in sound between these amps and none the Peavey speakers will reveal. The thomann t-amps are well regarded and after sales if anything goes wrong will be better than Behringer's.

The only reason to use the stereo jack input is if you are running out of channels. The balanced outputs from his guitar probably aren't line level anyway but you have the gain control on the mixer to pad down anyway. The balanced line (XLR) connection will be much less prone to problems on stage, the unbalanced jacks will pick up a lot more spurious noise and hum.

If you already have a mixer then the power amp is sensible, I'd get something that delivers 250-300W into the speakers, clipping the vocals because of low power amps sounds pretty rough. We operated with a behringer 1204 mixer and EP2400 for years with no reliability problems so don't be too scared. If I was looking for a cheap light PA amp though I'd look at the T-amp range from Thomann. If you want an all in one package then this is £304 [url="http://www.bluearan.co.uk/index.php?id=BEHPMP4000&browsemode=manufacturer"]http://www.bluearan.co.uk/index.php?id=BEHPMP4000&browsemode=manufacturer[/url] if you can afford a little more then the Peavey IPR1600 is great. I wouldn't go back now.

I can live with the neck dive, The bass is pretty light and hanging on to the neck encourages me to throw the bass around I discovered last night, it's really too posy for a man of my years but it is going to force/give me an excuse to perform more. I've always used wide straps anyway. I really don't think I can live with the twist though. Anyone tried relocating the strap button(s), if so then where to?

[quote name='Ou7shined' timestamp='1341852187' post='1725139'] I didn't realise he was probably driving at the time. I thought we were getting a wee clues about his dogging soundtrack. Wishbone's "The King Will Come" would be quite a good choice. [/quote]

Strap button is at the back of the neck. It has to move. It's funny but I was expecting it to be heavy too but it is much lighter than my Fender. Where did the rumour (why is the spell check American?) about being hard on the back and shoulders come from, or am I about to find out? I'm already playing it lower than my other basses, new strap day tomorrow I think. It had awful strings on it, black coated things with four different coloured cotton windings at the head end. Now has some Dean Markley Blue Steels and is sounding and playing loads better. What will it sound like with flats I wonder. If I want to sound like Martin Turner the first step is to improve, I think.

Just bought a Thunderbird, a real one, 2005 for £611, an ebay impulse after listening to Martin Turner (Wishbone Ash) on the car stereo and having an arousing moment. Was this a good buy? Am I mad? I don't usually do impulse buying. It feels so weird after playing a Jazz for so long. What's the best way of stopping it leaning away from me, will I get used to it or does that go away with time. The neck dive I can put up with and it seems lighter than my other basses.

Another with small hands. You get used to it and you get better but it has to be easier if you have big hands. You learn to shift your hand position a bit more too. I still struggle with things like 'Stuck in the Middle' with a 2nd to 5th stretch held pretty much throughout the song especially when a new band member says 'can we run through a third time' but apart from that the pain has gone. There are things you can try to make it easier; a five string means you rarely go below the 5th fret, a Fender Jazz style neck is narrower and there are short scale basses as has been mentioned.

[quote name='Monckyman' timestamp='1341270386' post='1716329'] Hi Phil,I say go for it, they are great sounding pickups, but... I like a dark tone, with less highs and sizzle,so theses pickups and flats are really working for me. So much so that I`m putting them in a second bass. If you need that modern top end on your sound, maybe they aren`t for you. [/quote] Not really too worried about more top but I may have blown the budget for a bit as I accidentally bought a Thunderbird yesterday, the perfect P-tone might have to wait a bit.

At the risk of causing offence I gigged on Sat with my Hartke Kickback 10 just to see if I could (stack at the ready just in case) and used the DI into the PA (Yamaha Club with s112's and S118 bass bins) rather than my usual Ashdown 600 with two 15's . Firstly I could hear myself better than ever because the speakers were pointing at me and not the audience, more than enough detail to let me vary my fingering and tone more than usual. I could also hear the rest of the band better, Talking to the audience in the break about the sound the reaction was; "you're a bit louder than the other bands and the bass is immense." I think the stack might be relegated to open air gigs from now on.

Interesting thread at the moment, I hope I'm not confusing the issue by adding in some more ideas. I'd strongly recommend you look at the Beyma SM212. Most of beyma stuff is pricey but this one is only £77 so within budget. It's strongest suit is Xmax a whopping 7mm measured the old fashioned conservative way. I like it because Qts is 0.38 which I find optimal, Lower values give overdamped sound and a roll off from fairly high. Higher values and transient response becomes a problem. Its a beautifully made unit and the only problem is that it needs a fairly big cab to give it's best, about 75litres looks good. The response curve is attractive for bass too as you get a reasonable output up to 6000Hz. Although it has a ceramic magnet the whole thing is quite light. [url="http://www.bluearan.co.uk/index.php?id=BMASM212&browsemode=manufacturer"]http://www.bluearan.co.uk/index.php?id=BMASM212&browsemode=manufacturer[/url] Most importantly they sound fabulous with a bass guitar, I bought mine as bass/mid drivers for my PA speakers but they really do make effortless speakers for bass. Just an open easygoing reproduction of what you put in. The other speakers I've tried recently are the 15 Deltalites which are on offer at the moment [url="http://www.bluearan.co.uk/index.php?id=EMIDLIT2515&browsemode=manufacturer"]http://www.bluearan.co.uk/index.php?id=EMIDLIT2515&browsemode=manufacturer[/url] I couldn't resist the price and my trajectory is in the opposite direction to Lawrence at the moment, I'm looking to add a little colouration so their little midrange hump and bass lift in the cabs i had planned looked interesting. I haven't built the real lightweight cabs i intended yet but one sits in a 65l cab I designed for a Black Widow and has become my go to speaker at the moment. One question, if you are happy with making a new baffle to fit in a 12 then why not consider making the cab a reflex design? I'm not against a sealed cab especially for studio work but the extra free bass from a well designed reflex is a hard option to turn down.

Another vote for the Yamaha Stagepas300. Great sound, light weight, all the leads pack into one of the speakers and the amp/mixer into the other. You can easily mix a couple of mics and a couple of instruments. The only drawback is that you don't get really high sound levels but we use ours as stage monitors with a full on band and as vocal monitors in practice and they happily push the vocals through over a drum kit so this is relative. It really is spot on for the sort of act you describe.

[quote name='Monckyman' timestamp='1341056366' post='1713274'] Just did a gig using some Chromes bought here, and I loved it. Loads more top end than I would have thought, nice snap on those slapped bits,pickwork came through the mix easily, very woody deep tone (with a Wizard thumper)and very friendly on the fingers. Other band members approved. Then I went and fecked it up for last nights gig by fitting a different pickguard which seems to be shorting out my tone circuit so I ended up using my Jazz with new DR Hi beams on.. Bit of a shock to the fingers and ears again! Flats for me. It`s going to be interesting seeing how they settle down.If they stay cool, I`ll fit them to the jazz also. [/quote]I'm considering adding the Thumpers to my old Cort to use for a P-bass sound, It plays well but the sound isn't what i'd like. What do you think?

I'm spoiled for music shops Mansons in Exeter is only half an hour away and Axe Music in Axminster (great name for a guitar shop)is only minutes away. It is tiny and only stocks limited bass gear but keeps it interesting with some good used gear which rotates fairly frequently. It's the centre of the music scene down here. Andy has played in several of the local bands, mixed for others and helped out most of us at one time or another. He's great with kids coming in for a first instrument and advice is given freely even if no sale is in sight. What he does well is getting hold of the bits and pieces you need in a hurry that other places don't keep in stock. Saturday mornings the place is a bit of a social centre for musicians. We found our drummer through a small ad in the shop too. Al these shops struggle because of the restrictive practices of the manufacturers like Gibson and Fender who require shops to stock their whole range which means a £60,000 investment, way beyond the means of all but the big boys. Its as if they have decided for us we aren't going to be able to try before we buy or purchase from someone who can offer after sales service. Unless you live in a major city you have tho use the internet for a lot of gear.