Phil Starr

Maplins used to sell Eminence drivers re-badged as Big Cat so not impossible that they were the replacements

No it serves no porpoise Yes , I know but I'm having a whale of a time

If you are happy to go separates then it might be worth looking at the LFSys Monza a 10" cab by @stevie of this parish. It's a 10" version of the Monaco which we tried with DB at the South West bass bash. Both cabs have a tailored response called a shelving response in the bass region. This is used sometimes in the design of large touring PA systems. The bass starts to roll off early but very gradually and the overall bass response is extended. This is countered in any cab you put on the floor and bass lift by ground reinforcement is the cause of boominess in a lot of cabs. Of course it is also the cause of a lot of bass feedback in amplified double bass. In the midrange and all the way up the cab is dead flat. Stevie worked at KEF and for Yamaha so he knows a bit about crossovers again feedback issues are reduced because there are no nasty peaks and the sound we got at the bass bash was the sound of the strings. The Monaco was the best cab we tried with DB but as a 12 it's quite large, the smaller version might well be the perfect cab for DB. @TheRev was the person who tried the Monaco It might be worth contacting @stevie he has a cab doing the rounds for people to try and if you look in the affiliates section he has a reduced price for BC members at the moment.

People forget sometimes that our hearing isn't linear. Doubling the power always increases the sound levels by exactly the same amount, 3 decibels. So going from 1W to 2W you'll get 3dB, from 500W you still need to double so you need an extra 500W to get the same 3db increase. 3db isn't much either, just going up a notch. to double the sound you need 10x the power so that 40W Fender is equal to half of a 400W amp. You obviously know your stuff, backing off the bass reduces the power demand a lot maybe a 1/4 if you put in a 6db cut and adding in the low mids gives the audience the impression of bass. An extra little hack is to push the tiny combo hard back against the wall or even better into a corner. Each surface will reflect and reinforce the bass and make it sound like a much bigger amp. For an open mic I use a single 6" cab not much bigger than a handbag, volume has never been an issue so long as I can get into that corner

Ha ha fair point, I was deliberately keeping it simple. Obviously it depends upon where you measure the note which decays over time, the bridge PUP is weaker than the neck PUP, how hard you pluck and how many windings and what sort of magnetic material is in the PUP. I've double checked (surprisingly hard to find actual measurements) and I think it would be fairer to say 10's of mV but peaking in the range you say. This is a single pluck of an open E on a P PUP Peak voltage is actually 320mV, 76mV rms across the sweep. Bit surprised at that!

OK well I've been on a bit of a journey. When @stevie and I started designing the Bass Chat cabs we differed a lot. I liked voiced amps and cabs that I could plug and play with someone else sorting the sound for me. Stevie always wanted a completely clean sound so that the starting point was clear and he could add in with a blank slate to write upon. I suppose I wanted ChatGPT to do the work for me From a science point of view I was interested in the psychoacoustics what was causing the perception of heft or even 'bassiness' given that we are so poor at actually hearing the bottom couple of octaves. The result was that Stevie was more results driven and I've been more 'experimental' My wife would say I never concentrate So I've come round more towards Stevie and now go out either with PA cabs or his FRFR cabs and use an fx box for my sound. Mainly because the voiced amplification only sounds glorious in some rooms, in difficult spaces the voicing can make it really hard to sound good. So coming to my experience with FRFR. I use a couple of RCF ART310's (recently discontinued) with my duo and with the band I go straight to PA and use in ears unless we have a dep drummer with an acoustic kit when I use a Bugera with an LFSys Silverstone. The only problem with the ART 310's is that they are only flat on poles. I've had the best bass sound ever (for me) with a pair up on poles. As floor monitors the bass is overwhelming on-stage and ends up feeding through the vocal mics. That has been solved by shelving the bass about 5db in the mixer and filtering everything out below 50Hz. The Silverstone has a lovely warm tone, the epitome of clean, but again on stage the bass is a bit too much and a tweak of bass roll off is needed. The other two LFSys speakers have the bass shelving built in and at gig levels sound really good without tweaking. Finally playing bass at really high volumes through plastic cabs does show some limitations and you can hear the cab resonances. There are advantages in a built for bass wooden cab. Incidentally I use the Bugera because it is flatter than most, I have a Peavey MiniMax and an MB Tube but the Bugera works well this way.

Do you have a speaker you intend using with this amp or are you looking for a combo or possibly an active PA speaker?

I think that is probably right. For me clean means no distortion either of the response or of the waveform however that is achieved. Coming from a science background clean means no distortion but for a guitarist their 'clean' means something entirely different, the sound of their guitar through their amp and cab with minimal added fx. My personal sound isn't clean, I shape the response and I've come to enjoy a little bit of grit when I dig in. The scientist in me likes to isolate all the variables so starting with a genuinely clean sound works for me but a bit of me is jealous of the bassists who can walk up to any amp crank the knobs from one extreme setting to another and eventually get the tone they need. That is a craft to be admired. It would be good to know where @uk_lefty sits about where clean is for him.

I'd go along with @Al Krow about which RCF to use if it is strictly for bass but if you are going to use synth for anything with significant mid range content then the bigger horn drivers will make a real difference. To be honest the nicest sound I get is out of my RCF310's on poles. I have RCF 745's for PA and the little 10's sound every bit as good for bass, but not for vocals. I've used QSC12-2's in the past; the horns in the RCF's sound sweeter but the QSC's are fine speakers if a bit heavy. The LFsys are an interesting option as they are designed specifically for bass, they would have better power handling of the lowest frequencies and a wooden cab compared with the plastic moulded cab of the PA speakers. They'd need an amp though. It would give you the option of going down to a 10" lightweight cab though if you went for the LFS Monza. currently on a special offer to BC'ers

It's interesting isn't it that we don't all agree on what 'clean' sounds like. 'Clean but not sterile', 'massive sounding', 'every clean sound you could imagine' and so on after all we only started this morning. No criticism by the way I'm just pointing out that all of this is subjective and that the language we have at our disposal is inadequate for what we are trying to capture. For me clean is what you get coming out of a PA amp running well within it's power capability, with no eq and minimal levels of distortion or what I hear through decent headphones direct from the mixing desk but I know that what I think of as clean is other peoples sterile. So what does clean mean for you? Is it FRFR or is it the absence of pre-applied compression or 'drive'. Maybe it is something else you only know when you hear it?

That's a common misunderstanding of how the master volume control works. Your amp is divided into a pre amp section and the amplifier proper that drives the speaker. The master volume sits between those two controlling the voltage that goes into the amplifier. Voltage gain is important and will be done in stages in the pre-amp. Your guitar puts out a few thousandths of a volt and the amplifier needs around a volt to drive it to full power so the pre amp has a gain of just over 1,000. Not all basses have the same output and any pedals may have quite a lot of gain already but this is trimmed by your input gain. Inside the pre amp there are usually at least two gain stages The voltage is typically given a gain of about x100 to bring it up to a few 1/10ths of a volt and that is where the tone controls and any built in effects are done. After this a further stage adds more gain to bring that up to the voltage level the power amp needs. Now crucially all pre amps need to be able to give enough gain that even a weak signal will drive the amp to full power. The manufacturer doesn't know what bass and which pedals you will use so you have spare gain, usually lots of it. You could probably drive 3x the voltage needed into your power amp if you turned the master up to 11 (OK six o'clock ) You may well be driving your amp into distortion at 1 o'clock as you have no idea of the voltage gain in the last stage of your pre amp. I'll let you into a little secret here, extra gain costs nothing and a few manufacturers cheat a little and add pre amp gain, that makes their amp louder at 1 o'clock than everyone else's when you try them out in the shop, only when you get on the stage after you've bought do you find your amp overloads and you can't use anything past halfway on the output dial. Sound familiar? The wire in your speaker coil is thinner than a top E on a guitar and handles all the power, any speaker cable will be thicker than that. Bass speaker leads are short so don't need to be as thick as PA speaker cables which can be 10m+. Either would be fine One thing occurs to me, you play Reggae? You are probably boosting bass and cutting some of the mids and treble? Boosting the bass will boost the voltage in your amp and cutting the mids will make it difficult to hear yourself on stage. You could be loud enough for the band and the audience but just struggling to hear. Have you been out into the audience to listen there? The second effect of boosting the bass is that it makes the speakers move further and most speaker distortion is due to over excursion. Because what you are doing is specialised you may well be over-driving your speakers and they will eventually fail if that is the case. Adding the extra cab will reduce the excursion demands you are making by quite a lot but don't boost the bass so much if the speakers are overloading, that could be expensive. If the audience are getting a good deal and you are the only one not able to hear enough try boosting the mids on-stage and cutting them by the same amount on the PA if you can.

I think the iron rule in this case you can't have both of those at a low price The 10" driver in this cab has a hugely powerful magnet for this class of cab and isn't cheap. I think the Monza in particular is hugely under priced for what you are getting even at the list price. The current reduced price for Bass Chat members is almost crazy. No laws of physics are being broken. The voice coil in the 10" unit has a 3" voice coil which gives it the ability to disperse more heat and a longer voice coil to increase excursion which also improves power handling. The long coil is operating in a strong magnetic field so efficiency is kept high and because the magnetic field is so powerful the movement of the cone at the lowest frequencies is better damped than with a cheaper/weaker magnet again reducing the chance of over-excursion. It's all made possible by spending a lot of money on a super-powerful magnet which would be ridiculously heavy if you used anything other than a neodymium motor system.

Wow we used to have hair

First of all apologies, I have said that I'd write up all the builds as a proper instruction guide and life just hasn't let me get round to it. Last night for example we were rehearsing a new dep drummer, it's always something. I probably spend too much time on BC to be honest but it is fun. Feel free to PM me if you can't find what you need.

Not just me then I buy six way extensions from Lidl then rewire them with a long, more flexible rubber coated black cable from electrical wholesalers or sometimes Screwfix. Four of these, one to run the width of the stage area and two to run up the sides (plus a spare). They are pretty much the first thing I lay down when setting up at a pub gig and everything runs off them. They've been sized to cope with the biggest stages we play on and have to be black.

More speaker area equals better efficiency so more air is moved for each watt. There are other benefits too; each speaker is sharing the load so you can push the amp up a little louder if it goes there without overloading the speakers. That really helps when you push the amp hard or if you boost the bass with your eq. 450W into four identical speakers will be louder than 500W into two. Secondly with each speaker handling less power the coils run cooler and running speakers hot means you get something called power compression as heat changes their impedance. Finally and probably the most significant benefit the taller your stack the better you will hear it. So, there are benefits. The downside is as you say, cost. Those are nice speakers and should be capable of matching a drumkit unless your drummer is a monster. They are also capable of damaging your hearing if you don't wear plugs, so is more volume a great idea? Probably not, it looks like they are 4ohms so simply adding another speaker with your amp is problematic as it won't deal with 2 ohms. Adding another cab of 8ohms gives you a mis-match and one cab, If you add 12's as you suggest, will change your sound entirely and unpredictably. The sound might be better, more likely worse but it will be different. If you want the same sound but louder then add matching speakers which will mean two 8ohm cabs and more expense. Honestly I'd live with what you have unless you no longer like the sound or are regularly struggling for more sound. At the very least that gives you time to really look around or until the GAS subsides.

Hi John, welcome to BassChat. You've probably seen the classifieds here, you have to pay a subscription if you want to sell but anyone can buy of course. You can check people's reputations on the site but as a marketplace it scores pretty highly for trustworthiness. We are all enthusiasts and want others to be enthusiastic so we look after each other and anyone who abuses that trust soon gets the message. I've yet to have a bad experience, most people are more than helpful. If you are new to bass it's worth asking for advice and giving your budget or even asking if something is a good buy. You'll get warnings about anything that is poor value and lots of suggestions what to look out for.

Don't knock it until you've tried it My duo have just moved to using programmed drums. In our situation it is so liberating. Like a lot of guitarist/singers his timing was awful, that's fine as a soloist because the voice and guitar change pace at the same time but it makes it impossible for anyone else to play with you. I spent gigs just concentrating on the 'dramatic' time shifts. I've also played with the usual mix of drummers who often speed up or drag on the beat. Playing with a machine completely frees you up to concentrate on the audience and your own playing. The click track tightens up the whole band and the audience react to that because it creates that trust in what you are doing and dancing is so much easier if the beat is reliable. For me it just feels as if the music flows out rather than being forced, more natural in a funny sort of way. Of course it's not for every song or every band, and there is a learning curve, but is it robotic and a barrier between you and the audience? Absolutely not

You're being quite modest here Steve, the Pretty Things were quite a big deal for people of my vintage. One time rivals of the Rolling Stones in the art college scene around my part of South London and Jagger and Richards were part of their family tree. Sadly I was just too young to be allowed out to the gigs at the college in Bromley. Rosalyn was an early favourite of mine. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pretty_Things

Dave I have to say going for a digital mixer whichever you choose is such a step up, just being able to store the mix for your bands is worth it but you get so much more. Once you've worked your way along the learning curve you'll love it. have fun.

Hi Smanth. this looks like two questions to me. How do I get a good sound out of a battery powered amp? How do I make best use of the amp sims on my pedal board? Getting the sound out of your pedal board through your Boss Dual Cube is going to be quite compromised. It won't be as flat as a PA speaker but it is hard to think of something commercially available that is battery powered that will. Power is an issue with just 12V to play with a conventional amplifier will only really give 5W, it is possible to bridge the amps (basically using two amps in a push/pull arrangement) to get 20W and there are amps out there that will give you 4x20W commonly used in car stereos. Beyond this you can use switch mode/digital electronics to turn 12V into a higher voltage to give more power. The cheapest way to do this is a car amplifier module as David has suggested. It was what he had in his combo at the SW Bass Bash. It did sound good. Using amp sims means using a flat response speaker to get the best out of them. Typically the sim just mimics the frequency response of the original system so adding a few db of variation from a non flat amp just undoes some of the good work. However don't let the search for perfection be the enemy of the good. Using a non flat bass amp with a sim might mean it doesn't sound exactly like an A****g but if it sounds amazing who cares You talked about the Bass Chat designs Two of them look good and would be great driven by your pedals and David's car amp. The House Jam combo https://www.basschat.co.uk/topic/455858-house-jam-micro-cab/ which I designed with the 6" speaker is what I use for portable work with a Warwick Gnome, It's the size but not the shape of a large hand bag. The response is flat from 80Hz-8,000Hz which covers most of a bass guitar but with a bit of bass missing as you'd expect from a tiny speaker. This is it, recorded on a phone https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P_J8r5QAu3g The other build option would be the 10" lockdown build that Stevie designed. https://www.basschat.co.uk/topic/445743-basschat-easy-build-lockdown-cab-project/ It's a lot bigger but still an easy one handed carry. The response is a lot flatter than many so called FRFR bass speakers and it's the speaker I use most of all. Both of these would work really well with a 100W car audio amp running off a 12V battery Hope that helps

Hi Jake from the GK Legacy manual Theoretically the power should double as the impedance halves but like most amps this one won't quite double the power into 4 ohms. I would imagine the limit is the power supply current. If the power supply is limited to 800W then ultimately so is the amp so you'll get roughly 800W into anything lower than 4 ohms.

Sorry I should have said message me if you had specific questions. I've not been following this thread closely and only check in if someone quotes me or tags me. It's probably too late as you've ordered the XR18. It's a good choice and scores over the M18 on flexibility every time. I wanted to report back on my practical experiences with the M18 a year on, as the last time I said anything I'd only just started using it and was still thrilled with my new toy. Now it's just another tool for the band but it has just gone on delivering with quiet efficiency so I'm still pleased with it. I've never tried stereo monitoring but you can do it by using two aux channels, there are You Tube videos on this. I've never used the headphone output other than as a monitor for the main mix or to troubleshoot a single channel so I can't answer your implied question on how flexible that is as an extra monitor channel. If you wanted more than three stereo channels at the same time I'd be looking for something with more auxes and probably that means more busses. The M18 saves settings to the mixer. I've used three generations of iPad with it Originally my wife's gen 2, then one of the new ones which still has the headphone out and for backup my duo partners even more ancient one, they all work smoothly without a dropout so far. I remember trying out the software before I bought it and not everything worked without the mixer present so maybe that is why you crashed when using it. I've had zero problems so far and a lot of updates are for security reasons and operating offline would remove the need for a lot of these. I'm not someone who looks down at Behringer, I had a Behringer mixer and PA amps and they were great and problem free. A previous band had the X32 which was fabulous if somewhat large for a pub band. I didn't have to operate it but set up times seemed interminable when we used it. I think a rational choice between these two is simple. You are trading the ability to record multiple channels and flexibility in the Behringer for simplicity and slicker software in the M18 plus a reliable router, so less to carry. Behringer also sell add-ons so you can add in a control surface with real sliders and the P16 if you want to extend your monitoring abilities. I really thought seriously about the Behringer but realised all the extras were things I wouldn't use down the Dog and Duck and extra complexity was a trade off against quicker set up times and concentrating on playing not tech. make no mistake these are both great choices.

I don't understand why you haven't asked Ashdown directly. they really are very helpful

I looked at all of the available options except the Zoom which was released later than the others. The M18 is a lot less versatile than the others being designed for just one job but on the plus side it does that job really well. It's designed for the gigging band. Everything (router, power supply) is in one box and everything works. I've never had a dropout from the router even when I forget the external antenna and it will work from a couple of rooms away, though at gigs you always have line of sight Rock solid. On top of that it sounds really good, I didn't get to try the others for sound but when I swapped out my old Yamaha MG mixer there was a really noticeable improvement in the sound from the mics. The control software is where it really scores though, everything is where you would expect it to be and the workflow is well thought out for a gigging band. Nothing is more than two clicks away, the panic button to get you back to FOH is on every screen and all the buttons are big so hitting them when playing is a breeze. All of the volume sliders have a 1db tap feature so just tapping the slider adjusts it up or down a notch so no chance of clumsy over adjustment when you are tweaking in the middle of a song. Everything like eq and compression have a 'simple' setting so you can have fully parametric or bass,mid,treble on the tones or a simple one knob compression if you want or full control if you prefer. (at a recent gig I got a friend of a friend and a professional sound engineer to mix as he was at the party and looking bored, he was trying to beat the programmed one knob compression and reckoned it was well implemented). Best of all everything you need to twiddle is big on the screen so easy to see and adjust under live conditions. Basically there is real attention to detail and for a small live band it is really well sorted. The down side is that they have made some decisions for you. There are two dedicated instrument channels and they are the only ones with high impedance inputs and the full suite of amp and speaker sims. We use external multi-fx anyway so I've never used them live. There are only really eight true mic channels (none of my bands have ever used more than four vocal mics so not an issue for me, but you'd struggle with a choir) We have electronic drums but I personally wouldn't use more than 3 mics on a kit anyway, just for set up time issues. The issue is that if you were using the M18 with a new band you'd have to plan where you plugged things in, you can't treat all the input channels as the same. For me it's a machine for a particular job, I play in a duo and have never played in anything other than 3,4 or 5 piece pub bands. I rarely have anyone mixing FOH and set up and break down time needs to be quick and simple. I'm playing bass, mixing and dealing with all the technical stuff for the band so simplicity and functionality is king. This just works for me, for a small gigging band with a band member mixing it's a no-brainer.