Phil Starr

Spot on

I probably didn't explain very well. I use a shelving response rather than the more usual bass tone control which rolls off the bass increasingly as the frequency drops. A shelving response acts like a volume control for bass cutting it all by a set amount. Like this but I only cut by a couple of db not 6db as in this example. I chose the 160 point as that was what was on my mixer at the end of the last gig. I ws surprised it was so high myself but it sounded good on the night. It wouldn't suit every bass or every bassist and Al makes a good point about weight. I suppose what I wanted to say ws don't be scared of equalising around a higher frequency and if you have a shelving response available on your mixer then explore using it. I find it quite a pleasing way of removing some of the boom whilst keeping a little deep bass and way better than using the conventional bass control on my active bass or the bass amp. You have to use your ears and of course we are all aiming for different sounds. Perhaps the other advice would be to make small changes and go back to a flat response from time to time whilst adjusting so you can be sure the changes are genuinley improvements. more here

Good Luck

Anybody listening to music in the 80's will remember the loudness control on their cheap hi-fi. The magic button that made our music come to life, they are still around often with exotic names like Psycho Acoustic boost. The loudness control worked because it exploited a couple of simple bits of human biology. The same bits of biology that make any bass amp or speaker with a mid scoop fly out of the sales room. It's the sound we all love practicing at home but which sounds s**t when we take it to a gig. So to understand it on the graph a couple of simple bits of physics and then some biology which will hopefully help people with their eq. So Physics first: sound pressure levels are measured in decibels and are a measure of the sound's energy, how much the air is moving, kind of. It's what is measured by a sound meter and we use it as a measure of sound volume but it isn't reall a measure of how loud something is. Loudness is measured in Phons. The Phons are only the same as the decibels at one frequency 1,000Hz which is right in the middle of the mid range, sort of. Sounds at low frequencies or very high frequencies just aren't as loud for us as at 1,000Hz but at 3,000Hz they sound even louder. If you want hou can play with this online Here To understand the graph look at the 80Phon line; at 1000Hz it is 80db. Run left to 100Hz and it is 90db. To sound the same volume you need an extra 10db which is 10x the power from your amp/speaker run up to 7kHz and it is again 90db to get the same volume. The graph kind of shows how you would have to set the graphic to get the same perceived volume at 80 phons. As a bassist though the thing to notice is that the settings at low sound levels are different to those at the highest levels. At the quietest you'd need 70db of boost to hear any 20Hz sound at all. At 100phon you'd hear it easily and only need 30db boost for it to be as loud as it is at 100hz. This is where biology comes in, our ears and brain work together to give the most useful sounds. it's a really clever and subtle system of signal enhancement with genuine survival value. There are lots of quiet bass sounds our body makes, the rumbling of our gut and the grinding of our bones as we move. Imagine moving around the savannah's with the sound of our last meal drowning out the sound of something that want's us to be it's next meal The sounds we hear best are the dip in the curve 2-5kHz which is vital for understanding speech and screams and cries. Loud bass we need, it means something exciting and dangerous is about to happen, a large animal, falling rocks or something powerful and dangerous. The reason we like a mid scoop becomes apparent. by having the mids lower it sounds like the bass and treble are louder and you get the illusion of your bass coming from a much louder amp. When you turn the amp up to gig volumes you need a lot less boost to bass and treble to get the sound you crave. Loud bass is exciting, an adrenaline rush. So finally we get to bass guitar. Average gig levels are around 100db (as measured on-stage at Glastonbury a few years ago). 80phon is more like pretty loud music in a domestic setting and for sake of argument I'll say close to practice levels. From the graph you'd need around 15db boost to get 100phon at 50Hz and at 80phon you'd need 20db of boost for the same effect. That's 5db difference in the bass between gig and practice levels compared to the mids. So to take your carefully set up tone for the gig you need to turn your bass down 5db at 50hz or the mids up by the same amount to maintain your tone. Given that the mid scoop is often around 5-6db you've pretty much always got to lose it before you play at gig levels. This isn't the only thing you have to contend with at gigs, room acoustics and the other band members come into the equation too but you have to expect to re-eq when you turn up the volume for a gig to balance your bass and midrange. You'd have to do it for the highs as well except that there is very little hf coming out of your pickups. Cymbals through a powerful PA though......definitely the wrong sort of adrenaline!

Ironically bass here is your enemy. almost anything below 80Hz (the 2nd harmonic of bottom E) should be left for the drums and even up to 160Hz you are in an area where you will be fighting with the drums to be heard. I use a 35Hz 24db/octave filter to remove all subsonics and shelve the bass response through the PA below 160Hz or thereabouts. Please don't take these frequencies as gospel for your eq though you still need to get 'your' tone but remember you are trying to get the balance right between bass and mid/treble. Turning the bass down and maybe edging the volume up is as valid a way of making the mids shine through as boosting mids. It's not a bad principle to start with everything set flat and then cut bass. The idea of using a decent pre amp isn't a bad one either, using a SansAmp transformed my sound with almost no effort from me. One thing you should also be aware of is the equal loudness contours which I'll put in below. It's the opposite of the loudness curve you are deliberately putting in when you use your mid scoop. We are hyper sensitive to mids at low volumes but almost totally insensitive to bass frequencies until they get loud. We aren't great with low level high frequencies either. Turning up you volume control boosts the bass and treble contrasted to the mids which is why a mid scoop sounds good at home but not at gig levels. Going from 80db average levels at home to 100db in the PA might mean you need to cut 5db from the bass to get the same subjective sound. You can read that off on the graph but the message generally is don't be scared to cut bass knowing that you genuinely sound bassier simply by being louder. One thing that worries me is that you say you have no back line (which is brilliant) and you describe your PA but don't mention monitors. You are using monitors aren't you? You simply won't hear the mid/tops from your PA just a wooly bass sound. You absolutely need some sort of monitoring Anyway loudness curves

Bear in mind I'm a friend of @stevie This cab could hava been designed for you. The low end is exemplary, it goes down further than most cabs and is flat down there but is a 'shelved response' due to the power of that neo magnet in the special drivers. The magic is in the crossovers which would put most PA speakers to shame. We did a lot of listening tests with female vocals where our ears are very sensitive to problems. Sade was quite a feature for a while Stevie spent a long time listening, re-measuring, tweaking and then listening again. Frankly it was more like watching the development of a high end hi-fi cab than a bass cab. I don't think there is a bass cab out there to touch the Monaco or Monza for the way it covers the midrange, you'd struggle to find a PA speaker that accurate. I can't see you managing without one for long.

Thanks Rob, it was good to meet you. I've been following your printed bass builds for years and the biggest regret at the bash was not taking time to see one in the flesh. I've had a lot of pleasure from quietly watching your exploits and I'd love to have a go at 3d printing, but I don't need another hobby yet Your thread has already paid back anything I was able to offer you in return. Thanks for the offer but somone has printed me off a similar flange already. The plan was to take it across to @stevie to see if it made a reduction in port noise possible. I haven't got around to using that one yet so it would probbly be wasted on me to print a new one.

I wouldn't add wadding to someone else's design other than to try it out. It's ok to try something and listen for a difference and decide which you prefer if it's easy to return to it's original form, but without a good reason to think it was 'wrong' in the first place I'm not sure I'd expect to get an improvement. I dont think wadding of any sort is going to fix buzzing which is caused by one thing vibrating against another. Something is loose that shouldn't be. The '50mm chunk of ply sounds like a bodge and could be the source of your problem. I'm picturing the PCB as a ruler being twanged against the ply. I'd want the PCB mounted properly, bolted to the plate with insulated stand offs https://uk.farnell.com/c/fasteners-mechanical/fasteners-fixings/spacers-feet/standoffs

That looks like something a lot of home builders would want, probably not something you would want to print in huge numbers though. I've often wondered what it would cost to produce a batch of these to fit drainpipe and soil pipe, the most common material used for making ports. They would certainly tidy up a lot of wonky hole cutting

I'm not familiar with this cab and frankly I don't believe some of the advertising nonsense about the resonator technology so I've kept away from offering too much advice. There is also good reason why most people don't use thin ply for cabs that live on the road and feet pulling out is something that really should not happen. I hope this was addressed in later versions. Anyway you don't need to worry about covering the holes in an internal partition, the white damping material is more or less transparent to sound, some hifi cabs are completely filled with polyester wadding and even have it compressed they even use wool, mineral fibre or glass wool in cabs. Anyway from basic principles the wadding in the cab should either be fixed to panels or the cab should be stuffed in such a way that it stays in place. Loose wadding needs to be kept away from the ends of any ports where the hopefully trouser flapping volume will also flap loose wadding If the wadding is meant to be fixed staples alon aren't really enough and I'd use some spray adhesive as well. Vent the cab after using the spray adhesive as the solvents might affect the speakers. The pressure changes at the resonance of the cab can be quite high and it will find any weak spots and create a rattle or buzz. Buzzing is higher frequency than the fundamental of course. Buzzing could be any mating surfaces in the cab including the speaker drivers and the glue joints between panels. You can exagerate them with a 50hz signal (there are plenty of online signal generators) amplified to high volumes but they are hard to find because of course they have loud sound from the 50hz sinal to hide behind. Just because you have found one buzz it doesn't mean there aren't others. That looks like a very standard switch on the back of the cab, you should be able to de-solder it and put in a new one or find a competent repair tech who can do it for you cheaper than a new panel. Good luck

I guess, looking up needled felt leads me to think that there is a huge range of materials here with quite a range of densities and compression so it must be a mechanically variable material. That's a posh way of saying I'm not sure If yours is a dense material you could save some weight by only putting it on three surfaces opposite each other, the back, one side and either top or bottom. If you were with happy minimal damping then just putting something on the back would be most effective.

Do you know I can't remember what I put inside, it's a cab I built live at the SW bass bash last year and 'finished' off with a coat of Tuff Cab when I got home. It still lacks a grille. I'll have a look inside when I get time. I've a particular set of views on waddding which is itself a complex and controversial issue in the design of hi-fi cabs. Go and read Colloms: High Performance Loudspeakers if you want to come out more confused than you went in. I generally favour using a fairly dense wadding stuck to the panels which reduces internal reflections within the cab and can also damp panel resonances. I'm thinking thick carpet felt or mineral loaded plastic foams here. the problem is extra weight which you don't want in a portable cab. I also use the white polyester stuffing you see in commecial cabs and which I rescue/repurpose from old pillows and duvets; such a skinflint I tend to staple this in to break up standing waves inside the cab so it fixed in the middle of the cab not hard against the panels. You need to make sure it doesn't end up covering the end of the vents in a ported cab though. If I have time I tend to use an iterative process of trial and error. If I hear a resonance or see it on a frequency response I'll see if I can kill it with wadding and i'll liten to the cab with and without wadding to see which I prefer. I have to confess to not having done this with this cab. Sorry 🫣

Just one with a tweeter which was the BassChat lockdown 110 that @stevie designed. I did disconnect the tweeter for that one.

Here you go

Ha ha, matching subs to tops is way trickier than it has a right to be. You're lucky to have @Silvia Bluejay out front to balance it all up. I've messed up totally in the past by having the subs too loud, nobody ever starts with them too quiet. Trying to eq for an incorrectly set sub from the desk isn't easy either. I quite enjoyed that, the bv's were coming over nicely. The bass was maybe a bit indistinct at the beginning but I've heard a lot worse and I know how often Shelagh tells me we sounded a lot better in the room than on my own point and shoot recordings. The sub is really discreet I'd have struggled to find it if I hadn't known what I was looking for. Thanks for sharing the video.

The thing is that bass cabs aren't necessarily flat response and Markbass have their own 'sound' with a boomy ill defined low mid peak. Then you have to consider what the tops are doing, They've been designed for a flat response but they have a crossover of their own linking the bass driver to the horn. Push the HPF high enough in the subs crossover and it starts to interact with the crossover in the tops where the bass driver is now acting as the midrange driver in a three way system. Three way crossovers are a total PItA to design well. Keeping the crossover down around the 100Hz range means you are doing all this at a point where our ears aren't too picky/discriminating. IME 120Hz might be the sort of starting point that I'd try. This is a bodge and @synthaside is just going to have to use their ears to get the best out of it. Only they can judge if it is better than the Yamahas on their own but just trying is a great way to learn .

Well a lot can happen in a week. John @Chienmortbb has been looking for a small lightweight sub for some time. He has the usual problems with hefting around huge speakers and one of the solutions are Wharfedale Titans, 12" speakers which have a great vocal sound with a decent horn and driver, go really loud and are nice and light. The problem is the lightweight cab means they don't do bass well at high volumes. That Citronic sub looked like a solution and the thought was that if it wasn't up to the job we'd just remove the plate amp and build a new cab with a better speaker in. £200 for an amp and crossover looked too good to be true. John ordered one too and we unpacked it at the SW Bass Bash on Sunday. So first impressions, it's tiny and very portable, quite nicely made too. The cab seems solid with a decent paint finish, the grill is good enough and some nice handles have been fitted. The plate amp itself seems well constructed and it all works OK. The sound was acceptable, these things don't go down really low but they do add a nice thump to the sound. We were in a smallish room with other people doing other things so we didn't have the cahnce to run at gig volumes but with sub and both 12" tops turned up there was too much bass. turning the sub back to 1.00 o'clock gave a disco bass sound and 12.30 was where the balance was. The sub wasn't flat out distorting before I turned it down and I reckon it was rolled back slightly more than 12db. One of these with a couple of eights might be a good match but two with the Wharfedales would proibably work well. They are light enough for me at 73 to carry two at a time and would back easily into most cars, they are the size of many 1x10 bass cabs. At £200 they are a steal. Looking forward to seeing how @Happy Jack got on at the gig

Is yours the one with the tweeter? I'll have the original Mk1

Just packed the car ready for an early start. I'm only bringing nine speakers this year.

I'm probably going to hell, can I redeem them there? See you tomorrow Mike

That's do-able The RCF Evox is £777 a side and as @Woodinblack says you can pick them up used fairly easily. It might be worth looking at Turbosound if you can get to hear them. Turbosound are 'posh' Behringer an older speaker company bought up by Music Tribe who produce a lot of their designs but made in the Behringer factory. Bugera for PA sort of thing. Their point source speakers are good value but I've not listened to any of their columns. I'm also in the camp of those who recommend you just go for smaller tops. I also use RCF ART 310's for my duo and small gigs and for £300 a side from Thomann they'll probably be a lot better quality than your Behringers, You might even be able to go down to 8" tops

Hi Paddy, do you have a budget in mind for this? There is no point in recommending an FBT Vertus VT1000 system if your budget is limited. It would also be useful to know what you want to put through your PA. If it is vocals only then you'dgo foravery different system to one where the full band are using the PA with no back line. You'll do well to steer clear of the Bose systems, they are heavily over hyped and poor value for money over here in the UK. Generally the issue with these small line source or 'stick' systems is their relative lack of output and higher cost compared to conventional speakers on a pole. They do look great and can speed up set up as well as sound good but it may be worth thinking of just using smaller conventional speakers if your budget is limited. @Woodinblack uses an RCF Evox system which I've heard and sounds good and I've played through a similarly priced LD Maui 28 system which was also quite effective. I notice also that FBT have a new offering the CS 1000 but you are looking at £2500 for a pair of these.

it's now very obvious why your cabs were 'farting out'. You probably know all this but just in case: Out of phase means one speaker cone is moving forwards as the other goes back and the resulting sound waves cancel each other at low frequencies and the bass would be dramatically reduced. You probably went on cranking the amp to compensate hence the strange noises. I'm assuming you've tried them since wired correctly? If so I imagine they were much louder and very much bassier and you had the amp turned down a fair amount so no farting? I don't think your cabs are too big to function well and neither do Eminence. One of their designs is slightly bigger than your cab though they do de-rate the speaker to 300W max in this configuration. Yor cab volume can work with your speakers though you'd need to shorten the ports to get the best out of the cab, not lengthen them as you have this size of cab will give you the deepest bass. BFM's dimensions would be better IMO, you can use the full 450W without distortion and you'll have a cab that is much lighter and more portable. It's as near as dammit to Eminences medium cab. You'll lose a bit of deepest bass but it will still give a very satisfying bass sound without sounding overblown in a band situation.

Yeah I think planning your next System is a great idea. It is much better to know where you are going as it informs your purchases rather than rushing into cheap fixes that only last a few weeks before needing the next bodge. I've spent a lot of money early on making do when a more measured approach would have saved a bit of money in the long run. I learned loads by making mistakes though That's why I applaud your current solution. It lets you get on with playing music whilst you plan something better. I used to have a Stagepas 300 and that and the 500 aren't really good for a band, they just struggle for volume. the 400/600 were much better. They are good for monitors though as the sound is pretty good with no nasties to cause feedback issues. You don't need them to go so loud as monitors. If you do go for a crossover I wouldn't worry too much about the brand, Behringer are the most widely available https://www.thomann.co.uk/behringer_cx2310_v2.htm but there are lots of other OEM products that are essentially similar. Used ones are curently £35-50 on Marketplace but at £77 a new one might be worthwhile depending upon how tight funds are. You'll get £35-50 if you upgrade so it'll cost you £30ish for indefinite 'hire'. If you want small then there is this. It's programmable and 24db/octave filters are available on all four channels. You've also got limiting so you could program in some protection for your tops. Harder to sell on when you've finished with it though as it is a more techie solution https://www.thomann.co.uk/the_t.racks_dsp_4x4_mini.htm

I'm not criticising anybody Al I've done many a bodge over the years when money was tight and I needed a practical solution. I'd rather be constructive and help people squeeze a little more out of what they have or save them money when it is tight by counselling against a purchase that won't help. Trying out what you have makes sense. If it works then it isn't wrong but maybe just a bit less than ideal. In this case the lackof a crossover and the positionng of the speakers worries me a little. The idea of a bass cab as a sub not at all. Without a crossover all the bass from the amp is going to the tops and the main reason for a sun is to divert the bass away from the tops so they can be worked harder and cleaner for the mids and highs. You can pick up used crossovers for maybe £50 so adding one at some stage could be a consideration. Having your bass amp behind the mic line with vocals going through it means the vocal mic will pick up amplified vocals. On some stages that will lead to more chance of feedback and it does muddy the vocals anyway. It may be that the bass energy for the audience is worth having and trading it for the downsides still gives a better sound after everything is taken into account. Getting a crossover and putting the bass cab in front of the mic line would be better and a crossover is going to be cheaper than a new sub so maybe that is the next purchase.