Phil Starr

crikey I didn't know it worked!

Don't forget to adjust the DFA knob.

Yeah anything to do with PA is scattered over the site and difficult to follow and find as a result. It's certainly my experience that the bassists get lumbered with a lot of the technical stuff but we are all musicians and part of that involves at least some knowledge of how the PA works. Actually we have no home for the practicalities of performing live, The section on Performance has a section called 'gigs' but it mainly duplicates the 'how was your gig last night section. Accessories has the wonderful thread on IEM's but a PA is a bit big to be considered an accessory There's actually nothing in Performance about actually performing, recording yes, technique and tabs yes but performing live no. maybe that is where the site designers meant to see discussion about the practicalities of performing but if so it could be more clearly labelled/flagged up. C'mon lets add a sub-section about PA into the Performance section and maybe add a bit about PA into the reviews.

Your mix isn't bad at all, I've heard a lot worse. It's almost impossible to mix perfectly from behind the line as you'll find you play and sing with more energy as you warm up. I agree that keys are a bit forward, but it's not awful. I might have pulled the vocalist back a tiny bit but that might be taste. You do want vocals forward it's just a question of how much. The biggest issue for me was the backing vocals. They are both moving their heads on and off the mic so you aren't getting a consistent sound and they pull away before they've finished the note. I struggle with that myself, you try to put energy into the rest of the performance and forget to centre for the doo-wops. It's probably not far off when they address the mic properly but most of the BV's are too quiet. Set up with something simple you all do everything on, not an instrumental, embarrassingly we use Teenage kicks but it's simple enough that they keep going when the bass stops for me to adjust and we all sing on that.

Given your video of the other day there's a health and safety reason why I put my tops on the subs if I use them Bill is right that sonically it is not the right thing. Close coupling or using a single sub would be better. If there is a space between the subs then the sound from one will arrive later than the sound from the other. Where the distance is a half wavelength or other multiples you'll get cancellation. the result is a lumpy frequency response in the bass. The frequencies which cancel will vary depending upon the spacing and the acoustics of the room. In practice in a pub I don't think the punters are going to notice. If the punter is much nearer one sub than the other then they are only going to hear that speaker and any adjacent walls are going to give multiple pathways and phase cancellation too so you aren't in an acoustically good situation from the start. Also most subs by definition only work at frequencies where our hearing is poor. It's worth being aware of the problem but when you have half an hour to set up at the Dog and Duck on a 'lively' Sat night I wouldn't lose sleep over it. However if @Silvia Bluejay notices the bass changes in different parts of the room that is what is going on.

It's a failsafe for any band to be able to use the floor monitors for PA in an emergency. I've known people use matching speakers for both to give versatility but I have to say I have had zero failures of any of my PA. I use my ART310's as PA at some venues and with my duo. I wouldn't go with a mix of active and passive monitors simply because not many people make them so you will be limited in choice to systems designed at a budget. Just about all modern speakers are built with DSP taking care of crossover and speaker protection/amp management and are better for it. If your active cab went down you would have no monitors. If I was designing a system from scratch I would plan to go in-ears though. Using floor monitors means you are accepting poorer sound quality for your audience and sound levels on stage that will permanently damage your hearing unless you wear hearing protection. In-ears will also mean you will have studio quality sound to play to at every venue irrespective of the room acoustics. The tablet dropping out is a problem with the router, many of the main brands like Behringer have a poor built in router and most users take an external router with them and don't get that problem. Yopu can usually use a Cat5 connection if you are worried. I chose the RCF M18 because stuff not working irritates me and the whole point was to reduce the boxes I had to wire in. That has yet to drop out ever.

It's a real shame we have no home for PA issues but I suppose the techie people hang about here so you should get lots of opinions. The first thing is that the weak part of the PA is usually the soft fleshy bit that twiddles the knobs You can easily spend thousands on a PA so I'm not going to suggest a wholesale replacement, I'm kind of assuming you will use what you have first and you will grow your PA rather than welcome the suggestion to bin stuff. The Soundcraft mixer is decent enough for a basic PA. 2x15's are overkill for most PA's now but if they are really old, and a 450W rating suggests they are then you may have limitations, but the BOX speakers are fairly well regarde and you won't know until you try The current 2x15's are rated 700W. Just play some recorded music through them at volume and make a critical appraisal paying attention to the sound of the vocals. How big are the venues you are playing, I've never fully mic a kit for a pub gig, the most I do is mic the kick. The drumkit is usually the loudest sound for most pub bands downing out the rest of the band and bleeding through the vocal mics, the last thing you need to do is amplify your loudest sound. Obviously there comes a stage when the venue is too big for unamplified drums but if this is your first PA I'd expect it to be a while before you reach that stage. Amplified drums rarely sound as good as they sound acoustically. It's really quite a technical job to mic the whole kit and takes a lot of time to set up, a lot of venues won't welcome you taking that time especially if you are in a pub where people are finishing meals before the band comes on. Monitors are crucial, if you can't hear each other you can't play tight as a band. If anything you need better quality monitors than your PA. Because they are closer to the mics than the PA Mains they are likely to cause most of your feedback problems. A flat response here really helps. Fortunately you don't need them to be particularly loud, you are close and almost any monitor will take you beyond the point where feedback means you have to back off the gain. You don't need extended bass or treble either. In the days when I used monitors I used my RCF ART310's, not exceptional speakers but no sonic nasties, despite being 10's they could reach ear bleeding levels on-stage. Why you would want to make your ears bleed baffles me though!!! That brings me to another aim you ought to be working towards; reducing the sound levels on stage. You can use what you have to give you a vocals plus backline system which people have used since the dawn of rock'n'roll. You really don't need 15" speakers for vocals only though. The problem is having bass and guitars loud enough for the third row back means they a re deafening on stage and will swamp the vocals in the vocal mics which will be picking up more drums and instruments than human voice if you aren't careful. Plus your choice to wear ear plugs or lose some of your hearing. 2x15's were basically built for disco's not for bands but they should handle bass, kick and obviously guitar so I'd be trying to put as much as I could through the PA. So when you are buying I'd always be looking to buy once, to build up the PA you ultimately want. I really wouldn't buy separates now, I'd be looking to replace things with active speakers. I'd also be looking to replace the mixer with a digital mixer as a next step. They are so much more versatile and will unlock all sorts of potential whilst ultimately being easier to use.. Monitors first though in all probability. First step is to set up a technical rehearsal, Hire a decent hall and set up as if you were gigging, Take your time and try and get the best sound possible out of your PA, note your shortcomings and try what solutions you can. I really wouldn't get bogged down in miking the drums at this stage, kick only Good luck

On the subject of finding band members it would be extraordinary for anyone genuinely experienced to have no video or recordings of themselves at all. I've seen plenty of poor video's of good bands or home made recordings poorly mixed by a band member where no-one had the heart to tell them it wasn't great but nothing at all says either they aren't what they claim or they are incredibly disorganised.

WE need video

This really We have a female front person and most of my bands have been this way. I guess I started with a group of friends and our best singer by a distance was Lorraine and I learned a largely female led set list. Once you've got 50+ songs under your belt changing is a steeper learning curve. One of the factors when I'm looking at a new band is how much of the set list we know in common. If you are going to be gigging within a couple of weeks or so you don't want to learn 30 completely new songs. There are a lot of 'rival' bands playing our sort of repertoire who are a bunch of old blokes and a young female singer. There is no shortage of young people who want to play in bands and who are basically just dreamers. Wanting to front a band comes with a big ego. Youth comes with fewer strategies for coping, higher hormone levels and often more drama and that may be a function of youth not gender. Cynically I can see why bands like an attractive young woman out front. The same group of old blokes would probably think twice about recruiting a young male, would they fit in? Recruiting band members is fraught, they need to play/sing but it's a fairly intimate relationship in most bands, one of the attractions is that in a band it is a bit of ''all for one and one for all', us against the world. You really need someone who has the skills and that you can at least rub along with. I find adding the words 'experienced' and 'gigging' to ads weeds out the dreamers and anyone who doesn't have at least some audio and video to show you isn't likely to be worth seeing Just as an aside I've been wondering why I've found this an uncomfortable thread and I think it's the implication that any group of people are in some way all the same. It's a bit Henry Higgins.

I was always a believer, but the band were sceptics. I'd get lynched now if I asked the band to give up their in-ears. Many thanks to you personally Russ both for what you put up here and helping to steer me in the right direction with the odd pm. You are one of the best.

I've kept the front port in the design I've sent off. When I write this up properly I'll just mention it as an option. I want this to be as widely built as possible, as in all our designs, and people are just more comfortable with front ports. Equally I want to demystify cab building, partly because it is fun and partly so they can understand what they are buying from commercial builders. If @chyc wants a bottom port he should try it. I suspect it will make very little difference in practice to the sound though if he is going to use a bigger port he probably needs to think about making the cab bigger by the same volume so the air in the cab stays the same 20l

If I were building this for myself I'd rear mount the port, I'm not keen on downwards because it could potentially introduce a resistive element at the end of the port. I don't think that would be very significant but it would depend upon the length of the feet and possibly the surface underneath. It's been done successfully though. Rear mounting is convenient and it helps make a stronger baffle if you cut less of it away. What's the problem with you BC112 mk3? We might be able to help.

Funny you should raise this. My band are all helpful enough but it leads to mistakes. I also use the mixer with two different bands so there are two labels on the top of the mixer, but there's no space for colour coding by the sockets. Having got rid of the snake I'm now wondering if a short loom, properly labelled might be an option The aux outs on the mixer are balanced jacks so I already have four jumper leads to gender change to XLR. I've thought of lacing these together and putting their names on the plugs but I've got some old looms from analogue days I could cannibalise. It might reduce the strain on the sockets long term too, I'm thinking if I do that for the Aux outs I might end up doing it for the mic ins too.

I've been meaning to update everyone on here on last weeks gig. I'm hoping it will be a bit of encouragement for those who are considering this journey or who are part way through. It's the first time we've managed to get the monitor mix perfect first time and throughout the gig for all the band members. Keeping this in perspective we've never had anything like so good a sound from floor monitors even on a professional stage. It's been a long journey in time because we've had changes in band members and a lot of gigs with deps but probably only half a dozen gigs with our permanent band members. Most of the deps are more comfortable with floor monitors. First of all the experience as a band, set up was a doddle, fewer trips when loading/unloading. Really grateful for this as I was gigging with a broken foot. The digital mixer is such a boon as you don't need a line check, the meters show everything including identifying a broken Active DI creating a lot of electrical noise (I carry a spare). My own in-ears confirm the sound without a lot of 'one -two ing' the band all know how to mix their own in ear mix with their phones apart from the drummer who never remembers to log on to the network "it's not working again Phil". Today we have someone mixing out front but honestly we've saved a successful mix so actually very little twiddling is ever needed. Sound check was a minute of one song and it all sounded good, well as good as we ever do. The gig goes like a dream, having that sound in your ears where everyone can hear just what they want is so liberating. Halfway through the first song you forget they are there. No struggling to hear what the guitar is doing because you have a nasty bass trap/resonance in the poky corner of the stage with the wooden floor and low ceiling, no feedback from the floor monitors. It's the tightest we've ever played. We are all watching the audience and the interaction is ramping up, guitarist is grabbing an extra few bars in the solos because the sound is right and it's a great night. The confidence you get from a great sound relays out to the audience, frankly the fears of feeling isolated with in-ears are forgotten. You don't realise how much extra concentration you need to compensate for not being able to hear properly. It's you ->music->audience->you and nothing in the way. It's actually relaxing when it works and I sang more than I ever have before with this band, I had a little 'more me' in my ears and was confident of pitching OK. Smiles from our singer so I knew she could hear me and was happy. Yeah, it was a good gig, added to by tech that worked. So tech wise we are all in ears, ZS10 Pro for singer and guitarist, I use Sennheiser IE 100 Pro and I'm not sure what the drummer uses, Shure I think. Guitarist and I use Behringer P2's and singer my ancient Trantec wireless system. Drummer has her own mixer with a feed from the desk. Desk is an RCF M18 which is reliable and idiot proof. I've swapped out my ZS10's for the Sennheiser IE 100's because they have a flatter response and a more honest presentation especially across the mid range which helps a lot with vocals. They are a single driver unit but I've had no problem with bass or kick distortion and volume is absolutely fine they'll run way louder than I'd ever want or use. Speakers are RCF ART 745's So that's it for me, all the promises of studio quality sound in my ears, freedom from poor room acoustics on stage and preserving what's left of my hearing have been achieved by the in ears and a convenient, easier set up by the digital mixer. Any fears of feeling isolated and cut off from the audience turns out to have been unfounded. I won't be going back.

That's a lovely job, really love the grille

Looks like @Silvia Bluejay beat me to it. Rock has been essentially a male preserve, partly a reflection of it's time. Without making any assumptions about the OP's set I've never really understood why so many covers bands have women singing songs written for/by male singers. The range is going to be awkward and the lyrics a bit odd. This includes my own band by the way. Come to that I don't get why someone with an essentially soprano range wants to sing a tenor part without even a key change. I'm almost surprised there are any female singers who want to sing with a rock band. It's not as if there aren't a wealth of brilliant songs by female singers and given that in general female audiences are less self conscious about getting on the dance floor why bands with female singers don't have a set designed to match their skill set and capitalise on what they are going to do best.

In a sense there is no difference between using a PA speaker and a flat response bass rig. The technology is the same, you still have a big speaker in a box with a horn and driver to cope with the higher frequencies. To an extent you get what you pay for good systems of either type with the extra money going on a better box and a better bass driver which will handle more bass and track the bass more accurately. If you are lucky you will also get a better crossover to clean up the mids and a better horn drive. So the first question is what is your budget? When it comes to power it's also the same deal. the advantage of an active speaker is that the amp and speaker matching is completely sorted for you. Amplifier watts are so cheap now that 3-500W is pretty normal and will drive most 12 or 15" speakers to their peak. Be a little wary of PA amp claims though, they routinely double or quadruple the power in their advertising claims. A common trick is that they use the same amplifier in multiple cabs but throttle them down within DSP speaker protection so that their littlest speakers dont see the same power as the big ones. They'll still tell you its a thousand watt amp. that happens with bass amps but more rarely. in fact unless they say its a thousand watts and are not charging thousands then it isn't a thousand watts. That doesn't mean an RCF745 as mentioned above isn't capable of being incredibly loud, it's what I use for PA. Generally you'd have to pay over £1k for a new bass speaker specifically designed for FRFR, have a look at Barefaced and Vanderkley. But, there is another option @stevie of Bass Chat has launched a range of FRFR bass speakers under the LFSys brand. Cheaper and better sounding than the above. If you contact Stevie he might be able to arrange a trial for you (He's on holiday this week coming) I'll declare an interest though Stevie is a friend of mine.

It's getting difficult as more and more stuff goes online, our local shop Axe Music has closed and even Mansons in Exeter has gone. PMT have a bit of bass stuff but the range is limited. The very best place to go is a bass bash if you can get to one, if you don't know they are annual meetings of Bass Chat members where everyone brings their best stuff to show off, you can try a lot of gear in one place. The SW one is excellent (just outside Taunton) The Big Fat South-West Bass Bash 2023 - Events - Basschat I'm not sure if the South East one is happening this year.

the audience will be completely on your side, really. make sure your first song is one you know best so you can all steady your nerves. Part of being in a band is that you share these feelings and it is one for all and all for one. Try and smile at the other band members it'll make them feel better and you will feel it too. The whole experience is going to flash by once you start and once you've finished you'll want more, just like a scary fairground ride

oops

Thanks everyone. it's good to know that what I heard wasn't just an illusion. You all know that some days at the bass are just magic and others just a mirage that disappears when you look too closely. I really admire people who set up different sounds for each song but I'm never going to be able to concentrate on that live as I'm usually managing the PA. I do play in a duo though and am looking to fill out my sound. Anyway this has been really helpful. I'm off to try Seven Nation Army with some plate reverb

I'm really **** too. Probably in the same way as you and I have a terrible ear too, so probably even more ****. I too resort to brute force and repetition to learn new songs. I suspect there are lots of us here trawling BC for clues. I know with certainty that learning music would improve me as a bassist and make learning new songs much easier. I've friends who are classical musicians or who have done their grades on the piano when they were kids and what they can do seems like magic to me. Sing all the harmony parts in a song, no trouble. Play along with a song they've never heard before? Locked in by the end of the first verse. We had a keyboard player once who had never listened to Dark Side Of The Moon. We played her Great Gig in the Sky and she played the piano part back to us, both hands. This is great power but I know it isn't magic, it's knowledge. I can't do music but I can do numbers and logic (I was a science teacher) my wife taught English and can spot a grammatical error or a misplaced apostrophe every single time. The point is that my maths seems like magic to her and her command of language and ability to spot a spelling mistake seems magic to me. I got short shrift from her when the first reports came out of Wuhan and I sat down and calculated what the death toll would be. But then I can't spot a fleckle when we're watching Strictly and she can't pick the googly We drive each other to distraction I know I should learn a lot more about musical theory and to read and write music. If I loved poetry not being able to read would be madness, it would shut me out of nearly everything good, I'd still be able to recite poems and learn new one, maybe even perform live at open mics but I'd still be lacking opportunity. I don't think people who have skills and knowledge understand how it feels to be at the bottom of the mountain. We do know we are at the bottom using strategies to get round problems rather than addressing the problem, Telling us to learn scales, major minor and diminished isn't helping even if it is well intentioned. I wouldn't tell someone to learn their tables up to 19x and then they would be able to do maths. Learning needs to be structured, integrated and needs to understand where the pupil is. It needs to understand the fear factor and the feelings of inadequacy, of not being able to do what others seem to find so easy. There's hope though, you have curiosity on your side and there are so many resources out there to help. Me I'm contemplating getting music lessons on another instrument where I have to read from the start and have to face learning the grades. My son learned to read in a couple of years of piano lessons even though he hated it. Maybe my mind is not as flexible as his but I want to do it. The answer is not another bass with a string missing. Good luck

Just that really, I'm not really an fx guy. I've been playing along to mp3's this morning through a desk into headphones and the bass was sounding really nice and I noticed I'd accidentally left some plate reverb on from switching out the vocal mic. Nothing dramatic but the bass did just sit nicely in the mix all morning. So does anyone use Echo playing live and if so when/how. How about delay? Sorry if this is a newby question I know about speakers but almost nothing about bass effects. I'm normally just bass ->amp-> speaker or I occasionally let a SansAmp sprinkle some fairy dust lightly into my live sound.

Get some decent strings on that bass and give us a proper review Seriously this is going to sound just about identical with our cab so anything you say about the sound is pretty much going to apply for anyone who builds my design, only the aesthetics will differ. The advantage of small speakers is that with lighter cones you tend to get an extended frequency range especially if the cone is designed to flex in a controlled way. If you look at the graph on p1 of this thread you'll see the Fane has a significant output up to 10kHz. It's not flat but the peak at 4kHz adds a bit of top end sparkle. As you'd expect from an 8" speaker the off axis response starts to drop at 500Hz but it holds it together up to 2kHz. It pretty much covers all the higher frequencies you'll get out of an electric bass. The top end was about as good as I could find out of an 8" speaker so I'm pleased you've commented on it. How do you like the bottom end? I was quite proud of how full that sounds if you don't expect to drown out Phil Collins' Gorilla on the drums. for our younger viewers Go on I dare you to take it to rehearsal, back off the bass a little and shove the little fella into a corner turn the amp up and watch your bands faces Seriously though well done and I'd love a longer review once you've got used to it.