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Phil Starr

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Everything posted by Phil Starr

  1. Love him too, wouldn't it be wonderful to play bass with those drums.
  2. So taking the title of this thread literally I wonder how many of us do just this? My experience is that drummers fall into one of two stools (see what I did there) Either they lead and you can slot in behind them or they just sit in the pocket behind you.
  3. It's an interesting question. Essentially about how cables break. First of all I've always had a system. Without organisation cables tangle with each other and set up time is considerably extended. Untangling cables under time pressure inevitably seems to result in a certain amount of tugging which is probably worse for cables than any frowned upon method of securing a cable from untangling. It's many years since I last allowed anyone to wind my cables for me I've always run the PA so I have a lot of cables probably £1,000 worth or more (actually a lot more as I must have a couple of hundred cables at least, OMG!) For at least 40 years I used the method shown to me by , of all people, Jim Marshall. Round my left elbow fed through a loop of finger and thumb on my right hand, so not held tightly and allowed to find it's own shape, then tied in a figure of eight with a couple of winds of the last bit of cable. No sharp bends and almost no failures of cables over many years. The few failures I've had have pretty much all been at the plug end and fixed by removing the last six inches/15cm of cable and resoldering/replacing the plugs. Its easily the fastest method and no tangling in the box. Once cheap cable ties became available I switched to those in the middle. so sort of hybrid of 2 and 3. Recently I've been playing with people who have trained in music tech, frankly it's been easier not to enter debate with them about cables and I've adopted method 1. It's slower and I now get more tangling in the box, but I look professional. Watching them wind their own leads they usually have the loops far too big, end up with a very loose coil and they tangle easily. I've realised they are probably being taught to wind for a studio or stage where cables are hung rather than boxed and tangling isn't an issue. I've found myself wondering why I don't go back to the quicker and less tangly method. If 90%+ of failures are of the plugs and I've had single digit failures of actual cables over 40 years then the thesis that arm winding breaks cables is clearly not true. I've 40 year old speaker cables that still work. Most of the failures have been of poor quality cables too. If a cable costs £15 and it's life is reduced by 5% then I've saved 75p, is that a good return for an extra couple of hours winding over the life of the cable? Honestly I don't think it matters much how you wind, buy good cables, be gentle with them, don't make them do sharp bends and don't let them get tangled.
  4. I love these old designs dating back to before research and science caught up with cab designs and building cabs was as much an art as a science. The scoop horn on the back was really too small to make much impact upon the bass and the 'sound' of this speaker would have been dominated by the direct radiation of the speaker but we tried everything to lift the sound output of the cabs. Everything was suck and see, build a cab and listen, swap speakers around and try again. I still hanker after designing and building some of the more ambitious and impractical folded horns and hybrid monstrosities I dreamed of back then. Thanks for reminding me of where I came from and well done with this refurb. Please don't try to carry it on your own
  5. Maplins used to sell Eminence drivers re-badged as Big Cat so not impossible that they were the replacements
  6. No it serves no porpoise Yes , I know but I'm having a whale of a time
  7. 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.
  8. 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
  9. 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!
  10. 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.
  11. Do you have a speaker you intend using with this amp or are you looking for a combo or possibly an active PA speaker?
  12. 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.
  13. 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
  14. 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?
  15. 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.
  16. 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.
  17. Wow we used to have hair
  18. 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.
  19. 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.
  20. 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.
  21. 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.
  22. 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
  23. 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
  24. 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.
  25. 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
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