Phil Starr

The only time I imagine I'll use the pair is at small beer festivals which are pretty common down here in the summer. Not all of them are equally well run PA support can be a bit iffy so I'll just stack them and not worry. I've tried them like that and it's all good. Better than my playing anyway!

OK I'll confess it's a vanity project, GAS or inertia depending upon your point of view. I've been giving the same advice for several years that one good 12 would be loud enough for almost everything and two would cover every possible eventuality. I decided to take my own advice and go for two 1x12's For years I've been taking all sorts of half complete prototypes to gigs and the band were beginning to get more functions so I wanted to up my game by having a consistent and good looking rig. I was going to build two BassChat Mk3's and ordered the crossover components from @stevie He wanted me to trial the Silverstones which use the same drivers so we did a deal to use the drivers I already had and he would build me the case and crossover . I've also sold my old passive PA and have no passive speakers but retain the amps so I have top hat mounts in my Silverstones so they can double as a PA if I ever have problems. Ironically the band have now moved to in-ears and may be losing the backline altogether so no bass amp might become my normal. I'm convincing myself that any working bassist needs a decent amp and speakers 'just in case'

If you want to keep cost down then using a simple mixer might be a solution https://www.thomann.de/gb/behringer_xenyx_1002.htm You could pan the two instruments left and right and send them separately to the PA and then use the mono aux send to connect to your amp.

They've already got bass players

I prefer Nathalie Imbruglia but I WANT THAT BASS

You say we but how many band members are there? Have you spoken to them, what do they think? Do they have your back? Sounds like there are at least two of you from the original band and the new drummer who may be keeping out of it or just wondering what is going on. It seems to me your decision is already made though, you can't work with this guy and he won't change, none of us fancy working with him either however good he is. Most of us have been there before, most of have tried both routes, stick or twist. Sticking doesn't really work, all the band politics creeps in and sooner or later the unsaid things are said and it is over anyway. Check the rest of the band are with you first but start looking for another singer. Maybe look for deps so you can hang on to your gigs.

I think that's right, by and large bass gear if it is coloured (most of it is) has a smiley face/loudness contour which just sounds kind of 'normal' to us and which our brain processes really well. Guitar amps and speakers often have an upper mid boost if they are designed for electric guitar. I spent ages persuading my duo partner to switch from his horrible sounding guitar amp to using the floor monitors for his acoustic.

Just an interesting aside really. I ordered a second Silverstone as I'd decided two 1x12"s were my dream rig. Stevie delivered it this week and we had a bit of a session with all things bass speaker. He was just leaving and on impulse I unplugged my bass and tried my acoustic guitar and strummed a few chords. I'm no guitarist but the sound was glorious (It's a Takamine with some light Elixirs fitted) lovely warm sound with a really musical top end. I have to say this was as good an acoustic guitar sound as through my RCF PA. I imagine it would do as an all round guitar speaker if you use a modeller with an acoustic amp. The advantage of that really sweet mid-range response.

Some people spent their childhood pulling things apart and re-building them, can remember buying their first hammer and socket set and have GAS for machine tools. Others spent their time in their bedrooms learning to play Dsus4 in four positions on a guitar neck and Clapton solos from all his recorded works. We forget those long hours acquiring all those skills. My youth was miss-spent on all things mechanical and electrical and I didn't start playing music until well into middle age. I find playing some music daunting and what skills I have on bass have felt like climbing mountains but I'd happily rebuild a house or a car engine. For many musicians anything mechanical looks as scary and impossible as reading music does to me. Instruments are really simple technology in the main and an electric bass or guitar at the simple end of that. You could probably improve all of your friends 20ish basses, trade that skill for some help with the bass playing and both of you will grow. Seems like you have another new hobby

Isn’t it just about whatever works? There can’t be any doubt that looking at a screen means not looking at the audience but is that different from looking at the frets? Is it better to read music and play note perfect or play ‘loose’ and engage? Is there a correct answer to that? Are all classical musicians poor because they have the dots to look at? Personally I hate the look of music stands with a pub band though, I kind of think what we do is simple and about entertainment not art, I also want band members to do a bit of personal practice. This is just prejudice though, I’ve no idea if the offender is a dep doing a favour, someone with dementia or just a s##t memory. I’m lucky in having a good memory but it results in me being utterly reliant on it. I play most songs parrot fashion with no idea of which note I’m playing whilst prompting the singer. Is that art or am I just a monkey with a bass? In the end it takes all sorts to make a team so play to your strengths and don’t worry about it so long as the audience have a good time.

That's a lovely gesture, there are good people around.

It's not new, I grew up mixing when the first thing you had to do was build the speakers. We used stereo even back then at open air gigs. It really helped to separate instruments in space with what were really quite crude systems and sounded more natural if you could match the sound stage with the actual stage, though we did have a tendency to spread the drumkit the whole way from stage left to right or even to pan them from side to side You could specify whether you wanted your record in mono or stereo for a short while and recordings really played with stereo effects at the time.

Shutting out the drums is the best bit of in-ears, if you can get a good seal they work as well as good ear plugs. I had three channels of drum mic on Sat but only really passed the kick through to the PA and my monitors. It was a very shallow alcove in the pub and you just couldn't keep the drums out of the vocal mics. Next project is to work with the drummer to get a better drum sound through the mics but they really weren't needed in that pub. I'm not expecting problems with the guitarist, he uses modellers anyway and I built his guitar speaker so he pretty much trusts me on the tech. We'll just sort it in the rehearsal room first then introduce it at gigs. I prefer to play a long game and trying to sort everything in one go just gives me more to do on gig day. Ideally I wouldn't touch the PA but needs must I guess. I'm always the first to arrive and the last to leave.

Just thought I'd do an update on where we've got to in the hope that it might be helpful to others making the same journey. Over the last two gigs we've made the transition from floor monitors with myself and the singer using in-ears to the whole band using in-ears with the floor monitors in place but muted. Last night was finally a complete success on the monitoring front. Three of us are using ZS10's (the drummer brings his own kit) and we are using a mixture of Behringer P2's and my ancient Trantec wireless connection. The mixer is an RCF M18 with six aux outs and the band use their phones and the RCF app to do their own mixes. Our guitarist looks after himself, he only needed showing at a rehearsal and given a low cost solution that he controls and he won't be returning that control to anyone again. Our singer struggles with the tech a bit, I have to persuade her to spend a bit more time in finding buds that fit and to stop trying to adjust the guitar and drums down when the earplugs come loose rather than just pushing them back in her ears. Solved last night because she had to share my mix so she could share my wireless system and was banned from using her phone to re balance. Last night we had the best monitor sound ever and from reluctance to use or trust the in-ears we've reached the point where they are telling me I'm wasting time bringing the floor monitors. We've agreed to leave them in the van next time. The other effect is on our front of house sound. We had a lot of compliments on how we sounded last night, "best sound we've ever had here" was the best, probably alcohol fueled but better than "you were shite" Just the reduction of on stage sound levels makes a huge difference and singing in tune helps, but you can do that if you can pick out your own vocals. Next task is to persuade the guitarist to turn down his amp as he is listening to it through headphones and the audience are listening to the PA. He does mic the speaker to be fair so needs something to mic but even a few db would take a lot of mess out of the vocal mic, particularly his. Hopefully the drummer will let me turn down my bass equally. Give us two or three more successful gigs and I think we will be completely adapted to in-ears, monitoring is absolutely better than anything to date already but a bit of tweaking is going to make it even better. The problems have been largely people based, It's about trust and patience and being prepared to demonstrate the system. Crucial though is the choice of mixer and i think it would be difficult without a digital mixer. Anything analogue with 6 or even 4 aux busses tends to have a lot of other things as well and is just too big and complex for a pub band. Maybe this belongs on another thread where people aren't already converts

Ha ha, I won't be taking that bet I genuinely think you'll be good but little amps do get quite hot, My Warwick Gnome runs pleasantly warm but this summer at an outdoor gig it was 37 in the shade and the amp did get too hot to rest your hand on it. The BQ250 is a bigger amp than the Gnome though, the heatsinking in the Gnome is a diminutive lump of Aluminium and it really needs its fan. Have Fun

First of all this is a great project, nice choice of driver too. I also wondered about heat dissipation, mainly because I've been planning a similar combo. ClassD is highly efficient so there won't be a lot of heat from the amp components but the rest of the power goes to the speaker which is also producing heat into the cab. It's a myth that the air moves in and out of the vents. The air in the vents acts as a plug of air that moves backwards and forwards at around resonance and not at all at higher frequencies. the cab air is mainly cooling through the walls. On the plus side your amp will only be operating at a few watts for most of the time, you don't have to lose 250W or anything like that so overheating probably isn't very likely. The temperature in the cab is likely to be considerably in excess of room temperature though and the heat loss depends upon the temperature gradient. The amp designers will have made calculations based upon a duty cycle (what % of the time the amp is producing power) and designed the heatsinking to keep the temp of the power consuming components down to a set level when the room temperature reaches a certain maximum. They will have left a considerable leeway but in your case the room temperature is actually the inside of your cab and the free flow of air is restricted. Your problem is that you don't know what assumptions they have made. I think you'll be fine at normal UK temperatures though.

New ones is that the deal? You can have new speakers but only if you throw out all those old socks

That's a great photo

Brilliant, love a build thread and it inspires others too. I'm also about to start a thread for an 8" small cab.

I think what was remarkable is how similar they sound, I got to the Eden before anything stood out with the Jazz and even then it wasn't startling. I suppose it is possible that the bassist was allowed to set them up for his/her sound and if so frankly he was pretty good at getting it. Imagining this with a full band I suspect it would be quite hard to identify most of them. I'd gig happily with any of them (if someone else offered to carry them). If I had to choose it would be the Eden, though like Dan I liked the Proamp and he's spot on about the style of playing. I also have a soft spot for the Hartke.

That's genius

https://www.basschat.co.uk/topic/455858-house-jam-micro-cab/ There you go. Many thanks to @RichardH who did the drawings

I have a pair of lovely Sennheiser open backs, a birthday present some years back that I use for home practice, like you I love the sound and the comfort but I think you need closed backs for rehearsal with a drummer. You need to take the sound level of the drums down at least 15db to be able to operate headphones at levels that won't damage your hearing. You can't do that with open backs, they need to be 'Studio Monitor' types. You'll also hear everyone else better at those sorts of levels and I find the drums come through on the vocal mics as well as a bit of leakage. It's just easier to get a great sound and a good seal with over ears and it's kind of rock'n'roll as we've grown up with images of bands all wearing them in the studio. For our band it was the entry point for in-ears. You plonk them on someone's head, suddenly they can hear everything and want that experience on stage as well. Asking them to try my in-ears just sounds a bit yucky even if I did clean them @Greg Edwards69You may have outed my GAS, I've always prided myself on one bass, one amp, one speaker (Ok 2 of each) but I may have a headphone fetish.

I use over ears at rehearsal and encourage the others to do the same. No-one cares how you look and they are much more comfortable.

Just to back up what @EBS_freak is saying I still take my RCF310's as floor monitors to gigs and rehearsals but as a safety net until everyone is happy with the in-ears. I didn't tell the band but I muted the floor monitors at last Sat's gig about halfway through. That's with an electronic kit too. They were on really low at the previous rehearsal until the singers in-ears worked loose and I had to rescue her.