Phil Starr

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.

This

Wow, you really notice it on the voice, it's actually quite pleasant at around 10ms. I use a G30 for my bass but not much in the way of fx, I've just bought an SansAmp to use with the band as I'm going to lose my backline as soon as the rest of the band are happy. The singer doesn't listen to the bass, if the guitar goes off she loses the note or the beat Thanks I'll give her the options and your advice and talk it through. She's very rational but makes quick decisions. She asked my advice on in-ears and ordered the ZS10's on her phone before I finished the options, borrowed my Sennheiser 935 and ordered that straight away too. Giving her advice is a bit scary. I won't tell them your advice about the Xvive on the other thread

Thanks Russ, I was never a doubter or even a sceptic but it just boiled down to the learning curve, choosing the battles with the band and cold hard cash. Gigs are rolling in so cashflow will improve. The sound I'm getting at rehearsals with the P2 is just superb, good enough to pick up the difference in mic pre's. I'm learning to live with the mid scoop in the ZX10's, bass is never a problem The Trantec is usable but not rewarding to listen to. I'm concerned with latency, we've got to have some on the M18 mixing desk and the Xvive is another 4.9ms. We've been playing with dep drummers recently and getting solidly locked has been an issue, that could be just learning to play together or it could be latency. With no rehearsal who knows? In the end I'm going to have to recommend something to the singer and as it isn't my money I want to get it right. I think I can explain the Compander issue as saying it won't be better or worse than the Trantec but explaining latency might be a problem. I encouraged her to read this thread but no joy there Thanks for your patience and all your help

I guess the question is which mixer do you all use? I'm using a digital mixer and I'm not sure what the latency is on that. Adding a further 5ms could be an issue. FWIW I use a P2 for rehearsals and an old UHF wireless at a gig. The sound quality in rehearsal is stunning, at a gig not so much which i guess is down to the compander. It's workable with and saves my hearing but not very rewarding.

And now you are at it Al at a quick look I might have gone for this, four more mic pre's and proper sliders. Where's the drooling emoji

Damn you Steve, that's just down the road from me

You might struggle for volume Al, they aren't headphone outs they are balanced line but just use TRS jacks instead of XLR's, I have a set of six short jack to XLR leads that I use to convert to XLR. They do have enough signal to make a sound through the headphones but the P2 gives you more volume, a better impedance match and better sound.

Hi Russ, thanks to your help plus a bit of psychology from me my band are all going in-ears nowadays, with a lot of ZS10's and Behringer belt packs. They are all mixing their own monitors on their phones too. The big trick was to get them to wear over ears in rehearsals. Once they'd played for a couple of hours with 'phones they were keen to get that experience at gigs. Phase two was to get them to realise they needed to ditch the supplied earbuds with the in-ears and experiment until they got some that fitted and sealed out the bands noise. I have boxes of buds salvaged from every headphone my family have ever used so they have plenty to try The problem now is that I share my ancient Trantec with our singer and we share the same mix, interesting when her in-ears became loose and she cut everything other than her voice out of the mix for both of us, not realising she could hear the PA. She wants to buy her own radio system but budget is limited and she'll struggle to find £200 never mind the £500 systems you are recommending. The previous singer used an LD MEI system which she was happy with, though she relies on poorly fitting 'phones and leakage to hear the rest of the band Any suggestions? Would the LD U305 for example be worse than the Trantec? I get where you are coming from, I'd never recommend something that I wouldn't use myself but over a £1,000 for moulds plus the recommended radio connection is way beyond budget.

I wondered what you'd offer here. I can't imagine you would design anything but systems. You aren't working at the bottom end of the market and there is some quality engineering going on. I guess each new range starts with a design spec and a blank sheet of paper. Everything in a new range of products is going to work well together but do you retrospectively check a new amp will work well with all the old speakers and vice-versa? That would work for a manufacturer with a 'house sound' but limit some innovations. It would be interesting to expand upon this. If all manufacturers are conscientious and competent then buying a whole rig from one range would make a lot of sense. If they are consistent in their house sound then buying an amp from one range and mixing it with a speaker from an older range would still cut down the variables they would have to deal with. There would be advantages to both customer and producer in brand loyalty. People will still mix and match, I guess it's the difference between cooking from a recipe where someone professional has blended the ingredients to produce a consistent and reliable result and trying different ingredients each time in search of the unobtainable best with the risk of something awful. Your detailed thoughts would be really interesting.

Now this is where it gets interesting, to me at least. Let's have a look at one of the classic bass speakers used in a lot of mid-priced cabs, the Eminence 12A-2 and beside it what happens to the bass response when you put it in a 50litre box. You can see the speaker has a natural peak of about 4db in the 1-4kHz region and almost 3db of bass boost just above 100hz when you put it in a portable sized cab. Once again you have a smiley faced loudness contour, the auditory version of a high salt, high sugar snack. It's almost the same response as the ELF just slightly less exaggerated. Obviously if you mix these two they are going to add their irregularities to make a super sweet, super salty mix. Only palatable to a few maybe. Can you tame it with the tone controls? Well that depends, you have that 400Hz mid control but it of course is only centred there. Turn it up and it will boost the 120hz as well as at 1kHz where the eminence is starting to peak. Turn down the treble? Well the Eminence is starting to fall off the side of a cliff at this point so cutting a few db at 2kHz is going to cut the highest frequencies right out of your sound. If your sound is Jamerson of course that won't. worry you. (Brilliantly Jamerson is in the spell check) So now we are back to art. No-one is going to sit down with all these graphs and use them to set their tone controls. By the time you've factored in the bass, pups, strings, fx and room acoustics it is just too complex but it is easy to see why some marriages just break down. Marrying the slightly bright old school sound of the ELF with the slightly bright old school sound of one of the bass world's best loved speakers isn't going to let you maneuver very much and you might miss those mids when you are playing with your over loud band.

OK back on track having got rehearsals and gigs out of the way. So having established that amps aren't neutral 'wires' that just increase the volume and that humans like a smiley faced eq because of the way our hearing works it's time to address Trace Elliott watts in the shape of the ELF that "never ceases to amaze"; magic or clever use of science? Oh, look it's a smiley face with 5db of bass boost at 100Hz and 7db @ 4kHz with the bass rolling off nicely below 80hz. The loudness control is set to always on so an instant hit in the showroom and in home practice and that big peak at 3-5kHz is just where our ears are most sensitive so it is going to sound loud. Interestingly the mid dip and the mid control centre frequency are at 400Hz just like the Warwick and the TC BAM as is the quoted power output. No criticism of any of these amps, a lot of people are going to love the baked in sound of the ELF, I mean really love it and it is boosting those upper mids so it is going to sound loud! Filtering the bass a little just makes sense with a little amp likely to be used with little speakers and with limited ability to dissipate heat, and frankly most of us won't miss it. It's a very different approach to Ashdown with their flat response across the range of a bass.