Phil Starr

I plumped for the RCF M18, it's gone up in price since then unfortunately. For me it offered all I need in the simplest package, rock solid router connection and in two years not a glitch in the software which is simple and intuitive. The pre's are good too so it sounds great. The Behringer offers a lot more in the way of facilities and flexibility but with a steeper learning curve. I mix from on stage apart from a quick soundcheck so I'll never use most of what I have, nothing on the M18 is more than two clicks away. Basically it is idiot proof which suits me

You don’t need to get too carried away with power. It matters but is only part of the story. What you need to do is to be able to match the sound levels of the loudest instrument in your band. Probably the drums. A drummer will typically produce an average sound level of around 100db @1m so for a 40db range you need to be able to produce around 120db. Bass speakers vary in their efficiency/loudness but 97db/W is fairly typical so for 120db you need a gain of 23db which is 200W. For many years people used Trace and Peavey amps of just that power and we seem to have forgotten that. There’s no harm in going bigger than that but ‘need’ is a bit strong if everything else is right about your choice. Make sure it gives that power into the speakers you choose. Having said that the bog standard for amps nowadays seems to be 300w into 8ohms and 500 into 4ohms so you’ll have a lot of choice of those. Choose based upon sound. btw that 180w Ashdown is close enough to count as a 200W amp paired with something like a 2x12

Having lived through the whole period this is spot on. It was done that way because the other options weren't feasible at the time. Once people have a system up and running they are going to be reluctant to change to something which might be difficult for them, expensive and until they try it a potential problem. For me what has made it feasible for your 'average' band is the advent of affordable digital mixers. A couple of years ago I paid just £330 for an 18 channel mixer and sold my old Yamaha analogue for £200 (If I'd bought it that week it was still made for £400 so going digital was cheaper). I lost the snake and the new mixer is only the size of the old stage box. With the old mixer I'd have needed a separate monitor mixer to offer individualised monitor mixes and a host of outboard fx ideally for front of house. Just physically carrying all the kit to do on-stage monitoring was a bind. Even the Yamaha stayed at home a lot of the time because it physically wouldn't fit in the venue space. On stage I had to referee more than one volume war with each band member turning up to get 'more me' so they could hear themselves over the rest of the band. So now I have six monitor outs for four band members. They don't need buy any kit to do their own monitor mixes as they can do this on their phones. Once the singer and I were using in-ears the drummer said "I'll try it" then wouldn't give my spare buds back, the guitarist realised he was missing out and ordered in ears from the rehearsal room. They can have as much 'me' as they want now and having control has upped the confidence. The final thing which hasn't been fully explored is the damage to your ears of traditional back-line. Average sound levels on stage with a drummer and matching guitar and bass are going to be over 100db for most of us and you need that to reach the back of any medium sized venue. The permitted exposure to 100db is 10min and anything above this is known to permanently damage your hearing. It's too late for my generation almost all 60 year old musicians are deaf to some extent and it isn't due to age, it's due to noise exposure. It's due in some respect to 'more me' and the desire to feel 'your trousers flapping' I'm not telling anyone they are wrong, the old school generation of musicians have invested so much time, money and love in getting to where they are with music and sound to be proud of. If you are out entertaining people you want to concentrate on the music and what works is hard and seems risky to give up. I'm never going to knock people for doing what works for them but my goodness you don't know what you are missing until you try it.

@Chienmortbb and I have had these two on the test bench and I use the Gnome myself; bought as a backup and for open mic/jam sessions I probably use it a little more than my gigging amps. The TC BAM is also very similar. I go through the PA so my bass amps nowadays are used for stage monitors at gigs and rarely get a run out at high power levels. The Gnome (hence all of them) is loud enough for most small gigs with my 12" LFSys Silverstone and for stage monitoring with my 10" cab. With a couple of 12's the extra 5db means it will cover all my volume needs and would fill a decent sized venue. In terms of measurement power output is the same for all three and as advertised. The voicing is different and somewhat surprising though with one similarity between all three. Set to 12 o'clock the Elf has a smiley face response with the bass and treble boosted and hence a mid cut. That's very nice sounding at low/medium volumes and effectively a 'loudness' boosted sound. The gnome has a small bass peak another mid suckout at around 400hz and a climbing treble response which makes it very clean sounding. the TC is the flattest response somewhere between the other two. The striking similarity between them is that the mid tone control works at exactly the same frequency in all three and the mid dip in all three is at this frequency. This means you can pretty much dial up the same sound in all three. The Gnome is more or less flat with bass at 2.00 mid at 1.00 treble at 10.00. You could happily buy any of these, I only bought the Gnome because the BAM was out of stock and though I preferred the colour it wasn't enough of an issue for me to wait. I think most of us would prefer the voicing of the Elf but whether you think that is worth the extra money is your choice. You can get almost the same sound out of all of them mine has been 100% reliable and has the blessing of a nice quiet fan.

My first instinct would be to see if TC/Music Tribe would supply replacements. I've tracked down spares for behringer before now and they were reasonably priced. Replacing with recognised parts keeps the cab 'original'. If not as @Balcro has pointed out a 30l cab for a 10" driver is fairly typical so 70l for a 2x10 won't be hard to match. something like the Celestion Pulse 10 would work and is available from Thomann If you wanted you could copy the BassChat 110T with 2 drivers and add in a high quality horn. It would no longer truly be a TC cab though

As well as a collection of the BassChat speaker designs and the shootout John @Chienmortbb and I should be running some frequency response tests on amps this year. If you want your's tested then make sure you bring it along.

I didn't start playing until 55, and from a much lower base than you musically. I've had a guitar laying around which I still can't play and had never played a whole song on anything. Within a year I was gigging and I've literally played hundreds of gigs since then with a collection of bands. Bass makes more sense when you play with other people and for me the stimulus to keep practicing and improving. I've no idea about grades on bass but my kids both reached grade 4 on piano and my son played the Moonlight Sonata at a school concert. I'd think that grade 6 would put you way above anything I could do technically and solidly into "intermediate" in terms of skill. You don't say if you are with a band but if not it is time to get out there. You almost certainly have the technical skills and it won't take you long to be a useful band member. Whether it is the thrill of an audience dancing in time with your fingers or the fear of messing up in public there's nothing like live performance to sharpen up your playing. I'd be jealous of you starting up but I'm having too much fun with an unexpected late life passion

I've just made this move with my band, I think no-one who has done this and cares about their sound would ever willingly go back. There is absolutely no way on earth that you can get a clean sound out front when the guitar, drums and even bass are significantly louder on stage than the human voice. We spend fortunes and invest hours in getting our sound and then can't pick ourselves out of the mix so no-one on stage or in the audience ever gets to hear that perfection. (the sound, not my playing ) There's a thrill in sheer volume of course, feeling the stage vibrate, trousers flapping and all that adrenaline flowing but the cost is permanent hearing loss and early retirement from music far too often. People stick to what they know and what they can get to work and cling to backline and vocals through PA. It's like driving a vintage car though, fun on a summers day but you wouldn't use a model T to commute into London every day. @Downunderwonder makes a good point; you'll need to carry some backline for a while yet, but if you are in an established band what are you doing?

Now Celestion has confirmed the speaker was mid 70's (1976) it seems probable that they didn't publish TS parameters at the time. I think they stopped production of that model around then and I assume the speaker was designed earlier than that. Thiele and Small didn't publish their research until 1970 and it took a while to become widely known, it took maybe 10 years for the music industry to catch up. In 1970 most powerful amps were big, expensive and unreliable valve amps and speakers were mainly general purpose. Thiele and Small developed a model that could be used to mathematically describe the movement of the speaker taking into account a number of the electrical and mechanical properties of the speaker itself and also the cabinet and repeat the calculations at any frequency. In 1970 I was programming computers with punched cards and pocket calculators and home computers were yet to hit. Speaker design was indeed a craft skill at the time. I built and tested a lot of boxes with hours of very subjective listening tests. Science is better

His audition not mine, but yes any audition is always a two way process. It was one of those situations where everyone was terribly polite as he 'explained' that we were 'doing it all wrong' we needed to drop the songs from our set and all learn the set he had learned. We couldn't get away fast enough

It's the guitarists that get me on this one. "I play the solo just like the original" and then they never do, which wouldn't be an issue if it wasn't for coming out of the solo onto the E at the end. It wouldn't matter if they made eye contact, gave a little nod or stuck to the right number of bars. Or even if they knew that Free made at least four different versions out there. I had one guy at an audition (his not mine) shouting at me because I'd got it 'wrong'. 'Um, mate you came in three bars too late then missed the first beat of the bar. Fluffed the third to last bar in the solo and completely lost where you were was what I decided not to say. I've had others that tell me they improvise the solo but always end with 'this' and then fumble the demonstration of 'what they always play' or alternatively play 'this' three times in the solo so I have to guess which one of the three is the end. No point in asking them how many bars they want for the solo either. Then again was the band who told me 'we do the Christina Aguilera version' where the bassist plays over everything and which is in a different key . They played the Free version and had clearly told the female singer they were doing Christina just to get her to do the song. I rewarded myself by playing the Aguilera bassline over the verses which was actually good fun. Actually I love not playing the verses, it answers the question 'what does the bass actually do?' as the whole song lifts every time you come in.

Why does no-one show the bass player

It's the same sized cab as the BC110T (which if people aren't familiar is a home build design by Stevie which we published on Bass Chat during lockdown here) I have to confess that despite having better cabs it's my go to for rehearsals and small gigs. It's a really nice little cab and weighs nothing. The Celestion bass driver in it is a little gem which doesn't have the lumpy response peak that most bass speakers have, that lets you get away with a simple high pass filter for the horn driver which basically takes over where the bass unit starts to roll off. The crossover point is higher and the 10" Celestion has fairly modest power handling. It sounds great but won't go so loud. Fortunately our recent drummers are very controlled. The Monza is a very different beast, it goes lower than the 110T and the bass is much tighter and more controlled due to the much more powerful motor system in the bass driver. It is also a 600W speaker. You are going to get some of the slam you get from a much bigger speaker. The crossover point is nearly an octave lower (I think) so the midrange is sweeter and the dispersion of the Monza much better. We didn't spend much time comparing the BC110T with the Monza, it was just idle curiosity on my part to hear my own cab and we were surprised that it wasn't disgraced at that sort of volume. The sort of clarity from the Monza is at another level though.

@stevie

I had a chance today to see/hear the very first LFSys 10" cab, the 'Monza'. As far as I know there is nothing like it on the market yet, and it may be the next step in the evolution of bass cabs. A 10" cab that will be a genuine one cab solution. So I had a pleasant afternoon playing with speakers. @stevie brought across the Monza and one of the 12" Monacos to demonstrate and I have an LFSys Silverstone of my own. @bussonetthebass came along specifically to compare these speakers. We used a Bugera BV1001M with controls set to flat. We've measured the frequency response and know it to be just about neutral. We tested mainly with a Fender Highway One jazz fitted with Fender noiseless pups but also with a American Deluxe P bass and a Japanese thunderbird copy by Burny(Fernandes). Now it's hard to describe the sound of these three speakers because normally you'd describe a speaker by their 'voicing' and the voicing of all three is essentially flat. deliberately they add almost no sound of their own so the differences are minimal. Although each has it's own crossover design they all cross over at 2,000Hz and everything above that is essentially identical. What you hear is what comes out of the pickups, what you would hear in the recording studio direct from the pickups. The Silverstone has the flattest bass response and sounds the warmest of the three. The Monacos have a tailored bass response with a drop in bass at around 200Hz and then a shelved response after that. It's designed to avoid boominess at high volumes when used live, subjectively you can hear the bass goes all the way down but it doesn't become obtrusive at high volumes it movesfrom a lovely clean deep bass to a real slam as you crank the amp. The 10" Monza sits between these two, the bass is well controlled but retains a slight warmth. The outstanding thing about all these speakers though is their clarity across the rest of the range which is more than just a family resemblance. They do this with zero sibilance too, no nasty tizz from a cheap tweeter it all just sounds very natural. The other thing is that the sound is very even as you move round the room 60deg off axis either side and you hear pretty much what you hear 10deg off, I saw @bussonetthebass (Jules) walking round to test that claim so hopefully he will comment. Changing basses brough instant and very obvious changes in the sound. A lovely thud from the Japanese T-Bird a slightly polite but recognisable P sound from the P but our favourite was the Jazz with the upgraded PUPs. It all just sounded so clean. So how loud does the Monza go? Well it is a little quieter than its 12" siblings more than 1db and less than 3db so call it 2db (I didn't measure) Given that the Monza will handle double the power of the Silverstone (+3db) that means in my opinion it will match pretty much any drummer for volume with the right amp. I've been gigging my Silverstone with a Warwick Gnome round the local pubs so I know that is 'enough' for a pub band. With the Bugera or anything else that puts out 300W+ into it's 8ohms I think we now have a 10" bass cab which will do any pub gig or monitoring and fill a room with a 100 people in it without sweat. I think it might be the first truly one cab 10" solution for a gigging bassist. So what is special about it. On the surface it is a 10" speaker in a lightweight 30litre box with a horn tweeter, nothing revolutionary there. The differences are down to three main changes but significantly is the chosen 10" driver it has a huge 3" voice coil which allows it to dissipate more heat than a smaller coil so the driver is rated at 600W continuous. it's a long coil too so can handle a lot of low frequency excursion. The second part of this is the crossover because of the design of the bass driver it has to come in lower down and the horn has to cope with more of the mids. You can see the horn through the grille and for a small cab it is massive. The crossover itself is more complex than anything else you'll find in a bass cab and not only divides up the bass and treble but looks at the phase responses around the crossover frequency bringing the same level of design detail as you would get in a top end hi-fi speaker. It's more normal to see the 'crossover' in a bass cab to be no more than a high pass filter protecting the tweeter but allowing all sorts of problems across the crossover region even in cabs costing over £1,000. Finally this cab is built out of lightweight 12mm poplar ply and extensively braced. None of that is new of course but not many cabs can claim all three. There are cabs made of thinner ply extensively braced and others made of poplar ply unbraced or with limited bracing. You can buy PA speakers with similar care over the crossover but they won't have the same specs for the bass driver as this cab and will be in a plastic cab and as an active cab you won't be able to use it with your favourite bass amp. My conclusion was that if it had been available at the time I'd have gone for the Monza when I bought my cab. I think it is all the cab I'd ever need, I go through the PA nowadays at gigs so it would only ever be for monitoring or something I'd use if the PA was inadequate, or in emergencies where I'd need to fill a medium venue from back line. It has no sound advantage over the Silverstone but it will do the same things in a smaller cab. I've heard the Silverstone up against the BB2 and the Vanderkley and they aren't in the same league, they both have a more coloured sound. The BB2 is lighter but the smaller Monza is an even easier carry and fit in the boot. I'll leave you to decide if this little cab is a next step in evolution.

It is a guitar driver, that frame dates back to the mid 70's. The 80's version had a chunkier chassis I think. They still make a G-15 100 I'd be very careful about putting 100W through it or using it for bass. It may have a paper former for the coil and won't be using the sort of high temperature adhesives we use now. You might be able to sell it on to someone doing a restoration project if you do some research and find which cabs used that driver back in the 70's.

Welcome to Basschat No question is stupid and certainly not this one. All your bass needs is a set up, and the neck will need to be slightly concave or it will buzz at some points when you fret it. You really need to do a set up regularly, every time you change strings and on a regular basis throughout the life of the bass. The neck will buzz if you set the neck dead straight or sometimes if you set it with too much relief. You can stop it buzzing by raising the bridge of course but too much height at the bridge makes the strings too high to fret easily. The set up is a process of adjusting the neck where the relief moves the strings away from the fretboard and then balancing that sometimes by lowering the bridge if needed and balancing those two things so that the action is low enough to fret all along the neck but high enough to cut out any buzzing. Once you've done all this you may have changed the intonation so you'll need to check that too. It all sounds complex but once you've doine it a couple of times it's no harder than tuning up a new set of strings. I'd also advise you to get someone to help you the first time and preferably someone who will show you how they do it. It's a relatively cheap job to get done as it is a matter of just a few minutes work and a proper set up will make your bass a joy to play. In the long term learn to do it yourself Step one adjusting your truss rod

Welcome to Bass Chat @HarrisonHoand @UrijahGalloway I had forgotten all about this thread. Wood is a fantastic material but you have to accept an aging process. There are timber framed buildings whic are hundreds of years old with exposed oak beams, I built a treehouse out of pressure treated pine for my kids who are in their thirties now. I’ve recently taken it down and the timber has barely deteriorated, it is going through the planer to make new things. Teak on seaside piers lasts for decades in exposed conditions but nothing lasts forever. Look at almost any graveyard and the oldest stones can no longer be read. I kind of like the symbolism, that all things will fade and pass back into the soil. Only you can decide how long you want a memorial to last.

The only amp I’ve tried where that is a problem is the Warwick Gnome which really is tiny. I’m away from home so I can’t measure but I’m sure @stevie will be along

Guitarists, drummers, singers, bassists aren’t really the types of musicians you need to worry about IME. The big divide is between gigging musicians and the rest. Skilled and unskilled, pro or semi-pro, talented or just jobbing all fails into insignificance if you are in a band with these people. For a covers band you are going to need probably 30 songs to create an evening’s entertainment. That’s a lot of work. It’s disrespectful to expect to turn up knowing you’re going to mess up in front of an audience and to turn up to a rehearsal with four other people having learned the songs you are there to practice without having them good enough that you don’t hold them back. Hands up, I’m not the world’s greatest player, my playing is at best intermediate, we don’t all learn at the same rate but you know if someone is working hard. They make every rehearsal, turn up with everything prepared and let you know if there is a problem. Weve had a bit of illness and a couple of changes of personnel recently and I’ve worked with several dep’s. It’s been a privilege and an eye opener. Some have just been wonderful, a drummer who depped without rehearsal and others an inspiration. We had a bassist who depped on drums. He’d never gigged drums before but he learned the set,kept it simple and then sang harmonies as well. He was a gigging musician though so a deep understanding of what was needed carried him through. These people are real pro’s and a delight to work with, much more important than raw talent. We are a tolerant band, no big egos, we’ve all messed up but no one takes the mickey. We forgive mistakes from a new band member but you know if someone isn’t putting in a shift or they just aren’t capable. If every rehearsal shows some progress you know they are trying. If none of your set is working you know you’ll never get there. Get rid of these two or you will never leave the rehearsal room. With a decent keys player you can probably rehearse the rhythm section and vocals and be ready when you find the right guitarist. See how it goes with one before you add to your problems.

I see @Kiwi is reading this. Thanks to all of you who put all of the work in to keep this place going. I’ve met so many lovely people here and probably wouldn’t be playing without you all.

Don’t worry too much about the volume. Back in the day 200W was considered a loud amp and with decently efficient speakers even 100W would do the job. Electronics have improved bringing down the price per watt and we all pretty much carry more amp power than we strictly need. Unless your band operate at ‘stupid’ volumes (because this will damage your hearing) then 200W will be plenty. Using a compressor like the spectrocomp is great advice, you can bring up the average level without the peaks distorting. If you do think your sound is distorting roll off the bass a little it will clean up your sound in the mix anyway and protect both amp and speakers.

You should be able to do something really good within your budget depending upon your choices. A pair of RCF ART712’s new are around £950 so used would be well within your budget. These would cope with most gig situations and be better than the gear a lot of busy bands are using. Other brands are available. There are some decisions only you can make. Active speakers or passive with separate amps? Active is where we are all going but that means people are selling off their old ones and they can be real bargains out there. The cost to you is more complex set up and a bit of research to match amps to speakers. If this is really only going to be for rehearsal then it only needs setting up once so not really very inconvenient. Buying used means you get better gear for your money and if you make a mistake you can sell on and get your money back to try again. Your budget and the low price of modern gear would let you buy new and get something really quie competent but with a guarantee. What would you choose here. Finally you probably ought to put a bit aside for things like leads, stands microphones and so on. If you are updating the PA you won’t want to let other bits of the PA to let you down. Holding back a few euros could be a sensible choice. Finally I’ve forgotten where you are based, is gear including used widely available?

Good luck,enjoy it

Do you mean the monks or Carl Orff or just the language? Great tunes though