Phil Starr

Good advice about re-visiting the mics and I also would keep the XR18 if you are happy with it. Actually it's all good advice going active adds almost no weight to the cabs and having amps matched to the speakers they are driving with dynamic protection gives you extra headroom and a foolproof/no worries set up as well as better sound. The good thing about that sort of budget is that you can move to the sort of 'stick' systems that work. One local band use the FBT Vertus VT1000 system. I've seen them do gigs with just one set for a medium sized pub gig and it sounded epic. With a pair you'd have something supremely portable and very competent. Vocals are really well presented and a step up from most bands. https://www.fbtaudio.co.uk/fbt-audio/portable-sound/full-systems/vertus-series/vt1000.htm Another similar alternative would be the RCF NXL24 https://www.thomann.co.uk/rcf_nxl_24_a_mk2.htm another small column/line source speaker which would need subs. I heard these when I bought my RCF 745's which are another great speaker for a band. I have to say that next to each other I was disappointed with the 745's and was almost put off buying them. That was with the RCF 8003 subs which would be above your budget and was way above mine at the time. I've promised myself that if my latest band do start getting better gigs then the NXL 24's will be my next step, paired with RCF 905 subs.

Spellcheck on my tablet I guess.

Hmmmmm

Running everything through a single socket means you have a single earth for all your gear, which might help. Unless you are using incandescent lights you won’t overload a 13A socket. As has been said in other recent threads use a plug in mains tester to check the socket first. I used to check every time but now only check if there is a problem. If the socket is faulty you shouldn’t use it and you need to report it to the venue. You should be able to isolate the channel or channels which are causing the problem. Mute them all and open one at a time. It might be just one bit of gear that is picking up the hum or even just one of your cables that has a fault, Hum can’t be transmitted at wireless frequencies from a noisy, poorly screened nearby appliance. If so you could just move the amp or whatever away from the source. If one piece of your kit is causing the problem at several venues then get a tech to look at it. A lot of vintage amps can be poorly screened and single coil pickups are great radio receivers

One of the reasons I fell in love with the bass. I’ve very fond memories of listening to Pentangle on John Peel as a teenager. The things he did on bass were just so exciting.

You have some great kit there. You can get a really great bass sound out of that PA. The best bass sound I've ever has is though my own PA, either through RCF310's or through RCF 745's depending on whether I'm with the band or with the duo. First of all I'd ask whether its the sound you are hearing or the sound the audience hears which you don't like? One of the downsides of a good PA and especially with subs is that all the bass from the PA comes back at you and at stage volumes. I do 'technical set ups' at some rehearsals where I turn the floor monitors off and turn the FOH speakers round so I hear what the audience hears. Half an hour of playing along with the sound the audience hears gives me confidence that what they hear is good irrespective of what I hear on stage. You may have great sound though the PA but just not hearing how great it is. So the subs are louder than your bass amp and your monitors, if you use them. There is nothing (well maybe cardioid subs) that you can do to cut that bass other than in-ears so you are living with bass boost below 120Hz or so. Bill's suggestion of a 50Hz or 80Hz 24db/octave filter is a great one. I use 50Hz and then shelve the bass response of the floor monitors or my bass amp on the rare occasions I use back line. Bass is cut by at least 6db and sometimes more depending apon the room acoustics and how loud the PA is. I still sometimes feel I'm drowning in warm bass but of course I know the audience are hearing something good. There's a couple of other things you probably know already. You need to leave deep bass for the drums and generally sonically inhabit the space between the drums and guitars, basically the second harmonic 80-160 Hz is more important than 40-80Hz. Secondly any cab on the floor has a 6db boost in the lowest frequencies from the floor and more if it against a wall. That affects the PA as the speakers are flown and your bass amp or floor monitors. Good luck

See if you can take some photo's of the tweeter and someone here might be able to recognise it. Probably better to do it in a new thread so people know what you are asking

I've been on this journey with a couple of duos. I started with just wanting something to amplify me to the same sound levels as the acoustic guitar so we could play together with minimal equipment. You don't need anything like a 2x8 to do that never mind the pair you mention in your OP. The problem is that there aren't too many small combos or even speakers with a grown up sound. I ended up designing my own cabs and regularly use a 1x6 for simple play alongs. I've also used a 1x8 and 1x10 which is way over the top. All the designs are on Bass Chat but I'm assuming you don't want to build so this is just to say you don't need to be huge and a single 2x8 will be epic in this situation. FWIW the duo which was intended as a side project now gigs regularly. For gigs with a duo in noisy pubs the guitar needs to go through the PA so we put the bass through too. I took my little speaker along for a while paired with a Warwick Gnome but the 'stack' has been replaces with a floor monitor which does for bass guitar and two vocals. Long term it's probably better to spend on a decent PA and monitor than spend big on a new bass system IME. My tiny bass speakers let me jam along and do the odd open mic. A 1x10 or 2x8 combo will be more than enough so the Rumble isn't a bad shout.

There is a problem with lightweight cabs and feet. Very thin ply is clearly less strong than thicker material and poplar ply is slightly softer than most hardwood plies. The earlier Barefaced cabs got lots of complaints about feet and even handles coming adrift. These seem to have died down so I imagine they addressed this problem. I think LFSys use 15mm ply thoughout as the best compromise between lightening the cab and keeping it robust. I believe their cabs are also reinforced below the handles. You can't expect a simple wood screw to hold in material as thin as the walls of a BF cab.

It's a simple job to add rubber feet to a cab and I note that the one in the pic with the Ashdown has them on the side and not the bottom of the cab. I see the LFSys logo is also mounted sideways so I assume this is a custom job by LFSys? Not all of us would want to use our cabs in the same way and for me protruding feet just catch on other things when I'm loading the car, I'm happy with corners. I hope I don't get into trouble for suggesting this but has anyone tried asking @stevie if he could fit feet for them when ordering their cab? Each cab is hand built so adding feet probably wouldn't add much to the price. Though knowing Stevie he would have to research to find the very best feet and the very best way of fitting them so I've no idea what that would cost. He might curse me for suggesting this but I do know you get Ashdown levels of service from LFSys

I think it's easy to be too snobby about this. The quality of budget speakers is of course variable between brands but the quality can be surprisingly good. I can remember getting a Maplin Pro Sound 12" monitor to repair and being surprised by the quality of the well braced cab and the decent magnet on the 12" driver along with a nicely made crossover. It sounded OK too, not brilliant but definitely usable. The cheapies are getting better over time too, I auditioned the Alto's before going on to buy my RCF's and back then the gap was very obvious but I've played through more up to date ones and the gap is closing. The other thing is that the speakers are only one link in the chain. The weakest link is always the operator and I'd back a decent sound engineer with budget gear against someone with cloth ears and little experience using the best gear. I suspect someone singing through an SM58 clone into RCF's might sound no better than someone using a Beta58 into Alto's and possibly worse. If you only have £50 to upgrade your sound swapping mic's rather than speakers might be the better bet. Come to that my singing into top touring gear isn't going to match Freddie Mercury singing into a tin on the end of a string! It's a matter of buying what you can afford and learning to get the best out of it. If I'm listening to a live band how they play and perform is much more interesting than their speakers even to me and a poor mix is going to ruin an evening far more than losing a few Hz from the bass response or 3db off the volume level.

Hi John, hopefully someone with the light will get back to you but I've found all the lights I've had in the last ten use use a very similar protocol as @Woodinblack says. The menu button simply cycles through the options. Sound is usually Soun but on some of mine it is just Sn )and could be something else too I suppose. confusingly some of my lights have Sn as sensitivity) pressing 'Enter' should take you into the sub menus and one of the menu options will be sound but maybe not labelled as such. Check the battery on the remote, I've had ones dead on arrival, they are usually a 3V lithium button cell CA2032 or CA 2016

All is well that ends well, returns are postage free and eBays returns couldn't be simpler. Interestingly the controller, which is what actually arrived, was still described as a light on the return form! What I got was in fact a nice little 192channel DMX controller identical with the one I already have, and I paid double the price for mine around 5 years ago. If you wanted a DMX controller I wouldn't hesitate. The stock was posted from a warehouse in Staffordshire so was genuinely UK stock. I've ordered things before which were advertised as UK stock but were delivered by China Post. I'm inclined to treat this as a genuine error upon reflection. There was no option to order the controller when I clicked on it but the drop down has been updated. The ad is misleading in that there is still no mention of the controller last time I looked on the Ad but it is clear on the drop down now. I'm pretty careful about small print and it did seem too good to be true but I searched for a catch and didn't find one. Can't fault eBay this time.

Hi Mike payment made Phil

Hi Mike PM me your bank details pleae, no PP here I'm afraid

Thanks all, I’m not worried too much but it is a hassle. Let’s hope it goes smoothly 😕

OK, looks like I've been conned or am a victim of an error by the vendor. You are all correct about the dropdown except that it appears to have been changed since I placed my order To my memory the dropdown when I ordered said quantity and the only options were 1 or 2 lights. 2 lights were inexplicably at the time several times the price of 1. The ad clearly stated that the stock was held in the UK (Staffordshire) and delivery was 2-3 days. I now have two emails from eBay and one enqiry via email from the vendor. One message from ebay is for the controller at £24 and the second for the light itself at £28.99 . The enquiry says it is for the light but leads to delivery tracking which has a picture of the controller. I should according to tracking recieve my light or controller today. I think it will be the controller which I don't want or need as I have one already. The delivery in 3 days would mean it has come from Staffordshire I've taken screenshots of the original ad which makes no mention of a controller other than the pop down which I believe to have been changed since I placed my order. I haven't yet found a way to contact eBay before the delivery takes place. Does anyone know if I can legally refuse delivery? If not I guess I'm about to go into battle with eBay's returns/complaints policies.

I bloody hope not. I'd better screenshot the ad but this is what it says. I'd liketo see a DMX controller with 12 bulbs with an 8deg output angle. Maybe I've posted the wrong link.

I don't think I could ever face the tension of going on stage to play that many new songs, good on you for having the ability to succeed and the nerve to try. I've played a few Rugby Clubs over the years and never had a hint of trouble. I mean they are riotous and drunken but good natured and a lot of fun. I don't think rugby is the game for you if you are going to be a **** there's too many people ready to put you straight and the game takes discipline. Some of our best gigs have been rugby clubs. Sports clubs generally are a good gig.

PLEASE IGNORE THIS RECOMMENDATION I've hit a problem with the vendor and have removed the link below I was about to recommend looking at U'King for absurdly cheap Chinese made LED lighting. My mini laser projector came from there, as did a couple PAR cans that proved too powerful to use. 180W of LED, that has to be a mis-print or bull***t?! Possibly as I've no way of measuring but the only venue I've found them useful is outdoors. I was really sceptical about anything this cheap as we probably all are but they've always been really good in the sense of as described and delivered on time. Anyway I digress, whist checking out a link for them I found an led bar that has a moving head for £28 on eBay, so I've ordered one and will get a second if it is any good. I'll report back on what I find. Can anyone go lower than this for a usable led bar? This is getting silly, in a good way

Sorry I'm such a nerd. There's a problem with all bass cabs and that is putting them on the floor, at low frequencies the floor reflects the sound and effectively reinforces the bass giving an extra 6db but only in the bass region. If there is a rear wall that adds to the effect and so does a side wall, when you get to this stage your speaker is effectively sitting at the end of a room sized horn. Just by room placement you can get the effect of cranking the bass control to full boost. At rehearsal try winding the bass control back to 3 o'clock and maybe even all the way just to get a feel of what that sounds like. In a really resonant room I've found I have to back the bass off startlingly. Most of those old Celestion drivers have a resonance around 70-80Hz so anything below that is not what you are hearing in Andy's tone, well not much anyway. I don't think it is a problem with your amp which is well regarded as being good at that sort of tone and to be fair I don't think it is a problem with the Super Compact. You can probably save some money by not rushing to buy a new cab. It might be worth going over to other parts of Bass Chat and asking if anyone else has nailed the Andy Fraser tone. Either General Discussion which is read by nearly everyone or Effects where the real tone monsters prowl would se you question and be able to offer more help. Also look in Events and see if there is a bass bash near you. It's a gathering of bassists who all bring along a lot of gear and we get to try each others kit as well as swap ideas. The South West bash is soon and there is one in the South East coming up. With so few music shops remaining its probably the only place where you will see such a wide range of basses and amplification under one roof.

No help in getting his tone other than understanding where it was coming from. Go back to the 1950's and there were no proper musical instrument speakers in the UK though Fender and others were building guitar combos inthe States. Materials used in building loudspeakers were still primitive, magnets were weaker, speaker coil often wound on paper formers and glued on with domestic adhesives. Amps were all valve jobs and usually limited in power. the first Fender amp was 7W and drove an 8" speaker. PA's were designed for public address rather than music, usually column speakers and adopted by bands. The real problem was volume, just being loud enough to be heard at all. The vox AC30 was a revolution followed very quickly by other companies including Marshall. You'll notice tha 30W was seen as a powerful amp and the AC30 needed two 12" speakers to handle the power. 25W was the handling of the typical 12" speaker in the sixties because the heat in the coil literally burned the paper formers andbroke down the glue. Because of the magnets lack of power the cones were made lighter to get more volume and the magnet gap was limited to increase the efficiency, meaning excursion was limited and there was little bass output. If you used a single 4x12 Marshall you'd need to pair it with a 50W amp if you wanted it to last very long. We suffered many blown speakers then and re-coning was pretty common. 1970 was a bit of a turning point, ceramic magnets came into wide use, heat resistant adhesives and formers increased power handling and the money generated by bands meant specialist music speakers were being designed. The first 100W solid state amps were recently introduced and though unreliable they were a bit cheaper and a lot lighter than the old valve amps. Power available was about to take off. The USA was a way ahead of the UK but both knowledge and physical imports were trickling in. Just as importantly Thiele and Small published their papers on speakers and we finally had some solid mathematical theory to bring to cab design. Free would have known nothing of this. Most UK companies were still building gear using 25-30W 12" speakers with a few 15's and 18's used for bass. Celestion, Goodmans and Fane dominated the British market. That's waht you are hearing in the Andy Fraser sound, bass is limited by excursion and lightweight cones, the lower mids are boosted to give a semblance of bass and to bring out the bass and make it sit just below the guitars. Those thin paper cones would be breaking up and giving a boost in the mids but very little output at high frequencies and they wouldn't have been using horns at this stage. Few bassists would have been using ported cabs in the UK as the theory for designing them just wasn't there, we could tune a cab but not match it to the physical and electrical characteristics of the speaker. One of the things that struck me last night listening to the live recordings is how well the bass works with the guitars in the mix, musicians in those days used their ears to work within the limits of their gear to create a great sound. Now that is creativity They were so young too!

That's kind but I'm better at theory than I am at tones. I'll do my best for Andrew though. I had a quick look and at the Isle of Wight in 1970 Andy Fraser was standing in front of a couple of full Marshall stacks and there seems to ba a WEM stack over there too. The only one I could see clearly was a couple of 4x12's with 100W valve amps on top. The nearest one seemed to be guitar cabs and the ones stage right looked a little chunkier and may have had different drivers in. However it was common in those days to split the guitar and bass stacks cross the stage so they were both sides of the drummer and guitar and bassist could hear each other. Something I used to do at the time when doing sound for bands. In 1971 Jim Marshall was still serving in the shop in Cricklewood and building amps himself as I found out when he remembered building the amp I took in to the shop for some spares. Yes Andrew I know what it is like to be 73 I suppose what I'm saying is that in those days there were very few purpose built speakers for instruments and free may have had things made up specially for them. Bassists were quit likely to use the same drivers as guitarists so that may be part of his sound. Certainly there isn't a lot of deep bass and not a lot of top end in the tne he has there. The studio tone is probably the result of a miked cab and DI mixed. Anyway i had a good time listening to the live tracks on the Free Story which was fun. So yes in general the tone you hear is that of lots of cheap drivers packed together in a big cab, lot's of 10's is really more of a late 70's early eighties thing and I think he might have used 12's for live work as above. In any case it's more about the individual speaker rather than it's size so you can get similar tones from 10's 12's or 15's. I suppose I'm saying buy a cab because it sounds right not because it has a 10" driver. You have two possible approaches. You could probably achieve something close to that tone in the studio taking the output straight from your bass and eq'ing it after it's recorded, maybe adding in some fx too. On stage you can do the same by using a neutral toned/flat response cab (FRFR) Nowadays you can get bass cabs that will do the same job as a studio monitor like the LFSys range and there are all sorts of tone settings you can download where someone else has done the work. You won't be the only Andy Fraser fan. It's even possible that someone has recorded the bass and used a computer to work out the response of the cab. You then feed that into your Barefaced which has a reasonably flat response The second approach would be to look for a cab engineered to give an old school sound. The Barefaced One10 mcomes to mind but I think that will be a bit warmer than the Free live sound. You can add in fx and tweak the eq to get closer to the sound you want. Other people will be better at guiding you then me. Apart from anything else I've got considerable hearing loss from standing too close to big speakers and even bigger drummers too often. Welcome to BassChat

You won't regret it and if you can pick up a used one you can get your money back. Hope it works out for you

Hi Al, I know that you've heard this already via a pm, but the PixelBar Switch has a swap-able front which diffuses the light and works well on the floor uplighting the band. You can set the colour and intensity via DMX or with the controls on the unit and they will work in master-slave mode so you can link them with a DMX cable and have them all the same without having to program each separately. I found the other LED bars to focussed to use in this mode as they dazzle you every time you look down. I currently use them in a vertical position on stands. This lights up your whole body more evenly and is more flattering than an uplighter. I'm no great beauty so need all the help I can get I've recently spotted these and fortunately one of our local music pubs has bought a set of 4 so I've seen them in action. At just under £30 they look good value and for just under £50 they also do a rechargeable version (12 hours light) which will cut the leads needed and set up time. Brightness isn't exceptional but plenty for my use and a set of four would light up the whole stage without distracting from you lightshow