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Phil Starr

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Everything posted by Phil Starr

  1. Phil Starr
    Oh dear we are on our first gig on Saturday or I'd come along. I'll pm you if we are going up to Bristol sometime. My daughter lives there.
  2. Phil Starr
    Some of you may have seen our latest self build design in Amps and Cabs. It's a 10" FRFR cab, fairly compact, weighing in at 10kg and something I think might work well with DB. I don't play DB so i'm looking for someone reasonably local who wouldn't mind putting it through its paces. I'm based in Chard in Somerset. Any takers?
  3. Phil Starr
    Just a quick update on the 110T, I have it back from Stevie and reassembled it. I had a chance to run some test tones through it and there really was a serious panel resonance on the baffle centred around the area between the port and the bass speaker. You really need a brace on the baffle behind that point. I'll make some changes to the drawings to show this. Yesterday i had my first chance to try the cab in anger at a band rehearsal. Our drummer has returned from COVID lockdown full of enthusiasm and was really hitting the skins so it was a good workout for a little cab. That's the first thing to notice, the cab weighs in at 10.0kg at the moment, it still needs a grille and a handle but it really is a featherweight. First impression is that it was bass heavy but that was due to room acoustics, it's actually very neutral sounding. I've been trying out new settings on my Zoom B1 and it takes FX well. Dial in grit and that's what you get, dial it out and the clean sound is all there. I was drowning in bass until I switched to in-ears. As a stage monitor you won't need anything else and the drummer was happy too, he normally likes the bass louder than I do. Out front it was loud enough for a pretty hard rehearsal, it would certainly do the average pub gig without stress but I did have a bit of compression on and an HPF. We've acquired a sound engineer as we are attempting to move up-market as a band, well you've got to dream His response was very interesting as he was there setting up levels and monitor mixes "I didn't need to do anything to the bass other than set it in the mix" So would I use this as my only speaker? Well yes, but I do have a feed to the PA so I'm only worried about stage volumes. It will certainly cope with the average pub gig. This is a 10kg speaker with a pretty flat response and a lovely full rounded bass. You should be able to build this comfortably for £150 Get the panels cut to size and it's no more difficult to construct than some flat pack furniture, the only tricky bit is cutting the speaker and port cutouts and it can be constructed without needing to be soldered. What are you waiting for?
  4. Phil Starr
    That's looking nice, how does it sound? Well done
  5. Phil Starr
    It doesn't really help someone who just wants a bit of practical advice to nit pick. The question makes it absolutely clear that the OP is only asking about what will work in practice and will be operating at levels where the voltage will drop as the current increases. so no you won't get 6db every time. Trace Elliott make that absolutely clear 130W into 8ohms and 200 into 4ohms. ie they don't expect a 3dB increase in power in practice at high levels. You know as well as I do that in practice very few commercial bass amps will double their maximum power into 4 ohms and we know this one certainly doesn't. For the OP don't worry about the little squabble, 5db is is plenty of extra sound and the extra 1db difference between what is theoretical (and real at low output levels) and what the Elf will actually do at high levels will only just be noticeable. Given your drummer's eKit just adding an extra speaker to what you have will be fine
  6. Phil Starr
    I'm with @Chienmortbb on this, probably. you won't get the theoretical 6dB extra as the Elf won't deliver double the power into 4ohms but you will get close to that, around 5dB is likely. That's the equivalent of almost four times the amp power but sharing the task of shifting air between two cones means each won't be working so hard. You already know that the speaker will distort if you just double the amp power, do it for any length of time and they will break. Generally speaking two tens will get you where you need to be, but i don't know your band of course. There are two ways to go on this, put your bass through the PA and just use your 'rig' as a monitor for you to hear or if your PA isn't up to bass then you need to get your sound levels matching the drummer. You have the luxury of a drummer with a volume control. It's nice to have the second option as you can always turn down from maximum but you can't turn up if your system is already flat out. Adding a second identical 10 is going to preserve your sound and give you much more headroom for the lowest cost and preserve the sound you have. Anything else will change your sound and be more expensive, then you are into auditioning different gear and looking for a new sound. If you are newly back to this I'd keep it simple, within a year you will have a much clearer feeling for what you want to do and the same GAS for new gear most of us here suffer from If you don't like your sound then...... have fun looking
  7. Phil Starr
    Look forward to hearing it at the next Bass Bash through one of our BC designs
  8. Phil Starr
    Interested in this, I've been contemplating building a lightweight small combo for semi acoustic work and the odd open mic, maybe for rehearsals too when drummist brings a cut down rig. I've been looking at a number of Chinese made circuit boards with an aim to building the amp but the total cost of these is approaching the TC BAM by the time you've factored in the case. Using the BAM seems a no brainer and it could potentially be unplugged and used as a back up amp. So yes it would be great to hear what you make of it over time, maybe even a few clips of how it sounds?
  9. Phil Starr
    Love it TBH I'd have a long hard think. I spent a while 'between bands' after failing to take the Floyd's advice. I spent too long with people who either weren't really musicians and others who were great but were never going to manage to be in any group, musical or otherwise. To be fair i met a lot of lovely people as well. No 1 is are they a group you can get on with? It's so stressful if you don't and a little love and respect makes it so much easier. Can you forgive a singer who misses the odd note or the drummer whose timing is a bit suspect? Only you can decide how far to go down that route. Which of your friends are perfect? Having said that a poor singer is about the worst position to be weak in for a band. Would you turn down Bob Dylan or Coldplay though, or any of the various girl bands. People with marginal voices can be a great stage presence and really work a room so they get away with vocal murder. Just one thought, several female singers i've been with are people pleasers who get talked into singing unsuitable material in the original keys. Frequently their voices are weaker than male singers and they struggle when the band is too loud. Current band are like this with our shed building drummer. Our singer sounds lovely with her other band but struggles with ours and struggling for volume affects her pitch. how about monitoring, does she use in-ears or floor monitors or even nothing? you cant pich what you can't hear. You won't change this band, if they aren't nice people now the won't become kinder or more generous, if they aren't aware of the problem now they won't thank you for pointing it out and you'll be starting with tensions. So much vocal work is about confidence so telling someone they are flat is unlikely to do any good. If it's any help I've walked away from a prospective band because of this issue. Being in a band is all about compromise but you've got to have a bit of pride in what you do. If everything else is right then it might be what you compromise on, if not I'd walk away. Being in a busy band is hard work, you've got to look forward to being with them.
  10. Phil Starr

    Zoom models

    Phil Starr replied to paul_5's topic in Effects

    Thanks so much for this, I've been using my B1ON for headphone practice forever but have only just started to use it live. For practice it is great for making a cheap bass sound like a decent one but for live work i like a fairly clean sound so it's been an unnecessary distraction, to date. Over lockdown I've been starting recording and adding fx after recording a clean bass. It's been a revelation which is making me question my decision to play clean. I'm absolutely going to investigate the AC BS PRE and add it to the bit of compression and dirt I'm using now. I was thinking to buy the B1 Four as an upgrade, now I don't need to. i'll stick with the B1ON for another year or so and learn what it does, then re-examine.
  11. Phil Starr

    Zoom models

    Phil Starr replied to paul_5's topic in Effects

    Yeah welcome to BC
  12. Phil Starr
    Hi Serge, Stevie is shy about this but I'm not as I have no financial interest. I also know how difficult it is to source inductors of the right values and power handling. He sells inductors on Evil Bay including winding custom values. I hope I'm not breaking any BassChat rules by putting this up but here is the link 133768834024 | eBay that's for the 10" driver but all the other inductors are available.
  13. Phil Starr
    Stevie is the expert on crossovers but at the simplest level speakers are all different, none of them have completely flat responses and the mechanical and electrical characteristics of each speaker are different too. Adding a horn flare loads the speakers changing the load on the speaker and this changes thigs too. The horn will also have it's own frequency response. Even at the easiest level most horns are louder than bass units but never by the same amounts, so you have to sort that out too. I've used generic crossover designs and used simple design theory to calculate crossover component values. It works in that you split the signal between the drivers bass goes through the bass speaker and treble through the horn but it is only a starting point. the sound in the crossover region is rarely good. I then (theoretically anyway) do a lot of fiddling, unwinding coils or adding turns and messing with resistor and capacitor values with repeated listening tests to get it as clean as I can subjectively. Stevie does it by measurement and years of experience and his crossovers sound better than mine.
  14. Phil Starr
    Just working from the sequence of events it looks like the speakon socket or lead was the source of the problem. It will probably be directly wired to the jack which may be why that has stopped working. If you are really unlucky it could have caused other damage. If the previous owner used jacks only the socket may have been unused for years, it may have been faulty from new or time may have taken a toll. If you are lucky it may be as simple as replacing the socket or even resoldering a wire. The thing you want to avoid is running a valve amp open circuit so get it to the tech tell them what you told us and with any luck it can be sorted. Hope it goes well.
  15. Phil Starr
    I always have been in theory, it's about getting the practice right. I was a sound engineer a lot longer than I've been a bass player so my grasp of theory is good but I've been out of the loop for a long time so your advice on what the state of the art is now has been invaluable. it's been really interesting crossing over from behind the mixing desk to the stage, your personal priorities are completely different and of course you start any new area at the bottom of the feeding pool. There were lots of poorly paid gigs and getting the right set up together takes time. It takes a while for us weekend warriors to get to the point where we can afford our own engineer. I'm also lucky enough that the current band are interested in improving technically. Sound, like politics proves to be the art of the possible. On the monitors/mics and feedback issue fortunately I'm fairly loud so I can keep the gain down but at open mics when I'm mixing inexperienced singers replacing lesser monitors with the RCF's has given me a few more dB to play with. They are so reasonably priced too.
  16. Phil Starr
    To be fair we haven't had any problems at all in that area since I went over to using RCF ART310's for floor monitors. It'll be great to lose what they put into the vocal mics when we do go in-ears but they really are well behaved in terms of frequency response.
  17. Phil Starr
    I'm going for the RCF M18 mixer, I downloaded the control software and tried it and it is way slicker than the Behringer, if I have to operate it myself at smaller gigs that is really important to me. If I'm playing bass then buttons and bells on the mixer aren't going to be used, the most I'll do is tweaking the balance . I'll settle for a couple of saved scenes with some eq and a graphic for a bit of room compensation. The M18 gives me 6 auxes and there are only four in the band, and two in my duo (no s**t Sherlock) It's cheap enough that I can still consider the X18 if I need it. The sound engineer turned up with an X32 so all looks good for bigger gigs too.
  18. Phil Starr
    You won't get the figure of eight brace through a 12"cutout. I've used strips of ply in the past to do this but use what you have. I'd use the SM212 if you can get hold of one and are happy to pay the extra. Everything was designed around it and it is a better speaker than the 12CMV.
  19. Phil Starr
    It goes further than this. My guitarist is now a convert to lightweight cabs. I've designed him a cab based on the 30l cab. It's fitted with a Celestion G12H variant built for a Marshall. He's using it in the prototype for this cab as an upgrade for his open back Marshall. He loves the extra punch he can get, the ability to shape the bottom end by using the cab as ported or sealed and the portability. It sounds fabulous at rehearsal.
  20. Phil Starr
    If you want an SM 212you'll have to find a used one, they stopped making them. The good news is that you can use a Beyma 12CMV2 and they are cheaper. You should be able to copy the bracing of the Basschat design by cutting strips and glueing them in place. Fiddly but achievable.
  21. Phil Starr
    I think you might be getting some technically correct answers to a practical question. If you want to bodge some sort of tweeter to see if you like the sound there are a number of ways you could successfully do that, but it will be a bodge. The Mark Bass is a bodge after all and it works in the sense that lots of people quite like it and it doesn't blow amps. Would a better crossover with a few weeks design work and a few pounds worth of components wok better, yes it probably would. I think you have a few options which would 'work' in the sense of giving you a bit of extra tops wthout blowing anything. use a piezo tweeter, cheap and easy but they will always sound like a piezo. use the MB single capacitor circuit as used in hundreds of commercial designs. There's not a lot of protection for the tweeter and all sorts of problms around the crossover point but half the bassists in the world are probably living with this sort of sub optimal 'design'. use @stevie design. It'll look after the tweeter and if you are lucky work ok with your speaker. buy a commercial 2way crossover. it won't exactly match your speakers but you avoid some of the problems of interference around the crossover area. You'll probably need to pad down the signal to the horn so this is only an option if you can work out how to do that. I'd go for using Stevie's easy build design
  22. Phil Starr
    Better news yet. My duo partner has just bought new ZS10's and they are smaller than mine and also crucially the angles of the outlet tube are more acute and align neatly with my ear canals, the fit is great so now I'm going for a new set
  23. Phil Starr
    Our singer already uses in-ears and our guitarist is keen to move over to using them. In fact he ordered some ZS10's on the spot. Drummer is happy to wear them too, though he prefers over-ears. I might take my AKG's along to next rehearsal for him to try. Having someone invested in getting the monitoring right is an interesting experience. Even being able to mix your own monitoring with a phone app would come second I suspect to being handed a reasonable mix and tweaking it. Even at rehearsal tweaking a mix whilst playing bass, singing and paying attention to the rest of the band is impossible and as I've found out at open mic nights leaving most musicians at the simplest desk shows that mixing is a skill to be learned like any other.
  24. Phil Starr
    @EBS_freak this might give you a wry smile. We've now got a sound engineer (which I've always been wanting) and just had a session to get things set up for when we get back gigging. Tried the ZS10's properly for the first time along with my Trantec wireless system, real revelation when you have time to set up the mix into the earphones. Our tech set them up at the desk with his own in-ears then passed me the Trantec to plug mine into with a rough mix already set. A few tweaks and we were off and easily the best experience so far. They still lack mids a little so my vocals could have been better but everything else was all there. If I get that sound consistently ( and I cant see why not) I can live with them for a few months and then maybe look at an upgrade if I know I'm going to stick there. The remains of my hearing thanks you.
  25. Phil Starr
    Using the larger inductor will lower the crossover point but hang fire until @stevie gets back to you, he designed the crossover. Don't worry about the amp we should have changed the drawing and I didn't double check. 2.83V is the voltage we use to check speaker parameters, it represents a standard 1W into 8 ohms.The mipedance of speakers vary so we use a standard voltage rather than a wattage figure. The cab will handle around 200W depending upon the exact usage. You can try carpet but obviously we haven't tried it and carpets vary a lot. you might be able to pick up some offcuts of felt carpet underlay for very little or nothing from a carpet warehouse, worth asking anyway. Yes the speaker gets the full range signal and the 'crossover' is actually a high pass filter which rolls off the bass to the horn driver, as well as attenuating the signal. I Imagine you'll have an answer on the crossover before you are ready to fit the speakers.
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