Phil Starr

Hi Steve, I've looked at those, well some of them anyway plus some of the YouTubers especially the ones who teach the bass courses. The big problem is that they are often not clean recordings and usually you have little idea of what eq/effects have been applied. There are also copyright problems. I'm thinking that a lot of Basschatters have home studio equipment and probably already have clean recordings of themselves playing bass.

As many of you know I've been building speakers and sharing the designs on BassChat, many more to come I hope. My problem is that I'm not the worlds best bass player and me giving a cab a work out is about as testing as if I went in the ring with Anthony Joshua. Pre Covid I took the cab to people I knew could play and then I also got a good chance to listen. What I need is a few good recordings (at least CD quality) of bass played fingerstyle, with a pick and slap which I can cut down to 10-30 second clips. They'd need to be recorded straight from the bass with no eq or fx and clean of any other sounds, just bass. Ultimately I'll use anything longer for the speaker development process and the clips to demonstrate the speakers. I suppose that if I put the test track up here we could also put up recordings of everyone's bass rigs with a dedicated BassChat test track So if you are stuck at home bored but with decent recording facilities I'd love to start putting this together. All donations gratefully received

You are asking for a splitter. Many DI boxes will do that for you, even something as simple as this.

I can't hear the sound of the Behringers fans over the sound of those in the Peavey Minimax Mind you I can't hear much of anything once our drummer starts shed building.

@Chienmortbb knows much more than I do, I'm a bit analogue class D and switch mode supplies scare the hell out of me.The problem with a lot of this stuff is price. That EV plate amp is £200 and the ICE Power amps are around that just for the board. There are a limited number of chipsets that are widely used and you can buy Chinese made boards for peanuts, but by and large the ancillary components aren't up to spec and they won't be reliable. the suspicion is also there that if they are using substandard components that there will be little or no quality control. John is currently looking for some of the longer established Chinese companies products. The Behringer NX3000 uses the same amp module as the Bugera Veyron as far as I can tell, though the Veyron uses it in bridge mode for more power. I'm using the predecessor iNuke for speaker development at the moment but I've never had a problem with the Behringer PA amps. Pulling apart Behringer stuff it is quite nicely made, very nice considering the price. I 've been wondering about seeing how easy it would be to just rip out the innards of one and install it into a cab. Or looking for a Behringer with blown speakers but a working plate amp.

It's a good example, and she did that right from the start pretty much, her first performance on Jools Holland was an acoustic version. Jessie J - Price Tag (Live on Jools Holland 2010) - YouTube she was called in at the last minute without a band and the rapper on the recorded version. Lucky for us really as the rap on the recording would have sounded really odd with a bunch of pensioners and a West Country accent. We copied the audience participation bit she used instead of the rap and did very nicely with the song for years.

We've been looking into a powered version with John @Chienmortbb doing all the work on amps, I'm sure he'll be along soon. One option I've been trying is using a Behringer PA amp with the DSP as a crossover. that saves you the cost of the crossover too and you can tailor the response with HPF on the bass driver and dynamic limiting for speaker protection. I've toyed with the idea of building the amp straight into the cab. In any case the zlx amp is split between a class D bass amp and a smaller powered class AB for the tweeter with a crossover built in. It won't work with the passive crossover in the BC design. The Inconvenient Truth about your Electro-Voice ZLX-12P & ZLX15P amplifier - YouTube

If you are an originals band I think you really don't have to worry, you'll be playing to a completely different sort of audience to a covers band. The choice is your own, keep to the spirit of the original or make it your own. The only thing is to take it seriously and play it the best you can with the line up you have. Audiences respond to enthusiasm, confidence and commitment as much as anything. Have fun with them.

To be fair most of the original bands aren't going to match their own songs playing live either. Some of the tribute bands are outstanding, but that is a different skill altogether.

Hi Everyone, I hope you've now got pretty much everything you need to get building. It would be great if someone could use the instructions I've just put up and get back with questions. It's hard to know how much detail to put in and I'm bound to have missed a lot. When we've had a couple of builds and I've got the drawings back from RichardH I'll go on and put up a tidier version as a completely separate thread. All comments and suggestions welcome and though I don't promise to answer everything you tell me it will all be read and taken seriously. Don't worry about the previous three posts, I've dragged some of Stevie's pictures down to be added to when I get the cab back. I'll add some text too but later.

These are the measurements Stevie made with the crossover sorted. the bottom graph is the one to look at. It's very flat across the frequency range with the dip showing where the crossover sits, around 2.3kHz. That dip is normal for most crossovers.

Ok this is the crossover circuit. You can ignore the 1W power amp and I have no idea why there is an exclamation mark in the tweeter. We've kept the crossover as simple as possible, just a high pass filter to stop the bass reaching the tweeter. the Pulse bass driver rolls off naturally above 2kHz and the components are chosen so that the tweeter takes over at that point. they've been carefully chosen to match the two Celestion units we've used. Other drivers will roll off at different frequencies and at different rates and may be louder or quieter than the pair we chose so if you go and swap things it will almost certainly not work as well. Keeping to just three components keeps the cost down and you don't even need to solder the crossover together. The speakers can also be connected without solder if you use crimp connectors. The wires are going out of the port because at this stage Stevie was still designing the crossover so it started life outside the box to enable modifications to be made without removing the baffle every time. Notice the blob of red on the wires. Speakers have a plus end and minus and must be connected the right way round. They will be marked with either a plus sign or a red blob on the speaker. The plus is connected to the tip of a jack or the +1 on a Speakon.

Nothing new under the sun is there John? It's so similar in concept to my House Jam Combo and your After Eight. Sounds like mine too a little.

There's an old much longer thread on this, but then there are older longer threads on just about everything. It gives new people a go, it is a lot more personal and what the hell? It's still lockdown and talking s**t with friends is something we all do in normal times. Also it reminds me of times past when I was in a gigging band..... It all depends is the only answer. As has been said already if your drummer doesn't hit the same patterns then you probably shouldn't play the same bass line. to a lesser extent that's true of all the rest of the band. I don't know why most bands play in the original keys most of the time if it isn't the singers best key, but there you go. You learn a lot by dissecting music and note for note playing pushes you to places you might not otherwise go. It's a good thing to be able to play note for note even if you don't ever need to in live performance. The second thing if you are in multiple bands or a really busy band with an ever changing set list then you are going to be under time pressure to get a song working. If you can play the chord changes and the rhythm then the rest of the band can get on with their own parts and the song goes in the set. Once you've played it a few times the song becomes yours and in my experience starts to drift as each band member adds a little flavouring of their own. Hopefully what works stays in and what doesn't gets quietly forgotten. I'm often surprised going back to originals by how much our versions differ. However one of my real bugbears is people not learning the song. If you are in a covers band most of your audience want you to play the songs they know and love, in the main they want enough of the feel of the song to go on loving it. I've no problem at all with people who completely re-make the song but it bugs me when the usual reason for not making any attempt is actually laziness but justified as artistic integrity. You are in a covers band, you are an entertainer playing forty year old songs, take it seriously but get over yourself or go and write your own songs.

I've pushed the baffle in place whilst i wait for all the glue to dry and I've gone over again with a damp sponge to remove excess glue. At this poing it's just a waiting game for the glue to dry. The instructions on the glue will tell you how long to wait/ Now to deal with the speaker and port cutouts. Measure twice and cut once. This is the photo I sent Stevie, I'd positioned the horn and port centrally to keep the structure strong but acoustically it is better to have the horn as close as possible to the bass speaker so you'll see we ended up moving it in the later pic. Here you go, the cut outs for the smaller holes were done with a jig-saw. there's some discussion about blades earlier in the thread. I used a thin blade to cut the round port hole and then used it for the horn cut out which was wrong, It's hard to cut a straight hole with a thin blade and you can see it isn't as straight as I'd like. Fortunately the horn has a lip that will cover the wobbly cut. I've also rounded off the cabinet edges (I'll add more on finishing later) So this is the final cab before fitting the speakers. It's had a single coat of Tuff Cab paint, which I strongly recommend. It's genuinely tough as well as Tuff and easy to apply, You can get a professional textured finish with the special rollers or a linen like effect with ordinary rollers.

Don't stop at this point, go on and fix the other side and then the top. I assembled the whole cab in about 30 mins including the photos. You can be confident because if you make a mistake you can remove the screws and even wipe off the glue, though usually it just a matter of slackening the screws off a turn and tapping the panels into place if they aren't perfectly lined up. Once you reach this stage check all the panels are actually lined up or you will have a lot of sanding to do later. At this stage the cab is already pretty strong and stable and you can see in the pics that it is good and square without any clamping. Now you can fit the last of the battens in place, Doing these four last makes sense as you have plenty of space to get to them. You can see that the batten in the picture below is a tiny bit short and there is a small gap on the left hand side, that will be sealed up with a bit of decorators filler later. Again you can see a nice full line of glue squeezed out showing that that joint will be airtight. Finally either glue the back panel in place , you can either continue with the screws or just glue it in and put some weights on the panel with the cab face down, so long as you squeeze glue out all round the joint you'll have an airtight seal. At this point you have a cab.

I like to dry assemble things before I glue them. I've made hundreds of cabs over the years but I still make stupid mistakes measuring once and cutting twice. If it's your first time then seeing exactly how things fit is a real confidence boost. If you look below you can see how the battens on the base leave a little square for the vertical batten to fit into. Now you've come to glueing up. This construction technique is what makes this an easy build. If the panels are cut accurately and you have good right angles on the battens then the cab will be square. You really can't go wrong. Using screws with the glue means you don't have to clamp either. A single screwdriver is all you need. Any woodworking glue will do but white PVA is my favourite. It is stronger than wood, you can clean it up with a damp cloth, it's the cheapest and best of all it takes an hour to set, so if you make a mistake you could theoretically take the whole cab apart and start again. OK, I have a leak in my shed roof apparently, hence the wet wood and the move to the kitchen. The photo above shows how the technique works. You can seethe glue lines where the screws have pulled the wood together and squeezed out the glue. If you get a nice straight line like this you've used enough glue so the cab will be airtight. Because you are screwing from the inside the screws can be left in place and there is no filling to do. The nice square pse batten is holding everything in place with good 90 degree angles whilst the glue dries. the less gluey lines have been wiped once, but need another wipe.

So this is the kit of parts, you can just about see my table saw and everything was cut with that. Most people don't have access to machine tools so I'd strongly recommend you get everything cut for you. Machine cutting will give you straight cuts and square edges and make assembly a doddle. The square batten is stuff i cut myself but you should use timber described as PSE (planed square edge) which is usually better quality redwood and the planing guarantees a good 90degree angle Time for marking out, mine isn't accurate as i went to felt tip as my pencil wasn't showing well in the photos. This is the top and one of the sides. Ive marked a line set back 30mm for the baffle (front panel where the speaker goes) and for the back panel. Those lines will be used to line the battens up . The top has two other lines as it will sit on top of the sides with the outer edge aligned with the sides.

Well I've finally broken free of the pressures of work and sent the sketches off to @RichardH who has offered to do the proper drawings for us. One of the lovely thing about BassChat is the generosity of so many people, thanks Richard. I'm going to spend 10 mins uploading pictures of the build, one of which is as blurry as my eyes must have been when I cut the hole for the horn Once I've got the drawings back and the cab back from Stevie I'll do it all properly as a build thread complete with some written hints, Then it's over to the rest of you to have a go. I hope you feel inspired

I don't know if it is of any interest Steve but I have a Rank Aldis Tutor 2 you are welcome to, no oil wheel but it worked last time I used it. If the oil wheel is working then you are back to the 70's PM me if you are interested

For a back to bass returner they are the perfect practice machine. I use them to learn songs so my phone/iPod goes into the line in and I play along using headphones. The headphone amp is spot on too. The drum machine has just enough patterns and if I'm struggling with timing or need to go over a tricky run on it goes. The amp sims are great for headphone use and I don't need another tuner. Unbelievable for the money. Now replaced with the B1 Four. Also runs for hours on rechargables so one less lead to plug in and trip over. If mine ever fails I'll order the new one immediately.

I'm guessing the answer is no. Not because you couldn't reduce the acoustic power because you can do that bit easily. You could theoretically put a great big resistor between the amp ans speakers and heat your room with it or you can turn the master volume down with the same effect. The thing is it would be quieter. I suspect what you are actually missing is the volume itself. Loudness itself is exciting, something you can feel especially for bassists. It leads to psychological changes including an adrenaline rush. We've known for years that people almost always prefer loud music to quiet in listening tests. Hi Fi sales staff have long sold their preferred system by just playing it louder in the listening rooms. The other thing that is missing is changing the sound levels also changes the 'tone controls' in our brain. Loud volumes emphasise bass in particular but change the sound balance across the whole spectrum. This shows the sensitivity of our hearing from the threshold of hearing at the bottom to 100dB, roughly the level on stage for a rock band. The steep rise in the bass frequencies at low sound levels shows just how much bass boost you'd need at lower sound levels to match the much flatter curve at band levels. Looking at these curves you can see that to get the same sound balance at low levels you need to boost the bass a lot and boost the treble a little and maybe increase the mid range suckout at around 3kHz if you have a parametric mid. Just turn down, eq until you get close to something you like and accept it won't be perfect. If you have a high pass filter use it as the subsonics are what really annoy the neighbours and if it still isn't loud enough for you use headphones. Meanwhile console yourself with the thought that your hearing is getting a chance to recover with a year off gig levels of sound. Roll on the return to live music.

I know, the cost of lock down. Normally I'd probably just driven across and we could have sorted it on the spot or taken it back for modification. Now we have to rely on couriers we just built a basic box. People like to see a bit of the development too, it helps de mystify the process.

It's really interesting, when building the cab I took an instinctive dislike to the baffle arrangement. it left extremely thin pieces of ply between the main driver and the horn and port. I sent Stevie a drawing of the baffle before it was cut and he asked me to move the horn and woofer closer together. Completely the best thing to do from an acoustic point of view as the gap between the speakers needs to be as small as possible to avoid cancellation around the crossover point where they are both working. I actually cut some strips of ply to strengthen the baffle at it's weakest points but left them out as they could always be added later and it would have been almost impossible to remove them cleanly once the glue had set. It shows the value of the frequency measurements. Listening tests alone wouldn't have identified the problem so specifically and we'd have had a potentially disappointing cabinet. We might have spotted it in testing and my wood working instincts to strengthen weak spots might have come in to play but Stevie's systematic approach nailed the problem fairly quickly. You can see the problem here. The pencil lines for my original placement is clear in the picture and they've been moved a couple of cm closer in both directions for the actual cutout, the speaker and the horn both have a lip that overlaps the baffle so they will be almost touching in practice. The metal frame of the speaker will help stiffen the lower part of the baffle and it will be simple to reinforce the baffle from the back. Testing will show what additional bracing might be needed. It will all be in the final drawings.

The Crown XLi 1500 is the usual culprit for this sort of application. Crown XLI 1500 2 x 450Watt @ 4Ohm | DV247 | en-GB