Phil Starr

We've just done our first gig back at a pub we've played before. An odd sort of do a kind of hybrid between a wedding party and a brewery mini festival. We'd had a couple of rehearsals but the rust was still present and we've immediately booked more rehearsals. the punters as ever didn't seem to notice. My goodness it was good to be back. We've got another 5 bookings this year with an apparently steady flow of enquiries. The pubs are largely absent at the moment so these are outdoor events mainly, and from previous bookers. Full marks to @skidder652003 @Happy Jack and @Silvia Bluejay for getting out there and working at it. I'm optimistic about next year, a lot of our regular pubs have closed/changed hands and a lot of bands have folded too. I suspect there is a generation of older musicians who will have retired from regular gigging, A lot of faces disappeared in the last few years before COVID and this will make up some people's minds to join them. Driving everything though will be the desire for people to go out and be at a live event. If I were a pub I'd be waiting and watching but I think when it happens there will be a rush and the bands that are prepared and ready will be in demand. I also agree that it's not the time to push prices, we need to give the venues a break and help build confidence. good luck all.

Hi Jon, the resistance of the grille cloth is something I've thought about but never done any investigation of. We had a mouse problem once and I added some nylon over the end of the ports to stop them getting in, I didn't notice a change in their performance. The grille is clear of the port end of course. There is a bigger effect i would have thought on the horn output and I know that is clearly audible when you remove the grille from a hi-fi speaker. Reversing the connection of the horn compression driver is quite common. The crossover components shift the phase of the sound so that a conventional even order crossover there is always cancellation at the crossover point and a dip in the frequency response, if you go back in the thread you can clearly see this in the frequency response plot Stevie measured. Reversing the connection puts the signal in phase and you'll get a peak. That's all assuming that the cone behaves like a piston and has no phase issues of it's own, and of course we went for a simple HPF to bring the horn in as the Pulse naturally started to roll off. Generally speaking it's less obtrusive to have a dip than to have a spike in the response which will make certain notes jump out at you but as a self builder you can decide which you prefer. With my hi-fi designs I certainly try both and I've tweaked PA speakers by trying this in the past. I did try with this speaker (I'm an inveterate fiddler) and it is better this way round IMO. Looking forward to your build and hope you love the speaker. All I can say is that when I'm testing it I end up forgetting the speaker and just enjoy playing bass.

Funnily enough I've just done this to the prototype.

Does anybody else play with normally fallible human beings Here at the bottom end of the feeding pool I play with a lot of people who make mistakes, not often necessarily but in a 2 hour set it happens and usually several times. Often it's simple things about the structure of songs or forgetting a lyric or a cue. Almost inevitably there is a small pause as everyone adjusts, a fraction of a beat is usually enough but doesn't that throw you off the click even if you keep to strict tempo? I taught myself to play to a click early on because one of my instruction books told me to, and I do use a drum machine or metronome in practice from time to time. However it doesn't seem to be a widely learned skill. I've tried using a drum machine at rehearsals and found it rare for everyone to finish with the beat, it all starts well enough but a little bit of hesitancy from someone throws us off and the errors often accumulate. I find it really difficult as my instinct is to go with the 'drums' even if it is just a click. I'm staggered by the rest of the bands ability to just keep going when out of time with the drums. Has no-one else had that experience?

Funnily enough one of the things I'm playing around with at the moment is a pair of 6" cabs. Probably though I will end up with a single 10 and a lightweight horn. And thanks it would be good to hear what you come up with.

Mark Audio are Mark Bass. I've heard the PA system at the southwest bass bash and it is very good. It's a similar system to the RCF Evox i linked you to above. I've not gigged with either of those but I have gigged with the LD Maui system which is similar and that worked well. Frankly I think this system is the future for most of us. The subs are also the stands and you only have to slot the lightweight column on top and you are off. They send out a broad flat beam of sound which reaches all the audience better and the reduces reflections and increased directionality reduce feedback problems. They are simpler to set up, look better, sound at least as good and there is no chance of a 25kg speaker on a flimsy stand braining one of the dad dancers. However they ain't cheap

Here you go The IEM Bible thread - Accessories and Misc - Basschat

This is right IMO. I've used Servisol since the 70's. It is a great product for broken pots and it will often shift dirt and stop crackling. It's a gentle solvent and rarely does damage but all it does is shift dirt around and sometimes makes things worse, it also leaves a residue so doing this once a year to a pot that is previously faultless isn't a good idea. It's a get you out of trouble thing with long term risks not something to do for no good reason. You wouldn't take a morning after pill or a laxative if you didn't need to

You'll get so much more than that. Good in ears will block out most of the ambient sound on stage and protect your hearing. Most of us play with a drummer and the sound levels average around 100db or higher where we stand. 2 hours of that is enough to cause hearing loss and that will be cumulative. It's almost impossible to get good monitoring on stage. fundamentally all the musicians will be after 'more me' but as you share the same space that means you are all competing for volume. In ears mean you can turn up (or down) anything you want and not affect anyone else. You can take a signal from your bass at any stage, straight from the bass, after all the tone controls, at the amp output to the speakers or by miking the speakers themselves. Most amps have a DI (direct injection) output which is switchable pre or post eq. If you don't have that then you can use a DI box to split the signal and give you a feed to your mixing desk or your in ears. The best way of running in-ears is via the auxiliary outputs from your mixing desk. You can then mix the balance you want there and send that to your 'phones. That assumes your desk is sophisticated enough to allow each person who wants it a separate aux channel. If not you'll have to split the signals from your personal mic and bass before sending them to the desk and have a personal mixer for your in ears. You'll also want a feed of the band so you know what they are doing too but there are usually plenty of ways of feeding a front of house mix to you from the mixer. There's a long thread on IEM's I'll add a link. It's a bit techie in places but it's a good place to ask questions and you'll get practical advice.

My guess is that they lost a couple of kg with the neo tweeter in the 745 and a bit more in the plate amp.

Thank you both, it confirms a lot of what I was thinking. I was blown away by the phone app for the Ui with the 'more me' facility and the ability to restrict access which was really very neat. I think I'll go back to the M18 for now and run it for a year or two, if I change bands and need more channels I won't lose too much and I'll have had use of it for hopefully a lot of gigs. In the meantime I'll have learned what I really need and how to get the best out of it.

I dither too much but I'd decided on the M18 (it's the solution for my current needs and i can sell it if I want more functionality) When I went to order it was out of stock at Andertons. One of the alternatives I hadn't looked at in this price bracket is the Soundcraft Ui16. Having a look at the software it looks to have more functionality and more mic channels and a nice intuitive feel, though more complex than the M18. A minor attraction is that it will operate with Windows so I won't need to acquire another tablet. Has anyone used/had a look at one of these?

Using a smaller speaker is a good shout if you are using subs anyway, lifting a 15 onto a stand when you are filtering out the bottom octave from your tops doesn't make a lot of sense, though we all do it so we can use the tops on their own for smaller gigs. If you are happy to just wheel in the subs and it is only the lift that worries you then one of the line source arrays might work for you. Like the RCF Evox series RCF Evox 12 Compact Portable PA System | PMT Online Interestingly there are very few PA speakers in the mid price range that offer neo bass drivers and using ceramic magnets on big bass units is always going to mean a heavy cab as a result.

There's another thread on this where it was answered in some detail. A service is something you do to a car and involves changing the oil, topping up fluids checking moving parts and brake pads. Your amp has no fluids or moving parts so there just isn't anything to service. Save your money or spend it on a bass set up.

Just a thought but Mesa make valve amps (should that be tube as a USA brand?) If so there is an output transformer on the other side of those jacks and impedance matching is done by the transformer. So, for this particular amp connection this way is correct and avoids a mismatching load. The Ashdown is solid state so using both the parallel output sockets would be fine and so would this, but not with the Mesa. It's just unfortunate that this image was used. I do feel for the OP the first advice was fine and he only has one cab. I hope he plugged it in and just got on with playing. I did find one blurry picture of the back of a Mesa

OK that's fair enough, pubs in the UK are usually fairly small and 50 people in the space you are playing would be a very decent audience. A lot of our pubs are pretty old so tend to have low ceilings and be odd shapes where separate rooms have been combined to make bigger spaces. Bands tend to be weekend warriors like myself rather than pro musicians and the better bands often move on to function work with bigger venues. It isn't well paid over here and PA equipment is often basic with vocals only PA. That's why I mentioned that we are lucky enough to have PA that will handle a bit of bass when we need it, a lot of people will still want a bass amp that will be enough to reach an audience of up to 50 people and most of us in the UK are familiar with 'an average pub gig'. It was just a very rough guide to how capable this little speaker would be.

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.

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?

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?

That's looking nice, how does it sound? Well done

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

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

Look forward to hearing it at the next Bass Bash through one of our BC designs

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?

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.