Phil Starr

A few years ago I fitted one of these to my J bass (would you believe). It was an impulse buy from a fellow basschatter. all my other basses have a blend control and I wanted to rewire the VVT controls to give me blend instead of Volume/Volume, this gave me a shortcut, just drop it in and play, as well as a greater range of sounds. TBH I've never got on with it. It sounds great soloed at home but in a band situation the mid suckout and bass boost (cut isn't available) doesn't really work for me. The sound that is quite exciting at home just sounds muddy with a band and I haven't yet managed to dial in an uncoloured sound. I play the Jazz at home and the P-bass comes out when it's serious. To cut a long story short this morning I was running through a few songs and contemplating returning the original Fender passive controls back to the bass when I had an inspiration, I switched off the active. Clarity tone and character restored, there's a switch to go from bridge pickup to blended and I can switch the active on with no noticeable change in volume so I can return to the bass boosted mid cut John East sound whenever I want. How stupid am I, three tones at the flick of a switch and clarity through the speakers when I need it. Can't wait to try it with the band.

Welcome to BassChat It is hard to say with real authority as the two amplifiers have completely different tone shaping controls. Without knowing the amps better and knowing how exactly you are setting them up I don't think anyone can answer your question directly. For example the Combo has toneprint which is designed to give you a variety of sounds. Most amps however have a setting which will give you a relatively flat frequency response. Speakers are a different matter. All speakers add a little colour to the sound and most instrument speakers add a lot of colouration. I think it is extremely unlikely that you would get the same sound out of both speakers using the same amp. The few MB cabs I've had the chance to play with have tended to have an exaggerated upper bass and a bit of upper mid zing and that may well be what you are hearing from the MB 210.

cheers Jim I'll ring you later.

you are probably in the wrong part of the forum. There's loads of discussion here. To save you from too much pain these come recommended as a reasonably priced IEM https://www.amazon.com/KZ-Balanced-Armature-Technology-Earphone/dp/B07BWGVKVR I have a set and they are OK though I need to experiment to get a better seal than the earbuds they came with.

Hi All, probably the wrong place for this but you are all local so here goes. I'm running a live music event just outside of Chard on the Somerset/Devon/Dorset border. It was meant to be a Jam session but has morphed into a series of singers with a house band doing a half hour slot each and the odd band taking over the stage for half an hour. It's only our second outing and I'm hoping it will continue to grow and change but that's it right now. I'm trying to keep the music standard up and all the singers so far can do their stuff. One sang for the Jools Holland band and he's pretty hot. We are running on the first Fri of every month. I need to be front of house and at the moment I'm the only bassist. I'm looking for someone who can take over bass duties for at least half the evening so I can run the desk/PA and talk to the people. It's all well known covers but with five sets it's pretty varied. Ideally I want to build up the house band with a rotating cast of musicians, but that is for the future. If anyone wants to lend a hand I'd be really grateful, message me with your contact details if you might be interested and we can take it from there.

Thanks for posting this Johannes. I hope you really enjoy your new cab. I'm really interested in how it sounds with DB. It makes sense to me that a bigger cab with more deep bass would excite resonances in the body of a 'proper' bass. They certainly excite room resonances which can be an embarrassment when playing live and was the reason I designed this cab. I was rolling off the low bass and boosting upper bass at almost every gig anyway so it made sense to try something with that sound baked in. The upper end of the Beyma speaker is slightly unusual compared with a lot of 12's. It is unusually flat with well managed cone break up and goes a little bit higher than a lot of the alternatives. Most 12's have quite a big peak at around 1-2kHz and roll off at around 3KHz. The Beyma is flatter and rolls off at around 4KHz, it's only a few notes difference but you'd definitely hear a different mid quality. I wasn't sure whether you'd hear it as more mids as in higher frequency or less mids as in missing the normal unnatural peak of other speakers. "Clear and Natural" is encouraging. Of course with the small cabs bass roll off the mids would sound subjectively more prominent anyway. I didn't design this cab for DB, it was for horrible sounding rooms, but it makes sense that in trying to tame one we might of stumbled on a solution for DB. if there are any DB players in Somerset/Devon/Dorset who fancy a try I'd be happy to lend them my cab.

I'm another pub covers player and I don't think it affects what I play much. The whole thing is about playing to the song rather than inventing new basslines though. Maybe Summer of 69 kills any creativity The Hofner thing makes sense, they have no sustain so you can't really play one note and hold it for three bars so you pretty much have to keep playing a more mobile line. My only experience with a bass dictating my playing was with a Thunderbird. I felt Like Jim Carey putting on The Mask. It turned me into a hyperactive monster, the sound is monstrous, the neck really fast and just holding the thing in any sensible position makes you throw poses. I couldn't get away with it trying to commit suicide on the floor and constantly twisting itself out of my hands though.

yep that's the legal situation as I understand it. as to the 'reasonableness' of the concept of rebroadcasting to people who have already paid for, and are entitled to hear the same music from their own radios whilst standing in exactly the same spot, well the law is an donkey. As was the situation where John Fogerty was the only person on earth banned from singing Proud Mary or any of the other songs he wrote for CCR because Sony had bought him from another record company who arguably had screwed him over as a very young musician. As you can probably tell I'm not a big fan of performing rights as they are.

If this is consistent fault as you describe then there are two things to investigate. It could be increased volume at gigs or something else you are using at the gigs but not at home. I have a kickback and find once you use it with a drummer it struggles with volume, I get round this by backing off the bass a little on the eq. The amp seems capable of driving the speaker beyond it's excursion limits. When you change to a different head you won't have an identical response and that may be what is curing the problem. It could be as simple as a fault you only get on tilting the amp if you play one way at home and another at a gig. I've had problems with Hartke and soldered joints too again in the HA3500. Mine turned out to be in the power supply but high volumes and vibration will find the problem if there is one. A crackle though implies a connection problem, that could be anywhere from your kettle lead all the way back to the mains and anywhere in the signal chain from your bass through all the leads and any fx you use. It could also be radio frequency pickup. anything from a mobile placed near to the amp, someone else's dicky equipment in the band or any number of things. Hope you track it down

There is always one miserable git. I'm not a lawyer but a few years ago I researched copyright and performing rights for a short article. You need a licence I believe, legally at least. The chances of you being caught are remote though being on a forum won't help. There was one case where a garage mechanic had the radio on loudly in his workshop, which had no public access. He was successfully sued by Performing Rights on the basis that someone walking past might listen to his radio. That is despite the fact that this was the BBC who had already paid the copyright. In practice I'd imagine it would be the organisers of the event that would be liable and if it bothers you then you could email them (evidence) and say that you don't have a licence and suggest they look into it by contacting PRS https://www.prsformusic.com/ . PRS will then have ruined another friendship. To be honest though it is unlikely that anyone would ever find out about a one off private event.

You've probably moved on with this but this recent post made me idly look to see if there is a circuit diagram available. There is, from these people https://thecodemachine.co.uk/Schematics/Search.php?manuf=ampeg&model=svt4pro £1.50 to buy. If you can get hold of it and share it we might be able to give you more advice and any future repairs might be helped along the way. Of course an email to Ampeg might get one for free.

I'm going to be optimistic about Studiospares and I'm not really worried about a refund. They've been great in the past. I've written to them, sent photos and they have acknowledged the problem. I've since written and asked what they are going to do about what seems to be a faulty batch. I'll come back here and report anything they say. I have a friend who deals with Chinese imports, he says a major problem is that they alter designs without discussion with the client, often adding unwanted 'improvements' It may be they were unaware of the problem.

The plastic insert which acts as a clutch on the base of the stand also holds a captive nut which the winged bolt screws into. The little tabs which hold the nut break off as they are simply too weak to hold the weight of the base. The nut and bolt no longer hold the base on and it falls off the end of the stand pulling the whole plastic moulding out of the base. You can bodge it all back together but it will only hold whist everything is tight. Loosen it off to pack the legs up and put the stand away and it all falls apart again. It looks to me as if there may be a slot moulded into the metal part of the base which took a square nut, but the supplied nut is hexagonal and too big to fit into that slot. The boom arm is also lighter guage than the original booms but that isn't really an issue as they are plenty strong enough to hold a mic.

A word of warning about Studiospares stands. I just orders another three after years of good service of the four I have. they have changed their design and there is a fault with the new design. One had failed in the box the second failed last night at the same point and the one I haven't used yet is showing signs of the same fault. I'm chasing this up with Studiospares and they are being helpful but until they have this sorted DON'T BUY!!

Interestingly we tried out this cab in the shootout at the South West bass bash. It was the one that polarised opinion. For half the people there it was the best cab, and it was up against some pretty great opposition. Most of the rest voted it bottom. Louder than the rest and loads of warm woolly bass. I don't think this is about being a 12, it's about the damping of the cone by the magnet and cab. All the other cabs had more expensive 12's with really powerful magnets on them and the bass was much better damped. All that warm bass can sound lovely in the right room but is going to excite room resonances in a lot of venues, as you found. An HPF will remove some of the frequencies you don't want. In the end though if you were happy with your sound then going back to it is the right thing to do.

Oy!!

There are a few problems with your idea at the moment. That speaker will probably work fine in a cab that size but I'm not sure it's the best choice of starting point. the Barefaced cab is designed to have a very specific old school sound, your new can will have a different balance of sound and the two together might mean a very different sound. The barefaced will be more efficient at lower frequencies so you will encance the top end of your sound without adding oomph. In fact the Faital has a resonant frequency of 80Hz so you aren't going to get much fundamental at all to speak of, the bottom octave is missing. I can see that you would want a cab that matches in size and appearance, I'm considering building something similar for semi acoustic stuff and am considering the B&C 10CL51 as a driver, it's a lot more expensive but it'll suit that size of box well and would be a better match for what you have. In any case I'd probably be looking for a 10" speaker as a starting point. I can see the attraction of a cheap fix but I'm not sure you've found it.

Hi Chris, first of all there is no problem with the power handling you are seeing if they are in the 150-300W range. back in the day the coils in speakers were wound onto paper formers and stuck down with any old glue. Now formers are high temperature plastics and other materials and will handle high temperatures without deforming, catching fire or the glue melting. There's a lot more attention paid to keeping the coils cooler too. you need to decide if you want to keep using your valve amp, it's a lovely desirable thing but 50W isn't much by todays standards and you'll need an efficient speaker to go with it. Most bass speakers today are designed with a 3-500W amp in mind so many of them aren't as loud, watt for watt. Old cabs tend to be better than 100dB for one watt, many modern cabs are only around the 96db mark. If you want to go on using the Vox then you should stick to something that gives at least 100db/W. The main thing though is to listen to the speakers before you buy. They aren't likely to sound at all like your old speakers and the difference may be a shock or a revelation, and they won't all sound the same by a long way. Do you have a budget in mind? Light loud and cheap don't all come together. The Barefaced that so many people are recommending are startlingly light but surprisingly expensive as a result. No point is us recommending a Rolls Royce if you are in VW Polo territory. How do you feel about new v's used?

A coming out party. What a wonderful concept. It'll be fine, it'll be fun. Once you start you'll be tied up with the mechanics of it all and it will pass in a flash. You will be hooked, I promise you. And you are starting young, I was 56 the first time I played in public. Gigging regularly now.

TBH Chris I don't think this is specific to the Veyron or to Behringer. Other people have run them without problems, you have the problem one and that's why the previous owner probably returned it. Get a refund. Buy another if you still want one. Intermittent faults are really tough to track down and I suspect that this was simply returned, someone plugged it in spent a couple of minutes and said 'that ones OK, put it in B stock'.

Thanks, essentially the first night is all my band mates and ex band mates so they pretty much all know the same stuff, we've shared everything all along and I'm hoping the house band is going to grow from them, at the moment it's just a trio, guitar,bass and drums. The stuff I'll take with me will be for next month essentially and any jam session at the end.

Some really interesting posts here. this is what I'm attempting so tell me if I have this right. I'm trying to do two things, get a community of musicians together, people who have gigged and are winding down a bit and people who are working up to forming bands. Giving them a chance to network and to make music. It's got to be open and welcoming but giving people the stage time they want. Above all it is about playing in a band, there are plenty of acoustic nights round here so I'm clear I don't want solo acts, apart from anything else that's only one person having fun. For the pub and audience it's got to be entertaining and attract an audience, a good atmosphere and lots of customers for the beer. So it's got to be reasonably slick and organised. I going with a house band, someone has to play if no-one turns up or rescue the evening when everything goes **** up. Apart from kicking off the evening though they are there to play for any singers and support the other musicians filling in for incomplete bands and so on. I'm going to look for another bassist so I can do front of house and work the desk. I've filled the first session with friends, some decent singers from previous bands who'll do a session with the house band and a couple of bands who'll do four or five songs each. I'll end the evening with a jam session of another four songs to make people feel there is a chance for them to join in. I've got a set list for god's sake. Is this too controlling? I'm going to try and have chord and lyric sheets there, people can take them away and learn songs if they want or join in and at least know what key it's in. I'll collect any details from any musicians who turn up, fit them in if I can but try and book them in for future sessions and offer short showcase sessions to any local bands who fancy it. good ones invited back. Beyond that I'm expecting to have to adapt to whatever turns up on the door. I want to try and keep it to 4-5 song slots to keep the gap between acts down and give people time to enjoy playing. It makes no sense to me to get people up for two songs, have them warm up and then have a break only to call them back an hour later to spend five minutes re-tuning and adjusting the drumkit. I'm hoping it's going to be busy enough to let me run a book each month and keep the musical standard up. I'd really like to see people having their first band experience here but I want to attract the best musicians I can and keep a proper live audience coming back. I wouldn't expect good musicians if all they hear is c**p. Lot's of ideas on this thread I'm going to copy, and I don't expect plans to work out exactly or even roughly but what do you think?

Proverbially 'if that's where you want to go, I wouldn't start from here. Where you are though is someone with a 4x10 and soon to have a 2x15. They probably won't work well together and the low impedance of the combination may cause a premature failure of the amp. Though the HA3500 is fairly tough I wouldn't knowingly abuse mine. On the plus side either cab on it's own is quite capable of drowning out the drums and causing long term damage to your ears so do you really need all that hardware? Once you have both cabs working and assuming you are happy with the sound in rehearsal go and give each of them a run out at a couple of gigs. Keep the one you like best and sell the other. I'ts worth getting out in the audience area with a long lead during soundcheck if you can or have someone in the audience you trust having a listen. They may well be hearing a different sound to the one on stage you are hearing. Personally I doubt you'd need an extra cab but if you did you'd need two 8ohm cabs.

I'm going to have to read this whole thread. I've taken on organising a 'Jam Session' but it's taking it's own course and I'm not sure what it is going to be. I want it to be a place where musicians can network and hopefully some will grow into 'proper' bands. As it happens all my mates want to do it and will take over the first session completely, in fact I had to stop inviting people. Not as inviting as I hoped. On the plus side the standard of music should be fairly decent and the pub/punters will be pretty pleased. Gig tonight and the band are adding four unrehearsed songs so I need to leave BC and do some work but I'll be interested in advice when I get back tomorrow.

That would be my ranking but of course A&H make a wide range of qualities The x18 has the Midas designed mic pre amps there is also a Midas version with the better Midas pro pre amps. I'm told that the Midas mixer is a definite upgrade to the X18 but I've no direct experience of the Midas mixer, The x32 which uses the same pre amp as the X18 I think has a great sound so the Midas must be terrific if what I've been told is true and it is better. To be honest the limiting factor at this point often becomes the skill of the operator rather than the mixer. I was really responding to Al Krow's post, just saying get the extra couple of mic channels, you will use them eventually, and that you won't regret paying a little more for the extra quality you get from moving up the food chain a step or two. if you don't have to keep upgrading it is cheaper in the long run most of the time. At the moment I'm not in the market but if I was the Behringer X Air XR18 would be the one to beat for my needs and I can't imagine spending a fortune on an analogue mixer again once you get above £300