Phil Starr

Thanks for the quick response. I was hoping for something simple as a solution rather than an extra bolt-on. Once I've gone digital on the desk then I've got a solution particularly if I can put a limiter on the monitor feed but I'd still prefer something a bit more 'honest' in my ears. Pretty much as I would with the PA. Looking on the website the ZS10's have a huge suckout of about 7-10 db from 100-1500kHz (or put another way 7-10db of boost above and below), pretty crucial for vocals. I desperately want to find something that works and I'm probably an awkward customer, I've a bit of hearing loss as well as narrow ear canals so finding something that physically fits as well as something that gives the mids that I need might be difficult to find. At the moment using the Etymotic ear plugs is working better than having in ears in terms of picking things out of the mix. They'll protect what is left of my hearing but it would be so much better to get the in ears sorted of course.

Do you have any suggestions for in-ears shaded towards monitoring vocals. Having solved the problem of getting a decent seal with the KTZ's I've done a couple of gigs with them and there is a real midrange suckout with them. Lot's of bass, way more than I need but not enough detail in the midrange. I do a bit of backing vocals and it is way more important to me to hear my vocals than my bass which I have no trouble picking out. Even with the bass the lowest frequencies are swamping the mids which give me the detail of what I'm playing. I don't at the moment have the facility to eq the feed to my in-ears. I've tried my domestic Sennheiser buds and they are much better sounding but do overload with bass at times. I'm loving the KZT's in the gym where the smiley face eq works really well but I need something more balanced on stage. Where should I be looking.

Sorry I've missed something here, do you already have two of the Headrush 8's? If so you don't need to ask just try them out, it's very difficult sitting at a keyboard to judge how loud someone else's band are. If you are happy then it's all good. I'll do a separate post and ask some questions about what you are trying to achieve? OK keeping it simple two eights are going to be better than a single 10 for bass handling, all else being equal, they will be just about as good as a single 12 and because you have twice the power available the rest of the frequency range can be louder if that's what you need. the ART 310 is rated at 400W continuous, 300W to the bass speaker and 100W to the horn driver. The specs make it fairly clear that this is limited to protect the speakers and the specs for RCF drivers are widely available. I doubt that the horn driver is really drawing more than 35W but it is normal in pro PA to use more power than you need to drive the tops as you want to avoid any chance of amp distortion which is both more noticeable and likely to destroy the driver. The only claim they make which is improbable is the 127dB which is a peak figure 6db higher than actual, but to be fair I can't think of a single major manufacturer that doesn't do this so it at least enables you to compare if they all use the same untruth 127db would cause immediate permanent hearing loss if it was on the floor in front of you so perhaps it's as well it can't do this. It's a good move, I use two RCF 310's for my duo, I sing as well and mix from on stage so it makes sense to have a single monitoring system and to be able to hear on stage what the audience hear. Not needing the on stage sound to reach the back of the room means we can reduce the sound levels which cleans everything up (less rubbish picked up by the vocal mics). I also use a single 310 for rehearsals with my full band sometimes and for open mics and jam sessions. So far a single RCF310 has been fine, if anything on the floor it is a bit bass heavy but it is designed to be on a pole so no surprise there. Even without my Zoom the sound is fine though I have active basses so I can tweak the sound at the bass. We also use a second pair of ART 310 mk3's for the PA for the duo which is fairly loud but still acoustic. there's no signs of any difficulty at all putting bass through the two 310's at room filling levels. I wouldn't have chosen the RCF 310 if I wanted to cover every situation with a single speaker, I'd probably have gone for a 15 but I'd happily use a pair of 10's for any gig.

This is from the link you posted. HeadRush FRFR-108 Features: Specially-voiced 8-inch woofer and high-frequency compression driver deliver a precise full response across the entire frequency range without any artificial colouration 2000 watts of peak power (1000W continuous) delivers outstanding clarity and punch (2) XLR/TRS 1⁄4in combo inputs with independent volume controls and clip indicator LF Driver: 8-inch (203mm) 2.5-inch (65mm) high- temperature voice coil HF Driver: 1.4-inch (35mm) neodymium HF driver with precision waveguide Crossover: 2.5kHz Maximum SPL: 129dB peak, 126dB continuous (dB SPL @ 1m) Frequency Response: 62 Hz – 20 kHz (±3dB) Frequency Range: 52 Hz – 22 kHz (-10dB) This can't possibly be true the maximum thermal power handling is limited mainly by the coil diameter. In this case the coil would only be able to handle 300W at best. To be as loud as 126dB even if it could handle 1000W it would have to produce 96dB/W an extremely improbable figure for an 8 with an f3 of 62Hz. To produce 62 Hz at 126db would need an excursion of about 25mm (I haven't done the sums tbh) etc. This thing defies the laws of physics. It's a complete lie. It may have a 1000W amp (2x500 probably, it's common to use a standard amp across the whole range and throttle them back for the smaller units) inside but it'll be signal processed to stop that power reaching the speakers. Equally it may be set up to give the response they quote at 1W a bit like VW diesel engines were set up to pass emission tests but you won't get anywhere near those figures 'on the road'. This thing is a guitar speaker, if you are playing guitar it may well do a good job though be far short of the claimed figures, with bottom E on a guitar at 83Hz a guitar is much easier on a speaker. People say the Barefaced One-10 is a little short for a full band and that is pretty much state of the art at present with a driver that would cost a significant part of the cost of this whole speaker. Unless this is going to be a personal monitor on a pole really close to you this is not going to be enough for a band with a drummer. For not much more you could get the RCF Art 310 which would do as a personal monitor at moderate levels (I use one but not with my rock band) but you ought to be aiming at a 12 if you want to use it in a range of different settings. I do hate it when companies deliberately try to deceive.

Everything Bill has said is right. If you are still struggling I'll try and see if I can make it simple. These speakers are designed to be used with two stereo PA amplifiers and a crossover. Anything else is a bodge. You could use it with a single amp if it was 2ohm stable but it would be less than good even though you could get sound out of all the speakers. To get the best out of these you need an extra amp and a crossover. Some PA amps have the crossover built in. The reason your speakers are wired to 2+ and 2- is to stop you damaging the speakers accidentally. You'd originally have had a lead with four wires running to the subs, you'd then have had the option of running a lead from the 1+and - of the second speakon socket to run the tops or running a longer lead all the way from the amp. If you had two identical leads then there is the possibility of accidentally plugging the bass frequencies into the tops and damaging the speakers at high power, Running the subs through 2+and - stops you muddling the feeds up. It's also possible the system may have run off a 4-way PA amp To run the subs directly you can simply change the connections at one end of the speaker lead, wiring the +output from the amp to 2+ and the - to 2-, better mark the lead as sub to make sure you know which is the 'special' lead. Many speakons don't need soldering so it's an easy job but get someone else to make a lead up if you aren't sure. Even so the point of subs isn't to get more bass, it's to improve the sound by making sure the tops only have to deal with tops and the subs to handle the bass. Just connecting up all four speakers to a single PA amp won't improve the sound it will make it unbalanced and too bassy as well as introducing other distortions. Hope that makes sense

I quite like Hartke stuff and still think my HA3500 is the best sounding amp I've ever owned, I've a little Kickback I use for open mics too. It's a long time though since they've been a 'best buy' for anything new so if you don't mind used and are not too worried about weight it's probably a good shout, if you want new and lightweight there are better options.

I'd rephrase the question: what should I look out for in a new band? To start off with you are in a good situation, it's far better to be doing too much than too little and people will want an already gigging bassist over one who isn't, don't rush, take some time and look for the right band for you. Is it really genre or is it the shared experiences and outlook you want? It's easier to be mates with someone when you can say do you remember when... and they do. Musical tastes? I'm the old guy in our band and I'm the one who wants to do the newer material, though for our band that's the 90's You are always going to be playing older material in pubs, by and large there aren't a lot of young people going to see covers bands and as someone said most people stick with the music of their teenage years, even more true of audiences than band members. Dan Dare is right though, being able to relate to the rest of the band is important too, nothing wrong in looking for some of that. Take your time and look at the set list of any band you consider. Go and see a prospective band if you can, what's the vibe? Do they look like they are sociable and friendly or has the bassist just fallen out with the drummer and the singer fighting the guitarist. Have a look at their current gig list, if they are out every other weekend and you are looking for 20-30 a year then is that what you want? You'll have to compromise on something but do a bit of research and remember you are auditioning them as much as they are auditioning you.. Good Luck

I can't say I'd be happy with options b or c. If he's not good enough or simply hasn't the time available for personal practice then don't go with him. Let's face it if you can't be bothered for the first session it's not likely to change later. Having decided that, if you have, then just be kind, and be quick. My wife was headteacher at a big secondary school her philosophy if she had to say something difficult to someone, teacher or pupil was to be straightforward and not to drag it out. The more you say the more likely it is you'll say something which will eat up at him later on. All you really need to say is I'm sorry you aren't what I'm looking for, thanks for trying out with us' He's already acknowledged that he was underprepared so you don't need to tell him and that leaves him some dignity and if he wants something to work on next time. The only other thing is; are you sure? If you want another look before making up your mind then tell him that. 'You were underprepared last time but we really liked you and if you are up for it we'd like to give it another go and see what you can really do' If he doesn't come better prepared then he never will.

The gist seems to be that how close you get depends upon the situation and the song. As a bassist in a covers band the aim for me is to serve the band and serve the song in that order. It's rare for the rest of the band to play a song note for note so you will have to adapt a little anyway. The multitracking in anything recorded since the mid 60's make it impossible for five people to cover what can 30+ recorded tracks anyway. Just as a simple example you can't play the bass to Walk On The Wild Side with a single bass however clever you are. If the drummer plays a different rhythm then I'm going with the drummer. I'll even have a go at a guitar fill if there's only one guitar and a two part bit of the song. I've a pet hate though, I can't bear it when a band can't be bothered to learn the song 'properly'. I've no problems at all with rewriting it or re-arranging it but there's a certain sort of musician (guitarists mainly) who seem to think if they have the chords for the verse and chorus they don't even need to listen to the song. I kind of think that if you are going to mess with a song people love you need a reason; keys solo when you don't have keys, too difficult to play, just bored and want to mix it up a bit, want to make the song your own are all fine reasons but drop that bit because you can't be assed (escaped the filter ) and then claim it's artistic integrity... You are in a covers band for Pete's sake.

John may come back with an answer but the idea is for an all 'self build' project and he is building a complete bass amp in with a pre amp designed by Charlie (Passingwind). He's also sourced the components now I think and just needs to 'resource' the time to do the development work. Just joined a new band so that may be in short supply I did look into this possibility because I'm lazier than John but the only suitable amp I found which was comparable with buying the bits was the Behringer NX3000D. In the end for my personal use I decided on a Peavey MiniMax with a space to fit in the cab I'm designing at the moment. Those Crown XLS PA amps look to be great for this sort of use.

It strikes me that you are paying a lot for a smaller box to put on a pedal board, great idea though that is. These amps are pushing £500 for a single ICE power amp. For £299 you could get a Crown PA amp with 500W stereo or up to 1500W in bridge mode. 60% of the price for twice the amp. If all you want is a power amp and don't mind the profile of a PA amp then I don't think these boutique solutions are good value. I know John (ChienmortBB) is working on an amp to build into the Basschat V3 speaker cab maybe he could design our very own power amp. A single ICE amp module with a nice beefy supply should be relatively straightforward if you could source the boards cheaply enough.

OMG why haven't I done that with my router, such an obvious idea, and your workshop is so clean and tidy compared with mine.

For the cost of the TS3 12 and 18 you could get the RCF 735's, quicker to set up because there are only two boxes easier to carry and more importantly they will sound better. The Alto's are unbelievable value for money but are still budget speakers. The RCF's are pretty much the best sounding speakers in this price bracket at the moment. They'll comfortably handle bass and kick drum without subs in any pub venue. If you did want to go for the 'something special' then the RCF 745's at £1100 each have a better bass driver but importantly a high quality horn driver that crosses over lower down and improves the sound quality even further. Either sound better than the QSC's that we use which were once the speakers to beat. I don't own the QSC's and I'm looking at the RCF 735's myself, my only remaining concern is that I will regret not spending the extra money for the once in a lifetime purchase that the 745's would represent.

OK that's potentially a big budget. The top end of what most pub bands would spend and potentially enough for a great PA. A few more questions: How technical are you? Are you looking for something simple and set and forget or a wide range of options and flexibility? Does the budget have to include mic's, stands, leads and monitors or do you have bits and pieces? How are you going to monitor? are you thinking in-ears, floor monitors or back-line and vocal monitors? How many in the band, what sort of music, what sort of volumes do you operate at?

We gig with QSC K12's which are fab but with a price tag to match. Even though they are only 12's we have run bass and kick through them with no fuss in a large pub. We are going down the Behringer XR18 route in the near future to improve our monitoring and reduce our set up time. For monitors we use RCF ART310 mk3 which are perfect, lovely flat response so no feedback issues. I've also used them as PA speakers and again they just work really well. I've also got an old Wharfedale EVP pa system with a couple of subs which we've used for open air festivals successfully, they sound great but weigh a tonne so they don't come out much nowadays. I paid £400 for two 12"tops and the two 15" subs and it is worth looking out for used. Wharfedale support is good if anything goes wrong. (hint, don't let the drummer do PA) I'm thinking of upgrading I did a straight comparison between the RCF 712 and the Yamahas at PMT (I'm a big fan of Yamaha) but have to say the vocal quality of the RCF's was just better and the sound generally a lot cleaner. Actually prefer them to the QSC's which have a slight harshness at times. Splitting hairs here though all three are good speakers. If funds are tight and you just want something cheap then the Wharfedale Titan 12 is really interesting, it's loud and lightweight, vocals and guitar are really well done but the downside is that with high levels of bass the plastic cab resonates a lot, fine if you filter everything at 80Hz but you aren't going to put kick or bass through it and you might need to watch keyboard too. I've used them at really high levels with a couple f JBL subs though. The price to performance ratio though is totally mad £125 for a 127dB active speaker that renders vocals really well is at a price where I'm tempted myself even though I have a couple anyway https://www.andertons.co.uk/live-pa/pa-systems/active-pa-speakers/wharfedale-titan-12d-black-finish-active-pa-speaker-250w-50w

It's interesting that almost no-one has changed their minds. No criticism in that as it has to be a personal decision but I'm in the camp where there is good and bad in everyone and I prefer to believe in the good and try to be as straight as I can myself in the hope it might edge the good behaviour on. Not to say I haven't got the same stubborn nasty streak we all carry. What have you got to lose? Local band goodish standard and you know 3/4 so it's not going to be a lot of work. Would 10 decent gigs make it worthwhile? 20? Any band might go sour or you may find Dave turns out to be a friend for life. I've usually been bandleader and it isn't easy keeping folks happy. He may have wanted you all along but the keyboardist wanted his mate and persuaded the others. My experience is that it is easier to get other positions if you are already working so if you see something better you haven't lost much. If you don't do it you'll never know, if it works out well then you won't care. Most of us, me included are rubbish at other people, incompetence rather than conspiracy is the usual reason these sorts of situations arise. Enjoy your new band

Not just this land it's pretty much worldwide.

Not really, valves work with a series of metal plates and grids as the valves age the plates lose material and the plates move about and distort changing the electrical properties, in the end most of them become microphonic picking up vibrations and passing them though the amplifier on to the speakers. In addition they can become loose in their sockets as you mentioned, so there are plenty of ways odd sounds can occur through mechanical noises. Solid state is … well it's solid

I guess since this is a site where there are more guitarists than bassists and the famous riff is usually played on bass it wasn't going to get to the top. I thought it would be the highest scoring bass riff but the first one I could find was Muse. I trawled through over 500 songs before I found any bass tabs at all. The next few bass tabs I found were nearly all for ZZ Top.

I love that this was edited by one of the mods As a flag waving, T-shirt wearing techy I'll bite. Mic that rig up and pump it through a really good Class D, Neo speakered, festival sized PA rig and it'd sound just as good. So it isn't class D or lightweight neo speakers, it is something else. I'll tell you my theory, in the olden days speakers and amps were designed to enhance your bass sound (guitar sound even more so but this is Basschat) They didn't need to be clean and undistorted they just had to sound good. People built cabs and tried them out with bass and the ones that sounded best or most popular got made and sold. Theory wasn't really worked out until the 70's and didn't get through to instrument amp design until much later. The truth is we don't much like uncoloured sound for bass and most of us aren't very good at finding the eq to achieve it so a nice old Trace that gives us the Trace sound sounds better to us than our own attempts to recreate it. The second thing is that we like things that are loud, too loud to be sensible but there is joy in just cranking up an old monolith of a speaker with an amp with the frequency response curve of the Cairngorms. Sensibly we'd scrap the backline, use in-ears or at least floor monitors and let the PA do it's job but for some that's no fun. There's also a lot of self delusion, I used to have fun in my old rear wheel drive cars with cross ply tyres sliding round bends double declutching because the synchromesh was rubbish but I can't really pretend those cars were 'better' than those I drive now. One day soon the computer modelling will be so good we won't be able to tell the difference but that is still a little way away. Until then if you love an old Peavey stack and don't mind shifting it then the important thing isn't technical perfection so go for it and enjoy.

And the top bass tab.... Muse Hysteria

Here you go, this is a list of the most popular chords/tabs on Ultimate Guitar all with over 11,000,000 hits worldwide. Obviously it's a skewed list as it is mainly guitarists, lots of US users but lot's of British songwriter success. Very little rock music but I guess representative of what young musicians are learning over the last 10 years. Very few would make the set list of a covers band but there are a couple of old favourites. I'm feeling old, I had to look some of these songs up Jeff Buckley Hallelujah John Legend All Of Me Passenger Let Her Go Ed Sheeran Perfect Led Zeppelin Stairway To Heaven Jason Mraz Im Yours Ed Sheeran Thinking Out Loud Plain White T's Airplane Elvis Presley Cant Help Falling In Love Coldplay The Scientist Adele Someone Like You Metallica Nothing Else Matters Bruno Mars When I Was Your Man Justin Bieber Love Yourself Ed Sheeran Photograph Oasis Wonderwall Vance Joy Riptide Pink Floyd Wish You Were Here Radiohead Creep Oasis Dont Look Back In Anger

I don't think it is a bad idea but just that there are 'issues' which will affect the sound, some good some not so good. The important thing though is that if what you have sounds good it is good. It's what your bass sounds like that matters. If an Ampeg 8x10 sounds great for the sound you are aiming for it may be loads of cheap drivers in an inappropriately designed box but it isn't 'wrong', for anyone who wants that sound it's just a set of compromises that work. The plus side of using two cabs is that you get more sound, 3dB from doubling the power and 3dB from greater efficiency at the lower frequencies. That means you can turn the amp down everything runs cooler so you don't get thermal compression and you don't overload stuff and get distortion so easily. The downside is that if two drivers are producing the same sounds but are separated in space by something in the region of a wavelength you can get cancellation or reinforcement and it messes up your frequency response and radiation pattern. If you put the two cabs on top of each other so the speakers are vertically aligned then this will only happen in the vertical plane, side to side you will be fine. That means it will be fine for the audience in most cases. If you are using two cabs stack them with the drivers in line to get the best out of them, which is probably what you do anyway. Stevie is engineering a system, he only wants the lower frequencies reinforced and he is trying to control the vertical plane so the bassist hears what the audience hear, so he doesn't want the frequencies above 800Hz interacting and filtering them out of the 'sub' makes perfect sense.

John didn't we try the Mk1 with one of your cabs?

Welcome back, helping you with your build also contributed to the MK1 design which led to myself and Stevie (also Lawrence and John) getting together etc etc… Glad you are still using the cabs. You might want to build Stevie's design, he did much more work than I did on optimising the damping of the cab and reducing the weight. If not a really cheap method of upgrading suggests itself. One of the early iterations of Stevie's design (I think we called it the Mk2 was with a Celestion horn driver and an SM212. We did a shoot out last year at the bass bash down here with the mk2 and mk3 up against a Fearless and a MarkBass cab, whisper it quietly but my favourite was John's Mk2. There wasn't a lot in it to be fair, the Mk3 was louder and slightly more forward in the mids and the Fearless was bloody good too but you could relatively cheaply just add the crossover and horn to one of your existing cabs at just the cost of those plus a new baffle