LawrenceH

I'm with Happy Jack on this - the current (old) format with plenty of chat does let you suss out what's what with a lot of sales and, I've felt, gives me more confidence in purchasing e.g. by post which is a real trust thing. This new format seems much too open to gumtree-style scams in comparison

Put a blanket over the cab!

Celestion and I think Sica report Xmax the old way - if it was a Faital or 18Sound, the xmax value would probably be double for the 2mm ones! I wouldn't be fussed about it. I also don't think the high Fs is going to be such an issue, compared to many 10" cabs on the market it models well enough and a lot better than the OEM Sica. I have used 12" Celestion ceramics with a stated 2mm xmax for bass and they sound very nice and go damn loud driven by a 300w Trace Elliot. I haven't noticed any underperformance compared to eg Eminence-loaded cabs either, which I've also owned. You can undoubtedly go a lot louder with premium drivers and high power, but with 150 watts spread right across the spectrum you aren't going to run into trouble below 100Hz unless the signal is very heavily EQed either at the amp or with an active pre. If you want a lot of the low E fundamental then it's not realistic in a cheap 210 with only 150 watts, however most cheaper/medium cabs sound ok because they reproduce the harmonics above 80Hz well enough, which gives a subjective impression of bass. With all the chat on here about speaker 'minimum requirements' I sometimes wonder if everyone else plays extended range doom, or everywhere I've lived in the UK has totally atypical venues. I've got a Markbass F1 and a pair of 1x10 cabs each loaded with a premium Celestion neo PA unit - I've just been leaving the second cab at home recently because I get enough clean volume with the one. That's playing quite bass-heavy dub/ska/hip-hop too...of course even the smaller venues have subs half the time.

I have some of the Celestion NTRs and some of the Eminence Deltalites, roughly equivalent. Both are excellent. Bear in mind Celestion spec their Xmax value differently to Eminence so it's hard to compare directly. Eminence seem to worry less about a flat freq response than some other manufacturers which matters or not depending on how you're implementing crossovers. Faital, an Italian brand, are also making some well regarded stuff at the moment which supposedly has excellent linearity at high spl

[quote name='Stompbox' timestamp='1352157605' post='1859615'] Hey thanks for that LawrenceH - I would be putting around 150/175 watts in - not the max total rating of 400, that's for sure. Celestion also do a 100watt version, I've just found, so that may be better, running them at around 2/3 of their rating, rather then under driving them? The existing 10's have had a lot of use for quite a long period of time, and may be" tired", or the new r MAG 210T cabinet may just have better spec speakers.... [/quote] You can't really 'under-drive' a speaker so definitely don't drop down on that basis. Reasons to do so would be if the lower wattage speakers had higher excursion capability and/or higher sensitivity - or for the weight. If you mean the BL10-100X then that probably does have a little more excursion capability but, with 150 watts total, I'd personally not be too worried about that. If the weight/cash is an issue then the 100 is a good cheap option IMO

You can open them using acrobat if you tell it to directly. The Sica looks crazy, like it's designed to give a booming one note mid-bass response and f&*% all else. Despite the high resonant frequency I think the Celestion would sound ok in most vented cabs, as long as they're not tuned too low. People could tell you more if you knew the internal dimensions and tuning of the cabinet. It should sound reasonably detailed and balanced. Main drawback is the lack of info on the maximum excursion capability. Given that it's only a 2" voice coil and looking at the freq chart I'd guess, based on other Celestion speakers, that it's not so high. This means you won't be able to feed a lot of low end in before you reach the limits of the cab - certainly if you had 400 watts of real low bass it would be more than the speakers could handle. In reality, it's not going to be any worse than most other cheap speakers so if the price is something like the £25 per speaker with the Blue Aran JAM club and you are realistic about the amount of bass a 210 loaded with cheap drivers can manage, it will be fine. I'd bank on it sounding a lot better than the speakers in there!

This is really useful, thanks. Can I ask what you're driving them with? I'd like some good, robust in-ears for my ipod nano, I break cheap ones within about a month thanks to the crappy ipod design of being long and thin with the output jack right on the corner

That's great to hear! Glad it worked out.

I haven't heard a better sounding 210 than the Redhead. Weigh a ton. The Markbass are lighter and probably louder but IMO though they're good, soundwise the SWR is better.

Cheers guys! I'm not really into the chained FX thing, I want the flexibility of different oscillators and find that approach much more intuitive. Thinking along the lines of some of the classic 70s/80s synth bass lines that were really input off moogs and the like. Mxm, the Sonuus device looks very cool but the Sound on Sound review of the i2m talks about latency figures for bass that are IME unuseable for live performance. I wonder if the B2m is much improved in this regard? xgsjx, I'm off to check out Shep's interview that you mention as well. Keep it coming, this has all been really useful.

I've never tried the P, but not had any problems with the E string volume on my J and I am relatively picky about these things. I think it's currently wearing D'Addarios. The stock pickups are very fat sounding, it has the 'thickest' tone of any of my basses with a lot of low-mid punch.

Hi all I had a Deep Impact a while ago. It was ok. Tracked well, and had a couple of useable voice settings, but having been a keys player in a former musical incarnation and done a fair bit of synth tinkering as part of that, sound quality and tonal flexibility were nowhere near even a modest analogue (or VA) synth so I sold it on and don't miss it. But, I would still love to be able to play a decent synth via bass rather than keyboard. My ideal would be something fairly straightforwardly giggable, so compact, reliable and tweakable in real-time - obviously not wanting or expecting the full front panel of an Andromeda on there but an ability to use controller info eg to tweak filters or LFOs would be good. Is there anyone in basschat land who's using midi or similar systems to do this, and does anyone have any recommendations? I am totally out of touch with the synth market but it seems there are loads of small synths that might fill this function nowadays, if I could get a pickup system working which is also something I've no experience with. At the moment this is a bit of a pipedream but if it seems feasible and not outrageously expensive then I would be keen to take it further, I have a spare bass body that could serve as a test site.

[quote name='cheddatom' timestamp='1351588588' post='1852849'] was anyone else using effects on bass like LG before he did it? [/quote] What about the heavy bass fuzz on the Beatles' 'Think For Yourself' in 1965?

It's all a bit silly really isn't it? Bass just doesn't have an equivalent figure to Hendrix because it's not normally a lead instrument in pop and rock. Jaco was on the jazz scene so very different. Closest to Hendrix in terms of changing the way people played? Maybe Jamerson, but he was hardly a pioneer of the possibilities of electrified sound - OTOH Hendrix did that, the fact it was on guitar is almost secondary.

Had to put decent headphones on to hear anything of the bass, not much going on above 400Hz there - but he articulates very clearly as a player, lovely smooth technique. I expect it sounded a lot different in the room when you could feel that low end thump. Nice band and really entertaining performers, but like Eddie I didn't like the bass & drum groove much; felt it didn't go anywhere without being funky enough to justify staying where it was. The patterns in the bass line feel like about 4 different standard/cliche R&B runs sped up and put on shuffle, got a bit frustrating quite quickly. Can see why people like it though, it's indecently tight!

Yup it's come up on another thread that Simon and I've both commented on, and I think it's a fairly regular issue - those filters are powerful but not well understood and I think Markbass missed a trick by making them so the notch in the knob doesn't sit at 12 when they're off! From previous comments I'm sure a lot of people have been put off Markbass, without realising the filters were frying the sound at what looks like a default setting. Anyway, I hope it has helped!

[quote name='Ed_S' timestamp='1351188884' post='1848512'] I always finish with them off, too! [/quote] Hah, 9 times out of 10 so do I!

Make sure those markbass filters are off - the VPF particularly! Off is fully anticlockwise, NOT 12 o clock. The VPF filter cut sits right around the first harmonics of the upper string upper notes, too much of that and it'll suck the volume right out.

[quote name='51m0n' timestamp='1351164490' post='1848076'] Wow [b]massive[/b] overuse of the VLE and VPF in here. [/quote] Totally agree! I always start with these off. The VPF is quite useful in moderation for getting the sound a bit 'tighter' - as well as the low-mid scoop it has the effect of tilting the overall response towards the treble. A little bit reminiscent of SWR. I like Markbass stuff but I do think the centres on their hi-mid and treble control leave an annoying gap in an important tonal region, right across the resonance peak of a typical pickup.

Bloody love this band! Assumed it was a 'Ric' but tbh don't know what I've based that on other than the cover art - never played one so not familiar with the sound, just know I can't get there with any bass I've owned regardless of what EQ I set. For the bass, the first two albums are great but I think my favourite overall is 'Out of Here', beautifully constructed. Glad I'm not the only one who still listens to this band

I have also found that it's typically in the lower mids, and that it's easily audible - I've used foam under monitors on numerous occasions and a couple of times I've had the time to experiment with and without. On a particularly resonant wooden stage (with a microphone that's not directly mounted on the stage on a rigid stand, removing that from the equation) I've gained greater than 6dB before feedback when ringing out, centred around 315Hz. The audible effect is consistent with what the 31-band graphic suggests; a 'tighter', more coherent sound.

Sorry Bill but you're still wrong about this. Count Bassy understands and has said much the same thing as me but expanded on the role of mass. A speaker cone vibrates, that creates the pressure waves in the first place. Now, third law of motion. It's not '95% acoustic 5% mechanical' it's 95+% heat, the rest mechanical. That mechanical energy will be distributed between the cone and the magnet/frame/whatever that's attached to.

[quote name='Bill Fitzmaurice' timestamp='1350996408' post='1845970'] Point of fact: Unless the cab is defectively constructed there's no such thing as mechanical coupling. That phenomenon can only occur if the cab walls flex [/quote] With all due respect, that's not correct. A diamond stylus is extremely rigid and makes a great mechanical coupler. Mechanical force can either be transferred, or converted e.g. to heat. With a rigid body it is being transferred, to the floor in this case. [quote name='Bill Fitzmaurice' timestamp='1350998366' post='1846002'] Since the cone is isolated from the cabinet by the driver suspension the effect of the feedback loop isn't severe, but it's there. [/quote] The force is generated in the motor. That includes the magnet, which is rigidly attached to the cab. Newton's third law - the force transmits into the cab as well as the cone. Efficient transfer of energy by a lightweight but rigid cab (without damping) will give greater vibration transfer to a resonant body like the floor. Mass greatly increases the force required to produce a noticeable reaction. This is secondary school physics in action!

I reckon it's sometimes worth having something without back windows or it's blindingly obvious a vehicle's full of valuable kit. But perhaps a van's even more of a target, the lure of the unknown? We've had a Vauxhall Combo before and that seemed decent enough, really good fuel economy too.

[quote name='brensabre79' timestamp='1350993932' post='1845926'] I guess I'm asking how is it going to be different to a stand (or a beer crate etc.) in terms of a solution to the problem? [/quote] Because foam is a better mechanical decoupler than a solid stand. Having said that, I've used offcuts of fairly stiff packing foam under monitor speakers etc for years and they work just as well as 'acoustic' foam in this application.