MB NY604 cabs

[alhbass]

I've noticed a pretty clear difference in the tone colour I get from these cabs depending on whether I use one alone or two stacked.

Below are two short sound files, recorded at band practices with the same gear in the same room, same eq settings etc - the only difference between the set ups is that on the first occasion I just used the one cab (on the floor, tilted up towards me), and the second time I stacked both.

The slightly dirty, rough edge to the sound (that I liked) just seemed to disappear when I used both cabs, which is a concern because it's obviously the set up I'm more likely to use when gigging.

I'm using a MarkBass LMK head, so have some tone controls available to try to recapture the sound I'm after, but I haven't succeeded so far. It really seems to be down to the difference between using a single cab or both. Has anyone else come across this? Maybe it's a well-known phenomenon?

I'd welcome your comments, observations and advice anyway (about the sound issue, not particularly about the fluffed notes and other technical shortcomings of my playing, of which I'm already painfully aware!). Thanks for your help.

[attachment=93900:1 cab.mp3][attachment=93901:2 cabs.mp3]

[LawrenceH]

[quote name='alhbass' timestamp='1322311462' post='1449190']
Below are two short sound files, recorded at band practices with the same gear in the same room, same eq settings etc - the only difference between the set ups is that on the first occasion I just used the one cab (on the floor, tilted up towards me), and the second time I stacked both.
[/quote]

They sound quite similar to me, but then I'm only listening on rubbish laptop speakers! There are two main things I can think of (other than room acoustic effects due to cab placement alterations but I'll ignore that for now).
First, from the sound of it the overall volume of the bass is pretty similar on each clip. Depending on how hard you drive the cab, you might expect some tonal change. If on the gig you play louder then it'll get closer to the sound of a single cab as you push them harder and they start to distort to a similar degree. Second is the way that two cabs combine. They will be louder but only in the lower frequencies, above a certain point which depends on the driver spacings the wavefronts no longer effectively combine. You get more complicated lobing patterns in the freq response depending on listener position, but the overall effect is that the sound gets a bit more bassier/middier. I think I can hear this on the recording - you have effectively EQ'ed up the bottom end of your rig. I'd suggest giving the upper mids/treble a bit of a boost to compensate for this, and not bothering using both cabs unless you need the extra volume.

[chris_b]

You're using very small cabs and speakers. Two cabs will move more air and will always sound better than 1.

ps I guess you're overdriving the 1 cab, which won't be difficult with 6" speakers, so you'll have to overdrive both cabs to get the same effect. That probably means driving both louder than you really want.

Edited November 26, 2011 by chris_b