JPJ

I have some Marshall style tolex here that I am using for my 2x12 build but I think I will have enough to spare an A5 sized offcut. Drop me a pm with your address and I'll send it to you.

A little update from my side. As I’ve probably said on here before, I mix the FOH and monitors from stage side whilst playing so some gigs can be kind of ‘busy’, especially if we’re in a difficult room or we’re experiencing any gear issues. But Friday night’s gig was going well and with an extended half-time break for the bingo, I took the opportunity to plug the XVive in and played the second half using in-ears tweaking my IEM mix as best I could between songs. The XVive worked perfectly with no drop outs or unwanted noises despite being surrounded by wireless devices (Airport Express for control of the XAir mixer, Line6 G30 for my bass signal, Lekato wireless for the guitarist, LD Systems IEM 100 for the singers in-ears), and being able to hear every note clearly was a revelation, but the foam buds I was using on my ZX10’s are clearly not as isolating as I thought as I was suffering from quite a lot of bleed meaning that I had to run them a lot louder than I would have normally wanted.  However, this test was enough of a success to remove any doubts I had about the suitability of IEM’s in a pub band scenario, and things will only improve as I nail both the mix and the isolation. 

Double header for me this weekend with two cracking gigs here in the north east. Friday night at Steels Club in Sunderland (yes, downstairs those who know know) and Sunday afternoon at Shotton Comrades. Both venues attract a proper music crowd and both gigs are first time visits for Ten Bob Blind. Lots of country, Americana, and a little bit of rock mixed in. Come along and witness fretless frippery and EUB shenanigans from yours truly.

On 13/07/2023 at 17:57, MartinB said:

I stuck the cables in what I thought was the right way round, then tested using panned-left and panned-right signals and realised I'd got them the wrong way round

However on closer inspection just now, I've realised that the end of the cables actually have "L" and "R" embossed in them! Very difficult to see on the clear ones unless the light is at the right angle. I've done my best to get a picture:

 

 

The side of the cable with the letter on it should be on the outside, i.e. facing away from your head.

Great spot - well done, I had to get a magnifying glass to see the marks on mine!

I used a pair of those Fane Sovereign 8-225 drivers to modify my TC BG250-208 combo to internal 4 ohm load. I've used this as my backline/monitoring on a number of acoustic gigs and this set up loves my NS EUB too.  

I must have been lucky because my ZX10 Pro’s came fully assembled. Hopefully this photo helps, this is the orientation they go in my ears. 

Interesting one, went to see Bruce Springsteen at BST Hyde Park on Saturday night and he was not using IEM’s but relying on monitors both at his main stage and lower stage positions. Interestingly every instrument on stage was wireless including the horn section with the exception of drums and percussion. Given the number of instruments in the E Street Band that is an awful lot of wireless channels!

So, at rehearsals the other night I had difficulty tightening the bolt that holds the vertical section of the stand.

A quick investigation showed this

Given that this bolt is used frequently, I’ve replaced it with a bicycle seat post quick release which is working better than the original imho.

Just sharing here in case anyone else encounters the same issue 😎

I’ll just chuck in another vote for the Snark, which works great with both regular bass and EUB

Wood butchery started in earnest today before a rain shower and thunderstorm stopped play. 
Despite my plan to get all the panels pre-cut to size I somehow managed to over specify a couple of dimensions so it was out with the table saw 🙈

Deviating slightly from Phil’s original design, I’ve decided to have the port between the two speakers. This will help with the overall rigidity of the box as I’m making the port as a sort of hybrid of brace ‘L’ from the Mk3 1x12 design. It will also allow me to radius the edges to make a pseudo ‘horn’ look. 

Personally, I’ve never managed to get the beaming function to work with an active bass. I just plug the usb cable between my BG250 and my computer and use the TonePrint software to download whatever effect I’m after. 

Last nights gig was at the Quakerhouse, a fantastic real ale pub and live music venue in Darlington.

Played my Lakland passive P bass through my little Ashdown ABM 1x15 Neo combo. Place was full from the start through to the end, happy punters = happy band 😎

On 03/04/2023 at 15:13, Phil Starr said:You can get a great sound out of those ZLX15's so the uplift is not going to be stupendous unless your budget is huge. I'd happily gig with them though uplift might be an issue, they ain't lightweights.

 

You’re not wrong Phil. Last nights gig was a smallish pub, good stage area facing a long thin room with the bar on one side. No need or room for bass bins so I stuck the ZX15’s on stands and pushed everything (2 x vocal, 2 x guitars, fiddle, bass, and drums through them). Spent a little bit of time dialling in the EQ (got to love the RTA on the X-Air for this) and they did a great job. Got compliments on the mix from a couple of musicians in the audience too. Ok we are not the loudest band but this setup was perfect for this gig. 

Just to follow up on this, new musical projects brought an EUB into play and as I am switching regularly between fretless P bass and EUB, I bought the rather superb EBS Stanley Clarke preamp. I’m now running the EBS as my front end, with the X3 and SansAmp in the loop of the EBS. I’ve had an issue with levels on the EBS with both the pre and post clip lights illuminating seeming randomly, to the point where I was beginning to think the EBS was defective until I messed around in the settings of the X3, specifically the bypass modes. By default, the unit has the ‘with trails’ option enabled and this seemed to be the source of my issues with the EBS, because changing this to the true bypass option has eliminated the clipping on the EBS. 

So last nights gig had in-house PA & engineer (a treat for me as I’m the one tasked with running sound in both my bands). The venue was using the Soundcraft Ui16 and the engineer was suffering WiFi dropouts all night which he said he experienced a lot when bands use wireless gear (I was using a Line6 G30 and one guitarist was using a Lekato wireless). I checked and he was using the built-in WiFi so I guess the in-built WiFi problems are not limited to Behringer? 

On 09/06/2023 at 23:46, dave_bass5 said:

The TP-Link arrived today and it was quite painless setting it up. It looks cool and will fit in the Gator case with the XR18.

I ‘think’ im all ready to go live with the band in two weeks time (bloody Bass player decided to go on holiday). 

 

Just wondering what firmware you guys are on. I was looking on Behringer’s website and they have 1.18, but mine is 1.19. Obviously no need to update, but i was surprised that 1.19 isnt there. 

There’s a fairly helpful X-Air user group on Facebook “Behringer X-Air Group v2” and a few folk on there have mentioned newer mixers being sent out with firmware 1.19. Consensus appears to be newer models have a slightly different chipset (following the shortage of chips) hence the different firmware. 

Billy Bootleggers in Newcastle tonight. Great venue, bijou and compact stage area but in-house PA with engineer is always welcome. Six pm kick off and two strict 45 minute sets meant I was home, gear away and sitting down by 9pm. We’ve played better, but it was still a great gig 😎

@silverfoxnik you complete and utter barsteward you! 😤

Fancy putting this up for sale at such a tempting price in the same week the last of the parts arrived for my basschat 2x12 cab build. 
I used to own the carpet covered version of this cab before redundancy forced the sale some ten years ago. This cab punches way way way above its weight, and has the best dispersion of any cab I’ve played through and the only cab I can genuinely say I regret selling. 
Good luck with the sale but I’m warning you now, you’ll regret it later! 

Sounds lovely, GLWTS

For any Newcastle upon Tyne basschatters who are not going to St James Park to watch Leo’s offspring and local lad Sam Fender, we’ll be playing our eclectic mix of country and americana at the rather marvellous Billy Bootleggers on Stepney Bank in the Ouseburn tomorrow (Saturday 10th) kicking off at 6pm. I shall be murdering a selection of bass lines on both fretless bass and NS EUB. 

So, keeping this thread alive, the fourth and final (for now) parcel arrived today containing the pre-cut plywood panels. 
And I guess construction has technically started as I drilled the holes for the speakon socket in the dish plate the other night 😎

So the Thomann bag turned up today and first impressions are very positive. Good quality material and I like the way the internal dividers are fully sown in, so none of the stuff in one pocket can slide under into another. Three good external zipped pockets too, along with a couple of strong looking handles and a padded shoulder strap 😎

There are a couple of apps out there specifically for this not that I’ve used either. I think it’s MXMix on iPhone and Qmix on android. 

So one week in to life with the Traditional strings and I’m pleased to say they are in my opinion a huge improvement over the contemporary strings that were on the NXT when I bought her.

I’m sure the biggest change is the heavier gauge which sound and feel more acoustic double bass like. Much shorter sustain (still measured in minutes though 😂) where the decay is less linear and more natural. At last nights rehearsal the bass also seemed to sit better in the mix (through the same setup/settings). Yes they were a significant investment but so far that investment is paying off for me 😎

2 hours ago, dave_bass5 said:

 

Ok , last question before I pull the trigger. 
When using the app, does it save everything to the mixer or just the app? Reason I’m asking is I can’t figure out how someone else can have control with a different device other than by me sending the set up file to them. Is that how it works or does the mixer transmit the layout etc? 

You have a couple of methods. You can save scene files to your control device, or you can save snapshots in the XAir itself. I do both, just in case something gets corrupted. I have two snapshots saved on the XAir (one for each band) which are my starting points for every new venue, however if we’ve played that venue before I’ll have a scene saved with venue specific eq, delays, reverbs etc.