Gottastopbuyinggear

Stevie, is your no-compromise design going to be using the Mk 2 cab as currently designed or will you be making adjustments (more than bracing arrangement) to it? Reason for asking is that I may have an excuse to get over to Bristol in the week at some point in February, so I'm thinking about placing an order with Avon Ply - I used them last time and they did a great job of cutting the panels to size. Unfortunately they're not open at weekends, and I live in Cardiff and work in Swansea so I'm a bit scuppered most of the time. So far I've not found anyone local that can source the Poplar ply and cut it to size.

Sounds good! Yes, I was thinking I could try this on top of a single cab. I wasn't thinking of this as a long term solution, and if I did it I'm sure the box would be functional rather than pretty... On the other hand, I'm currently carrying 2 cabs, amp, pedal board, big bag of leads, mixer, and a powered monitor to every gig, and 2 bags of lights to some, so a small box isn't going to make much difference. I even remember my bass most of the time! Are you also thinking of building a 12/6 then, and if so would that be with the Beyma woofer? You said I'd turn in to gottastopbuildinggear - well, it does seem to be turning into another form of GAS! I did the Mk I cabs in 2016, a bitsa Precision last year, and it seems I'm casting around for something to make this year.

Thought I'd give this thread a bump as it's gone a bit quiet in the last few months, and I'm getting the itch to do another cab build - not sure why as I don't need one, but hey... I'm assuming from the number of responses in the thread that there wasn't enough interest in CNC'd flat pack kits to make that a possibility? Any news on the new Faital driver that you mentioned, Stevie? And any more feedback on the Mk II with Celestion horn driver Chienmortbb? Also, I don't want to derail this thread, but do I recall one of you saying you were thinking of doing a 12/6 build? I keep finding myself idly eyeing up the Fearful 12/6 plans, though I think I've talked myself out of that for a number of reasons, but I'd be interested in a similar idea with a more efficient (and lower cost) woofer, that didn't necessarily have to go quite as low. Finally, and this may be a daft question but I'll throw it out there anyway - who knows, it might give you a laugh... I'm currently gigging with two of the Mk I Basschat 1x12 cabs, and wondering whether one of the Mk IIs will be enough for me (where "enough" is obviously very subjective). Is there any reason why I wouldn't get a similar sonic result from building a small box to house the HF driver and horn, and the crossover, and running that on top of one of the Mk I cabs, just to see whether it's "enough" for whatever subjective criteria my mind cooks up?

I have a middle of the range Tokai 335 copy. Guitarist in my band has a Gibson 335. I daren't let him try my Tokai as I think it’ll just depress him.

I really can’t imagine the brand ceasing to exist, but on the other hand you never know, so I’m glad I bought my Les Paul when I did. It's an iconic instrument - plays and sounds fantastic, though the binding is an absolute dogs dinner in places, and I’d be shocked to see something like that come from any of the other big names. I wonder how much of their trouble is caused by questionable business strategy and how much by good old fashioned lack of attention to quality.

Erm... https://www.thomann.de/gb/marcus_miller_v3_5_awh.htm

In that case then a cheapish photographic backdrop as Steve Browning suggested could well be the way to go. When I was looking (not that hard, admittedly) for a printed backdrop it seemed that apart from the pop up style then everything was fairly heavyweight vinyl, which then requires a relatively sturdy set of stands. Photographic backdrops can be a lot lighter and hence the stands don’t need to be so heavy and bulky. There are loads on eBay.

We bought one of these, 2m x 2m: https://www.rollerbannersuk.com/wide-premium-roller-banner/, thinking that 2m x 2m sounded quite big... A 2m long aluminium cassette seems quite big when you’re trying to get it into the venue without smashing lightbulbs, knocking drinks out of punters' hands and so on, and 2m high seems quite big when you’re trying to put it up in places with low ceilings, lights, etc., but to be honest it looks possibly a little underwhelming when your drummer's sat in front of it. However it is quick and simple to set up and take down, and I think the only viable and bigger alternative is a vinyl banner which will need to be attached to a frame that you have to assemble each time, and I can see that becoming old very quickly! As an aside, that photo reminds me perfectly of the gig - the hi hat stand was missing the bolt that locks the legs in place, so I spent the whole gig with my foot on one of the legs so the whole thing didn’t fall over!

If this were me then I’d definitely try putting bass through your existing PA, using both speakers, to see whether that's up to the job. Assuming it is but you absolutely have to have something for gigs where you need a smaller footprint then I’d definitely be thinking hard about something like the RCF 735 that others have mentioned. There’s no reason why you can’t feed that from the main out connections on the front of your existing mixer so you wouldn’t necessarily have to buy a new mixer yet. Then your upgrade path is another 735 in the future, and a passive mixer, which would let you get rid of the existing PA. One other question - I’m guessing that somewhere along the line, or in your future plans, is something bigger than the acoustic duo, as your Ashdown rig is probably overkill for that? If that’s the case then the 735's would be more appropriate for a bigger band, so would make sense from that point of view. If not then perhaps looking at a smaller bass rig along with smaller active speakers could make some sense?

In my limited experience (two gigs cancelled this year due to band member illness) the pubs are pleased that you bother to let them know and don't just fail to turn up on the night! In our case, and bearing in mind that we do this for fun and any income from gigging is a bonus, we offered to rebook for a reduced fee. We also did our best to find another band, but were only able to for one of the gigs. We’ve since played one of the pubs again and they didn't take up our offer of a reduced fee which was nice.

I had my PF500 attached to the 15” version of that cab for a while and it fitted okay (both bought new in 2015), though I vaguely recall you had to flip it in the right direction as it would only go in one way. The mounting holes are different, but you should be able to blank off the existing holes with nuts, bolts and washers, which is what I’ve done. I think the holes are pre-drilled and covered by plastic plugs on the inside, and you just need to punch through the tolex.

With all due respect to TH, given the three options in the original post I’m guessing that a barefaced cab north of a grand is probably not going to be an option? For what it’s worth, Alex, I have a TS210 which we use as a monitor in our pub band, where we use Yamaha DBR12s as mains and just put keys and vocals through the PA. A bit different from your situation, I know. I was a bit disappointed with the Alto - the way I set it up (high pass filter taking out everything below about 100Hz, and compression to take out the peaks) it sounds okay, but it’s only just loud enough as a monitor for the keys player and his backing vocals, and the peak light is almost constantly on. The Yamaha’s are barely ticking over at similar volume. I wouldn’t consider putting bass through it, though a pair for guitar and vocals as an acoustic duo would probably be fine. I don’t think you’ll be able to daisy chain your bass cab from any of the common active speakers. What PA and bass gear do you use at the moment, and do you have a budget in mind?

Good result! Despite what I said above I do think that successful retailers in general know that unhappy customers are unlikely to be repeat customers, so if you let them know you’re unhappy then they'll quite often try to sort it out.

I think most consumers, shop assistants, and perhaps the smaller Ebay shops just don’t know the law. I may be being cynical but I think the larger shops will know very well, but in many cases are relying on Joe public's lack of knowledge, and capitalising on that by not briefing their own junior staff very well. Or maybe I amjust a cynical old git. My new year resolution will be to be less cynical. Yeah, like that's ever going to happen 😁

Distance selling regulations state that you are entitled to receiving a refund of the basic delivery costs (but not any extra you’ve paid for expedited delivery). Consumer rights act says you are entitled to be reimbursed reasonable costs for return of a faulty item. I’m not sure, however, how this applies to non UK sellers, but the consumer rights act is the enactment in UK law of an EU directive so I’d at least try a few times with Thomann on the basis that it probably does apply. The only reason I know anything about the distance selling regulations is that I was alerted to the new regulations when returning an online purchase to a high street shop. Since that I’ve had several debates with other high street shops, many of which will argue the toss about it and claim that it’s “discretionary”. Funny that - I always thought the law was the law...

Ah, hang on a sec... I’ve just looked at the PF500 manual and it seems I’m wrong about the aux in. The bad news is that it only goes through to the headphones output, so it won’t come out of the speaker. The good(ish?) news is that you could still plug the SR16 into it and practice through headphones. So it’s back to needing a mixer if you want to try this. It’s probably not an ideal set up, but for practice is worth a try. With a mixer like the Behringer one I suggested above then you’ll need a pair of quarter inch mono to mono jacks to connect the SR16 main outputs into inputs 2 and 3 on the mixer. You can plug your bass into the line in, though I don’t think that’ll be brilliant as it’s not really meant for an instrument input. Connect either the left or right main out to the input of the Ampeg.

I think you have an Ampeg PF500? In that case you don’t need a mixer, as the PF500 has an aux in on the front panel. You'll just need a cable with a stereo 3.5mm jack at the Ampeg end, and either two quarter inch mono jacks or one stereo jack at the SR16 end (I can’t remember what sockets it has). I’ve not done this with my PF500, but have done with a GK MB200 and it worked quite well - in fact I ran a complete backing track, minus bass, through it to audition a keyboard player, and it was fine - sounded better than the cr*ppy PA in the rehearsal room actually! Make sure you start with the SR16 volume off and turn it up slowly - I think the aux input goes straight into the power amp section and isn’t affected by the master volume, so you'll need to go carefully. The XLR on the Ampeg is purely for output, so if you did ever want to go for practice through headphones then you'd need to take that output into a mixer (with an XLR to mono jack cable) and also plug the SR16 into the mixer with the appropriate jack to jack cable.

Another thing you could consider if you have a PC is Toontrack EZ Drummer, which I think is a little cheaper than a new SR16 and has much better sounds, a library of patterns, and is arguably a lot easier to use when setting up your own patterns. I do still have my old SR16, but I never use it now - I’m just a bit of a hoarder! Either way you’re going to need a small mixer as TheGreek suggests. I’ve used one of the Behringer 502 models in the past for exactly this and it worked fine. if you want something more like an effect pedal then there are some accompaniment pedals out there (I can’t remember the name but Gear4Music were selling one off very cheaply only a few days ago) but I get the impression they’re aimed more at guitarists as they offer bass and drums accompaniment. I assume (?) you could just use the drum part, but even then I’d imagine the number of patterns/styles would be pretty limited. Personally I’ve gone the whole hog down the PC route and use IK Multimedia's Amplitube for practice using headphones (keeps the rest of the family happy!), though if you have an amp with some form of DI out then you could do the same with a small mixer.

That’s a really logical, sensible, answer. However I’m secretly disappointed that it’s not just bass player excess!

And I always thought those were to compensate when you didn’t have, say, a huge great 8x10 right behind you!

Good grief - my whole band usually has to set up in a smaller space than that, and we're a five piece! What's that between the stack and your pedal board - it's not a butt kicker type thing is it?!

Oh, no need to worry there. I make most bass lines my own - the more difficult the original, the more I make it my own! Seriously, though, I'm not really into copying stuff note for note - as a band we definitely put our own stamp on stuff, so I tend to start with something more or less based on the original but adapt it to what feels right as we get used to the song. In this case I think the B D E seems instinctively right (certainly safe), but I was interested to find out whether anyone else was hearing the C or if it's just my dodgy hearing.

No, not a personal declaration, but the Spencer Davis Group song. Someone in my band suggested we try it - I had a quick listen and we jammed it last night, and it was one of those rare moments where it came together immediately and sounded (to me) absolutely brilliant first time. The thing is, I can't work out what the bass line actually is... I had a better listen today, and a quick look on the tab sites and YouTube where what little material I could find seems to be in agreement that the main riff is B D E (E string 7th fret, A string 5th and then 7th fret) and then to open E, but I can't reconcile that with what I'm hearing. In the intro I think I'm hearing C D open E for the first few bars at least, but when it gets going it possibly sounds more B D E. I'm not sure it really matters - I've tried playing various combinations of B D B Open E, C D E Open E, even C D B Open E and they all sound fine - but I'm interested to know what other people hear and play, and whether anyone has a more definitive answer?

I'm guessing you prefer to buy new rather than used? I’d say don’t be put off by the stories about PF500's failing - those problems were sorted ages ago. I have one from about 2015 and it’s a great amp for the price, which incidentally hasn’t changed in the last couple of years. Depending on what sort of music you play and whether you gig or not I’d also suggest the GK MB200 might be worth looking at. I also have one of those, and I’d be happy to gig it with my pub band (Edit: to be fair, in my case I’d only do that if using both my 12” cabs), despite the fact that I have to keep up with a pretty loud drummer. It doesn’t have the same headroom as the Ampeg, though it’s not far off.

Yep. I saw them in Cardiff earlier in the month, and it was pretty much as Woodinblack and T-Bay said. Black Honey were okay, though the bass was fairly mushy. At The Drive In were just a wall of mush at any point where it wasn't just guitar alone, and Royal Blood sounded surprisingly good considering the bass problems with the support bands. Not knowing anything about At The Drive In I'm not sure whether the singer's comment along the lines of "you can tell everyone you saw this crap band" was just self-deprecation, a comment about how they've been received so far on the tour, or a symptom of something else going on.