Beer of the Bass

[quote name='mcnach' timestamp='1452731530' post='2953043'] Ha ha! No, bass and shoes stay red When will you build yours? It would be fun to check them out side by side. [/quote] I'll hopefully have one of the DIY cabs at a rough n' ready testing stage over the next week or so, and the pair of them properly finished another couple of weeks after that. I'm aiming to use one or two at a gig in mid-February. They'll also be blue, though a slightly darker shade, with a sparkly cloth grille.

Ooh, nice colour! Does this mean you'll need a blue bass and some blue shoes to complete the set? I'll be interested to hear how you get on with them.

I've picked up my plywood. It came from MKM Building Supplies, who are at my end of Edinburgh. They ordered in a sheet of 12mm birch for me which looks to be really good quality with even plies and no visible voids. They cut it to size on their big table saw too, which was well worth the extra couple of pounds as it's accurately cut with square edges and saves me from faffing about with an 8x4" sheet. It was £45 for the sheet, not the cheapest I've seen but not outrageous either. I have four pieces each of 520 x 330mm, 370 x 330mm and 496 x 370mm, plus enough offcuts to use for bracing etc. Next I need to pick up some softwood for the corner cleats and a length of tubing for the ports.

My plywood is in stock at the timber merchant and I'm going to pop round with my cutting list later on. I've been looking at the different options for porting, whether to tune relatively high at 50Hz, low at 40Hz or somewhere in between. Tuning at 50Hz produces a bump of just over 2dB at around 120Hz and improved power handling from 50-100Hz where a lot of the energy in a bass signal lives. The downside is that the power handling at 30Hz is very low, which is likely to be fine in practice but could be risky if I ever turn up the bass knob and really hammer the low B string. Tuning at 40Hz reduces the bump to a little over 1dB and improves the power handling at 30Hz, but lowers the power handling from 50-100Hz. I've taken some screenshots from WinISD to illustrate this. 50Hz is in blue and 40Hz is in green. [b]Frequency Response[/b] [b]Maximum Power[/b] [b][/b] [b]Cone Excursion[/b] This shows the cone excursion at 120 watts. The red line shows Xmax, and Xlim is at 11mm. This shows that if my GK MB200 somehow ended up producing its full output at 30Hz, the driver could be damaged with the 50Hz tuning. However, this seems unlikely given that it will be receiving a bass signal rather than a sinewave generator. With the 40Hz tuning, it exceeds Xmax but stays within Xlim, so would distort but be less likely to be damaged. At present I'm most inclined towards the 50Hz tuning, unless anyone wants to convince me otherwise. Although I play 5-string, I rarely play the lowest notes and I'm not playing styles involving heavy bass boost. If I ever get into playing in louder situations with a more powerful amp, I would look at introducing a high pass filter into the setup. Another option would be to use multiple ports and plug one to alter the tuning - with some fiddling in WinISD it looks like I could use three 64mm ports 21cm long for a 50Hz tuning, and with one port plugged the tuning would drop to approximately 41Hz. It might be worth doing this and spending an hour or so playing through it at reasonable volume before deciding which tuning to keep.

Nice. I still kinda regret missing out on a silver Hayman that was nearly my first bass when I was a teenager. It would probably have got me some funny looks in the school big band I was playing in though...

[quote name='sarah thomas' timestamp='1452526396' post='2950810'] You might look at J tone pick ups - [url="http://basschat.co.uk/topic/107646-j-tone-electronique-db-pickups/"]http://basschat.co.u...que-db-pickups/[/url] [/quote] I have a J-Tone pickup, mine is the single element, rubber sleeved model, and I would quite cheerfully recommend them to anyone starting out. It's not the last word in realistic acoustic sound (no bridge wing pickup is), but it's a good solid, balanced sound which is feedback resistant and I like it better than some other more expensive bridge wing pickups. It's not especially finicky about input impedance and sounds fine straight into the 1Mohm input of my GK MB200. I've no experience of the clicky models, as slap is not my thing. I do think his jack mounts are a bit inelegant though - I use one of these with mine; [url="http://www.kontrabass-atelier.de/pickups_e.html#clamp"]http://www.kontrabass-atelier.de/pickups_e.html#clamp[/url]

The Teisco S110F is very close in architecture too, though I never had the chance to compare it when I owned the Teisco.

Have Bass Gear magazine ever reviewed the Tonehammer? It might be worth checking, as they often measure the frequency response of amps and include the graphs with their review. That seems like a surprisingly low frequency to be boosting, since there are other amps which start rolling off around there. You'd think it would be asking a lot of the speakers!

I'm still waiting on my plywood, but I've been looking some more into covering materials in the meantime. I've worked out that I would need at least 2 metres of Tolex and it isn't cheap, plus thinking back to the number of bad DIY tolexing jobs I've seen makes me think it might take some practice to do well. I'm leaning towards the Turbo Blue Tuff Cab paint, plus a cloth grille using the Fender style silver, perhaps with some piping around the grille. I've also got my cutting list together for the panels. I'm going with external dimensions of 52 x 39.4 x 33cm, which is just a touch larger in one dimension than the commercial cab I was comparing it to, but I'm constructing it with corner cleats which take up a little extra volume compared to other joints. I wanted to keep it that width so that if I change amps in future, a typical 19" wide amp won't look daft perched on top. With the baffle recessed by 25mm for the grille the gross internal volume works out at 51.57 litres. The pair of cabs fit onto one full sheet of ply, leaving some offcuts for bracing and grill frames.

I bought some strings from Mark. The price was right, he sent them out quickly and all was well.

I have an old Slingerland/Concertone short-scale open-backed tenor banjo which is setup for Irish GDAE tuning. It's a fun instrument, but I haven't quite bonded with it somehow. I haven't had it out very often in the last couple of years as I prefer to play mandolin or mandola when in folky mode. I keep thinking of selling it to fund some bass gear, but my wife likes it and won't let me!

I didn't have any trouble in the couple of years I was gigging a 100 watt valve amp - I never even turned it up far enough to sound dirty.

Taking them on and off a couple of times with a standard bridge makes a mess of the silks too. I spent a while trying to decide between rounds and flats for the band I played in and swapped the same sets over a few times, and I would have appreciated a quick-release bridge for that (I settled on the flats, FWIW).

I hope Wilko's doctor doesn't read the bit about sharing his morphine tablets with Norman! That could make for an awkward chat at the next appointment...

[quote name='fleabag' timestamp='1452354889' post='2949212'] Butler also used Orange amps / cabs and did so all the way through this live performance in 1970 Its more obvious from 7.00 minutes onwards [/quote] AFAIK pretty much everyone who did a Beat Club session played through Orange amps as they were the house gear and not many bands would transport their full backline to Germany for a TV show. There are some excellent Beat Club performances from quite a few bands up on youtube - it would be great if somebody put a DVD box set together.

[quote name='JTUK' timestamp='1452281250' post='2948543'] I think you could do a lot worse..... a LOT worse, IMO. I would rip the box myself but I doubt you'll get it as light ...but anyway the design rip is a tone monster, IMO, and I think I've heard most of its competition. [/quote] I would feel a little cheeky trying to build a straight rip-off of a currently available product from a small company, and even more so documenting it publicly, but on the other hand looking at what they do and taking some hints from it seems OK to me. It's quite possible that some of my guesses would be wrong anyway! So, more work-alike than clone is what I'm going for. Mine will almost certainly be a little heavier as I'm using birch and not poplar, but it's a small 1x12" so they won't be outrageously heavy.

I've heard that sort of "angry" tone out of Gibson Rippers too.

[quote name='dincz' timestamp='1452243509' post='2947888'] I'm guessing the 5-pin DIN connector is not a midi output. [/quote] DIN connectors were quite common on older European gear - I had a Dynacord Amp with a DIN input around the back and I think my old Hohner Pianet had them originally too.

[quote name='paulnb57' timestamp='1452268745' post='2948338'] Following this........care to enlighten me on the Tuff Cab paint, I've never heard of it..... [/quote] It's a textured paint which can be applied with a roller, it looks a bit different from tolex close up, but still smart looking if done well, plus it can be touched up if it gets scuffed. If you search for "tuff cab" on basschat, there are some build threads which use it. It's a similar finish to a lot of the Barefaced cabs, though I don't know if the most recent ones are still the same. It comes in black or a few different colours - I liked the idea of the blue used in this build, perhaps with a silver Fender-ish cloth grille. [url="http://basschat.co.uk/topic/243742-fearful-156/page__hl__%22tuff+cab%22__fromsearch__1"]http://basschat.co.uk/topic/243742-fearful-156/page__hl__%22tuff+cab%22__fromsearch__1[/url]

I'm just about to start putting together a pair of 1x12" cabs, as I ended up selling my last decent sized cab during a house move and only have a little 1x10" at the moment. With a new musical project on the go this year, it would be nice to have something a touch bigger around. This won't be a high-end, cost-no-object sort of build; while I don't want to skimp too much I'm trying to keep it reasonable. With that in mind, I've picked up two Eminence Beta 12A-2 drivers which are lightly used but both in good condition. The cost of both including postage was £66, which is about the cost of one new driver. These are not state-of-the-art, high excursion drivers, but I'm confident they will do the job for my needs. My bands are never crazy-loud, I'm currently using a GK MB200 and I intend to mess around with low-wattage valve amps at some point, so it's more important to me that the cabs have decent efficiency and a pleasing voice than massive power handling. There is a certain small company's 1x12" that appears to use the same driver (as the published specs are identical to what would be expected for that driver and box size) and is currently very popular among basschatters, so I'm hoping to come up with something which does a comparable job even though I'm not going to directly rip off their design. The 1x12" design diary thread has been very useful and I'm going to take quite a few pointers on design and construction from that. My cab is going to be just a touch smaller than the design diary cab, closer to the commercial cab mentioned above. It will be about 46 litres once the ports, driver and bracing are accounted for. I intend to use plastic downpipe for the ports so that I can try a couple of tunings and pick the one I prefer. I was initially going to use some 18mm exterior ply which a friend was clearing out, but on closer inspection that turned out to be a little too full of voids and has thin outer veneers which would be no good for glued butt joints, so I'll have to find another use for that. I've spoken to a local timber supplier who seem very helpful so far, they've ordered in some birch plywood for me and are happy to cut it to my sizes. Although the design diary thread discussed the merits of 18mm plywood I've decided to go with 12mm to keep the weight down a touch, which will be appropriately braced. I may make the back removable like Phil's prototype, as it would make bracing, lining and installing the ports a lot easier. It would also save me from having as many seams if I end up using tolex. I'm still considering the cosmetic side of things. The one thing I'm definite on is that I want a sparkly cloth grille - I just think they look good. I'd like the cabs to be something other than black - I'm waiting for Blue Aran to get back to me on the availability of Tuff Cab paint in either Signal Red or Turbo Blue as they're out of stock currently. Alternatively a tolex type material could look good, but looks tricky to apply neatly. My plywood should arrive by Tuesday, so hopefully I'll have more to post then.

[quote name='operative451' timestamp='1451990243' post='2945207'] I spend a lot of my time listening to BBC6music, going 'ooh, so-and-so has a new song!' and then it turns out to be a new band of 20 year olds who've grown up listening to their parents' Simple Minds and New Order. In the way that britpop was 20somethings referencing the 60s, da yoof now seem to be doing a lot of electro-pop, and its often more fun to play synth sounds on bass than a computer! [/quote] Yes, I find the same thing with 6Music. If they play archive sessions and I'm not paying attention to the presenter, I often have genuine difficulty in telling whether I'm listening to a new young band or something relatively little-known from the early 80s!

That organ is very cool, I love that sort of thing.

It's not impossible, but if you're using hand tools it's a pain in the bum to get a neat bevel on the edge and hard not to get any tool marks on the face of the plastic. This is one of those things that I've done once or twice but would cheerfully pay somebody to do next time!

[quote name='stevie' timestamp='1452186957' post='2947442'] If I'd spent a grand on a cab and couldn't hear it, which is what the OP's problem seems to be, 'chosen unwisely' would be putting it mildly. [/quote] I'd guess that any cab which only comes up to thigh-height is going to have similar issues with hearing the mids and highs when you're standing right next to it (though perhaps less so with a dedicated mid driver), so it's hardly some unique flaw to this specific cab. There are very few cabs on the market which wouldn't have exactly the same issue.