Mottlefeeder

EU harmonisation was a fudge. The UK voltage is 230v +10%-6% and the rest of the EU is 230v +6% -10%. So, we are harmonised but still operating at the voltages we had before. David

You are focused on playing notes. I don't know you, and do not mean to cause offence, but have you considered your attitude? Are you being fired because you are not a good fit in some way? David

My current band has a history history of putting the main pa speakers at the back of the stage because they couldn't fit a monitor speaker in the car with everything else. After a few gigs where I was standing beside a head height speaker, I volunteered to bring a monitor speaker to every gig I played in. It's also worth bearing in mind that the mix you want in the monitor may not be the mix that is going out to FoH. David

At the risk of being a pedant, the definition of being 'at work' was defined by court cases may years ago, and includes master-servant relationships (unless they are your servants at home), so the band leader(s) is/are effectively the employer, even if, as in my case, we are a charity, and all the band members are non-paid volunteers. In general terms, the Health and Safety at Work Act requires the employer to take all reasonably practicable precautions to ensure the safety and health of their employees, AND those not in his employment. To me, that means that the band leader(s) has/have the responsibility of ensuring that each band member's gear is as safe as it can reasonably be. David

There is a possibility that the aound man was worried that as he connected his phantom power to your rig, the initial pulse of power might break something. Rod Elliott has a good rep in electronics circles and explains it here. https://sound-au.com/project152-2.htm David

https://www.hse.gov.uk/electricity/information/public.htm Indg247- Electrical safety for entertainers David

If it is a 12v fan, this circuit will make it temperature controlled. David https://sound-au.com/project42.htm

Have you considered a cricket bat or an acoustic, both are lighter than almost any solid body and both are available with 5 strings. David

I'm not sure that WinISD was written assuming a given port position. When you move into bandpass designs, the front and rear enclosures have ports labelled as front and rear. I think that they have carried that over into the ported single box designs. David

I read a comment about WinISD a couple of years ago, where someone was complaining that shelf ports always came out too long, and the explanation given was that the default calculation was for a port terminating some distance from any obstructions. With a shelf port, one side of the port is obstructed, and this increases the apparent length of the port. Unfortunately, I posted the links on the now defunct Finnbass site, so I can't direct you the the link. David

Looking at graphic eq to fix a hearing problem, I concluded that half of the faders would be flat, and the rest at max- then I ran some tests. Interestingly, my audio test chart appears to show my hearing as ok up to 1kHz then dropping by 30dB for most of the rest of the spectrum. However, playing with the eq on a DAW I found that a low Q boost of 8-10dB at about 4kHz brought back most of the clarity I was missing. I presume that this is the difference between detection threshold and normal listening levels as described by the Fletcher Munnsen curves, but I'm well out of my depth on the theory. David

We mainly play outdoors using an analogue powered mixer, and I was hoping to avoid having to share our 3m x 3m gazebo with rack mounted gear. A 7 band pedal eq might be worth a punt. Thanks for your thoughts.

As a fellow hearing aid user, I have noticed that when you take hearing aids out and put in-ears in, you lose the mids/top end that the hearing aid was providing. Does anyone make a monitor amplifier that has suitable eq built in? David

+1 on this. Nice and clean and a DI too. Also, the pedal can be powered by battery, external 9v, or from the mixer desk phantom power. David

With respect, I strongly disagree. Daisy chaining adds extra connections into the earth path, which needs to be low impedance to blow a fuse quickly under fault conditions. Also, a faulty earth connection will not show up under normal operation, only when tested, or when it fails to protect you. There is an argument that the pub RCD will protect you, but most of those are tested for sensitivity, and not speed of operation, so I wouldn't rely on them. David

I didn't have a balance problem, but I did have a problem with the bridge being about 5cm to the left compared with my other basses. I solved it with a boot lace. Thread the bootlace through the bridge end of your strap, and tie the ends to the two strap pins, with the bootlace on the back of the bass. Move the strap-end from the bridge-end pin towards the center of the bass and see if you can find a spot where it balances the way you want. If it works for you, knot the lace into a loop to hold the strap-end at that point. It's cheap, reversible when you sell the bass, and barely noticeable in use. David

Apologies if I have gone off-topic. HRC have noise monitors/limiters for a reason, and the most likely one is complaints from residents. My initial comments were about why that might happen with an established venue. With regard to the sound level at the audience, unless it is a concert, and they are there to hear you and maybe talk in the interval, there should be a sound level where it is loud enough to be exciting, but in my opinion, not so loud that punters have to shout at each other, or at the bar staff. In addition to that, the early guidance on minimising the spread of Covid suggests that music should not be loud enough that people have to raise their voices, because in doing so they will project droplets further. The venue's stance on sound levels could be the result of any of the above. I agree with the others that the guy with tinnitus is probably a chancer, or a professional complainer. David

Some drummers can play quietly, but some can't. It seems to be a skill that they don't learn if they don't see a need for it. David

I can see both sides of the argument when pub A has no bands due to Covid, and during that period, punter B buys a property close to the pub. When the pub music restarts, punter B complains that it spoils his peace and quiet and pub A appeals because they were there first. As an older musician with hearing aids, I stopped going to a local open mic night because everyone played at the level the house band had used to keep up with heir drummer. Playing three songs and spending the rest of the evening shouting at people beside you is not my idea of fun. The point I'm getting to is: why does the music have to be that loud? - if the drummer cannot play quieter, get him/her on an electronic kit through the pa, and control the sound level. If the guitarist has an overdrive-based signature sound, get it from a pedal and put it through the pa. It's not rocket science, it just needs people to push hard enough, and it sounds like that is what they are starting to do. David

Another downside to the 'modified sine wave' invertor is that the harmonics it produces will kill small transformers - they run so hot that the thermal fuse melts. Not a problem if your FX power supply is modern and switched mode, but it is a problem if you have an older transformer based wallwart, or want to run a small mixer where the power supply is something like 15-0-15 AC. I lost several transformers before I worked out what was going on. David

As an alternative to converting battery power to mains and back down to amplifier supply rail voltage, you could consider a car booster amp. These are designed to work from a 10-15V supply, contain a dedicated voltage converter, are built to withstand harsh treatment, and have a sensitivity that allows you to connect an active bass to them and get something approaching full power without needing a preamp. £70-80 will get you 75W into 8 ohms or 150W bridged into 4 ohms. All you have to do is bolt it to a piece of plywood, connect speakers, power and input jack socket, and you are good to go. The amp even has its own fuse so you don't have to provide one. The amp on the left is Class AB as described above. The amp on the right is Class D, giving 35+35W into 8+8ohms or 90+90W into 4+4Ohms - it's 4 amplifiers wired as two bridged pairs. David

I bought a convertor block to clamp normal strings, and it gives me a much wider choice of strings. It might be worth investigating. I'm using D'Addario Chromes on a Hohner 5 string headless. David

Why it is 440Hz - a bit long winded, but fascinating. David