alexclaber

[quote name='bass_ferret' post='65279' date='Sep 25 2007, 12:39 PM']If you get a good band with no ego's and politics there is nothing better. You dont have to be sh*t hot to gig and you will always find someone at your level. Even just going to auditions or jams can teach you much more about playing with other musicians than playing in your bedroom ever will, and bass is usually an ensemble instrument.[/quote]

I think sums it up pretty well! Avoiding egos and politics is quite a challenge, especially with the more prima donna band members - step forward singers and lead guitarists (not a term I like to use but the kind of guitarist that calls themself a lead guitarist is very different to others and rarely in a good way!) - but I think it gets easier with age (says this twenty something!)

Alex

[quote name='bass_in_ya_face' post='65261' date='Sep 25 2007, 12:12 PM']Thanks for the musicians web sites though. Sometime in the future I may well stop the lessons and track down some other duffers to play with.[/quote]

Bass players are always in demand and I've found that having some kind of focused project makes it all the more rewarding, be it recording bass on someone's demo, writing new material for an originals band, learning covers for gigs, etc.

Alex

It's quite hard to say a lot about! It just does what it does very well.

Alex

I did think of having piezo pickups but the Q-Tuners are so transparent that it would have been overkill and also would have required active electronics to do the blending. Looking forward to having no batteries to worry about!

Alex

[quote name='bass_in_ya_face' post='65172' date='Sep 25 2007, 08:42 AM']Just as a side issue, when I feel i'm at a standard where I can hold my own with other muscians, where do you actively find muscians of a similar standard/age who want to make a noise together?[/quote]

You'll never feel like you can hold your own, the better you get the further you realise you have to go - just dive in and hope!

I found all my bandmates here:

[url="http://www.musofinder.co.uk/"]http://www.musofinder.co.uk/[/url]

and here:

[url="http://www.musicians-in-your-city.co.uk/"]http://www.musicians-in-your-city.co.uk/[/url]

Alex

I don't gig a lot, certainly over the last few years I seem to have spent all my time auditioning musicians, writing songs, recording and so on. My band has had a stable line-up for a year now, we're just finishing our first EP and it seems time to start pushing ourselves on the gigging scene.

I would encourage non-giggers to seek out jam nights or other musicians who are equally time poor and would be up for getting together for jams in the rehearsal room - bass is such an ensemble instrument that you learn so much once you're working as part of that team. Alternatively experiment with recording on your own - multitracking is a wonderful tool - either putting together covers of songs you like or writing new music. Once you listen back to such a recording your strengths and weaknesses become far more obvious thus allowing you to address them when practising.

Alex

[quote name='vegas_hooker' post='64937' date='Sep 24 2007, 06:42 PM']Sounds great on guitar also.[/quote]

Mine has become my guitarist's main distortion pedal!

Alex

[quote name='Toasted' post='64869' date='Sep 24 2007, 05:15 PM']There's a significant and un-tameable rise in volume between the regular and boosted channel.[/quote]

Only when Comp.Cut is engaged.

Great pedal - much cheaper from the US.

Alex

I think you're right! Bit more guitar in general then...

Alex

You'll hear that sound through the pickups anyway, as the body resonance shapes the response of the strings.

Alex

[quote name='Sugden' post='64260' date='Sep 23 2007, 03:54 AM']Looks really intresting surly the fact the control cavity having the electronics inside will hinder the effectiveness of the joint cavities idea?[/quote]

Who knows! There won't actually be much in the control cavity, just two pots and one switch, as it'll be all passive. It'll have a wooden cover so it should still act like a chamber.

Alex

Robbie, this is the control cavity of a Dingwall with volume, 4-way switch and passive tone with push/pull bluEQube filter, from left to right - just to give you an idea of clearance needed for the switch and the directly mounted circuit board:



Alex

I just don't get it! Worn in necks I can understand but spending all that time finishing a bass and then even more damaging seems madness. Just get an oil or wax finish and play it, it'll look well used in very little time, especially if you're lazy about cleaning, waxing and polishing it, as I am...

Alex

Nice chambering!

Alex

[quote name='martinbass7750' post='63823' date='Sep 21 2007, 08:37 PM']Watch the power rating of the 410 - from memory it's 300 watts rms, and if it's a 4 ohm cab the max700 will deliver 450 watts. If it's an 8 ohm cab you should be ok.[/quote]

You'll be fine either way. If you're not grossly abusing it then a 300W cab will work well with amps rated from 150W to 600W. Less than 150W and you're losing out on more SPL. More than 600W and you're running more into the realms of power compression and getting few extra dB SPL for your watt (and £ & lb).

Alex

Everyone - check your bridge saddles! If they are not totally smooth then they are breaking your strings. Also, I do wonder if the recent-ish trend for thru-body stringing has resulting in more broken strings?

[quote name='gypsymoth' post='63336' date='Sep 20 2007, 09:46 PM']aahh, so you take as much exception to the inference that you might play like a "wuss" as others might take to the suggestion that they play "too aggressively".[/quote]

Maybe the gallant string breakers are just using wussy strings? Come on, own up!

Alex

If you regularly break strings then you're either playing too hard or your bridge saddles have some nasty little sharp edges that are killing your strings prematurely, probably the latter.

Alex

That looks a very impressive bit of kit! However I would say that it's overkill unless you intend to produce CDs for release, you can do good demos for much less outlay. I'm currently finishing off our first EP and have done the lot on a Tascam 2488 MkII, which is similar but is missing the flying faders and I presume has less good converters etc and thus costs only £550 new.

Do you already own decent microphones? If not then you'll need to budget at least £500 for those.

Alex

[quote name='Paul Cooke' post='62967' date='Sep 20 2007, 08:32 AM']If it clips on the input when actually grabbing the incoming track, then you're stuffed and really should re record it[/quote]

It's just the master track that was clipping, easily fixed by lowering the master fader when I do the next mix down.

[quote name='Paul Cooke' post='62967' date='Sep 20 2007, 08:32 AM']Have you considered monitoring yourselves using headphones to avoid bleed? then you wouldn't be tempted to dig in quit so much.[/quote]

I think I'll do that next time, just need to get an extension lead for my open-ear headphones so I can still hear the drums properly.

Alex

Wow, it's looking great! Unfortunately the car looks even better, which somewhat detracts from the impact...

I presume the black tulipwood veneer needs glueing first and then the chambering routing out through that? Do we need to suss out where the knobs will go as the control cavity will be routed from the back or would one large chamber in each wing be the way to go, without a separate control cavity and just a small backplate cut out for access to the pots?

Have had a reply from Dingwall about the 4-way pot and circuitboard so I'm ordering that from them, will get it sent straight to you. Need your new address!

Alex

Band came round tonight to lend some ears - really helped out with the EQ and reverb games. And thus, here is the preliminary mix of the centrepiece track - Funeral Song!

[url="http://www.thehumanzoo.com/alex/Demo%20EP%20Session%20Cuts/01%20Funeral%20Song%20Pt.1.m4a"]http://www.thehumanzoo.com/alex/Demo%20EP%...Song%20Pt.1.m4a[/url]

[url="http://www.thehumanzoo.com/alex/Demo%20EP%20Session%20Cuts/02%20Funeral%20Song%20Pt.2.m4a"]http://www.thehumanzoo.com/alex/Demo%20EP%...Song%20Pt.2.m4a[/url]

(Things to note: I wasn't watching the meters so it's clipping a bit, and the two parts of the song, currently separate tracks will be merged into one track with just a bar's decay after the first part lands on the last downbeat before the second part starts with that bassline.)

Alex

[quote name='paul, the' post='62297' date='Sep 18 2007, 07:42 PM']Well you see early 15" drivers with 50watts on them - designed to power a 50 watt valve amp, perhaps in a combo.[/quote]

I'm going to be pernickety but one has to be if you want to know what's going on! For starters drivers do not power amps, the reverse is what happens.

A speaker has two things that affect the thermal power handling - how quickly the voice coil can dissipate heat (the bigger the voice coil and more extensive the heatsinking the better) and what temperate the voice coil wire and former can stand before damage occurs (insulation melting causing short circuit or former warping from heat). The power handling rating on a speaker states how much power it can continuously dissipate without overheating. The reason modern speakers can handle much greater power is the combination of larger voice coils and more high temperature materials.

If you put too much continuous power into a speaker so that it overheats it will just suddenly die without any warning. You will not hear distortion from the speaker beforehand but you may notice that turning the amp up more has no effect because of the extreme power compression. However it is almost impossible to put too much continuous power into a speaker without clipping the amp, because of the continuous to peak power ratio I described in a previous post. This is why clipping is bad because it allows you to get more continuous power out of the amp, not because it causes DC or because speakers don't like square waves etc - these points are both untrue.

[quote name='paul, the' post='62297' date='Sep 18 2007, 07:42 PM']Presumably, that speaker would break up and distort with a 100 watt valve amp turned up full.[/quote]

If you turn any amp up full, unless you're putting a very quiet signal into it, the amp will distort. The speaker may not but the amp will and you're unlikely to be able to distinguish that from speaker distortion.

There is another (and for bass, more important) type of power handling that matters. This is excursion limited or mechanical power handling.

The main issue when it comes to speakers' mechanical power handling is the Xmax and Xlim of the speaker - the former is how far the cone can move before exceeding 10% distortion, the latter is how far the speaker can move before breaking. Mechanical power handling is never quoted because it is dependent on the cab volume and tuning as well as the speaker specs. It also decreases dramatically below the tuning frequency. Most bass cabs have far less mechanical (excursion limited) power handling than they have thermal power handling - often as little as 1/4 as much. The reason Acme cabs can cope with such powerful amps is that they have more mechanical power handling than they have thermal power handling but they are unique in this respect.

Mechanical power handling only matters in the lows - hence its importance to us. Every time you go an octave lower you quadruple the cone excursion for an equal input power. Also whilst the peak thermal power handling is vastly higher than the continuous thermal power handling, the peak mechanical power handling is the same as the continuous thermal power handling.

The sound of a speaker being overdriven (by a clean non-clipping amp) is that of it exceeding its mechanical power handling rating - cone going beyond Xmax. This will not usually cause damage but it rarely sounds good. However go far enough beyond Xmax and you hit Xlim, which equals instant speaker death. The sound of exceeding Xmax is a good warning sign!

Alex

[quote name='silverfoxnik' post='62274' date='Sep 18 2007, 07:03 PM']Very true Alex - and sometimes it's the room that forces everyone to turn up because the acoustics are working against everyone hearing themselves easily, so they keep cranking up the master volume.[/quote]

I think more often than not it's not so much the acoustics as it is failing to account for the acoustics! You can't set up the same way and position the speakers the same at every gig. Also the polar response of speakers is terribly overlooked - guitar cabs in particular are extremely directional. A lot of this comes down to how the drummer and guitarist play - if they really understand their tone and dynamics then everything else tends to fall into place. If they don't get it, then it can get really messy!

IEMs would be nice but it's rather a sledgehammer to crack a nut, especially as many venues could be played with an unmiked drum kit - if only sound engineers would get over their desire to keep increasing the membership of RNID...

Alex

The power output of an amp is simply the maximum voltage swing squared divided by the specified load. The maximum voltage an amp can put out is equal to the rail voltage of the amp. As the impedance decreases the amp gradually runs out of current capability to keep the voltage rails at full voltage, thus the power output does not keep on doubling every time you halve the impedance. This remains true for any class or type of power amp, from Class A valve to Class D transistor.

An amp playing typical recorded music that is turned up to just clip occasionally on the loudest peaks will only put out 1/8 power on average. An amp playing particularly demanding recorded music that turned up to clip frequently and severely will put out 1/3 power on average. Typical bass playing is even less demanding than 1/8 power.

What exactly did you mean by this?

[quote name='paul, the' post='62210' date='Sep 18 2007, 04:21 PM']What I find interesting is valves with speakers. Surely a transistor amp starts clipping before it's using its full wattage - have modern speaker specifications changed to cater for this?[/quote]

Not quite sure what you're getting at!

Alex

An addendum! Obviously in some loud situations you keep turning up because you can't hear yourself. If you can't hear yourself then you're unlikely to be able to hear damage occuring. The only solution then is to get the rest of the band to turn down - easier said than done...

Alex