Phil Starr

I think you will be fine. Our ears aren't great at hearing sub 120Hz so the quality of the subs is going to be less than crucial. I've done gigs at excruciating sound levels with some ancient JBL 125W subs and they did add something and spared the tops a little too, so job done. If you bought these online then you've got a return period to reject it and a chance to try it out at home so the risks are almost zero. Is Sylvie able to record some of the gig? it would be great to know how you get on with the sub, on spec it is the bargain of the moment. It might be a great cab to mod too. For well under £100 you could put in a reasonable neo driver and maybe save a kilo or two whilst improving the performance. Anyway I'd love to know how you get on with it. Hope it works out

Have you already bought? If so it's too late but looking at this makes me ask the question is a cheap 10" speaker actually going to be 'better' than the two good quality 8's you have in the QSC's? My thinking is that this cab is made of MDF which is excellent for cabs but just about the heaviest material you could use so that it means the speaker has a reasonably lightweight magnet. To get decent efficiency and low frequency extension you kind of need a big magnet. I haven't got time at the moment but could look at the QSC's to see if they might not do the job alone without the subs. I've used them at open mics for bass and been surprised at how capable they are. My thinking is that these tiny pubs (and I have my own in mind, The Green Dragon) often are pretty awful spaces and deep bass is unwanted. Cramped spaces means you are up against walls and low ceilings which reinforce the bass as well as turning it to mush. Basically I can put in some specs for a decent 8 and a cheap 10 into winISD and speculate upon which might do best with bass. If you've already bought then just trying them out would be better of course.

Thanks, looks like they are standard size then. My tent pole bag is 120cm which just leaves space for a few leads as well as the lights. Whilst I was checking the dimensions of my existing lights I tool a pic of my adapted bass case with the 'spare' lights in. You can see where I removed some of the foam when I cut it out to accommodate the lights. As a case it offers good protection and will take 5 strip lights at a time

@Al Krow what is the length of your wall washer bars, the ones you got from AliExpress?

I don't think/can't imagine that would work on modern DMX lighting. The control of the LED's is by programming them not by varying the voltage. The issue with dimming them is the internal chip that controls the built in sequences and fx. You can only access what the manufacturers programmed in and usually for the sequences, sound to light and strobe that means full power. You can fade the RGB and other colours individually in 'colour' mode but if you want sound to light then you'd have to override the internal DMX with the sort of controller I accidentally purchased above. DMX is good fun but time consuming and has a learning curve similar to using a digital sound mixer so I've never bothered using it with a band lighting set up. The pre programmed sequencies tend to do the job though generally I'd prefer some slower fade sequences for a band. Rapid flashing works for a disco but less well for a band. I've seen some of the function bands use software that passes DMX control of the lights over to a laptop or tablet. Ultimately this means you can programme you lightshow for each song and even sync it if you play to a click track. It looks so cool but what a lot of work for a pub gig. I know one band where a single mouse click to select a song will start the click track, insert backing tracks bring up lyrics and chord charts, scroll them, adjust the mixer and even set all the fx on your pedal board, all for each song. At the end of the song all the reverb is removed from the mixer so you don't get it for the announcements. Crazy but good.

It's a shame Newcastle is so far away, it's a set up I'd love to get a really good look at.

The problem is one of phase. When two speakers are separated then the sound from one will reach you later than the sound from the other. If they are a substantial fraction of a wavelength apart then the sound may be in phase and reinforce each other or out of phase and cancel each other. This leads to power alleys where the bass is louder and other places where it is quieter. It's frequency/wavelength dependant so the distortion caused will vary as you move around. You can hear this quite clearly in outdoor events where there are subs either side of the stage. Indoors the walls reflect the sound and the multiple pathways the sound uses to reach your ears smears this effect. In the end practicality kicks in. Ideally you want your subs on the ground in front of a raised stage but this is rarely possible, and placing the subs together can be tricky. I've played a lot of venues where punters killing themselves by knocking the tops off stands are more of an issue than sound quality. It is a bit of an issue though as you point out when designers of systems seem not to know about sub placement . To be fair to them most of their customers would probably prefer the look of subs either side of the stage as that's what they would do in practice so their ads show what the customer wants. When I looked up BA systems the website has been taken down and sombody called Kevin has retired due to ill health with just a FB page remaining so I'd contact them before going this direction to check if they are still trading.

This ^^ The FBT Vertus was only a suggestion based upon "if it reduced the weight of each individual element as we’re all getting on these days". The Subs are 2x8's not light, but small and portable. The sound overall is really impressive and the kick drum was really nicely rendered by them. The 6x4" columns with four tweeters as well gives you so much more midrange than the 2 or 3" full range speakers you get in the budget sticks. The other option in your price bracket that would avoid a heavy lift would be a couple of smaller conventional point source tops with subs. You don't need 15's with subs. 10's or even 8's will cope with the frequencies above 100Hz but some of the smaller speakers have limited sensitivity so you'd need to watch that.

I'd completely agree about the subs. I've a pair of old Wharfedales which are great but I've never used them together except for outdoor gigs. You just don't need all that bass in most venues and a single sub is enough. I've now replaced the Wharfedales with a single 905 which is pretty light for a capable sub and 10kg lighter than the Wharfedales. I'm loving this question all my gig money goes into a separate account and is used mainly to buy the gear I need to keep gigging. In the past few years I've not actually 'needed' to buy any gear as its been reliable and sounds good, I'm also happy with the basses I play. I've made no major purchases in the last 5 years apart from the 905 and coincidentally I've accumulated £5,000 in my band account. I'll be very interested in other people's suggestions £5,000 is also a very realistic figure for a regularly gigging semi pro band. Most of us are probably using gear similar to @JPJ but if your band is getting plenty of decent gigs then paying back £5,000 over a year or so is very do-able for a successful band and will allow for a noticeable improvement in sound. The EV's and Peaveys probably owe them nothing but will still recoup some money when they sell them.

I use one of these https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/305925820264?var=605184196024 It's designed for tent poles. I can get 6 lamps in a 20x20cm bag plus the mains leads. Check the length though, they come in a range. Previously I hollowed out an old bass hard case which then took five lamps and offered a bit more protection at the expense of extra weight. The pole bag is lighter and easier to pack but I wouldn't stack anything on top of it so it has to go into the car last.

Good advice about re-visiting the mics and I also would keep the XR18 if you are happy with it. Actually it's all good advice going active adds almost no weight to the cabs and having amps matched to the speakers they are driving with dynamic protection gives you extra headroom and a foolproof/no worries set up as well as better sound. The good thing about that sort of budget is that you can move to the sort of 'stick' systems that work. One local band use the FBT Vertus VT1000 system. I've seen them do gigs with just one set for a medium sized pub gig and it sounded epic. With a pair you'd have something supremely portable and very competent. Vocals are really well presented and a step up from most bands. https://www.fbtaudio.co.uk/fbt-audio/portable-sound/full-systems/vertus-series/vt1000.htm Another similar alternative would be the RCF NXL24 https://www.thomann.co.uk/rcf_nxl_24_a_mk2.htm another small column/line source speaker which would need subs. I heard these when I bought my RCF 745's which are another great speaker for a band. I have to say that next to each other I was disappointed with the 745's and was almost put off buying them. That was with the RCF 8003 subs which would be above your budget and was way above mine at the time. I've promised myself that if my latest band do start getting better gigs then the NXL 24's will be my next step, paired with RCF 905 subs.

Spellcheck on my tablet I guess.

Hmmmmm

Running everything through a single socket means you have a single earth for all your gear, which might help. Unless you are using incandescent lights you won’t overload a 13A socket. As has been said in other recent threads use a plug in mains tester to check the socket first. I used to check every time but now only check if there is a problem. If the socket is faulty you shouldn’t use it and you need to report it to the venue. You should be able to isolate the channel or channels which are causing the problem. Mute them all and open one at a time. It might be just one bit of gear that is picking up the hum or even just one of your cables that has a fault, Hum can’t be transmitted at wireless frequencies from a noisy, poorly screened nearby appliance. If so you could just move the amp or whatever away from the source. If one piece of your kit is causing the problem at several venues then get a tech to look at it. A lot of vintage amps can be poorly screened and single coil pickups are great radio receivers

One of the reasons I fell in love with the bass. I’ve very fond memories of listening to Pentangle on John Peel as a teenager. The things he did on bass were just so exciting.

You have some great kit there. You can get a really great bass sound out of that PA. The best bass sound I've ever has is though my own PA, either through RCF310's or through RCF 745's depending on whether I'm with the band or with the duo. First of all I'd ask whether its the sound you are hearing or the sound the audience hears which you don't like? One of the downsides of a good PA and especially with subs is that all the bass from the PA comes back at you and at stage volumes. I do 'technical set ups' at some rehearsals where I turn the floor monitors off and turn the FOH speakers round so I hear what the audience hears. Half an hour of playing along with the sound the audience hears gives me confidence that what they hear is good irrespective of what I hear on stage. You may have great sound though the PA but just not hearing how great it is. So the subs are louder than your bass amp and your monitors, if you use them. There is nothing (well maybe cardioid subs) that you can do to cut that bass other than in-ears so you are living with bass boost below 120Hz or so. Bill's suggestion of a 50Hz or 80Hz 24db/octave filter is a great one. I use 50Hz and then shelve the bass response of the floor monitors or my bass amp on the rare occasions I use back line. Bass is cut by at least 6db and sometimes more depending apon the room acoustics and how loud the PA is. I still sometimes feel I'm drowning in warm bass but of course I know the audience are hearing something good. There's a couple of other things you probably know already. You need to leave deep bass for the drums and generally sonically inhabit the space between the drums and guitars, basically the second harmonic 80-160 Hz is more important than 40-80Hz. Secondly any cab on the floor has a 6db boost in the lowest frequencies from the floor and more if it against a wall. That affects the PA as the speakers are flown and your bass amp or floor monitors. Good luck

See if you can take some photo's of the tweeter and someone here might be able to recognise it. Probably better to do it in a new thread so people know what you are asking

I've been on this journey with a couple of duos. I started with just wanting something to amplify me to the same sound levels as the acoustic guitar so we could play together with minimal equipment. You don't need anything like a 2x8 to do that never mind the pair you mention in your OP. The problem is that there aren't too many small combos or even speakers with a grown up sound. I ended up designing my own cabs and regularly use a 1x6 for simple play alongs. I've also used a 1x8 and 1x10 which is way over the top. All the designs are on Bass Chat but I'm assuming you don't want to build so this is just to say you don't need to be huge and a single 2x8 will be epic in this situation. FWIW the duo which was intended as a side project now gigs regularly. For gigs with a duo in noisy pubs the guitar needs to go through the PA so we put the bass through too. I took my little speaker along for a while paired with a Warwick Gnome but the 'stack' has been replaces with a floor monitor which does for bass guitar and two vocals. Long term it's probably better to spend on a decent PA and monitor than spend big on a new bass system IME. My tiny bass speakers let me jam along and do the odd open mic. A 1x10 or 2x8 combo will be more than enough so the Rumble isn't a bad shout.

There is a problem with lightweight cabs and feet. Very thin ply is clearly less strong than thicker material and poplar ply is slightly softer than most hardwood plies. The earlier Barefaced cabs got lots of complaints about feet and even handles coming adrift. These seem to have died down so I imagine they addressed this problem. I think LFSys use 15mm ply thoughout as the best compromise between lightening the cab and keeping it robust. I believe their cabs are also reinforced below the handles. You can't expect a simple wood screw to hold in material as thin as the walls of a BF cab.

It's a simple job to add rubber feet to a cab and I note that the one in the pic with the Ashdown has them on the side and not the bottom of the cab. I see the LFSys logo is also mounted sideways so I assume this is a custom job by LFSys? Not all of us would want to use our cabs in the same way and for me protruding feet just catch on other things when I'm loading the car, I'm happy with corners. I hope I don't get into trouble for suggesting this but has anyone tried asking @stevie if he could fit feet for them when ordering their cab? Each cab is hand built so adding feet probably wouldn't add much to the price. Though knowing Stevie he would have to research to find the very best feet and the very best way of fitting them so I've no idea what that would cost. He might curse me for suggesting this but I do know you get Ashdown levels of service from LFSys

I think it's easy to be too snobby about this. The quality of budget speakers is of course variable between brands but the quality can be surprisingly good. I can remember getting a Maplin Pro Sound 12" monitor to repair and being surprised by the quality of the well braced cab and the decent magnet on the 12" driver along with a nicely made crossover. It sounded OK too, not brilliant but definitely usable. The cheapies are getting better over time too, I auditioned the Alto's before going on to buy my RCF's and back then the gap was very obvious but I've played through more up to date ones and the gap is closing. The other thing is that the speakers are only one link in the chain. The weakest link is always the operator and I'd back a decent sound engineer with budget gear against someone with cloth ears and little experience using the best gear. I suspect someone singing through an SM58 clone into RCF's might sound no better than someone using a Beta58 into Alto's and possibly worse. If you only have £50 to upgrade your sound swapping mic's rather than speakers might be the better bet. Come to that my singing into top touring gear isn't going to match Freddie Mercury singing into a tin on the end of a string! It's a matter of buying what you can afford and learning to get the best out of it. If I'm listening to a live band how they play and perform is much more interesting than their speakers even to me and a poor mix is going to ruin an evening far more than losing a few Hz from the bass response or 3db off the volume level.

Hi John, hopefully someone with the light will get back to you but I've found all the lights I've had in the last ten use use a very similar protocol as @Woodinblack says. The menu button simply cycles through the options. Sound is usually Soun but on some of mine it is just Sn )and could be something else too I suppose. confusingly some of my lights have Sn as sensitivity) pressing 'Enter' should take you into the sub menus and one of the menu options will be sound but maybe not labelled as such. Check the battery on the remote, I've had ones dead on arrival, they are usually a 3V lithium button cell CA2032 or CA 2016

All is well that ends well, returns are postage free and eBays returns couldn't be simpler. Interestingly the controller, which is what actually arrived, was still described as a light on the return form! What I got was in fact a nice little 192channel DMX controller identical with the one I already have, and I paid double the price for mine around 5 years ago. If you wanted a DMX controller I wouldn't hesitate. The stock was posted from a warehouse in Staffordshire so was genuinely UK stock. I've ordered things before which were advertised as UK stock but were delivered by China Post. I'm inclined to treat this as a genuine error upon reflection. There was no option to order the controller when I clicked on it but the drop down has been updated. The ad is misleading in that there is still no mention of the controller last time I looked on the Ad but it is clear on the drop down now. I'm pretty careful about small print and it did seem too good to be true but I searched for a catch and didn't find one. Can't fault eBay this time.

Hi Mike payment made Phil

Hi Mike PM me your bank details pleae, no PP here I'm afraid