Phil Starr

1 hour ago, agedhorse said:

 

Actually, most manufacturers use 1W/1M for their sensitivity metrics, not 2.83V.

That would be nice but thre is a tendency away from that in Europe with advertising claims from reputable firms losing touch with reality. It's the older US manufacturers who tend to be more straightforward in how they spec their poducts. It's not uncommon to see an increase of 6db sensiivity quoted in advertisig over here, so much so that when I saw the correct figure in the Ampeg handbook I thought it worth noting.

3 hours ago, Chienmortbb said:

THose Max SPL figures look a little high.

Hi John, 300W is +24db to the nearest whole no. So 300W through a 96db/W speaker is 96+24=120db. I've allowed them the extra 1db because I did the calculation in my head  to only two places and there might well be some rounding up. For the 2x12 they've simply added 6db I suspect. Adding 6db is not unreasonable. Eminence do plenty of 12's that produce 96db/W so that checks out as being fair at least. Interestingly they only rate the 2x12 as 99db/W. Most manufacturers rate or measure at 2.83V which is 2W into 4 ohms as you know and most rate a 4ohm as 102db which is just a little naughty.

If you remember the calculated output of the BC mk1 was between 121 and 122W depending upon which frequency you chose to examine so I don't think there is anything glaringly wrong with what Ampeg are saying. I took the figures for the LFSys cab off their website but again I know they correspond with those on Faital's data sheets.

I didn't now I had to show my working 😂😂

Ok full marks to Ampeg for giving good and accurate information on their cabs. I love that they say that sensitivity of 96db/W and 300W gives you 121db of SPL because that is exactly right. Barefaced for example claim 127db for their Big Baby with 95.5db/W sensitivity (according to Eminence who make the drive unit) and 450W handling which works out at 122db give or take a decimal point. So I know exactly how loud in practice 121db is because the two Bass Chat 12" designs @stevie and I designed were 121db speakers, again given a decimal point. I gigged the MK1 for at least two years and only needed the extra cab for outdoor gigs. 121db is about the same level as a drummer. With your amp and the Monaco you will have 98db/W and 600W and that adds up to 125db. To give you another comparison wit the same Eich amp you'll get 127db if you use both your Ampegs.

Figures in db are sometimes hard to understand. 1db is the smallest change that you'll notice. You'd bareley notice the difference between the Barefaced and one of your Ampegs or between the LFSys and the pair of your Ampegs. It's there but not very significant. 3 decibels are really the equivalent of turning up a notch, not a huge difference but noticeable by an audience member. A bit like going from 10 to 11 if you like. There's one proviso; the smoother a cabs frequency response the less 'shouty' it will be. The Monaco is the smoothest cab of the lot and maybe the smoothest bass cab available at the moment, some people like shouty and it is a good way of getting heard. Mark Bass make a lot of shouty cabs but I've no idea if the Ampeg is shouty.

Hope that helps. the short answer is that I do think one Monaco= 2x112 Ampegs unless you are thrashing the hell out of a pair already

1 hour ago, BassAdder60 said:

Would you say the Monaco would outperform 2 x Ampeg SVT112AV cabs ?

It depends upon what you mean by outperform? It will sound different FOH unless you use an emulator or re-eq. IMO it will sound better but that is down to taste. On stage it will sound louder because of the way the horn is designed to give you a much clearer sound and more like the sound the audience gets. As loud?  That's more difficult to answer particularly as I've never used the Ampeg cabs. I can look them up later and give you an opinion based upon the technical information. To an extent it also depends upon your amp. It's a 600W continuous 8ohm cab but if your amp is 300W into 8 as so many are you won't be able to drive it flat out.

8 hours ago, chris_b said:

 

Need???

 

I use 2 112 cabs because I can.

Like so many bassists I do the PA, I carry enough speakers 

Seriously though at the time at the technical level a single 12 was just about enough and two would do anything and that was the advice I was giving beginners on BC. I took my own advice and bought  2x112's but these speakers are special and it turned out that for my needs one speaker was all I ever needed. It was a real shame to have a great speaker doing nothing, after a year of not using it I realised it was a backup I'd never use and sold it on.

5 hours ago, BassAdder60 said:

Looking forward to get mine soon, Stevie has been very helpful.

 

Im hoping just the one Monaco will be enough for my rock band playing pubs and clubs. 
 

The reviews sound very promising and exactly the tone I’m seeking 

I had two Silverstones and never needed to use them both together, one would easily keep pace with a drummer and after a year of never using the second one I sold it on. If anything the Monaco is even more capable. It will handle any pub I've ever played in.

Enjoy your gigging Rick, those Greenboys were a great design. Lovely sound

8 hours ago, TRB5 said:

I gig with a big power amp, preamp and 2 Greenboy 12 cabs.

Gigs are generally pubs of various sizes, the odd hall or stage and a few outside gigs.

 PA is heavy 3 channel power amp, a pair of hysis 2 cabs and a Sub.  This covers 80 % of our work?   Ish? Sounds great.

A few changes with big or small gigs ( eg. Only one PA cab in a small pub; 2 no Cerwin  vega 1 x18   Subs from the back of the van, when playing outside).

My gear handles all this type of stuff so no PA help needed.

If we are lucky, we play on a big stage, with a big PA and then my gear is my monitor and we are in the hands of the soundguy.

 

My problem with changing, is that I run the sound, tweeked over many years and it would Be a massive change in working practice for everybody, to change the onstage/ floor, sound. Also, most of our gigs are pubs and I can’t imagine communicating with band members and the punter standing next to me, trying to talk to me in the middle of ( insert song of choice) while using in ear monitors. It was bad enough when  a drummer/ guitarist combination we had, made ear plugs a good idea .

im sure a big stage would be no problem to adjust,  with practice, but we are talking, maybe,a gig twice a year, in the real world.

 

I’m possibly a Luddite but, is it just me or am I missing something.

Your hearing maybe 😂

Sorry, that was meant to be a joke, but that little lot are going to be loud. You do mention ear plugs. I'm with you really despite going the other route. If I was gigging twice a year and had a sorted system I was happy with then I'd just get on with it and make music. I gig maybe 30 gigs a year and probably spend too much on gear. I spent my youth doing sound for people and I designed and built speakers and the technical side of things is as much of a passion for me as playing. I love this stuff! However a lifetime of amplified music has taken a toll on my hearing and there is a better way on offer. Better for the musicians, better for the audience and probably cheaper if you were starting from scratch. Sticking with what you know and love when there isn't a lot of money in it and you prefer just playing and not worrying about it is perfectly sensible. I drive old cars and keep them until they fall apart. I'm always amazed when I drive something newer but cars aren't important to me so long as they work.

The Luddites get a bad press, they weren't fighting to stop progress, they were fighting to keep their jobs and feed their families.

I think I ought to add something here. Just in case anyone is thinking of going the cheap Chinese route. John ( @Chienmortbb ) and I were looking at these amps as a lockdown project. I was particularly interested in a battery powered version of the House Jam Micro Cab. The reason it didn't get anywhere was that we didn't find a reliable supplier of a board we could recommend. John got some of the amps 'working' but the quality of some of the components and the heatsinking issues meant we were never going to recommend anything. I moved to looking at the Warwick Gnome to use with the House Jam cab and John went on to look at better manufactures for boards. Any potential savings weren't worth the risk in terms of reliability.

Not everyone in China is making capacitors like the ones @agedhorse pictured but it's the Wild West out in the East and definitely buyer beware.

I carry an MA400 as a get you out of trouble unit for the times when the babies forget to bring their own kit, You can also use pretty much any small mixer. I use either KZ ZS10 pro's (very similar to the AS10's) or Sennheiser IE100.

One problem you need to think about is how you will hear the rest of the band. You don't get good bass from in-ears unless you get a good seal. As @ratman says you could blend in the FOH mix from the desk but that only works well if everything is going FOH. A well fitting set of in-ears is going to cut the sound from the band as much as earplugs, that might be a bonus but the frequencies you hear will also change. One way round this is to use an ambient mic to pick up the on-stage sound. Also check if the mixer has a spare aux output.

I use rechargeables in my Programmable They last weeks for regular home practice (unlike the BDI 21) but are always flat if I forget to unplug the jack.

On 08/05/2024 at 23:20, dave_bass5 said:

What really surprised me was i had it running off a small power bank and it seemed to drop around 10% per hour

Now you've given me an idea. I run my B1ON on rechargeables but my duo partner uses the USB to power a G1ON via his phone charger. I've got some LED stage lighting that runs at USB voltages and run those off a small power bank which saves some of the spaghetti on stage and speeds set up and break-down I wonder how much else could be run off a power bank?

20 hours ago, dave_bass5 said:

 

We all operate on different levels and those at the higher level sometimes have issues with seeing others do things a different way.

Completely agree with that

I suppose the point I was trying to make was that you need to engineer a whole system for the band. If you want to go silent stage then you won't have back line. No bass or guitar amps so even with a sub you'd actually be carrying less. It's just a different way of doing things.

It probaly looks like I'm advocating silent stages, I'm not. It's a different philosophy/ way of thinking and it does have advantges but it puts all responsibility on the people running the PA and it is expensive to suddenly expect everyone to change their kit. If all your band are 'expert' in a conventional backline and no-one really knows how to set up for a silent stage it's going to be a huge change and you might just want to get on with playing music. Horses for courses I guess.

What I will say is that it does offer better sound for the audience when done well and that all the talk of a feeling of isolation or being soul-less isn't true.

What I would advocate though is the use of in-ears if you have a drummer on stage and getting the sound levels down generally by putting a bit of everything through the PA for the audience. It's madness to damage you hearing by trying to stand in front of the amp that are trying to fill the room. If you want to go on performing then going deaf isn't really a good option.

52 minutes ago, BigRedX said:

 

The problem I see with most bands in this situation is that they haven't beefed up the FoH sufficiently to compensate for the lack of acoustic drums and the rhythm section can often lack "oomph"

I think this is a good point. You can only do this if you start planning your bands sound from the ground up. Spending money on PA amplification rather than back line that can fill the room. Moving all your eq and tone shaping to preamps and/or to the mixer. You need different kit. Overall if you start from scratch there is a saving to be had both in financial terms and in terms of weight and portability, but the financial benefits won't apply to people who have already invested in massive backline amps or who have spent 40 years finding the perfect amp/speaker combination to do their basic tone shaping for them.

Silent stages have only become possible because of better tech. 600W RMS amplifiers weighing just a couple of kilograms can be built into active speakers. You were never going to do this with valve amps and in any case in the 70's the average 12" speaker would only handle 25-50W. Now you can buy a really capable active PA speaker for less than an equally capable bass or guitar stack and an 18 channel digital mixer for less than it's analogue equivalent but which also has all the eq and fx that previously would have been in a separate rack.

You can see why people don't want to make this change. Paying maybe £1200 for your bass amplification which you've put together over 20 years doesn't look too bad, chipping in to pay £600ea for a jointly owned PA looks problematic at a human level, especially when the life of the band might only be a few years. Not to mention the 20 years of experience you have of getting the absolute best out of your 'old' gear.

In terms of the 'oomph' factor though I've now done gigs with our 10" tops but with a sub and it really isn't a difficult problem to solve

51 minutes ago, NikNik said:

I first experienced a silent stage back in 2018, out in Denmark. It was a festival, and as the bands rotated, this bunch of young guys (can't mind their name) and the techs wheeled in. No speakers, just Kemper profilers, and the drummer played an electric kit. From stage right, the experience was bizarre: all you could hear was the FOH, and I felt weird. The only stage noise was the drummer hitting his pads. I can't imagine playing in that environment, no air being moved.

Something we can all agree on :). My first experience was a local covers band Blue Arsed Fly. I pulled up outside the pub and you could heara decent covers band going flat out. As I came in the pub down a corridor I looked into the room and couldn't see the band. they were right next to me and the only sound was the singer and the tap of the kit from the eDrums, the quietest bit of the room. The band sounded great and plenty loud enough out front, one of the best sounds I'd heard from a pub band in quite a while. It was quite a weird experience at the time.

If I can take the 10 sugars analogy a bit further though it is like giving up sugar in your coffee. Not very nice at first but you get used to the taste of coffee and grow to like it, then when someone forgets and sugars your drink it tastes absolutely foul. I know @Al Krow only used the soul-less word to stimulate debate but the silent stage isn't silent for the band or the audience and the gigs go just as well as before except you can't hear the audience members who push their way onto stage to ask your rockabilly band if they do any ABBA

1 hour ago, Al Krow said:

Yes, our singer uses wireless in ears and spent a fair bit of time out front. She's also one of the "just one-in" in ear brigade, so has the other ear listening to ambient sound.

 

It was actually the dep guitarist, who's a mate of mine, who relayed that he and she had both thought it "sounded better". Tbf she's since clarified that it was more to do with the balance of the sound, rather than the quality of the sound, and the PA being able to give her vocals sufficient prominence which she found easy to get right at sound check. Our regular comment from the audience historically has been to turn up her vocals (and, yes, she got excellent mic technique and is a trained singer) in the mix, although I'm getting more proficient at sorting the desk settings out these days. 

 

Interestingly the guitarists I've been working with who have struggled most to get a sound they like when going through the PA without backline have all been using Helix Stomps. There's often a harshness to the tone which they have to work hard to address,  or give up on and switch to another mulitfx eg Kemper in one case. The two guitarists using the Boss GT 1000 / Core have found a sound they liked much more quickly out of the box. This may partly be down to the 2015 Helix chip set being relatively long in the tooth now?

That's really interesting. I know your singer from the clips you've sent me and if she ever moves down to the West country I'd steal her She is good!

So she's using the in-ears as just a back up for when the on stage sound is difficult and/or for a bit 'more me'. Both mine do the same and I can't wean them off it. though Lucy has got a good sound when using my in-ears and did like that. In fact she's asked to go back to 'can we use your mixer' where she last used in-ears so i think the problem is at least partly that she's lost the control of her mix. We are currently using the guitarist's XR18 for mixing. It's his new toy and I didn't have the heart to say no lets use mine. Got to keep the troops happy Guitarist is the only one not using in-ears and on the mix he likes to make it complicated. I'm a KISS person. Also we all have iPhones and the personal monitoring apps are non-exitent or glitchy with the X18's

I sympathise with the guitarists generally. The modellers are good and getting better but not quite identical with the amps they emulate. However for the audience different is often better. It's a bit much though to ask a weekend warrior who has spent thousands on getting 'their' sound to give up using their pride and joy. In my other band the guitarist mic's his cab.

For you though I think your next step might be a new mixer

On 16/05/2024 at 00:21, Al Krow said:

Well after last Friday's pub gig when @ratman did an excellent job depping for me, and both he and the guitarist used backline, our vocalist has decided that the vocals sound better through the RCF732A PA without bass and guitar competing and that it was pretty straightforward to get a decently balanced mix. 

 

So I'm going to let the main line-up have their wish and revert to using backline, without FoH support, which will undoubtedly be a more enjoyable gigging experience for us individually and if it turns out not to be, then I guess Alex will find himself doing more dep gigs 😂

I guess that's probably the main thing. I've still got a backline amp and speaker plus a set of floor monitors for times when we use deps. Though the better deps use in-ears more often than not, or maybe I've had a lucky run.

For the point of keeping the discussion alive though I'm going to play Devil's advocate a little. How does the singer know it sounds better front of house when you use back line? I assume she didn't go out into the audience area for any length of time and this is just a feeling that it's got to be better because it's 'just me'. Or maybe she's using some bleed from the PA to add to her monitoring and it genuinely sounded better for her at the expense of the out front sound. Does she use in-ears? If she doesn't the sound for her will be very different from having everything coming out of the PA. Guitar and vocals will be beamed forwards with almost nothing 45deg off axis but your deep bass will be radiating 360. If you have left the back line at home or turned it down because you don't need it to fill the room then it will radically change the sound she hears on stage and the dominant sound without adjustments will be your bass. I know your current mixer doesn't allow multiple aux mixes so you are limited here. In the end though you can't go fully mixed into the PA without a lot of work on your monitoring.

There is another factor of course, thre are a lot of things we as humans like that aren't good for us, primitive urges that worked in evolutionary time but trip us up in the modern world. We like sweetness, umami flavours, salt and fat in our food. In taste tests we'll go for anything that is high in those. The obesity problem is caused in part because we can manufacture food that appears to primitive us to be nutritious but is over calorific.We also like adrenaline in our lives, so long as it isn't too much. Loud noises stimulate adrenaline production and in listening tests we always prefer the loudest sounds. Salesmen will persistently turn up the device they want to sell to you. Primitive us like loud sounds, it is exciting when the drummer is really hitting and the amps are all at 11. The adrenaline rush though is because the sound is actually injuring us, our body is identifying this as a fight or flight situation. It's the aural equivalent of 10 sugars in your tea.

I hope you are still using your in-ears Bas, you don't have to share their sugary drinks

pm'd

17 hours ago, Pirellithecat said:

I'm teetering .........  
How's the Monza vs the Monaco in the live setting?  
Any noticeable differences in terms of Bass frequencies, overall volume?  
Or anything else?  

Shame I didn't know you were looking, I was up in Cumbria a week ago. Could have brought my Monaco up or borrowed a Monza if Stevie has a demonstrator at the moment.

7 hours ago, Paddy Morris said:

Has anyone tried one with a double bass?  They are fussy instruments to amplify.  Any peaks or resonances from reflex tubes and ports, tend to case feedback issues.

 

Barefaced Big Baby 3 seems to work well.  Was wondering if the Monaco might actually beat it?

We tried one with db at the SW bass bash about two years ago. I'd persuaded @Rich to try a couple of my designs to help me out with developing the concept I was working on for db. We had one of the first Monacos produced there and I'm afraid it rather blew mine away. We've also run it and the Silverstone against the Barefaced cabs at the Bass Bash and they've always come out on top. The quality of the mid range and top end is exceptional, everything is so clean with no nasty peaks to set off resonances in a db and the bottom end is extended but controlled. You need to try one.

Stevie is a friend but he has seriously underpriced these cabs given the quality of the components and design IMO

So, just doing the maths; the Aguilar is 500W into 4ohms and 250 into 8ohms so it is 125W into 16 ohms. That's peak so unless you run a lot of distortion or bass boost your speakers are all safe and in terms of power handling 125W into a 100W rated speaker is the same sort of level as 250W into a 200W speaker. No worries there.

For the amp the impedance of all three speakers is 3.3ohms which is a little low. That will draw more current from the amp than it is designed for and if you run it flat out could cause some heating problems and eventual failure. Probably the amp has protection and if you run the whole system no louder than you do with the two 12's then you shouldn't have problems.

The big issue is that an 18" speaker rated at 100W is probably from the early 1970's. Most modern 18's are rated at 600W continuous or higher. The change is because modern speakers use high temperature glues and heat resistant coil formers. Old speakers used paper formers and low temperature glues and literally burned out at high power and your speaker is almost certainly one of those, and it's 50 years old. Some 50 year olds can still run a good race but some would have a heart attack

Have some fun and try it out at moderate levels on its own first and listen for any signs of stress. Then try it with one or two of your 12's. I wouldn't personally take it on stage unless I'd run it for quite a few hours and really loved the sound. The reality is that this speaker is at the end of its life and you can expect it to blow at any time. Like any pensioner it can have a short time enjoying an active life and a sudden end or can sink into inactivity and maybe stretch out a few extra years doing nothing.

Hi Alan, at the risk of sounding like an echo Bill is spot on again.

I think that with a 120W 1x12 you are always going to be at the borderline of being loud enough, assuming you are playing some sort of pop/rock with a drummer in the band. It's worth thinking about this long term. If it's important to you to keep that exact tone then an extension cab is an option but qiuite expensive if you are buying new. It would pay you to have a bit of a think about what you are aiming to do before commiting too much money.

What is your amp for apart from making the bass louder. Is it just an on-stage monitor for you and band members to hear? Your current amp will probably do that, no need to change things in too much of a hurry.

Does it need to be loud enough for the audience to hear and if so how big is that audience likely to be? It's far better for the audience to hear your bass via the PA. Lot's of reasons why but mainly: a.) Something loud enough for the back of the room or outdoors is going to be literally deafening on-stage b) anything that loud is going to go through the vocal mics and a distorted version is going to go through the PA and muddy up your band's sound. It might be better and no more expensive to beef up your PA.

3 hours ago, bassman7755 said:

Seems a lot of the boards have a bridging option but reading between the lines this seems to involve running both channels in parallel to be able to go down to 2 ohm rather than the more usual opposite phase setup, still I guess it doesn't do any harm.

That's right, the chips actually have four amps on board. so the 300W @10% distortion figure for the TPA3255 is for two of them bridged and if you could get the heat away they can do 2x300W into 4ohms. If you go to the rating is BTL (bridge to load) You can't bridge a bridged amp and the individual amps won't handle the current to drive into 2ohms unless you run them in parallel. PBTL is parallel bridge to load.

There's so many practical problems in heatsinking for this power level that even bolting the chip hard against the case wouldn't work. Notice that Texas Instruments give the maximum operating temperature as 85deg so the case would probably reach 65deg which would be far too hot to touch. They do however give all the thermal information to calculate the heatsink needed.

5 hours ago, bassman7755 said:

The 1% THD graph shows you can get 100w and change into 8ohm at 48v which would probably translate to a decently useful pedal board amp for monitoring / rehearsal perhaps paired with a PSU something like this https://docs.rs-online.com/2729/A700000007590264.pdf. With a higher current PSU you would have to option of running 2 speakers and probably getting gigable level output.

Yeah I think that is realistic, and remember this is only using one amp on the chip. I'm not recommending these because I haven't trried them but TI are a recognised company and those specs are continuous rms power. the only reason I've put all this up is to say that given the state of the technology and how cheap it is the claims of the Nobsound and similar Chinese amps aren't ridiculous. I've a history of shooting down the ridiculous over claiming of Behringer/Yamaha/RCF/every single PA speaker on the basis of being technically impossible so it's nice to be able to say that this looks very feasable. I've no idea of the build quality but at that price I'd take the risk.

42 minutes ago, Woodinblack said:

Rexes hollow - I actually sing to add the pitch - I do the high bits or solo the songs that are just higher than the singer does (such as feel it still, or our current learning, you should be dancing).  Or just add the harmonies.

Strangely, we do 'who knew' as it was a requested song at a wedding, and we enjoyed doing it (and it went down well).

 

You Should be Dancing! Now that one is high. Great floor filler though.