Phil Starr

This might be a good solution, a couple of fairly wide angle mics above the band if you have the height can work really well as reinforcement if you aren't going to rock band levels. I might try a stereo pair in XY configuration probably putting them somewhere near where the conductor stands, or would stand if you don't have one It's my worry about too much miking up for people who aren't used to it. If you've had a nice sound that everyone has been happy with so far then why start a steep learning curve when a bit of jiggling around with the offending guitar amp will do the job. The only really difficult thing about PA is managing the humans. I'd just chat through with the guitar, bass, keys. They may be very happy with their own backline as it is. If it is just the guitar then you only need to mic that https://www.soundonsound.com/techniques/miking-guitar-amps-stage

Hi again all, I've had a couple of offers but good bassists tend to be busy and the dates aren't working out, I'm still looking for someone for the 7th June if you are free on that date and are interested then don't be shy.

Sounds like a plan. I use leads rather than adaptors for the Jack/TLR sockets. I always carry a few short 1m stereo jack to XLR leads for that purpose, a lot of older mixers retain jack for everything except the main out. They are dirt cheap really and you can just daisy chain one of your normal XLR leads. The big advantage is that they don't stress the sockets on the mixer https://www.thomann.de/gb/the_sssnake_mxp2009.htm

I'd be a little cautious about this and think about exactly what you want before jumping. Your problem with the sax players can only be solved if you put the things they couldn't hear through the monitors. If you put anything else through the vocal monitors the singers will struggle to pick themselves out. Your problem with the guitarist will only work if you turn him/her down and put some guitar through the PA. the guitarist will be the biggest problem but to get on-stage volumes down should you look at some bass and keys through the PA too? Is your one PA speaker enough to do that job? None of this is difficult to solve but I suppose the warning is about mission creep; adding layers of extras until the complexity weighs you down. The second problem is matching your gear to the outcome you want without spending a fortune. The advantage of an acoustic band with a little reinforcement for the singers is twofold. Simplicity and familiarity, most players in a big band are used to playing acoustically, it may not be ideal but they are used to hearing the instruments closest to them and learn to pick out the rest of what they need to hear by practice and experience. Most big bands have a conductor so extra clues and guidance are provided that way. The disadvantage of beefing up the monitors and running separate monitor mixes is that the monitors need to be similar volumes to the acoustic volumes or they won't be heard, so if everyone is covered by monitors you have doubled the sound energy on stage. That's not wrong but it could be a mixed blessing. It sounds like the guitar was the real problem. Without that the sax players could hear as well as they have in the past. Guitar amps are like torchlights, they throw a very narrow beam of sound which is very loud if you are in line. you could mike up the guitar amp and put it through the PA or simply move it to the front or side of the stage and provide a second quieter guitar monitor for the guitarist to hear themselves if needed. That will buy you time to think through exactly what you want without spending anything up front.

A few years ago I fitted one of these to my J bass (would you believe). It was an impulse buy from a fellow basschatter. all my other basses have a blend control and I wanted to rewire the VVT controls to give me blend instead of Volume/Volume, this gave me a shortcut, just drop it in and play, as well as a greater range of sounds. TBH I've never got on with it. It sounds great soloed at home but in a band situation the mid suckout and bass boost (cut isn't available) doesn't really work for me. The sound that is quite exciting at home just sounds muddy with a band and I haven't yet managed to dial in an uncoloured sound. I play the Jazz at home and the P-bass comes out when it's serious. To cut a long story short this morning I was running through a few songs and contemplating returning the original Fender passive controls back to the bass when I had an inspiration, I switched off the active. Clarity tone and character restored, there's a switch to go from bridge pickup to blended and I can switch the active on with no noticeable change in volume so I can return to the bass boosted mid cut John East sound whenever I want. How stupid am I, three tones at the flick of a switch and clarity through the speakers when I need it. Can't wait to try it with the band.

Welcome to BassChat It is hard to say with real authority as the two amplifiers have completely different tone shaping controls. Without knowing the amps better and knowing how exactly you are setting them up I don't think anyone can answer your question directly. For example the Combo has toneprint which is designed to give you a variety of sounds. Most amps however have a setting which will give you a relatively flat frequency response. Speakers are a different matter. All speakers add a little colour to the sound and most instrument speakers add a lot of colouration. I think it is extremely unlikely that you would get the same sound out of both speakers using the same amp. The few MB cabs I've had the chance to play with have tended to have an exaggerated upper bass and a bit of upper mid zing and that may well be what you are hearing from the MB 210.

cheers Jim I'll ring you later.

you are probably in the wrong part of the forum. There's loads of discussion here. To save you from too much pain these come recommended as a reasonably priced IEM https://www.amazon.com/KZ-Balanced-Armature-Technology-Earphone/dp/B07BWGVKVR I have a set and they are OK though I need to experiment to get a better seal than the earbuds they came with.

Hi All, probably the wrong place for this but you are all local so here goes. I'm running a live music event just outside of Chard on the Somerset/Devon/Dorset border. It was meant to be a Jam session but has morphed into a series of singers with a house band doing a half hour slot each and the odd band taking over the stage for half an hour. It's only our second outing and I'm hoping it will continue to grow and change but that's it right now. I'm trying to keep the music standard up and all the singers so far can do their stuff. One sang for the Jools Holland band and he's pretty hot. We are running on the first Fri of every month. I need to be front of house and at the moment I'm the only bassist. I'm looking for someone who can take over bass duties for at least half the evening so I can run the desk/PA and talk to the people. It's all well known covers but with five sets it's pretty varied. Ideally I want to build up the house band with a rotating cast of musicians, but that is for the future. If anyone wants to lend a hand I'd be really grateful, message me with your contact details if you might be interested and we can take it from there.

Thanks for posting this Johannes. I hope you really enjoy your new cab. I'm really interested in how it sounds with DB. It makes sense to me that a bigger cab with more deep bass would excite resonances in the body of a 'proper' bass. They certainly excite room resonances which can be an embarrassment when playing live and was the reason I designed this cab. I was rolling off the low bass and boosting upper bass at almost every gig anyway so it made sense to try something with that sound baked in. The upper end of the Beyma speaker is slightly unusual compared with a lot of 12's. It is unusually flat with well managed cone break up and goes a little bit higher than a lot of the alternatives. Most 12's have quite a big peak at around 1-2kHz and roll off at around 3KHz. The Beyma is flatter and rolls off at around 4KHz, it's only a few notes difference but you'd definitely hear a different mid quality. I wasn't sure whether you'd hear it as more mids as in higher frequency or less mids as in missing the normal unnatural peak of other speakers. "Clear and Natural" is encouraging. Of course with the small cabs bass roll off the mids would sound subjectively more prominent anyway. I didn't design this cab for DB, it was for horrible sounding rooms, but it makes sense that in trying to tame one we might of stumbled on a solution for DB. if there are any DB players in Somerset/Devon/Dorset who fancy a try I'd be happy to lend them my cab.

I'm another pub covers player and I don't think it affects what I play much. The whole thing is about playing to the song rather than inventing new basslines though. Maybe Summer of 69 kills any creativity The Hofner thing makes sense, they have no sustain so you can't really play one note and hold it for three bars so you pretty much have to keep playing a more mobile line. My only experience with a bass dictating my playing was with a Thunderbird. I felt Like Jim Carey putting on The Mask. It turned me into a hyperactive monster, the sound is monstrous, the neck really fast and just holding the thing in any sensible position makes you throw poses. I couldn't get away with it trying to commit suicide on the floor and constantly twisting itself out of my hands though.

yep that's the legal situation as I understand it. as to the 'reasonableness' of the concept of rebroadcasting to people who have already paid for, and are entitled to hear the same music from their own radios whilst standing in exactly the same spot, well the law is an donkey. As was the situation where John Fogerty was the only person on earth banned from singing Proud Mary or any of the other songs he wrote for CCR because Sony had bought him from another record company who arguably had screwed him over as a very young musician. As you can probably tell I'm not a big fan of performing rights as they are.

If this is consistent fault as you describe then there are two things to investigate. It could be increased volume at gigs or something else you are using at the gigs but not at home. I have a kickback and find once you use it with a drummer it struggles with volume, I get round this by backing off the bass a little on the eq. The amp seems capable of driving the speaker beyond it's excursion limits. When you change to a different head you won't have an identical response and that may be what is curing the problem. It could be as simple as a fault you only get on tilting the amp if you play one way at home and another at a gig. I've had problems with Hartke and soldered joints too again in the HA3500. Mine turned out to be in the power supply but high volumes and vibration will find the problem if there is one. A crackle though implies a connection problem, that could be anywhere from your kettle lead all the way back to the mains and anywhere in the signal chain from your bass through all the leads and any fx you use. It could also be radio frequency pickup. anything from a mobile placed near to the amp, someone else's dicky equipment in the band or any number of things. Hope you track it down

There is always one miserable git. I'm not a lawyer but a few years ago I researched copyright and performing rights for a short article. You need a licence I believe, legally at least. The chances of you being caught are remote though being on a forum won't help. There was one case where a garage mechanic had the radio on loudly in his workshop, which had no public access. He was successfully sued by Performing Rights on the basis that someone walking past might listen to his radio. That is despite the fact that this was the BBC who had already paid the copyright. In practice I'd imagine it would be the organisers of the event that would be liable and if it bothers you then you could email them (evidence) and say that you don't have a licence and suggest they look into it by contacting PRS https://www.prsformusic.com/ . PRS will then have ruined another friendship. To be honest though it is unlikely that anyone would ever find out about a one off private event.

You've probably moved on with this but this recent post made me idly look to see if there is a circuit diagram available. There is, from these people https://thecodemachine.co.uk/Schematics/Search.php?manuf=ampeg&model=svt4pro £1.50 to buy. If you can get hold of it and share it we might be able to give you more advice and any future repairs might be helped along the way. Of course an email to Ampeg might get one for free.

I'm going to be optimistic about Studiospares and I'm not really worried about a refund. They've been great in the past. I've written to them, sent photos and they have acknowledged the problem. I've since written and asked what they are going to do about what seems to be a faulty batch. I'll come back here and report anything they say. I have a friend who deals with Chinese imports, he says a major problem is that they alter designs without discussion with the client, often adding unwanted 'improvements' It may be they were unaware of the problem.

The plastic insert which acts as a clutch on the base of the stand also holds a captive nut which the winged bolt screws into. The little tabs which hold the nut break off as they are simply too weak to hold the weight of the base. The nut and bolt no longer hold the base on and it falls off the end of the stand pulling the whole plastic moulding out of the base. You can bodge it all back together but it will only hold whist everything is tight. Loosen it off to pack the legs up and put the stand away and it all falls apart again. It looks to me as if there may be a slot moulded into the metal part of the base which took a square nut, but the supplied nut is hexagonal and too big to fit into that slot. The boom arm is also lighter guage than the original booms but that isn't really an issue as they are plenty strong enough to hold a mic.

A word of warning about Studiospares stands. I just orders another three after years of good service of the four I have. they have changed their design and there is a fault with the new design. One had failed in the box the second failed last night at the same point and the one I haven't used yet is showing signs of the same fault. I'm chasing this up with Studiospares and they are being helpful but until they have this sorted DON'T BUY!!

Interestingly we tried out this cab in the shootout at the South West bass bash. It was the one that polarised opinion. For half the people there it was the best cab, and it was up against some pretty great opposition. Most of the rest voted it bottom. Louder than the rest and loads of warm woolly bass. I don't think this is about being a 12, it's about the damping of the cone by the magnet and cab. All the other cabs had more expensive 12's with really powerful magnets on them and the bass was much better damped. All that warm bass can sound lovely in the right room but is going to excite room resonances in a lot of venues, as you found. An HPF will remove some of the frequencies you don't want. In the end though if you were happy with your sound then going back to it is the right thing to do.

Oy!!

There are a few problems with your idea at the moment. That speaker will probably work fine in a cab that size but I'm not sure it's the best choice of starting point. the Barefaced cab is designed to have a very specific old school sound, your new can will have a different balance of sound and the two together might mean a very different sound. The barefaced will be more efficient at lower frequencies so you will encance the top end of your sound without adding oomph. In fact the Faital has a resonant frequency of 80Hz so you aren't going to get much fundamental at all to speak of, the bottom octave is missing. I can see that you would want a cab that matches in size and appearance, I'm considering building something similar for semi acoustic stuff and am considering the B&C 10CL51 as a driver, it's a lot more expensive but it'll suit that size of box well and would be a better match for what you have. In any case I'd probably be looking for a 10" speaker as a starting point. I can see the attraction of a cheap fix but I'm not sure you've found it.

Hi Chris, first of all there is no problem with the power handling you are seeing if they are in the 150-300W range. back in the day the coils in speakers were wound onto paper formers and stuck down with any old glue. Now formers are high temperature plastics and other materials and will handle high temperatures without deforming, catching fire or the glue melting. There's a lot more attention paid to keeping the coils cooler too. you need to decide if you want to keep using your valve amp, it's a lovely desirable thing but 50W isn't much by todays standards and you'll need an efficient speaker to go with it. Most bass speakers today are designed with a 3-500W amp in mind so many of them aren't as loud, watt for watt. Old cabs tend to be better than 100dB for one watt, many modern cabs are only around the 96db mark. If you want to go on using the Vox then you should stick to something that gives at least 100db/W. The main thing though is to listen to the speakers before you buy. They aren't likely to sound at all like your old speakers and the difference may be a shock or a revelation, and they won't all sound the same by a long way. Do you have a budget in mind? Light loud and cheap don't all come together. The Barefaced that so many people are recommending are startlingly light but surprisingly expensive as a result. No point is us recommending a Rolls Royce if you are in VW Polo territory. How do you feel about new v's used?

A coming out party. What a wonderful concept. It'll be fine, it'll be fun. Once you start you'll be tied up with the mechanics of it all and it will pass in a flash. You will be hooked, I promise you. And you are starting young, I was 56 the first time I played in public. Gigging regularly now.

TBH Chris I don't think this is specific to the Veyron or to Behringer. Other people have run them without problems, you have the problem one and that's why the previous owner probably returned it. Get a refund. Buy another if you still want one. Intermittent faults are really tough to track down and I suspect that this was simply returned, someone plugged it in spent a couple of minutes and said 'that ones OK, put it in B stock'.

Thanks, essentially the first night is all my band mates and ex band mates so they pretty much all know the same stuff, we've shared everything all along and I'm hoping the house band is going to grow from them, at the moment it's just a trio, guitar,bass and drums. The stuff I'll take with me will be for next month essentially and any jam session at the end.