Phil Starr

https://www.screwfix.com/p/ratchet-tie-down-straps-5m-x-25mm-2-pack/24567

That's really good news Geoff I hope you and the cabs spend many happy hours together

It's a shame there aren't better sites. Bandmix would be stupidly expensive if you simply let your payments keep on running. The mailing alerts function very poorly, I set up the criteria to only include local musicians and it included people over 100 miles away at times. the searching is crazy and some people come up multiple times when you search, all in all I'm unlikely to subscribe if so much of the software is so full of glitches. Join My Band probably suffers by being so simple and free. Any dreamer can put up details at no effort and so there is a lot of chaff amongst the wheat. Nonetheless if you read the ads carefully or put some effort into wording your own ads carefully it is possible to find people. Lemonrock is great for finding musicians/bands as nearly everyone on there is paying a sub to promote their band or their gigs. The only problem is that it is geographically patchy, Great for the West Country and some of the home counties but not much activity in large swathes of the country. The big problem though is musicians, I can't understand quite why they are so disorganised in the main.

There's nothing difficult about acoustic coupling. when the sound bounces off the floor it gets to your ears a fraction of a second later then the sound from the speaker because it's a longer journey. The further from the floor the greater the delay. If the speaker is close to the floor then the difference is very small compared to the wavelength and it doubles the sound you hear. As the frequency increases the wavelength gets smaller so there's a frequency where you get cancellation and there is a suckout instead of reinforcement. The frequency of this first suckout depends only upon the distance from the floor. There's another sort of coupling which is about anchoring the speaker to the floor. Playing loud on a wooden floor sometimes makes the floor resonate and a bit of decoupling is quite useful. On a soft floor the speaker will move around as you sometimes notice when your pint hits the floor or the speaker starts moving across the stage on it's castors. It is useful sometimes to be able to put the speaker flat on the stage. The solution is to simply make up a trolley with your castors using a board the size of your biggest speaker. On good surfaces you can simply push it on the trolley, if it's an uneven surface you can simply strap the speaker to the trolley and unstrap it at the other end if you wish. Or buy one of the ones that are designed for moving furniture. Having said that I use a folding sack truck.

What the hell is the cab made of? The two speakers are quite heavy at 5kg each but that leaves a 20kg cab??? I'd suggest a simple cab build yourself if those figures check out. You could build it out of 12- 18mm ply the same size as the GK and it would probably weigh in 5-10kg depending upon the exact ply you used and how much bracing you put in. If you go onto the eminence website they have designs for the Delta's if you wanted to build a 1x10 or two http://www.eminence.com/pdf/Delta_10A_cab.pdf

Sorry it's almost certainly your speakers. Sure they may be able to handle 250W but that is their thermal handling, They aren't going to handle the excursion at lower frequencies, as Bill has pointed out you have something smaller than a 10" single driver in effect. Your options are to roll off the bass, turn your amp down, use some compression, perhaps a limiter which will reduce the peaks, go through the PA or buy another or different speaker.

The new amp is 650 into 4 ohms not 8. That means around a 1dB increase in maximum output. 1dB is the minimum change ind sound level we can normally reliably detect. So no it isn't worth spending the money on. With that much power though you really shouldn't be struggling and people have mentioned the two things you could address. Use an HPF to remove the subsonics which you can't really hear but which will push your speaker to make farty noises and eventually damage them, or look to get a louder speaker.

Hi Steve, I'd probably walk away too in the end but I'd do some checks first. This place is within your stomping ground just, so it isn't far to go and some of the audience might be local. Having heard your band this sort of event is where you'd be ideal, you have a big sound and that sort of stage presence. For example I'd do the Axminster festival for free if the chance came up. five miles from my house, 2,000 plus people mainly locals, and I know where the profits go. I'd also challenge them a little, point out that you're a well established band with a full list of bookings so don't need their exposure. Don't do the warm up slot, ask if you can do a later slot and maybe say you'll do it for free but need expenses and then name your price, which needn't be much/any less than what you'd charge a small pub for example. I'd also check what attendance was like last year, no point if it's going to be no better than a busy pub. Are the other two up for this? In the end you get a feel for what is actually going on, it might well be someone chiselling away for a freebie or it may be genuine. The question is will it be fun and are you getting enough out of it to make it worth your while

Great problem to have, try them all. I plumped for a MB Tube 500, basically a LM3 with a tube in the pre amp, Gak have an offer on these at the mo. Haven't regretted buying it but there are so many more to try now.

[quote name='dmccombe7' timestamp='1508250525' post='3390849'] Just had a listen to White Rabbit and find it hard to see that go down well especially as a closing song. Afraid its not my cup of tea Blue. Dave [/quote] We play this from time to time, it never goes down badly and sometimes it's a stormer, people of a certain age often and dancers sometimes love the rhythm. Other times it's just a song no-one remembers and is a bit weird if it's the first time you've heard it. Probably a much bigger song in the States. It's a fun bass line too.

Curse you, I've just wasted 15mins on this. Loved it but ended up not getting his timing (tried drumming to it and there seems to be an extra beat somewhere) so I had to go and listen to the song (live version so different bass line) I'm now going to have to have a phone call to my drummer. I'm supposed to be doing some work.

[quote name='dmccombe7' timestamp='1507966644' post='3389002'] Did you give him an opportunity to resolve his issues or go straight to the sacking without him knowing. ? If he was a good drummer and an original member i would have said to him that his timing is starting to fail and he either needs to get it together or we would need to look at another drumer that can commit to the band. Think it very unfair to sack someone without offering them a chance to sort it. I would say that if you haven't given him a chance and just gone behind his back then that is sneaky and not acceptable in my opinion. The one thing you can't do is just put up with it and then sack him. Communication is vital in a band. Dave [/quote] This is very much my thought. We recently lost our drummer, he was actually sh*t hot most of the time but there were personality clashes and the band don't talk about anything serious. I thought we'd agreed our band leader would go and talk to him, he was probably on the point of leaving anyway but in the end he was sent an email full of self justification about why he wasn't wanted. If you are going to just sack someone at least make it quick and clear, only give reasons if someone asks. No-one really wants to hear a list of what's wrong if it's too late to change things. In another band I had problems with a guitarist not learning his parts. I asked him how committed he was as he clearly wasn't putting in a lot of work in the woodshed. He came back with the explanation that he was trying out with a number of bands to see which would fly and accepted he needed to commit more to us. We'll see but the discussion was only about music nothing personal and everyone is now clear. Actually I like the guy but that wasn't any part of the debate. We'll see how it works out and I guess if we make little progress then he might go back to his other bands. That's fair enough, it's all out in the open. Sometimes it's easier to say the hard things rather than run away, isn't it? Maybe I'm just a b*****d.

[quote name='Dr.Dave' timestamp='1508186628' post='3390418'] The interest is in making music. Playing bass is just a means to that end. If you never pick up a bass again but that choice means you continue to enjoy making music in other ways - why worry. [/quote] This, bass is all about making music with other people so follow where the music takes you. If it's bass that's good, if it is something else then so be it. Hang on to one bass and enough gear to be able to slip back in to bass if the need arises.

I ran a mobile disco back in the very early 70's. You can get people to dance to almost anything with the right beat, it only needs to be something they recognise or something with a predictable rhythm so they know when to move their feet. When the only thing you have to work a room is your choice of music it becomes quite an interesting art form. Audiences always surprise you with what they like and something that goes down well on one day will tank on another occasion but people are surprisingly empathic and once you've tuned in it's a lot of fun to take people on a journey just by playing music. Now I play bass (strictly covers) and the game hasn't changed much, though people dancing whilst you play is a new and different pleasure, what a buzz to have a room full of people dancing to your fingers I'm kind of amazed at the way covers bands choose their songs. The audience don't often get much of a thought. So many bands where a dominant band member forces a collection of their own favourite songs often dating from their own teenage years, filtered by the limitations of the band and padded out by a couple of Mustang Sallys 'for the audience'. Alterntively the covers bands who all play the same set simply because that's what all the other bands do, and they go down well. Rarely do things like 'can the singer really sing this well in the original key' come into the choices. The truth is that there are thousands of songs and dozens of genres that will get audiences tapping their feet, singing and dancing. Play it well and with conviction and the audiences have come out to have a good time, they're on your side pretty much. The deal is that you set out from the start to entertain them. Good live bands are putting on a show so your song choices need to be part of that show. You need light and shade, four big dance songs followed by a chance to get to the bar and get your breath back, then a big song to get them on their feet again. The truth is that an audience will happily dance along with a blues band one week and a punk band the next it the band deliver their songs well and with conviction. There's a kind of confidence that grow during an evening in a band that knows what it is doing and which makes contact with the rest of the room so for me the question whan adding new songs is fairly simple. How will this song improve the set for the audience, where does it fit in, how does it make us a better band?

The obvious recommendation is to use the Zoom B3N Like many basschatters I use the cheaper B1ON. It gives you all the emulations but in a less flexible way but it has an input so you can mix in the output from an IPod or a phone and play along with those. I can't see an input socket on the B3 so you might need a small mixer to do that if you want. At £50ish for the B1 it might be easier to buy one of those if this is something you might do. Some people use an outboard pre amp just as a effects unit to shape their sound but if the output is exactly what you want you could go directly into the PA for your bass. Alternatively some of us use a PA amp, much cheaper per watt, as our amp and run it directly from the outboard. As you surmise a stand alone pre amp is a duplication of the tone controls etc of the onboard pre amp but it gives you a wider range of shaping possibilities which some people love.

As someone who has been playing around with speaker design for quite a while I have a kind of rule of thumb which helps me predict what small changes in design will actually sound like in practice. A 1dB change in frequency response is just audible in an A/B test wher you have both systems (speakers in this case) next to each other and can switch quickly between the two. 3dB is generally noticeable anyway, you'd hear a difference in bass output between two speakers with a 3dB difference at 60Hz. Below that our ears are not very sensitive, at 30Hz I don't think anyone with an untrained ear would detect any difference that couldn't be fooled in a blind test. Of course 3dB is half the power so you are significantly reducing the demands you make on the speaker if you filter out the lows. If you use a ported speaker there are two vulnerabilities around the tuning frequencies. Wind noise in the port at the tuning frequency and uncontrolled and excessive excursion below the tuning frequency. Most bass cabs are tuned fairly close to 50Hz so a 3dB cut below this can only be a good thing and unlikely to be audible.

Thanks, I usually put the bass through the B1ON so volume shouldn't be a problem. Is this a thin sound through the supplied headphones or through an amp?

Anyone any experience with one of these? I'm thinking of buying one so I can do silent practice when I'm away from home, though of course I'll try it with the amps. Playability will be more important than the sound but obvoiusly a decent sound would be interesting too.What do you think, a worthwhile purchase?

The simple answer is yes, it makes a difference. We dicovered whilst developing our designs here that one big round port is the ideal. Tust to be clear you can tune the cab to the right frequency with pretty much any port so long as it is the right length. At low to medium sound levels there won't be any difference you'd hear. As the volume increases the air moves more quickly through the ports and turbulence occurs within the ports, effectively caused by the resistance to air flow at the port walls. The ratio of wall to cross sectional area is worse for a lot of smal ports than for one large one so you get more turbulence. This in turn causes port noises and some compression of the ports output. So, why did I leave the design as four small ports? The reason was ease of construction, it uses standard guttering downpipe and hole saws are readily available for this size pipe. It also allows front mounted ports with less weakening of the baffle. We had lots of debate about ports, more than almost anything else really. Mainly it revolved around how much output there would actually be and at what frequencies. The science tells you the port velocities but not how loud an actual bass will be at a gig. All I can say is that I've never heard problems in practice. All speaker design is a bit like wrestling a balloon, you squeeze a little more in one place and something else pops up elsewhere. For example the triangular corner ports in some Genzler designs are a really neat way of stiffening a cab and building within a budget but could be the worse design possible for this sort of port noise. I play with very little deep bass in my eq so it wouldn't be a problem for me, probably not for anyone but designers like to push the envelope.

Hi sorry I didn't get back to you with the port calculations, I was on holiday in Madrid Let us know how that works out. You are right about the stereo amp, as Bill was saying.

OK how old are the Deltalites? Are they marked as Deltalite 2510-II or just as Deltalite 2510? I've been trying to keep it simple because I think B.flat just wants to get on with something that sounds OK, to get the best out of what he has. To be honest Stevie I don't think the phase issues will necessarily be that serious as the OP isn't trying to get a cab with a flat full range response. As he has the gear all there and he can try it without any expense or speaker surgery he might as well try it. (for the OP the phase issues will result in a bumpy frequency response through the crossover range) The thing is it is difficult to say what the combination would sound like when we don't know what the 15 is. Unless the sensitivity is in the region of the 2x10 then driving them all in parallel might not work. There are still too many unknowns to be I do agree with Stevie that porting the cab will give some extra bass and may make the 2x10 more useable on its own. yes it'll be bass light but that may still be OK. If they are the older generation Deltalites then they should be fine, WinISD shows them as being flat +-1db down to 80Hz with the cab tuned to 60Hz The other issue is impedance, I'm assuming the Deltalites are 8ohms and so is the 15. That's not an issue with a stereo amp but a single amp would struggle to drive all three speakers. I'd suggest the OP try the cabs with his crossover as they are. If he likes the sound that's great. If he wants to port the cabs after that with a bit more detail we can calculate the ports for him.

Sorted

I haven't got time at the moment to optimise what you have but you might like to have a look at Eminences own designs for this speaker https://www.eminence.com/pdf/DeltaliteII_2510_cab.pdf If you scroll down you'll see their recommended cab for a bass 2x10. It's getting on for 85litres. There are loads of other designs too. Is this a cab you've built or have you installed the speakers in a commercial cab? They are perfectly decent speakers so if you are up for a bit of woodwork well worth building a suitable cab for.

If you want something really simple to use then this https://www.ajdesigner.com/speaker/ will design a vented box for you. It isn't very flexible however as it will simply calculate a single box size optimised to give the flattest response. This often means the box is impracticably large for bass guitar. What it will do is just tell you the port is too small. Win ISD that Bill is recommending is much more flexible, you can change the tuning and box sizes and it will show you how that affects the frequency response and it will allow you to make the ports any size you want too, recalculating the length to keep the same tuning. It will pay you to learn to drive this software if you want to do any serious speaker building or modification. As to the OP request, give us a lttle more detail. Why are you wanting to do this? What speaker are you using? what size is the box? How much power will you be putting into the speaker? It is unlikely that you'd get chuffing at low power but if you are trying to match a monstrous drummer with a single speaker....

Not just 'back in the day' try playing along with Rag'nBone Man's Human