Phil Starr

It's just a result of changing technology and an immature industry. Class D is new, the watts you can get for a £1 have increased and the new power supplies mean you can still carry the thing. Because it is new we all want it, if that's you in your avatar then you are probably old enough to remember when all cars had to have 100mph+ on their speedos even if they would only do it downhill with a following wind. It was about sales, bragging rights and customer demand. Now no-one probably knows how far their speedo goes up to. This is the first time in amp history that we can have as much power as the mains socket will supply for less than an average weeks wage. We'll get used to it, we will grow out of it, something else will come along.

[quote name='Lw.' timestamp='1484237779' post='3213865'] Whilst the numbers & that graph look great - I don't understand what any of it means. So - are we damaging our expensive ported cabs or not? [/quote] That deserves a serious answer. This was the whole reason I started this thread. Some people are damaging speakers, usually people who can ill afford it, others are using their gear well within their limits and won't ever have a problem. Some of us probably sail nearer the wind more than is sensible but get away with it. We get quite a few questions on BC about matching amps to cabs and sometimes the advice is better than others. There is an inherent problem with all ported cabs and most bassists will be unaware of it. If you know the problem of subsonic over excursion is there then it's easy enough to avoid. Basschat discussions tend to be pretty measured and by sharing information most people on here get to know their technical side pretty well. As a result the advice newbies get on BC is usually pretty spot on. Simply if there is a point beyond which you shouldn't go it is better to know where it is. It's also true that an educated customer will ask questions when making purchases and the makes manufacturers cough up more information about the design compromises they inevitably make. I'm sure the whole lightweight movement has been sped up by BassChat and TalkBass. Wouldn't it be great if amp manufacturers published details of any high pass filtering in their manuals and then started making a feature of it. That'll only become a selling point if we all start asking questions. So, the simple answer is a few people are blowing cabs, but it is easily avoided if you know what you are doing. I'd be pretty happy if I thought even half a dozen people avoided the heartbreak of a blown speaker as a result.

Showing how deeply uncool I am I'm on my second Fiat Multipla. With the seats in you can carry 6 adults reasonably comfortably. Take the seats out and you have a van, I carry two bass cabs, a full PA including bass bins and 15" monitors plus the lights. It will still seat three people with that load in. the 1.9 diesel engine is a real workhorse but I think it's common to a lot of the other van based people carriers like the Citroen. The only downside is all the rubbish Fiat plastic trims that don't last and the people laughing at the weird car as you drive past. They've both been reliable and incredibly cheap to buy. Generally though all the van based vehicles are a good way to go if you cart a lot of gear. The estates are always a little more difficult to pack as they don't have the height I find.

[quote name='Chienmortbb' timestamp='1484147758' post='3213040'] I have just done a plot of the cone excursion of a well known, well loved driver the Eminence Kappalite 3012HO. The box is 50L and the tuning frequency is 50Hz The power is 400 watts, the stated power of the 3012HO. The red line is Xmax, the maximum excursion at which the voice coil is under the influence of the magnet. It is not dangerous to exceed XMax by a small amount. However the Xlim or XDamage (12.5mm) , the point at which the voice coil is in danger, is exceed at 36.7Hz, 5 Hz above low B on a 5 string. Indeed you have to reduce the power at 31Hz to under 200W to avoid exceeding XDamage. [url="https://flic.kr/p/R8Gr7e"][/url][url="https://flic.kr/p/R8Gr7e"]Kappalite3012HO Cone excursion 400W[/url] by [url="https://www.flickr.com/photos/149986878@N08/"]chienmortbb[/url], on Flickr [/quote]Thanks for putting this up. The point for those that don't know about all this is that the curve is the same for all speakers in a tuned cab. Excursion rises steadily as the frequency falls but the tuning of the cab dampens the cone movement at the tuning frequency. You can see the dip in excursion at 50hz really clearly on the graph. At this point the port is doing all the work and the cone movement is damped because it is working hard to pump air through the port. The Kappalite was chosen because it is about as good as a driver gets, and has been recommended by several designers or used in their cabs. There's every chance your speaker wont behave as well unless you use very expensive cabs. Now moving beyond Xmax/the speakers limiting point doesn't mean instant destruction any more than running a cars revs into the red means the engine will blow up. It does mean you are taking a risk though. What happens next depends upon the exact circumstances but at this point the built in safety designs aren't necessarily going to protect you, and there is no red light on most speakers. More later, I have to practice

[quote name='Lw.' timestamp='1484151958' post='3213093'] Depends on the musical style you're after but some places to consider: Purple Turtle - local/unsigned stuff every wednesday. Gigs of slightly bigger bands on at least every other Thursday. Various genres. Oakford Social Club - weekly gigs of sometimes really good artists, other times more of the same unsigned local stuff. Pavlovs Dog - Fri/Sat they often have a band on for a bit around 9-ish. Does mean you have to go in 'pavs' though. Facebar - weekly gigs. Nearly always metal/heavy alternative stuff, occasionally D'n'B. Sub89/Bowery District (I think it's two venues in the same building) - your generic signed music venue, tickets about £15. It's either the bigger cover bands/tribute bands or older artists that are a bit down on their luck, Alien Ant Farm played in there the other week. The Butler - I think it's every Friday, generic rock covers bands. The Rising Sun Arts Centre - couple of gigs a week. Newish music or just band the promotor likes. There's a place called Global Cafe on the same street that I think is somehow related but does more world music or jazz type stuff. The Queens Arms - it's the local UKIP/Britain First/NF pub but is available to hire on the cheap so often has gigs completely unrelated to the normal clientele on. You can only really find out about gigs in there if you know one of the bands, even then it's a bit of a trek from all the other pubs. There are a few other less regular places that sometimes have gigs on but those ones should keep you going for now. [/quote] Thanks

Yeah, a lot of T-Bird players use a long strap and play with it resting on their right legs. I notice blue has a bass fairly low slung in his pic. It's a great rock bass and I suspect if I was a pick player that's what I would do, problem solved. As a fairly small framed finger player I don't find it very comfortable with a long strap. That neck was so gorgeous though. The EB looks to have a wider neck.

[quote name='la bam' timestamp='1484131216' post='3212850'] The 2 main things for me are... 1. Where are the mainstream guitar bands for the younger generation to aspire to emulate? 2. Without a Top of the Pops style mainstream weekly music show on the bbc no one over 25 has an inkling of what's in the charts or popular, so you've got the biggest divide ever of what is going on musically. Also this means the over 25s are less likely to buy current music and affect what is in the charts. So the chart is very youth orientated, and the people running the venues very older generation orientated. [/quote] Somebody has already said this but I think music really goes in cycles. You'll get a music scene building up somewhere and suddenly breaking out stimulating a burst of energy creativity and 'me too' bands. Think of Indie music bursting out of Manchester, Punk, Two tone bursting out of the midlands or even the Beatles and the Merseyside bands. At the moment guitar bands aren't really happening in the same way but there will be other bursts of activity in the future. I honestly don't think you can stop the kids making memorable music. It's also true that there are different circuits, at the height of the pub rock scene there were also separate circuits where the older generation listened to trad jazz or folk music. Apart from a few specialist venues that has died out as mainstream pub entertainment. I suspect classic rock is at that point. We need to do something new.

[quote name='Lw.' timestamp='1484067063' post='3212391'] I've just had a look at Lemonrock for my area (Reading) & none of the usual live music venues are even in there - it's all just open mic/jam nights. This is definitely not all that is on in Reading as there are several venues hosts live music every week. Maybe Reading is bucking the trend or maybe the problem in this instance is Lemonrock. The talk of people not being interested in live music/pubs any more is interesting as I can completely relate - I still enjoy going to the pub but I wouldn't go out specifically to see a generic rock covers band in a pub (in fact I'd probably avoid it), maybe I'm part of the problem? In regards to the under 18's thing - I understand the landlords issues; I went to a gig last year where the headlining band was very popular in Reading but the band themselves were 15/16 and by the looks of them their fans were even younger - the venue was packed (the busiest I've ever seen it) yet there were only 4 people in there drinking beer; my mate, me & a couple of the bands parents. Whilst we did try our very best, they can't have made much money on the bar. [/quote] Lemonrock is very localised. It started in the St Albans area and linked up with a site down in Devon so it is very strong down there. On good weeks I can get 50 or more gigs within a driveable distance. If we do a gig it emails 500 people or so to tell them about our gigs. When I was doing the booking for our band most of my new leads came through Lemonrock. I'd get about ten approaches a year from pubs who had found us on Lemonrock. I play with an old University mate as a duo and he lives in Burghfield and we are often looking for something to do in Reading. It's pretty hard finding anything going on in Reading via the web, most of the pubs websites aren't maintained and the wannabe gig guides don't have gigs in most nights. I'm sure Reading has to be livelier than Somerset but you wouldn't know it. It's all a symptom of one of the things wrong with live music, not spending 2 mins entering your gigs into your own website makes no sense at all. 20 mins promoting it on the free gig guides might bring some people in Any tips of where to look for music would be great. I'm also looking for places with regular open mics up there.

I'd find it very hard to move away from the 2 1x12 arrangement now. Each is a one handed lift, One is enough for small gigs and two enough for anything where you don't have PA support as you can be way louder than the drums. that's not to say other arrangements don't work but you'd need very special 10's to work as well and very compact 15's to be as easy to shift. I wouldn't buy anything I hadn't heard/tried taste is such a unpredictable and personal thing. I've had my first decent listen/play with a Barefaced recently, a fellow basschatter follows me in our rehearsal room and his with a Ricky sounds lovely. Just a nice clean sound which shows the character of the bass. Other cabs are available but there's nothing too demanding about the way they sound, very decent cabs.

OK thanks neepheid. So probably better to look out for a good used deal then for a 2013/4 model, but potentially a decent enough bass. I'll look out for one to try though and I'd be interested in hearing from anyone else who has played one. got to love basschatters

[quote name='Bill Fitzmaurice' timestamp='1483978441' post='3211629'] The vented 2512 should be about 2dB more sensitive in the lows than the sealed BP1525, without the hump that causes boom, giving it the advantage unless you have more than 250w on tap. Then the higher Vd of the 1525 gives higher output, though you'd need a way to contend with that boom, such as a parametric EQ. I don't care for the SM212, or for that matter most European offerings, as they lack a rising response into the midrange. That's OK crossed over at less than 2kHz to a midrange driver, but IMO only then. [/quote] That's all useful comment. The SM212 does lack the usual midrange peak and has a rather neutral tone, it wasn't really designed for bass guitar but as the bottom end of a PA speaker. It is a great cheaper option over here though, I use mine exclusively at the moment, they work best with a graphic where you can boost the frequencies you want and it was way easier to get a good tone out of my Hartke 3500 than it is with my MB Tube500. If you did want a cheaper option the Beta 12A-2 would work. All in all the Deltalite would be my personal choice.

Yes, that's the one. Gibson has released a 2017 model which is going for about the price the 2013/4's are in the used section here. EB just stands for Electric Bass which is utterly confusing when the others are EB with a number or based on a guitar. On the surface it looks like Gibson have produces a very playable bass designed from the bottom up as a bass and not a bass version of a guitar. Perhaps the first time they've really committed to bassists. At around £800 an American made bass with the Gibson name on it looks a bit of a snip. Swamp Ash, maple neck and rosewood fingerboard, proper bridge, humbuckers, it all looks too good to be true. I'm wondering why there hasn't been more of a stir..

The 15 you chose is perfectly good if that's the bass response you want, but it's towards one end of the spectrum. Are you happy using winISD? if so then model them both in your box and you can directly compare them. The Deltalite would work as a ported cab at that volume too giving you a bit of extra bass lower down, you might want to look at the Beyma SM212 as well. If not one of us will model it for you.

[quote name='Balcro' timestamp='1483923921' post='3211211'] Looks like you'll get there, but more by luck than judgement! See here, [url="http://www.eminence.com/pdf/Legend_BP1525_cab.pdf"]http://www.eminence...._BP1525_cab.pdf[/url] and scroll down to pages 19-21. It's loud, but.... Balcro. [/quote] I'd assumed Bigwan got the idea from the Eminence site. You can see what the bass response would be from the Eminence modelling. There are certainly cabs out there with this sort of response you might like it, you might not. Celestion will send you the TS parameters for their speakers usually if you email them, use the ask Dr Decibel service on their site. If it's something they only ever made for Ashdown you may need to go to Ashdown for the info though. I'd think about whether to look at other speakers at a similar price though, it's at the top end of what you could squeeze into a box that size and it might be that another 10 or a 12 would give you more sensitivity without the loss of bass. The Eminence Deltalite 12 is a similar price for example and would match your cab well.

Locking in is just about playing together. If you are playing the same rhythm and in time with each other then you will lock in. If you both play in perfect time you'll be locked but normally people make small errors, if you are listening to each other you automatically cover any minor timing errors and it makes the whole thing sound tighter but keeping proper time is the crucial thing. Once you've played with a particular drummer for a while you do kind of get to know each others foibles and it works better but with any new drummer it's timing ,timing ,timing. I'm not convinced by the bass drum thing. It'd be very dull if you only played the 1 - 3& - in every bar but you do need to know where the 1 2 3 and 4 are. Most songs are based in 4/4 time and the rhythm is usually subdivided into half beats, quarter beats or triplets. That leaves you playing a 4beat, 8beat, 16beat or 12beat. Neither you or the drummer are always going to play every beat and sometimes you will play the same beat and sometimes you try to fit together so the drum beat falls between your beats. you can make this as complex as you like. Very few people really think this through as they play though. Just make sure you count the four and tap your feet in time with the drums, much more stable than just thinking the time. Practice playing along with the original and a drum machine or metronome if you have one. It's much more instinctive than you think. Concentrate on what you are doing but keep tapping your feet along with the drums (I listen for the snare, the kick can be hard to hear sometimes) and it should all come together. You said you wanted to know what the bassist does.

You only have one way of finding out! The volume you have calculated I suspect is the external volume, I haven't exact figures but i think the internal volume is nearer 1.5 cu ft. That's right at the bottom of the Eminence recommended volume, it would improve power handling over the bigger box but would show a rising response down to 120Hz then falling at 12dB/octave after that. Little deep bass then but some nice solid punch. As to how loud it would be I haven't enough detail of the original speaker to say if it would be louder or not. A lot of that will be down to how it handles mids. The legend isn't mega sensitive but it does have a rise in response at 1-2kHz which will make it shout out a little. You'll have an old school smiley face response with little real top or bottom. If you don't like the sound you could always build a bigger box or sell the Legend on and get some of your money back. Mildly eccentric rather than mad

What are they like? I'm playing Fenders at the moment, one P one J but I used to have a T-Bird. I absolutely loved the sound it made and that wonderful slim neck and light weight. It was a joy to play for the first hour but at gigs I found the neck dive and the twist of the body away from you all the time just hard work. My personal Holy Grail would be a T-Bird that sat comfortably. I even considered taking a saw to my Bird and adding a body with wings which would make it sit straight. I couldn't do it to a vintage instrument so I sold it on. The EB looks to me like a conventional shaped bass with decent pups and a nice looking neck, a really competent looking bass. And it's a Gibson. I'm not that bothered about the look, I just want a nice sounding bass that's good to play. Anyone with any long term experience of playing one of these. There are a few great offers on them at the moment.

[quote name='Marvin' timestamp='1483686918' post='3209218'] There are an increasing number of bands chasing a decreasing audience. [/quote] That's kind of my point, though I think in reality what is happening is that the audience is decreasing a little faster than the number of bands. There's been a lot of long term covers bands disappearing round here too. Part of the decline we can reasonably put down to the general decline of pubs and people going out to drink rather than staying at home. There's not much we as bands can do to stem that tide. My belief however is that there is an innate conservatism in landlords about how music is booked and promoted, along with a similar conservatism in how many bands approach their music. There's absolutely nothing wrong with a bunch of 60+ musicians playing the songs of their youth to a small audience of other 60 year olds. I went to see a couple of mates playing in a blues band near Reading the other day and had a whale of a time with a small audience of people mainly my own age. It isn't the future however..... Last year in Edinburgh I caught a trad jazz band of 70+ musicians with an audience where I was one of the youngest there, good on them, I hope I'll be doing something similar. If live music in pubs is to survive though then we need to get in new audiences to replace those that are dropping out. That means drawing in people who don't currently go for what we offer and ultimately we need to replace older audiences with younger ones. Now part of the solution is better selling of what we do. I doubt if most people even know there is free, good quality live music in a pub local to them. Neither we the bands, or the landlords/pubcos or breweries do any consistent marketing. Even then we need young people to come along or accept that our days of playing are numbered. There are clearly people on here who love music but think there have been no decent songs written in the last 30 years. That's not news and I'm happy that they love what they do. It's not news either that none of us ever really grow up and inside this 60 year old there is still a kid that is surprised every time they look in a mirror. I'm playing with a bunch of 40/50 year olds who think all the best music was written in the 80's. The 40 year olds think the best music was from the 90's and so on. The thing is that we all benefit if the pub had a good band in last week. A good show means that more people will come back next week, it will help pay the bills and keep the venue open. If a venue has good bands week after week, as some of the music pubs do, then when you get to play there is a ready made audience for you. Five consecutive weeks of same old, same old will convince most punters to stay away from that particular pub and kill the audience and ultimately the venue for all of us.

[quote name='chris_b' timestamp='1483536887' post='3207995'] . . . . bloody Red House more like!! [/quote]Unfortunately we also covered that, oops.

[quote name='wateroftyne' timestamp='1483529476' post='3207883'] One of the covers bands I'm in does newer, dance-y stuff - most of which I'd never heard 'cos I live under a crusty rock - by Avicii, One Republic, etc with guitars bass and drums, and it goes down very well, and it's good fun to play. [/quote]I'm even older and crustier than you and I cover their songs in a couple of bands. There's so much good fun stuff to cover out there. A lot of modern pop is fun to play for the bassist and drummer because of a lot of happily varied rhythms . Max Martin alone has offered up a whole load of eminently coverable and popular songs, probably the wedding fare of the future but fun to play whilst it is fresh. The other upside of these songs is that it often gets a segment of the audience on your side.

[quote name='sebowden' timestamp='1482979974' post='3203903'] I've been using a rock-wire cable, but its only 2.5mm.... I'll upgrade at some point [/quote] That should be plenty with a short cable, 1800W into 2 ohms. The limiting factor is more likely to be your plugs if they are jacks.

I know there are plenty of young bands out there, my daughter is never short of gigs to go to at weekends, and she'll travel the length of the country to catch a band I've never heard of, which is just how it was when I was a teenager/ in my early twenties. They'll always have a different circuit for people creating the music of the next generation. I didn't see many over 20's when I was watching a developing Supertramp or a youngish Mark Knopfler before anyone had heard of them. At that age I wasn't interested in covers bands either. If anything depresses me it's the young people in covers bands covering 70's material which even if you are 40 was written before you were born and ignoring the last twenty years of music. So what do you reckon? Would more people go and see pub bands if the fare was a little more varied? Or if it was properly promoted?

I find myself agreeing with a lot of this. I sometimes think landlords/ladies have a death wish. Who else would pay £250 for a band to attract new custom and then only advertise [b]inside [/b]the pub only. Pubs are no longer in the drinks industry really, we all do that at home, real ale excepted we can drink in more comfort and at less cost sitting on our own sofas. Their choices are to become food outlets or part of the leisure industry. The crazy think is that the leisure industry generally is growing, there's a real shortage of places to go to share activities with other people and we have more money and leisure time than a generation ago. We won't go to a pub for no reason but offer something like a quiz and the pub will be packed if you run with it for long enough for the word to get out. Music should be part of the mix that says there is something worthwhile and social going on every day of the week at this venue. I'm absolutely with those that say we need to widen our horizons musically. Covers bands are always going to mainly be about nostalgia for the music of our teens and you'll never really pull in this generation of teens and early 20's who are busy creating and loving the music and covers of the future. But the 30+ generation will be looking for the music of their youth, maybe around 15 years ago, 40+ of 25 years ago, that makes classic rock the music for 60+ pensioners, nothing wrong with that but they aren't the biggest group going out for late nights at the pub. I do like seeing and hearing live music but I want variety, any band that offers that seems to get plenty of bookings if they are any good. I'm not going out to listen to All Right Now and Mustang Sally though, I've played and heard them far too often. Landlords and bands need to be more imaginative. If a local pub ran a Reggae band one week, Punk the next then an Originals, then Funk, maybe some Folk or Jazz I'd check them out most weeks just to see what they were doing next. If ever I drag mates out to hear a covers band they are usually blown away, even by my own poor offerings. People do want to go out and have a good time. I don't think we have to have inevitable decline, we just have to think about what we are offering and promote it more professionally. People still love live music and good company. We just need a better offer and to let them know where it is.

Just got my weeks gig list from Lemonrock, for those who don't live in an area where Lemonrock is active it's an emailed list of most of the pub gigs in a 15 mile radius. A year ago there would have been 25-30 gigs at this time of year. This time it's down to 14, two of them are open mics and five are solo artists with backing tracks. The remaining seven bands all describe themselves as rock covers bands. One week doesn't prove anything especially this time of year but I'd say it ties in with my feeling of fewer and fewer gigs. Lot's of local music pubs have closed or been converted to restaurants round here, however a few of the music pubs are packed and thriving. Is this decline inevitable? Is it just that we need to serve up something other than rock covers? Could the pubs do a bit more promotion into their events, and would that help fix things?

I've been involved in a number of start up bands and am just about to have another go. Both bring their challenges but i think you'd be foolish to make assumptions without an audition and a lot of chat. The experienced player is likely to bring a lot of extra skills, not least that of being able to play in a band, all those practical things of coping with a singer who goes for the wrong verse or the drummer breaking a stick and so on. Bedroom players often keep fairly poor time at first and get flustered when a mistake occurs. Far too many experienced players at my end of the feeding pool bring a lot of inflexibility over what and how they play however, wanting to recreate their old band and wanting to use the songs they have nailed rather than learn anything new. Against that you have to set generally higher skill levels and a huge back catalogue of songs (I only ever play covers, well so far anyway), decent gear and often good stagecraft. The less experienced player can find adapting to a band tricky, stagefright can be a problem as can all the practical things, like adjusting your tone and volumes to suit the band rather than what sounds good at home. They'll have trouble moving from song to song without a break, sometimes stamina and all sort of little things. It's probably going to take longer to get them rehearsed up to the levels you'd like. All of this can be sorted out in rehearsal though. It quickly becomes fairly clear if you've got a grumpy old git (I'm 64) who can't change or a youngster who isn't up to the mark. You just have to be honest about what is expected. All the experienced players were once joining their first gigging band. Most of it is about personality though, if someone is willing to give it a go and work on what they lack, relishing the challenges a new band brings then you can make it work whatever their age and experience.