Phil Starr

I think I'm converted, always thought anything but a P. Then I saw an American Deluxe with the original style humbucker going for £500 on eBay and thought, what the heck? It needed some tlc and I still prefer the tone of all my other basses at home but in front of the band it just sounds so right. Nothing else has made it to a gig for a year now, I think it may be 'the one'.

There's a longer and more detailed discussion of some of this in General Discussion, including a response from one of the Music Group's companies

I'm with the 'concentrate on what you are playing and don't worry about the tone' camp. At most you'll need two or three tones in an evening. Audiences won't worry about your tone but if they are up dancing they won't want to wait whilst you and the guitarists change instrument and eq after every number. If you must then I'd go for something programmable so you can change tone for each song with one click and set it up at home. I use an American Deluxe P bass for gigs, just the P pup for most songs but with a bit of bridge dialed in for some songs. Having the tones on the bass helps tweaking without diverting my attention from the audience or the rest of the band. I'd say the second pup is useful for varying tone, so if you are looking for a one bass solution then whether P/J, P/bucker, twin soapbar or whatever I'd look for somethign with bridge and neck pups. I prefer a master volume/blend for live work as it helps make adjustments quickly but TBH its the last thing on my mind once the audience is there.

I'm sceptical but not cynical about Behringer, like most people I have bits and pieces of Behringer gear, 1204 mixer, EP2500 power amp a set of BD205 monitors the odd mic and probably others I've forgotten. The only problems i've had are a lead breaking on the mic and a power supply going down on one of the BD205's, replaced under guarantee. About par for the course, I've had similar problems with Harke, Ashdown, Peavey TC and others over the years but most stuff including the Behringer works pretty much without fault for years. My experience isn't a particularly huge representative sample but it wouldn't be fair to say Behringer stuff is particularly poorly made or unreliable, just built to a budget. If anything Behringer already do far too much, very similarly specced gear as they try to be all things to all people. There product range is almost as confusing as Fender's! It'd make sense to make a range of different quality products clearly branded so you know what you are buying. The proof of the pudding is in the eating of course, let's see if TC's standards fall.

Most of the Hartke dry joint problems were in the power supply, unsupported capacitors held in place by just the solder. Anything to do with the eq and cleaning the sliders is the first point of call. possibly even the switch If you are still struggling to locate the fault then get some freezer spray. It rapidly cools small components one at a time and if that sudden cooling makes the fault dramatically worse or better then you have located the little devil. Good luck

[quote name='jimcroisdale' timestamp='1430121678' post='2758036'] So I'm thinking of a super small cab that will do for an onstage monitor and something to mike up, powered by my Streamliner. Here's what I THINK I know so far...[list] [*]I understand that sealed cabs can be made much smaller than ported cabs, right? [*]I know that a sealed cab will have a more 'natural' sound and a more gentle rolloff in the low end, right? [*]I'm assuming that this will give the sound guy something good to work with, and he can add the big low end back on the desk eq, right? [*]The maths are a LOT simpler... [/list] So, with these things in mind I'm looking to build a cab for myself. Questions? What driver? Kappalite 3012HO? Deltalite II? Basslite? Others? (I don't need a tweeter) What size is realistic? Would 16" x 16" x 12" be a doable, or ultimately would I end up with something that's light, portable and useless? How small can I go? I welcome your thoughts. :-) Jim [/quote] I think the experts are being overly pessimistic. If you want to build a cab and are happy to settle for a less than optimum sound then designing and building a successful sealed cab is easier. What is right is that using winISD or any of the online programs to do the calculations for you will help you tweak your sound and just putting a speaker into a small box won't get the best out of the speaker. If you decide on a speaker someone here will suggest a cab size for you, if you go for an Eminence then there is helpful information on their published spec sheets and more on their website. Celestion are helpful and i think Fane have similar information to Eminence. [list] [*]I understand that sealed cabs can be made much smaller than ported cabs, right? [/list] Not always but for many speakers this is true[list] [*]I know that a sealed cab will have a more 'natural' sound and a more gentle rolloff in the low end, right? [/list] What is a 'natural' sound? The roll off from a 'typical' sealed cab is 12dB/octave and 24dB/octave for a typical ported cab. EQ for the slower roll off is likely to be effective but you can't eq your onstage cab much because it will run out of excursion sooner if it is sealed.[list] [*]I'm assuming that this will give the sound guy something good to work with, and he can add the big low end back on the desk eq, right? [/list] It won't make a heap of difference to the sound engineer, none at all if you are DI'ing. I've played a few times with a small monitor with the bass rolled off and the deep Bass added through the PA. I really like it, you hear the deeps from the PA anyway and it clears up the stage sound, I need to hear the rest of the band more than myself most of the time. The guitarists and singer preferred the stage sound the drummer hated it.[list] [*]The maths are a LOT simpler... [/list] Well you only have to calculate the cab volume, not the port dimensions. If you use a computer program then it calculates everything for you. If you are using formulae and a calculator then I guess this is true. The build is simpler though. The thing is that not all speakers are designed to work in sealed cabs, most bass speakers aren't so you are into looking at general purpose speakers. The critical parameter for sealed cabs is the damping, Over damped speakers will lack bass output and roll off from a high frequency, under damped speakers allow the cone to flap around giving a bloated bass output above 100Hz, Damping or Q needs to be between 0.7 (slightly larger cab, flattest response) and 1.1 (smaller cab, small but acceptable upper bass hump). The overall damping depends upon the damping built into the speaker and the damping provided by the cab. If the speaker is well damped already, usually because it has a big powerful magnet then the extra damping of the cab will mean the cab is overdamped and you will only get a very weak bass response. Look at speakers which are less well damped Qts> 0.38 as a quick way of identifying suitable candidates. Or use EBP as advised above. If you want an easier program than winISD then http://www.ajdesigner.com/speaker/ will do simple calculations for you with less information needing to be fed in. It won't let you do anything sophisticated though, just the classic TS designs. It's good enough for a basic sealed box though.

The amp will put a little over half the power out, from memory it's about 180W with this amp. The power should double into half the ohms but in practice the power supply will rarely provide enough current. You'd be unlucky to blow the speaker with this extra power if you avoid caning the amp of using huge bass boost but it is clearly a possibility and you'd need to listen out for any unexpected ditortions and be prepared to turn down. Ashdown are really helpful, why not ring or email them?

I've been planning a 1x15 along the lines of the old Altec A7 with a lower midrange/upper bass horn and a ported rear chamber. Reckon the shelved response might work well with bass.

Just so you know. You need big ports because they need to shift a certain amount of air, equivalent to the air moved by all the cones put together. Moving that much air through a tiny hole will make wind noises. The ports are there to tune the cab to something close to the resonant frequency of the speakers. Just putting in random holes might tune the cab to a frequency which is pointlessly too high or too low. You might as well not bother which is why I suggested leaving them out. If you do want to tune the cab and get a bit of extra bass then use ports the size Alex has suggested. 4" drainpipe ( actually soil pipe) is easy to cut and you can fix it in place with silicone or other mastics, even if the hole you cut is a bit iffy.

I managed to take about half a cm off the tip of my thumb last year with a bench saw, playing a gig that evening was pretty painful. I have Imodium in my kit box just in case, geting the runs is the one thing that can really stop you.

Pretty much my first port of call after I find a chord sheet. I find myself having to learn songs fairly quickly for a band. So although I'd like to develop my ear more, and that would undoubtedly be better in the long term, I'd rather turn up with a cheat bass line at the next rehearsal to enable the band to get on with learning a song than coming in with only half a bassline I'd had to work for. The worry is that I'm not developing musically as quickly as I should by taking all the shortcuts. I love performing and having a reputation for turning up with the bass line is a really good way of getting the gigs. On the down side I have to live with the knowledge I'm faking it most of the time.

Don't buy. The advice has been all good. These are reliable well made speakers but the vocal sound is poor due to the horn drivers the BW's are good enough but this is a higher price than you should be looking at in any case. For less than £200 you should be able to pick up some Yamaha S112V's or the almost identical but older and jack plug fitted S112IV's which I've seen go for little over £100 on ebay. These have a really punchy vocal sound and run with easily obtainable Eminence drivers should you get any problems. If you don't mind the extra weight the S115V's are slightly nicer sounding. Mine must be 20 years old with no problems to date. EV, JBL QSC and RCF are all good but are likely to cost more. Wharfedale EVP series are worth a look if they turn up in this price range.

[quote name='bootsy666' timestamp='1429375182' post='2750945'] Someone told me once that a 200 watt valve amp was the equivalent of a 1000watt solid state. If that's true then the vba could handle a 2000 watt cab, that's one of the reasons for making the cab 2000watts. I currently have a quad of 6550A valves in it, but u also have a set of brand new sovtec KT88 Russian valves sat in my garage waiting to be used. I wanted to hear the 6550's with this cab before changing them tho. [/quote] It isn't true. As far as the speakers are concerned the valve watts are the same as any other watts, a measure of the electrical energy going into your speakers, nothing magical about them. The reason for valve amps sounding louder is well understood, simply put valves and transistors can both be driven into overload, the loudest bits of your bass are easily 20dB (100 times) the average you are playing at so if you are playing an average 10W then the loudest bits will be distorting. With valves the distortion sounds Ok and you can turn the amp up even more, with more nice distortion. Transistor/solid state amps sound poor and worse as you turn them up from this point and so in practice you don't. The upper power is still 200W or whatever but the average power is reduced because of the horrible distortion. I'm probably one of the 'experts'. I hadn't commented because the advice you've been getting is good. Now I'm on I cant resist any more Your design is bonkers from a practical and technical point of view but looks like fun. Your speaker will work though and give you a different sound. With all those cones it is going to be very loud and very bassy sounding. There wont be as much deep bass as high bass but with a restricted top end and a fairly sizeable peak around the 100-150Hz range you won't be disappointed with the perceived response. You really aren't going to have to worry about power handling though 200W through these guys is going to be too loud for the band and audience to bear in any enclosed space.you are likely to play. That's 25W per speaker which means they'll probably outlast you and certainly outlast your hearing! The only poor advice is from Celestion, I wonder if you spoke to the Saturday staff. The ports will make almost no difference to speaker cooling as the air in them just vibrates back and to at most frequencies, very little air flow will occur when they are being used so no worthwhile cooling will happen. The ports are there to tune the cab, since you've not done anything else technically correct why bother with an added complication which won't cool your speakers. I'd block the ports. If you are going to keep them then put them on the back and make them big, at least as big as Alex (I think) said. Lots of 4" pipes. Some 'experts' forget that a technically optimised speaker isn't necessarily going to sound the best. You are going to end up with a huge speaker that will sound like almost nothing else but be a talking point at every gig you take it to, people will come just to see the mad speaker, not a bad thing for any band. you could doubtless achieve a very similar sound at a fraction of the cost with a couple of 15's in a well designed cab using eq for the tone and a more powerful amp but this is a fun project which will give you a massive retro sounding cab, if you can afford it and are happy to move the thing then enjoy. Just because you can

To be fair there will be an interaction between a cab and the room acoustics. Cabs will work better in some rooms than others. I've an old Peavey 15 that sounds just magnificent in our tiny practice room but very ordinary anywhere else. My Harke kickback sounds great in my home and the 1x12's I'm gigging (which normally sound great) sound poor in the same room. You really need to try cabs in a variety of spaces to make a meaningful comparison. You may not be able to get 'that' sound elsewhere.

There are a whole collection of factors to take into consideration when considering what goes on at these low frequencies. Individually none of them is difficult to understand but as with any situation with many variables you have a nearly infinate series of possible outcomes. One of the most significant is the way ported cabs behave. At their tuning frequency the port air acts as a load on the speaker reducing it's movement with the sound coming from the port mainly. Below the tuning frequency (typically around 50Hz) the cone excursion rises dramatically as the cab is effectively an open box with little resistance to the cone movement. Ported cabs are very liable to 'fart' because of this. You shouldn't really get this problem from the low mids though. By the time you get above 100Hz excursion shouldn't be a problem for most speakers. Using a sharp filter below 40hz should stop most of these problems hence the Thumpinator. Another factor is room resonances, which boost apparent bass and also make everything sound a little woolly. Cutting bass can avoid this and clean up your sound. A 24dB/octave filter may do this better than a more gradual tone control whilst affecting other frequencies less. We really don't hear deep bass very well at all and 'bassiness' is a very subjective thing, just cutting treble and boosting the volume so the subjective sound level is the same sounds bassier for example. Very little truly deep bass is present from the pickups and most of what we hear as bass is a rich harmonic content rather than deep fundamental tones.

Just an aside, Each 3db of bass boost will demand twice the power and makes the speaker travel twice as far. OK if the volume is low if the volume is up then your amp will run out of power and your speaker may break with 15 dB of boost. Best to keep the tone controls between 3 and 8 o'clock as a general rule.

Probably just a protection circuit as you surmise, The thump you sometimes get when you switch on an amp can get fairly serious if the amp is a few hundred watts. If it hammers the coil against the back of the magnet it can write off a speaker so far better to wait until voltages have stabilised before connecting up the power supply. The little click is probably the sound of a relay operating.

I don't think I'd go for them if anything else is available. They once made decent drivers for hi Fi but look to have moved on to distribute a wide range of budget gear of all sorts. Unless you can get full T/S specs you can't do much anyway. Thomann probably ship to the Azores

There's some fairly simple physics here. If you stand to the side of a speaker it will take longer for the sound to arrive at your ears from the most distant speaker, a few thousandths of a second. In this time the speaker may have traveled forwards and now be travelling back. This means the sound from one speaker is out of phase with the nearer speaker and the sounds will cancel and you will hear very little. All this depends upon the frequency and the exact dimensions. In practice this means that any frequency where the furthest parts of the moving cones are more than one wavelength are radiated in an increasingly tight beam of sound, all your mids and highs. Placing your cabs next to each other will mean only people in line will hear your sound properly. Put another way stacking speakers vertically means the sound is radiated in a broad flat beam across the audience, on their side and the beam is narrow and pointing at the ceiling and floor.

Deep bass is your enemy here. Anything above 80Hz or so is unlikely to exceed the excursion limits of most speakers and this is what is going to damage most of them. This means rolling off the bass is going to be your best bet of keeping away from the point where the speaker gets damaged. A Thumpinator or similar bass filter (high pass filter) as mentioned will be a great addition and/or roll off the bass with your eq. Really avoid things like octavers or anything which gives you extra bass. The next thing is to watch your volume, if the drums are unmiked and you are slotting in just below them in volume then it is moderately unlikely you will be using too much power. Most cabs will more or less match a drummer with 200W or less driving them. Avoid 4ohm speakers, doubling the impedance will roughly halve the power your amp produces. In the end there are no guarantees though, these are just ways of reducing risk, if you put 900W through a 250W speaker you are going to damage it.

Hi Garry, yes I was going to just send some drawings but Stevie has offered to run some tests on the cab asap so I'm holding back until I know there are no further mods to be made. I'm hoping that will be as soon as I get back from Japan. I'll pm you now.

Hi Chienmortbb I'm keen to meet up with anyone who can tryout the cabs and indeed others i have already built or planned. I'm off to Japan for a fortnight but will get my head round it as soon as I get back. I'm hoping to get some technical measurements made as soon as I get back from Japan. Like so many people who don't do this for a living life keeps getting in the way.

Thanks for putting together a fun test. I picked it up too late to make a fool of myself. As said the only point is that you can't really tell, which many of us knew already. If nobody could tell and we all guessed at random then 1/6 should have guessed right, a lot more than 2 people, I think what this shows is that at least with these speakers listener bias is more important than speaker size. FWIW I guessed the 10's right but thought A was the 15. My professional opinion would have been that I had a 1 in 6 chance of getting it right. Good fun though.

I'd defend Basschat in terms of net etiquette. Nearly everyone is polite and helpful, tolerant of newbies and constructive. If anyone does overstep the mark there is usually a storm of 'calm down' posts and support for the wronged party. Bassists seem a pretty decent bunch. I've even enjoyed the political debates in Off Topic, the odd iffy comment but a lot of very well informed peopleand certainly one step up from the average pub conversation. The most heated debates seem to be over technical issues but no worse than you get in academic debates anywhere. There does seem to be a fall off in forums generally. Lemonrock has lost its forum after days at a time when no-one really posted and Ultimate Guitar is a very quiet place nowadays. I guess with people using their phones more ephemeral chatting is taking place but Basschat still seems strong to me and if you have a genuine problem there is usually help to be found here.

Doesn't it depend upon what you are rehearsing? If we are learning new songs, especially at the initial play through, we will rehearse at lower volumes and in a circle so we can hear each other better and communicate easily. If we've had a break in gigging and are just refreshing the set we'd use the full stage gear including monitors but not the full PA. Again probably in a circle, but not always. From time to time, usually if we want to change the PA set up, we'll have a 'technical rehearsal' with the full PA.