Phil Starr

[quote name='Grangur' timestamp='1380782960' post='2230381'] Please can someone tell me where I'm wrong here? I would have thought the problem causing the pop is a spike in the circuit caused by the switching. So surely what we need is a smoothing capacitor going from the live of the battery to the earth, or maybe across the terminals of the battery. Just another thought, would the pop disappear if you only used switching of one cable - the live, maybe? [/quote] I think you are right about the source of the noise, inserting the jack switches the power on just before making the connection and avoids this. The capacitor the OP refers to is a low value cap designed to reduce sparking in mains switch, or sometimes to remove radio frequency noise on the AC mains.

You are quite sensible to look for a solution. There's a sticky above about volume gain etc. In an ideal world you'd just turn down the bass and turn the amp up but I find the tone and volume interact on the bass and turning the bass right down doesn't improve the hum and noise to signal ratio. Putting something in the fx loop that will reduce gain is a good idea the other is to use a simple pre-amp between the bass and amp, there are plenty of cheap ones that are used to mix guitars. Some DI boxes have a volume control on too.

Actually I think Skidder has a point. About the way these and other speakers are advertised and sold.With all their experience Blue Aran are well aware of the popularity of these drivers as the pre-eminent bass guitar speaker of the moment. For them to say they aren't suitable for low frequencies is disingenuous at least. in any case 'full range' includes these frequencies. These speakers are advertised as handling 450W and 900W music programme by Blue Aran with none of the qualifications which appear on the Eminence website, they are also advertised as being good down to 40hz. There are no notes on their advertising which suggest there are qualifications or conditions to this. Suddenly when there is a problem the amnesia about limitations which clouds their advertising department is swept away and they become Europe's unimpeachable experts. I believe they have a moral duty of care towards their customers. They certainly have a legal one. It is not reasonable to expect every customer to know the intricacies of cone excursion. It is reasonable to think that a speaker advertised as handling 450W at 40Hz can handle exactly that, even though those of us with any technical will know that claim to be false and misleading. I want Blue Aran to succeed, I have been a regular customer and in the past have recommended them. Recently I have found their customer service to be increasingly less helpful and less customer focussed. I hope they are following this and offer some help here. At the very least they need to modify their website to more accurately describe the capabilities of their merchandise.

Play it first, the neck dive is painful, literally as you get very sore after a couple of hours playing pulling it straight. If you can live with it the sound is stunning. You will either love this bass or hate it. It looks and sounds fab but it handles like s**t. Go for the Epi Pro, it is worth the extra over the straight TBird, You get better PUP's and active electronics but more importantly you get a proper TBird neck of laminated wood running right through the body rather than a bolt on neck. This neck gives awesome sustain and the Pups are much better, some say better than the Gibson pups. I've just put my Gibson TBird up for sale, it was fun whilst it lasted but in the end I don't need RSI from holding the thing straight all evening.

Yeah, Yamahas have been busy with the new budget range which kind of relate to the Club series in the way the Mackie Thump does to the SRM450's, a cheaper, less able alternative that trades on the name but sounds OK so long as you don't push them. The DSR's look good on paper but I haven't heard them yet. 12" drivers are really not good for vocals as the polar radiation pattern is usually poor, I'm not surprised you liked the 10's if vocals are important. I really liked the old Mackies with the midrange driver but haven't seen any around for a while. I'm going over to my own designs now, tweaking the Yammy 112's was just an idea I thought I'd try, they do sound better though and feedback rejection is a lot better so if anyone out there is using them .....

I absolutely agree about the PV PA speakers, their horn driver is just not up to the job and I think they use the same driver in all their cabs. There are rumours that the driver has been changed in the more recent cabs, if it is true then it is about time. It's either bonkers or laziness to put such a poor horn in with a great driver like the Black Widow. The Yammy is a strange one, I quite like them, better sounding on vox than some of the JBL's and EV's. The horn driver is a little gem (marked as yamaha but I think it is the Eminence PSD 2002) let down by the bass driver. The upper frequencies are rather nice sounding and the bass at low levels is good but the mids are fairly dreadful. If you look at the plot of the Delta 12A [url="http://www.eminence.com/pdf/Delta_12A.pdf"]http://www.eminence....f/Delta_12A.pdf[/url] you can see why, there's a huge peak of 9dB above 1.5kHz and through the crossover region. Why you would choose this driver when you have the buying power of Yamaha I don't know, excursion is poor too, though not a problem if you keep the bass away or use subs. The crossover is nicely made but they haven't really dealt with that mid hump. Reversing the tweeter is normal practice with 2nd order crossovers. (theirs is 2nd order for bass and 3rd to the horn) it took me 10 mins to try, I wish I'd thought of this a couple of years ago. Spot on about the PA too, it is such an afterthought for too many pub bands.

If you have these PA speakers then you'll know about the bright sound they produce. They really punch vocals through the mix but have a tendency to shouty harshness especially with female vocals and can also cause feedback problems. I rather like them for PA as I like vocals well forward but I tired of the harshness,even though you can eq most of it out. Here's a zero cost fix, reverse the connectors to the tweeter/horn. This reverses the phase of the horn so at the crossover frequency there will be a small dip in the frequency response. The shoutiness (and feedback) is caused by a mid-range peak made worse by the very ordinary Eminence Delta driver they use (I think they have moved away from this in recent models but you'd need to check) which has a sharp midrange peak far too close to the crossover frequency. You'll hear the phase reversal as a veiling in the middle range of female voices and the peak is still there but less noticeable. Overall the sound is a lot more natural and a bit less wearing for the listener. If you prefer the factory sound you can just put the wires back where they were.

sorry i didn't see this earlier. The best joint for a DIY cab is the reinforced butt joint, where you run a 1" sq batten along all the joints as recommended by Fane, Eminence etc. you can screw through the battens which holds everything together whilst the glue dries. It doubles the glue area, lends some mechanical strength through the screws and adds a little bracing to the panels. Plain butt joints lack glue area and I find are prone to failure, finger and dovetail joints are more suitable for a production line and need high skill levels, Rabbet joints make clamping easier but add little strength. This is the main supplier of cabinet corners in the UK [url="http://www.adamhall.com/en/Cabinet_Corners.html"]http://www.adamhall.com/en/Cabinet_Corners.html[/url] click on the pic's for dimensions.

[quote name='Bill Fitzmaurice' timestamp='1380232030' post='2222736'] Many amps incorporate HP filters, it greatly reduces warranty claims on blown drivers. [/quote] Quite right, with the almost wholesale use of ported speakers the only surprising thing is that switchable filters aren't incorporated into all bass amps. They are widespread in PA amps and in mixing desks. We know exactly what happens when you don't have them so missing them out is half-assed engineering on the part of the amp designers. The idea that manufacturers are putting out ported speakers with 3mm xmax drivers and claiming 600W handling, then making amps with 600W outputs down to 20Hz, incorporating 18dB of bass boost and selling them to people with 5 string basses and no technical training seems pretty cynical to me. Probably the triumph of marketing over sound craftsmanship.

Ok the usable frequencies are usually quoted to be the point where the sound drops by 6dB. If your speaker is ported, and most are nowadays, this will also be about the point where the bass port ceases to be effective. Below this point you won't hear much bass but because the cabinet has effectively become just a box with a big hole in it the speaker is free to flap around, the excursion becomes so excessive that the coil will leave the magnet gap and probably start banging against the back of the magnet. This will eventually destroy the speaker depending upon how much you do it. So, the only effect of trying to go below this frequency will be to distort your sound and damage your speaker. Below this point the power handling of your speaker will fall dramatically possibly to only a few tens of watts. Yes you will blow your speakers. The best way to protect them is to use a high pass filter, which will also clean up your sound. You are right to think about cutting out the treble to get a bassier sound rather than trying to boost the bass with speakers that aren't capable of this, the only other way is to use massive power and speakers designed to handle these frequencies.

[quote name='owen' timestamp='1379949295' post='2218591'] I do not want to de-rail this thread, but I am looking for some active PA speakers for work (FE college doing live gigs with bands) and for church (different rigs) and would welcome opinions from those of you who seem to be using them in the wild. Thinking about QSC/Yamaha 12" + Sub offerings. Wondering about the Yamaha 15" but thinking perhaps a 15" + 1" comp driver might not be a happy combination but fancy the bombproofability that the 15" would offer for learning how to use PA systems. I am fully aware that teaching them how to not abuse stuff is part of my job, but you would be amazed at what the dance teacher does to the rig (and her ears) when my back is turned. [/quote] Hi Owen I have both the Yamaha S112 and 115's. On the plus side they have proven to be bomb proof over a long time. The sound is very forward especially the 12's which have a strong midrange peak which brings vocals right to the front of the mix but can make them sound harsh and cause some feedback problems. The 115's are better mannered. I've always liked the sound of the horn drivers Yamaha use but am less keen on the Eminence bass drivers. The latest Yamahas have new drive units, I believe they are manufacturing them in-house but someone else may know more. I host a thread on PA/live sound on another forum [url="http://www.ultimate-guitar.com/forum/showthread.php?p=31527243#post31527243"]http://www.ultimate-guitar.com/forum/showthread.php?p=31527243#post31527243[/url]. Probably better to start a new thread here or to continue there rather than to interleave this into someone else's thread.

There are two coils wound in the opposite direction. only the one next to the string picks up the string movement but they both pick up mains hum and electrical noise. Because they are connected in reverse the current induced by hum and noise are reversed in polarity and cancel out,so only the sounds you want get through.

There's two parts to your question. is this ok as far as the amps and speakers are concerned and how will it sound. You can do this perfectly safely with a solid state amp if your existing cab is 8ohms or 16 ohms and the second cab matches the ohms of your Mark Bass. Two 8 ohm cabs will give you 4 ohms overall and two 16's will give you 8 ohms overall. If you use a valve amp you will have to match the output to the speakers overall impedance. In each case the power handling will be twice the power handling of the weakest cab. If your speaker is 4 ohms it is possible to add a second cab but you will need some special leads or to rewire your cab, if you just plug them in your amp will struggle and may die on you. If you absolutely want to go ahead with 2x 4 ohm cabs then you need to come back to us. As to how it will sound, if you add a second MB cab it will sound the same but louder. If you add anything else you will lose the identity of the MB in the sound and of the other speaker too, the sound sort of blurs together and the only practical way of knowing what you will get is to try it.

Good luck, hope you like the way it sounds.

If you want some basic advice then you could try this [url="http://www.ultimate-guitar.com/forum/showthread.php?t=1591207"]http://www.ultimate-guitar.com/forum/showthread.php?t=1591207[/url] any questions and I'll try and answer them there.

[quote name='JTUK' timestamp='1379617995' post='2214989'] I'm pretty picky with the sound I want to use... but I'll go with quite a few served up if it pushes me to hear and play different things. I also ALWAY want to hear everything I do tho... but there is something to be said for being somewhat 'buried' as you can get away with more. If I can hear everything I do ..then I like to think that translates out front...but that really depends, as we all know and there is only so much control you can have over that. I always remember my first 'solo'd track... I was mortified, but the sound mixed down ok... it was the rest of my playing that was the problem.. but these days I can live with a quality reproduction and don't always wnat the drums to hurry up and join the track Why do we think the grindy Ampeg sound was so popular... ??? [/quote] The trouble is you need to hear both. I always like to hear where i sit in the mix and if I'm not going through the PA eq for the band not the bass. I play with flats a lot not because I like them but because they suit one of the bands well. At the same time you can't use much in the way of intonation etc if you can only vaguely hear what you are playing. I love your point about the first time you heard yourself solo'd, I really didn't realise how awful I was, then in the mixdown it sounds like I know what I'm doing. The reassurance is that even people like James Jamerson sound ordinary when solo'd, well the tone does. This is an isolated bassline from the Clash if the link works [url="http://www.how-to-play-bass.com/support-files/fought-the-law-bass.mp3"]http://www.how-to-play-bass.com/support-files/fought-the-law-bass.mp3[/url] And this is Jamerson [url="http://www.notreble.com/buzz/2012/08/01/james-jamerson-bernadette-isolated-bass/"]http://www.notreble.com/buzz/2012/08/01/james-jamerson-bernadette-isolated-bass/[/url]

Ha, I have a Hartke kickback too and of course the Beyma in a cab, I might try it myself, if nothing else it'll tell me what the Hartke speaker sounds like compared with a flat response.

I think I've got some of these. If they are the same as mine the speakers are just junk, really awful. The cabs on mine were OK though and I simply threw out the baffle (the board the speakers are fixed to) cut a piece of ply the same size and put in some speakers I had lying around from a previous project, My band play a lot of small pubs and I needed some smaller monitors quickly so I bodged together something quickly, I've since tweaked them and they do the job quite nicely. The vocalists prefer them to my much more expensive Yamaha Club series monitors so they are now our go to monitors, despite looking like they come from 1973, which they do. The speakers I used are Fane 10-300's and some slightly unusual piezo's I got from Blue Aran. I keep meaning to put in some proper horn drivers and a decent crossover but actually they sound OK. If you are interested in copying mine we can check they are actually the same and I can give you a few details

[quote name='BigBassBob' timestamp='1379366301' post='2211934'] My logic behind the placement on my board is that it's affecting my bass' signal in a way that would allow further effects in the chain to respond better. I keep a compressor on the end of the chain to tame any volume spikes from my envelope filter but, as said before, I figure that with my light use of octave and filter I would rather get the full sound of those effects for those brief periods where THAT sound is required. [/quote] This makes sense. If you remove the subsonics first then the octaver only works on the signal that passes through, the bits you want.

If you are interested it is easy to see how this works. Have a look at the graph at the top of page 2 [url="http://www.eminence.com/pdf/Kappalite_3015_cab.pdf"]http://www.eminence.com/pdf/Kappalite_3015_cab.pdf[/url] This is the famous Kappalite but it could be any speaker as this is just down to the properties of all speakers in ported cabs. The Kappa is better than most. The graph shows excursion at different frequencies with 450W going through the speaker. The speaker can do about 6mm before distorting and 11mm before it is damaged. You can see that it goes past 6mm at 40Hz (bottom E) and past 11mm at about 30Hz (bottom . If you bash the guitar it can go lower than this. The limits for most other speakers are worse. The Thumpinator stops most speakers going into this zone where they just don't work properly. There is really no point in feeding in a signal the speaker can't turn into a sound you can hear and if you push them hard enough to reach their max then all the sound they make will be distorted, not just the deep note that pushed them there. If you read the text you'll see that Eminence recommend a filter like the Thumpinator for all their speakers and cabs designs

Proper templates for the router, you put me to shame. I'm looking forward to seeing how you get on with how it sounds, I feel a bit responsible. It's a great little speaker and I love mine but recommending anything to someone else is always a risk. What amp will you use with it?

Does the sound happen all the time or only when you are playing. I suspect the sound is just electrical noise. Your pups and gitar lead act as an aerial and pickup all sorts of noises they shouldn't. Lots of this is high frequency stuff and will only be noticeable when the horn is on.

Hi Steve, I started playing at 55, I've been gigging for 5 years and am in two bands. You've got loads of time. good luck.

Best not to play loud through a naked speaker. Without the cab the excursion increases and you'll develop a fault that [b]will[/b] be teminal.

I had good experiences with Kent Armstrongs, Go for something overwound/high impedance as these are likely to have a deeper darker sound. The Quarter Pounders are Seymour Duncan's version but most makers do a heavy version of their pups.