Phil Starr

How's the lead guitar work coming on? I may have a job for you

I guess there's a worry about crossover distortion. We treat crossovers as neutral things that just cut off the lows from one speaker and cut the highs from the other. In practice the cut off isn't instant and there are a range of frequencies when both speakers are operating. At the crossover point the theory is that both speakers are designed to be 3db down halving the power to each and tow halves make a whole. That's the theory in practice it's really hard to get the exact match and on a frequency plot even with the best hi fi speakers you can always see the crossover frequency as either a little dip or a little peak. In most speakers you can hear it too. This is compounded by phase changes, slight delays between the sound coming at you from one speaker and the other. This makes the sound cancel at some frequencies. There's a slight delay in the speakers moving with the big ones taking longer to get going, the crossover components cause their own phase changes and to add to that the speakers would need to have their centre's equal distances from your ears. Crossover design is really complex and even the best computer aided design only gets you so close. Sombody really needs to sit down and spend the hours/days remeasuring and tweaking to get it right. Digital active crossovers make it easier and we benfit from the move to active PA cabs. Various trade names like 'Firphase' indicate where the manufacturer has tried to tame all the phase related crossover distortion and used a bit of delay to time align the drivers. However I don't think this is so much of an issue in using subs. Our hearing is just so much less sensitive down there and although theoretically a bass singer could get down that far he would have so little fundamental content that I reqally don't think it would be noticed. Maybe a trained sound tech in ideal studio listening conditions would be able to hear something in the kick drum sound but not in the wilds of PA. A lot of the new stick PA systems crossover in the 300-1,000Hz range and do so quite successfully and have the advantage over the 2-3,000 Hz crossovers of conventional PA in that part of what they do. The OP doesn't need to worry he only has 100 or 120Hz to choose from.

@Bilbo and @casapete Thanks for this. It encourages me to think that there are people out there who can do a job for us, I just need to find them. We've been through three guitarists who all turned down me sending the charts, I sent videos of our band playing the songs, spotify playlists of the originals so they could see the arrrangements we use. We stick to the originals because we want to avoid ny surprises. We've only changed key in three or four songs and that was clearly marked on the set list.It's just staggered me that anyone would promise to learn a set by a given date and not put the effort in up front to be able to deliver. Nice people completely deluded about the effort needed to deliver a 30 song set. I've not got the skills to dep at the last minute but I've learned sets to help out mates. It is a lot of work, I'll live with the songs in the car for as long as it takes, play through the songs with the chord sheets on day one picking out chord changes rhythms and the bits I need to worry about. Gigging musicians are a different breed. The trouble is most of them are already gigging

I think that is more the route we are thinking of taking. It's then up to us to take the band to the level where the figures do add up. Part of this is my wanting to just play at a higher level I've spent 15+ years playing in 'bog standard' covers bands covering the same songs everyone else does. Every now and again we've recruited better musicians and the whole band are lifted and suddenly the gigs roll in and people want to join the band. The early days with this band promised something better so I want to recruit well and get back to that feeling. Deps potentially would allow us to continue gigging whist we search and who knows we might be able to recruit one of the deps if they enjoy it enough.

We are struggling to find a guitarist and if I'm honest it's because of our set, think Tina Turner, Pink, Blondie,Lady Gaga and so on. Most of the guitarists round here are of a certain age and want to play rock from the 70's,80's 90's and so on. This isn't primarily guitar music so not seen as rewarding. We are looking to fill the dance floor and give people a good time not force them to listen to rock standards. I don't have a problem with that, I get that if you are of a certain age then music is about fun and playing what you enjoy. I'm sure we'll find someone permanent in the end but we've had bookings available and turned them down. I'm looking at a way to build the band while we look and it'll be easier to recruit if we have a full calender I suppose I'm asking the BassChat collective to give some guidance as to how to attract and hang on to deps and if it is possible to run a band with only a core of permanent members. It's not my ideal but if it can work I'd rather do that than fold the band. As you say no harm in trying but no harm in asking for advice either, and thanks Matt this is helping

I've offered that as It's what I use when learning new songs. I also provide a spotify playlist of the originals and shifted key recordings of any songs we play differently from the originals. I've also got videos of much of our set. Mostly people have been offered those sort of charts but turned them down.

Thanks Matt, that's obviously not what I wanted to hear but probably what I expected. If I thought it was going to be easy there would have been no point in asking. I'll wait for a few more opinions before making my mind up whether and what to try. What you say sounds about right though That brings it into the realms of possibility. We were OK as a band, our first lineup was with a guy from a function band we just needed a bit more time with him and we could have raised our fees. He'd been doing 200 gigs a year with fees for that band in the £600-1,000 bracket. His wife said at the first gig that we were better than his function band, I think she meant the set was better and we were more entertaining but we were obviously OK. I'm not personally in it for the money, I'm in the lucky position where everything I earn is just put aside for any gear I fancy and treats for my long suffering partner who loses her weekends quite a lot but is very supportive. The singer and I pay all the incidental costs of the band already and I'd be happy to sub some of my fee to bring the deps fee up to £150. I wouldn't be ecstatic about it but it might be more fun than dredging the bottom for a guitarist or spending months in rehearsals while they painfully learn one song a week.

Just to make it clear this is a pub covers band with aspirations, but still just a covers band. Any talk of 'pro' musicians wanting £2-300 and expecting to have the dots written out is way out of the realms of possibility. We've used a few drummers as deps and that's always worked, a couple of them turned up with no rehearsal and were superb, a couple of others wanted a run through which we organised and that worked well too. The guitarists we've used as deps have all asked for a run through. Only one of those turned up having all the songs good to go. The others wanted a second rehearsal. So what we are looking for are just competent guitarists who can reliably deliver a set. If they are any good the idea would be to use them regularly. I've chatted with @Jakester in the past about dep drumming for us (hi Jake ) in that instance it was the combination of distance, the set and money that meant it made no sense for that gig. We've spent months looking for the ideal replacement for our guitarist with no luck. I'm just trying to get Bass Chat's collective wisdom about the possibility and practicalities of using regular deps instead so that we can continue gigging. One particular practicality is how much will it cost. I'm fed up with rehearsing rather than gigging only to find people who can't meet deadlines or who aren't capable of carrying a full set of songs and I don't want to turn down any more gigs. If paying someone competent the going rate is a practical proposition then it's a no-brainer. A share of our crrent charge would be £80 so that would be no problem. I'd happily pay £100 to end the endless search though so many inexperienced hopefuls. If using deps pushes up the standard of what we do we can up the charges as soon as our bookings start filling up again. You can probably tell I'm a bit frustrated with all this

I''m assuming you can set the sub's crossover point. if not you should use whatever fixed point that has and match it as nearly as possible with the tops. if it is completely variable I'd use 120Hz. My resoning would say take as much bass out of the tops as you can. In practice I doubt it matters or that you would notice as that's only 3 semitones difference

@bassbiscuits Thanks for kicking this off. In the past our deps have usually been part of the 'family', friends of the band or of other friends. As such they always simple accepted the missing persons share. Our standard fee is £300-320 so that's only £75-80 I'm concerned that won't be enough to attract a pro to learn a 30 song set. Having said that I also know another friend does national tours with a band and pays £100 a night for his musicians plus basic accommodation so maybe I'm being pessimistic. I know a lot of band members and ex band members over the years who have been full time musicians in the sense of it being their only source of income and they've had to earn most of their income by teaching mid week so £80 for an evening's work has been helpful to them. in some ways it's an easy gig. No band tension, we've a pretty professional approach, decent PA and lights and everything is ready for them to just come along and play. The songs are all as the originals apart from 3 or 4 which have a key change. At what level would you think you would think it worth doing?

Has anyone wide experience of using specialised dep musicians? Or maybe you work as a regular dep. If so how has it gone for you and what do charge/pay for a typical gig? We've been trying to get a project going for a while and keep stumbling over finding a decent guitarist. Quite simply most of them struggle to work outside of their usual genre and fail to learn the songs. We don't gig frequently enough to attract pro musicians to join the band and the amateurs are too amateur. We started out with a great drummer and guitarist and played three gigs to an enthusiastic reception from the audiences and re-bookings from the venues. The guitarist left due to changes in his circumstances and the drummer sold her house and moved. I've used a number of drummers as deps and it has always been great. Dep guitarists have been mixed with one turning up for a run through knowing every song in the set with around a weeks notice and at the other extreme having to turn the guitar off in the monitors so we could get through the songs. I've talked to some of the function bands round here and the use of deps is fairly extensive and these bands sound great. Using deps wopuld let us go on developing the band and building up contacts whilst looking out for a long term band member.

Fixed The article doesn't say that a primer is needed but does say that sanding well is the preparation needed for good adhesion and that acrylic and enamel paints are the ones to use. Interestingly ABS reacts with quite a few organic solvents which is relatively unusual for many plastics. It seems possible that some paints could chemically bond with some plastics and I know Styrene does bond with enamel paints well from my days building airfix kits. The proof of the pudding is in the eating of course. I'd be interested to try so long as it was with someone else's cab I had a couple of hours of fun reading about ABS and it's chemistry

Let's hope that's the end of the problem.

Great that it all went well, I love doing sound at open air gigs. with no reflective surfaces and multiple sound pathways you really get to hear just how good your sound can be. and that bass sound your audience is hearing shows you just how good bass through PA can be. The onstage sound is lower usually for two reasons you are usually further from the PA speakers and often have a lot more space and are further from all the speakers. Often the bass frequencies indoors dominate the sound. If the PA is loud enough to reach the audience in the back rows then because it's omnidirectional it is going to be too loud on stage and the PA speakers are only going to be a couple of metres away at best. Tops on a pair of subs is usually OK indoors as the multiple reflections usually fill the power alleys. Subs together would usually mean in front of the singer so not really an option anyway. You also get power alleys outdoors if you use tops with no subs and it is usually really obvious as we've found multiple times using my RCF745's with no subs. If you have two speakers and the same level of bass you get exactly the same power alleys.

It'll be good to hear how you get on with them. I've two gigs with my lowly RCF310's this weekend and I know they'll sound good with bass and drums going through them. The 710's should be even better. Good luck with the gig

I'd wondered about re-finishing the cab also. It is made of acrylonitrile butadiene styrene or ABS. This is a really tough plastic which can be made with various formulations but all designed to be hard wearing. Lego bricks are made of ABS Anyway it can be sprayed with enamel paint or acrylic paints. Tough Cab is the brand most commonly used for painting cabs in this country and is an acrylic paint. You can also get acrylic paints in rattle cans from artists supplies and most of the 'kitchen' and 'bathroom' paints and low VOC gloss paints are acrylic. My Cabs are also ABS and I've been looking at them gradually accumulating little bumps and scrapes and wondering if I could touch them up. At the moment under stage lighting they look fine so I've left well enough alone and bought some covers to stop them getting worse. Anyway here's probably more than anyone needs to know about spraying ABS here

You are quite right to be completely outraged by this. There is however little point in losing it with them. You either accept this as fait accompli or try to fight. Believe it I've been there as I supect have most of us. You could try telling the drummer that it is your band not his and if he wants to go off and start an entirely different band with his new guitarist friend then he needs to do so. Like @pickguard I'd be ringing the singer and asking if she is happy with the changes, make sure she knows you aren't asking her to change sides just whether she would prefer being in your band with the set list she agreed to or the new band with the extended guitar solos. She may be extremely unsettled knowing she is working with such devious selfish people but let her raise any aspect of how they've behaved. Be the nice guy. My prediction is that this band won't be stable with two big egos and no personal loyalty. With that choice of music gigs are likely to be thin on the ground. Anyway with the singer on your side you are in a strong enough position to recruit new people. One word of warning, guitarists who are willing to play anything other than some genre of rock/blues are unusual down here in 'wurzel country'. in fact if you play guitar I might have a proposition for you

Reading 1976 I went and saw Rory play there in 71. It pissed with rain and the Richfield Avenue site had not long been earthed over. All the rain and that many people meant we broke through the surface to the refuse dumped below. I can remember the smell now. I found a plastic bag which had covered a mattress to shelter in. The next week I was pictured on the front page of the Morning Star under the title 500 Hippies arrested what looked like drug crazed dancing was me fighting to keep the bag over my head. Very judgemental those communists

As above check the impedance of the Orange cabs. If they are 8ohm cabs then you can daisy chain two of them and you'll get a very noticable increase in volume. If they are 4ohm cabs your Gnome won't power them and will go into a fault mode when you play at any volume with a bit of a risk that you could damage your amp.

That's a great job, I need to find time to look at mine, bought when I was 14 and it was only 50 years old. It's a lot of fun fitting a real vellum, trying to work out just how much it will shrink to fit. My problem is that the frame of the back/resonator or wahtever it is called has softened and distorted so it needs a new back forming or some significant bracing. Making that ring would need me to steam some timber and make a former which is a significant task. I do love the sound of a real skin. I'm not sure I should admit to loving the sound of a banjo here though

Hi @Matt P, hope the gig went well. Sorry I was preparing for my own gig so I picked it up too late, I suspect others were in the same boat. Perhaps you could tell us what you did and how it worked?

You can't, not really. Any mic including any drum mic is going to pick up everything that happens on stage to a greater or lesser degree as well as picking up audience noise. If you have meters on your mixer you can see the background noise. That's the thing; you have two concerns about bleed, the smearing of your sound due to unwanted noises coming in through the mics and of course genuine feedback. Pretty much any mic on stage will be a directional mic and they all favour sounds coming straight at them. Cardioid mics have a 'dead spot' down the other end of the barrel and with super cadioids the dead spot is on the side. Anything pointing at the mics is going to reduce your gain before feedback and increase the cr*p coming through the PA. At low sound levels you can get away with monitors behind you in that you avoid feedback but you will still degrade the sound for the audience. It's a judgement call as to how much bleed you deem acceptable. It's possible it will be unnoticeable compared with room reverberation and audience noise. The one thing I always say though is that whatever works in practice is good.The science helps make good choices and gives you a lot of help when things aren't working but the human interaction between you and the audience is the important thng. The tech just gets you there. I sing a little, I've a strong voice but can be pitchy if I can't hear the monitors. My best happens when I can hear what the audience hears and the sound levels on stage are really well down. I love in-ears generally but somehow at low levels (ie no drummer) and floor monitors I find singing a lot easier. I can understand those who like to be in front of the PA even if technically it poses problems.

I've heard Turbosound speakers and the band sounded great, the EV looks to be a bit more expensive than the others possibly justified by a 'proper' plywood cab but also down to the higher price of US products over here. EV speakers in the past have tended to have a slight bass and top end boost or midrange suckout giving them a larger than life sound but I haven't listened to this latest model. My personal preference would still be the RCF or the FBT but all of these are fine speakers and good value. A word of warning here, you can't trust the numbers in the advertising. As Stevie has pointed out most of these 12" drivers can only handle 300W and the 1.75" horn drivers 50W at most. Claims of 2000 or 1500W amplifiers are nonsense as are claims of 132db sound levels. The reality is that they all proiduce similar sound levels and even if the amplifiers inside them could produce 2000W (they cant) the protection circuits would limit them to no more than the speaker can safely use. Since the manufacturers or their sales team exaggerate by different amounts you can't use their numbers to compare them unfortunately

Welcome Guillaume. You started earlier than I did, I was 55 when I first picked up a bass and as a complete non musician. I've played hundreds of gigs since then and at 73 I'm still gigging regularly and putting together new bands. It's been a hobby which has paid for itself but most of all a joy. There's nothing better than a room full of people having fun dancing and singing to the music you make. You have plenty of time

Intermittent faults are the worst. You so often find that they disappear as soon as you get time to look for them only to come back at the least convenient moment. To be fair you've located the problem to the mains input so this time it shouldn't be too tricky or expensive to fix. Have fun