Phil Starr

23 hours ago, thebrig said:

I've just acquired a Behringer XENYX X2222USB, it's a bit grubby, and some of the pots and sliders are a bit crackly.

 

I'm quite practically minded and would like to take it apart, taking photos along the way to ensure I put everything back properly, and give everything a good clean with compressed air cans etc.

 

I was told by the previous owner that the mixer works as it should, but is just a bit crackly on some channels.

 

So my question is: After doing all this, will all the crackles disappear, or am I wasting my time trying to restore it to working order?

Wasting your time? Not really but don't expect a miracle and don't create any further damage which means working minimally rather than doing work which is unnecessary. I see you can still buy these for £259 and by and large the Xenyx mixers are pretty reliable but time will take a toll. At that point it won't be worth paying a tech to try a fix which might only last a short while.

Obviously the sliders are the most vulnerable bits, they are probably the most often used parts and the tracks are poorly sealed against dust, The first thing I would do would be to clean the outside of the mixer as thouroughly as possible avoiding driving anything into the sliders in particular but the innrds generally. Anything left on the outside you will displace with handling and it could end up inside. Don't use liquid cleaners including water. instead use moistened cloths or cotton buds and you are trying to lift dirt not wash it off. If your cotton bud releases a drop of water when you use it you are far too wet. I'd risk using a little washing up liquid in my water, nothing stronger. Personally I remove all the knobs before starting all this, they can be washed separately and dried thoroughly before reinstalling.

My next step would be to investigate what is working and what not, I'd be very reluctant to clean a slider that was working ok 'just in case'. The Deoxit or Servisol don't really clean dirt, they soften it and then whan you wriggle the controls they move it around, nothing actually washes out of the pots. On a working/non crackling pot it could end up creating a fault that wasn't there before, on a really crackly pot it often works a treat and you hve little to lose. Make sure it's a good quality switch cleaner and never use anything like WD40 which leaves a film of lubricant. Even a switch cleaner will leave some residue so don't soak everything and watch out for over spray.

So test every control and wiggling ten times before testing is a great start in cleaning the dust of ages. Note what crackles and what doesn't. If it crackles is that across the travel of the control or just at the extremes. I've got one that just crackles at the bottom end which I don't use anyway so I leave that alone. Obviously if it crackles when you adjust the control but only when you move it that is less serious than something which crackles when it is static. Hopefully you can leave more than half your controls alone.

I've had great results on sliders You can get the cleaner onto the tracks inside through the dust seals easily enough and the dirt if it is in there will generally get moved to the ends of the sliders. Go for the worst one first as you'll have little to lose. The rotary pots are more problemmatic. They will probably be more or less sealed so getting switch cleaner in can be really difficult. often impossible without opening the whole mixer up and getting inside which makes the circuit board vulnerable. I'd give it a look but I learned by breaking more things than I fixed at first.

I'm agnostic about compressed air, I've a compressor at home so I've never used a can and I can set the pressure. I'd certainly not use it like I do on car parts but I have cleared a lot of dust and spider webs off circuit boards in the past just be aware that several psi on a delicate component isn't a great idea. I guess the question is "do you feel lucky"

Don't forget all the sockets, try them all and try plugging and unplugging repeatedly. Switch cleaner can help here but i'd spray the plug I was using and not the sockets as you don't know what is on the inside of your mixer, replacing the plug is going to be a lot simpler than repacing a pcb mounted socket specially made for Behringer 20 years ago.

Will all the crackles miraculously disappear, probably not. Will you end up with a bargain price usable mixer? With a little luck you should be OK, what have you got to lose?

I'm in awe of anyone who even attempts to dep unprepared.We've been using deps a lot recently owing mainly to ill health and frankly it's a nightmare. Drummers have always been OK Bassists I wouldn't know because I've only missed one and I wansn't there anyway. Guitarists are a nightmare mainly they seem to think that if there is a chord sheet un Ultimate guitar they are good to go and that if they know verse chorus they know the song. Mainly I organise deps but because it's usually last minute there's no chance to rehearse.

We always start with the set list from the last gig and that means we've all played it within the last two or three weeks usually, the rest of the bnd need to be secure. I send that list our with our first contact with the deps. That's rapidly followed with key changes and You Tube videos of the band or the nearest thing to the version we do in terms of arrangement. I'll send out notes of who starts the songs once the dep has agreed. I'd expect a dep to get back to me within a couple of days to indicate which songs they can cover and which are a step too far. Interestingly that's usually due to unusual rhythms more than anything else. At this point if we are half a dozen songs short I'll send out our extended set list and ask the dep to send me theirs (amazing how few have that list btw) and we usually expect to have to learn two or three of their songs. It's not a difficult gig because we play everyday cover band songs straight and mainly in the original key.

Our worst experience was with a guitarist who had no idea but seemed to think he was coping. After three songs I turned him off in my in-ears (bliss) and started counting bars watching the drummer and litening to the vocals. I found out at the break drums and vocals had also cut him out of their in ears. I've reached the point where I'm refusing to go out with a dep who is unknown or unrehearsed. I'm going to be on the lookout for a couple of deps in each seat and our lazy band will just have to find time to rehearse them in. I want to guarantee them at least a couple of gigs a year too.

A couple of you I note are from Wurzel Country. See you soon I hope

At the new price these are an absolute steal, I can't believe they are still there.

33 minutes ago, Al Krow said:

 

I guess it's a string harmonics question ie do strings generate sub harmonics as well higher ones?

I'm assuming the frequency of the filter as quoted is the -3db point so yes it would probably be noticeable if you did an A/B test but only just. The likelihood though would be the audience wouldn't notice it at all in the mix. Guitarists don't generally play single notes much and don't bang away on a single string open E anyway. I can't actually remember which song Mike uses this particular patch but iif the keywas in anything  above E... So like Earth in the Hitchhikers Guide To The Galaxy it's 'mainly harmless'.

I think we are often too scared of HPF and set it too low. That's why I was so intrigued by @VTypeV4's comments on setting HPF on vocals. An operatic Baritone will normally sing from F2-F4 so just above the bottom note on a guitar. Nobody really sings that low on pop music so setting the filter even higher for vocals makees sense and the 80Hz filter on most analogue mixers looks pretty conservative, I'm thinking of pushing mine up to 160 and seeing what dfference that makes. I'm no Baritone

Maybe we should start another thread on HPF now that those of us with digital mixers have the chance to set it where we want?

It's probably covered in here, one of the most useful and comprehensive threads in BassChat

FWIW I've found that this is the most difficult price range, there is either cheap analogue stuff, digital which has a bit of latency and the really good analogue which is more expensive.

On 29/03/2024 at 09:08, Al Krow said:

 

Ok - in which case if you were to wander into an audience you would likely face drop outs pretty quickly with the Lekato? If so, the Nux is likely to fare better.  Obvs not an issue if you don't wander into the crowd occasionally though, as I have to 'fess-up to doing from time to time! 

No the Lekato did a good job pretty much. No drop outs at 50m on the way out but it dropped out at 20m when I turned my back on the stage and interrupted the line of sight with my body. I'm going to have to cut the double axel out of my dance routine

Problem solved it seems. I've put an 80Hz HPF on the guitar channel and Mike has made some adjustments to his fx, we gigged last night (at a different but still cramped venue) and not a hiccup. When we go back to the venue where the problem happened we'll sound check those patches before we start but I don't anticipate any issues.

I've been a Wharfedale user for years, I still have a complete EVPsystem with subs as a backup system. They are old and heavy but sound great and are very reliable, but also provide proper cutomer support. Wharfedale are now owned out of Hong Kong in a group with old UK firms like Audiolab and Quad.

The Delta series were their 'quality' range at the top of to stuff they make for pub bands, disco's and clubs. For that you get wooden (MDF) rather than plastic cabs. I've not heard the latest ones but earlier iterations were very comparable with Yamaha cabs for build quality and sound but at a much better price. Ignore the specs, The Wharfedale specs for the AX range are true RMS/AES values, strangely the AXF range advertises inflated peak values. The AX looks very much like a smartened up re-vamp of the EVP's with the AXF's being re-vamped Deltas.

If you can afford the extra the Delta AXF range will offer Baltic birch cabs and slightly better bass drivers along with FIR technology which improves the sound at the crossover frequency. If you want to go 'cheap' the Tourus range of plastic cabs seems to correspond with the AX and the Typhon roughly with the AXF but with platic cabs. Again I haven't tried them but I did own a pair of Wharfedale Titans which were great for vocals and really lightweight but the plastic cabs resonated like mad  if you put bass through them at high power. I don't think you'd have that problem with bass through the MDF cabs.

Hope that helps.

Interesting experience of feedback last Sunday. We were on the edge of feedback all evening which i just about managed to tame. It's possibly a good illustration of the problems anyone who gigs regularly is bound to encounter. Just to give some background this was a decent sized venue and it is expanding it's music evenings so was very much an event I wanted to work well. This was their first event with a 'band' in the bar rather than their function room. It was a big rectangular space inside an industrial unit and pretty crowded with people. We ended up in the corner at the back of the room with very little space. To one side was the door to the toilets so we couldn't expand sideways and we couldn't expand forwards because it was so crowded. We'd been hired as a duo because they knew space was limited so no point complaining. For them it was a test to see what could be done.

So the space allowed for us was around 4m wide and 3m deep hard against one wall and the rear of the room. Set up is two of us, guitar and bass with self programmed drums. We use two RCF ART310's as PA and two more as floor monitors, no backline and monitors levels are quite low, to give you an idea I don't get any ringing in my ears after a set and the sound of our voices can be heard clearly over the monitors. Because of the lack of space we were only about a metre behind the FOH and so around 1.4m diagonally from them. There was a lot of bass coming back to our stage area from the PA easily drowning out the bass from the monitors which I filter at 50 Hz and also shelve quite heavily. The bass was at a level where it was setting off low frequency resonances in the acoustic guitar. The cause of our bass feedback was very simple; bass frequencies from the PA speakers too close to the guitar. Bass frequencies are omnidirectional, just as loud behind as in front and with the PA loud in a big room bass levels on stage were crazy.

There's not a lot you can do, it only happened when Mke used certain settings on his pedals and then only when he wasn't touching the sound board on the guitar. We moved the speakers as far forward as possible and stuck some LED strips onto the speaker stands to reduce the chance of them getting knocked over. We couldn't really move back, I could have reduced the bass on the desk but couldn't have got out to the FOH to hear the results on the overall sound and I'm really reluctant to fiddle with settings whist I'm playing. I reduced the volume 1db pulled back the guitar a couple of db in the mix (my mixer allows 1db adjustments) and Mike tried not to let go of the guitar. We recorded the set so we can go back and work out which of his settings is causing the problems and see if it can be tweaked.

Sometimes you just have to put up with a compromised sound and the solution cannot be done in the room. I struggle to multi task and my bass playing and contact with the audience takes precedence over mixing once the gig is going and the dance floor full. The gig went well the venue want us back and are sorting dates. The audience had a good time. I hated the sound being compromised but I'm not going to let that spoil a good gig and it was only two songs in the end.

Again you need to get back to us so we know what you are trying to achieve. If you just want bass through the monitor then you can take your signal from a DI or straight from the bass. If you have DI on your amp you could use that to feed the monitor or the mixing desk and you can also buy a splitter to send a feed to both at the same time. If you want anything else in your monitor then it would be better to take the signal from your mixer.

I'm a little worried about your little Behringer as a bass monitor though, it won't go very loud and doesn't have a lot of bass. If it's something you own already there is no harm in trying it but it's not what I would buy for bass. Reports are that it sounds good but distorts easily when overloaded. You'd need to have it on  a pole at head height for it to be useful. You couldn't use it as a bass amp/monitor on it's own except at very modest levels.

21 hours ago, Bill Fitzmaurice said:

The video is informative, but completely ignores wall loading subs, which is far more effective than placement in front of the stage, not only in terms of how well the subs will work but also because in most clubs center placement is impractical, if not impossible.

To be fair that was for a particular hall and given that space and access to top quality kit and lots of it most of us would do something similar. The useful thing about this video is the heat maps which illustrate the dispersal patterns. A picture is worth a thousand words I guess

1 hour ago, Al Krow said:

In terms of eliminating feedback there seems to be a consensus that cutting the pre EQ input gain on the desk is better than cutting the post EQ faders vol.

 

Is that the correct approach? If so, what's the thinking behind it given the volume per channel ends up being the same ?

I can't see it making a difference so long as the gain isn't set so high that you've introduced some clipping. some of the cheaper mixers back in the day struggled for gain and everything was set to 11. Modern digital mixers have oodles of dynamic range and really quiet mic pre's so you don't need to set the initial gain high and gain staging becomes less critical. As Buddster says you wouldn't normally touch the channel gains once you'd done an initial check. There's a lot of folk lore from the old days still kicking around. I just recall the settings from memory for all our gigs now, except for the drummer who is always fiddling with her send on the elecric kit. She insists she doesn't but the meter says she does

20 hours ago, Chienmortbb said:

That is an LPF by any other name. So well placed it will cut the HF noise.

 

What cable did I use? I suspect it was Tricone 2, that has 95% screening from memory. Spirit has close to 100% but I have never had any issues with Tricone2. Most of my cables are made using it.

I think it was John, it makes a lovely cable just the right balance of flexibility and toughness, it feels great in your hands and is a joy to coil and uncoil. Sounds trivial to rave about a piece of wire but I absolutely love it.

Yeah it is just a an LPF I never used it at a gig but I compared it with a 10m cable when I first bought the Line6 and it did what it said on the can, made it sound like the cable. The wireless connection was just a little brighter. I'd compare the difference to comparing new Rotosounds to ones a few days old. For me that was a gain which could be eq'd out elsewhere if I needed to

56 minutes ago, Al Krow said:

 

But fine if the punters' bodies are between?

This was a big garden with picnic tables scattered around. It was rural Dorset with lots of space and not so many people. I imagine it's also about angles, I'm only a 32"waist but at 3" away from the transmitter I block maybe 170deg of radiation

Just now, Chienmortbb said:

You need better cables then Phil. In saying that, it may be the output impedance of the Line 6 being much lower than a passive bass?

The Line6 has a 'cable' setting. Whisper it quietly it's the cable you gave me Which is great by the way.

Oh come on C is 262, Bis 247Hz maybe the pub only employ guitarists who tune to Eb

Thanks Al, I hadn't noticed a lot of noise though my Line6 was actually much quieter than a cable. My first gig with the Lekato was in a pub garden. It still connects at 100m though not it you get your body between it and the receiver.

On 26/03/2024 at 12:51, bassus_play said:

Hi all,

 

Wonder if someone else had this brilliant ideea 😁

I want to use a Turbosound suboofer as main amp, and on top of it to use two bass cabs (the sub has two outpusts, 250W @ 4 ohm), I was thinking about Hartke HD112.

Of course, I have to have a preamp before that in the signal chain, or at least a mixing console.

Anyone?

I don't think people are reading your post properly. It's unusual to get a sub with power amps for passive tops but not unknown. It is after all what the subs in a lot of the current ' stick' PA systems like the Bose and Evox J8 do. Without knowing which model your cab is I can't be certain but it sounds like it is designed to be a stereo PA system with a single sub. You should be able to use it with bass with the two passive satellites or even with one. It should have a way of adjusting the realtive volume of the tops and the subs but certainly that is something to check before you buy/go ahead.

As a system it seems a bit over the top, though it would double as PA for your band. I wouldn't want anything bigger than a couple of 12's for my bass rig. there is another problem that in many live situations you don't need the lower frequencies coming out of your bass rig, I often filter the bass at 50Hz to allow the drums some space and to clean up the bass in a resonant room. However I've tried playing bass through pretty much every speaker I've owned and I've no idea what sort of music you will play so if you don't mind carrying three boxes where one will do and this isn't too expensive it might be fun to try

37 minutes ago, Chienmortbb said:

Thanks to everyone that has replied. Regarding mic/speaker placement, almost every gig I tell the band that they have the monitors in the wrong place, to cardioid and two hyper-cardioid mics. Try to tell them that the cardioid pattern is not flat but in fact more like and apple and the smoke starts coming out of their ears.

It's imbecilic. They don't need your word they can check this themselves in seconds by just speaking into the mic from the front, sides and back.

Hi John, the secong part is that no I don't think that's a good idea generally. Note the generally.

Most of your feedback issues if you are talking about high frequencyhowlround comes from what is going on close to the mics. Sound falls away with distance so the shortest route is the one you need to suspect first. Toeing in the speakers will probably make things worse. The horns (all speakers in fact) don't have a cut off point at which nothing spills to the side. The sound radiated sideways falls off slowly and starts to lobe off axis. the further off axis generally the less high frequency content but remember those off axis lobes. Turn your speakers in and you decrease the angle to the mic increasing high frequencies and you may even reach the mic with one of the lobes so statictically you'll increase the chance of howlround. It might be better to toe out but moving the speaker forwards is going to be your best first move.

The other cause of feedback are room resonances. Moving the speakers away from reflective surfaces may help here but it's really difficult to read a room in a few minutes whilst setting up in a new venue. that's much more appropriate for permanent installations or a touring band with sound engineers and time to set up properly. Speaker placement does make a difference but a set toe-in is a bit like setting your graphic to a smily eq.

I'd also be looking at the microphones first. What is their pickup pattern, cardioid or super cardioid? The former may be picking something up from the sides but not from down the barrel. the latter is more likely to be getting it from along the axis of the mic and not from the sides. Watch your vocalist too, they tend to wave the mic around and point it into corners at random. You can often spot the direction that creates the feedback issue. they will blame you for the feedback though

Place your speakers to give the audience the best coverage, not to anticipate feedback you might not get. Good coverage and you might be able to turn down a notch. We've played places with L shaped rooms before now or even two separate rooms. You just have to deal with what you have when you get there.

First of all one of my favourite videos for the basics of speaker placement

20 hours ago, Al Krow said:

 

That pretty much exactly summarises my journey, too. Except I went one step further and got a set of Nux 5.8 Ghz wireless having tried the Lekato - the Nux are more on a par with the Boss in terms of both price and quality IMO. 

Hiya, that's interesting, I'm using the Lekato at the moment, no real problems so far. I used a Line6 before and no problems there either, but I prefer the form of the Lekato, just a bit less fiddly.

How is the Nux better?

17 hours ago, Chad Hartfiel said:

I am looking for 1 of those speakers let me know if interested in selling. email [email protected]  Thanks

Welcome to BassChat, it might be worth private messaging the OP via BassChat and asking them. Just hover over their ID and the messaging will pop up

2 hours ago, VTypeV4 said:

 

Ha, absolutely - me too! 🤣

 

I can't say that I've much experience of the stage box / ipad type mixers although I did try a Mackie DL16 for a short while. It was ok but I never really loved it as I simply couldn't get round it as smoothly or as quickly as I could a conventional mixer. I appreciate, they're great where space is at a premium plus they offer so much more than any equivalent analogue mixer of even three times the foot-print. 😃 Being honest, even my smallest Yamaha digital (DM1000) is a bit too chunky to hide behind the drummer..

 

Great that you have a solution that 'does what it says on the tin'.

Horses for courses, I wouldn't want to attempt to do what you do without physical controls

 In the dim and distant past I used to mix live shows and pre Covid I ran a few jam sessions with a Yamaha MG16. I'd love to sit down with the sort of mixers you are using. The M18 is smaller than the snake never mind the mixer and you are quite right about space being limited. I did think about looking out for an O2R at the time and I hesitated to buy something without physical controls for a while. I reckon in 15years+ of gigging we've had our own sound engineer maybe half a dozen times. Most gigs we are lucky to get 5 mins for a soundcheck so an iPad I can carry out front and place on a table beats running back to a mixer every time. Just being able to recall our best ever mix at every gig has transformed what we can do. Eq for the room and adjust the master volume and we are away.

I've tried to engineer our PA for the gigs we do. I play in two four piece covers bands and a duo. I've never played in anything bigger than a five piece band and drums are currently all electronic. 8 mic channels and 8 line inputs have been more than enough for me so far with at least a couple of channels going spare and usually a lot more. If need be I can mic up drums with a three mic technique but if a drummer brings along a full set of mics they are going to have to do their own mix and give me a stereo feed. So far that hasn't been an issue. I've sets of cables for each band, boxed and ready to go and we all use in-ears except the duo where the volume is lower. I've a 10" based PA for smaller venues, 15's for bigger gigs and subs if needed. I've used those about once a year. The 10's double as monitors for any deps who won't use in-ears.

Interesting what you say about HPF on the vocal channels. I've got 24db/8ve @80Hz on all the vocal channels and gently roll them off at 120Hz on top of that. Let me know if you think I can do better than that. So far getting the singers to co-operate with an extended session sorting their eq has been like pulling teeth so thats probably my next task.  The presets are problemmatic as they all come with compression. Most of our venues have such limited space, we are inevitably on top of each other and the PA so gain before feedback is low and any compression at all will end up with acoustic feedback being an issue.

This is an incredibly high quality, lightweight FRFR speaker and is as far as I know the first used LFSys speaker to come up for sale. I'm only selling my Silverstone because it is geting no use; none of my current bands use back line and I also own an LFSys Monaco. The Silverstone has a warmer tone and I marginally prefer the leaner sound of the Monaco so the Silverstone has only been used at a couple of gigs and rehearsals. It is in nearly new condition. This cab has a top hat fitted for PA use and was once part of a pair specially modified by LFSys as emergency PA speakers. Honestly I was never going to need a pair, these things are loud enough for any band on their own. I'm happy to remove the top hat and fill the hole if you prefer. I've put up a picture from LFSys as a place holder and I'll put up more pics of the actual cab later this week.

For those who don't know LFSys use a high quality, long throw bass driver with a magnet which would have to be massively heavy if it weren't made of Neodymium alloy. Neo magnets allow the use of a longer coil with high efficiency but without the penalty of a super heavy cab. The horn driver is of PA quality and much better than anything used in the vast majority of bass cabs. The horn itself is larger than most and is cast aluminium. it is also rotated 90deg and crossed over at a lower frequency so that the mid and high frequencies of your bass are directed towards you even when standing close to the cab. You can get the full story at the LFSys website . The sound is the sound of your bass, neutral but rich and warm. It sounds like your bass but through a good quality PA system. Because of the attention paid to the crossover and horn the midrange is much better than you will hear from just about any other bass speaker and because ot the long throw driver and highly braced cab it will handle bass better than all but the most expensive of PA speakers. Better still is that you will get to hear all that goodness on stge because of the control of dispersal from that lovely horn flare.

Bullet points are:

Power: 300W AES

Sensitivity: 97db/W @1m

Impedance: 8ohms

Frequency Range: 40-18kHz

Size: 57x39x32cm

Weight: 13.5kg

I'd prefer you to come and try the cab and take it away but I'm happy to pack and post if you can't get down here.