Phil Starr

I've been meaning to update everyone on here on last weeks gig. I'm hoping it will be a bit of encouragement for those who are considering this journey or who are part way through. It's the first time we've managed to get the monitor mix perfect first time and throughout the gig for all the band members. Keeping this in perspective we've never had anything like so good a sound from floor monitors even on a professional stage. It's been a long journey in time because we've had changes in band members and a lot of gigs with deps but probably only half a dozen gigs with our permanent band members. Most of the deps are more comfortable with floor monitors. First of all the experience as a band, set up was a doddle, fewer trips when loading/unloading. Really grateful for this as I was gigging with a broken foot. The digital mixer is such a boon as you don't need a line check, the meters show everything including identifying a broken Active DI creating a lot of electrical noise (I carry a spare). My own in-ears confirm the sound without a lot of 'one -two ing' the band all know how to mix their own in ear mix with their phones apart from the drummer who never remembers to log on to the network "it's not working again Phil". Today we have someone mixing out front but honestly we've saved a successful mix so actually very little twiddling is ever needed. Sound check was a minute of one song and it all sounded good, well as good as we ever do. The gig goes like a dream, having that sound in your ears where everyone can hear just what they want is so liberating. Halfway through the first song you forget they are there. No struggling to hear what the guitar is doing because you have a nasty bass trap/resonance in the poky corner of the stage with the wooden floor and low ceiling, no feedback from the floor monitors. It's the tightest we've ever played. We are all watching the audience and the interaction is ramping up, guitarist is grabbing an extra few bars in the solos because the sound is right and it's a great night. The confidence you get from a great sound relays out to the audience, frankly the fears of feeling isolated with in-ears are forgotten. You don't realise how much extra concentration you need to compensate for not being able to hear properly. It's you ->music->audience->you and nothing in the way. It's actually relaxing when it works and I sang more than I ever have before with this band, I had a little 'more me' in my ears and was confident of pitching OK. Smiles from our singer so I knew she could hear me and was happy. Yeah, it was a good gig, added to by tech that worked. So tech wise we are all in ears, ZS10 Pro for singer and guitarist, I use Sennheiser IE 100 Pro and I'm not sure what the drummer uses, Shure I think. Guitarist and I use Behringer P2's and singer my ancient Trantec wireless system. Drummer has her own mixer with a feed from the desk. Desk is an RCF M18 which is reliable and idiot proof. I've swapped out my ZS10's for the Sennheiser IE 100's because they have a flatter response and a more honest presentation especially across the mid range which helps a lot with vocals. They are a single driver unit but I've had no problem with bass or kick distortion and volume is absolutely fine they'll run way louder than I'd ever want or use. Speakers are RCF ART 745's So that's it for me, all the promises of studio quality sound in my ears, freedom from poor room acoustics on stage and preserving what's left of my hearing have been achieved by the in ears and a convenient, easier set up by the digital mixer. Any fears of feeling isolated and cut off from the audience turns out to have been unfounded. I won't be going back.

That's a lovely job, really love the grille

Looks like @Silvia Bluejay beat me to it. Rock has been essentially a male preserve, partly a reflection of it's time. Without making any assumptions about the OP's set I've never really understood why so many covers bands have women singing songs written for/by male singers. The range is going to be awkward and the lyrics a bit odd. This includes my own band by the way. Come to that I don't get why someone with an essentially soprano range wants to sing a tenor part without even a key change. I'm almost surprised there are any female singers who want to sing with a rock band. It's not as if there aren't a wealth of brilliant songs by female singers and given that in general female audiences are less self conscious about getting on the dance floor why bands with female singers don't have a set designed to match their skill set and capitalise on what they are going to do best.

In a sense there is no difference between using a PA speaker and a flat response bass rig. The technology is the same, you still have a big speaker in a box with a horn and driver to cope with the higher frequencies. To an extent you get what you pay for good systems of either type with the extra money going on a better box and a better bass driver which will handle more bass and track the bass more accurately. If you are lucky you will also get a better crossover to clean up the mids and a better horn drive. So the first question is what is your budget? When it comes to power it's also the same deal. the advantage of an active speaker is that the amp and speaker matching is completely sorted for you. Amplifier watts are so cheap now that 3-500W is pretty normal and will drive most 12 or 15" speakers to their peak. Be a little wary of PA amp claims though, they routinely double or quadruple the power in their advertising claims. A common trick is that they use the same amplifier in multiple cabs but throttle them down within DSP speaker protection so that their littlest speakers dont see the same power as the big ones. They'll still tell you its a thousand watt amp. that happens with bass amps but more rarely. in fact unless they say its a thousand watts and are not charging thousands then it isn't a thousand watts. That doesn't mean an RCF745 as mentioned above isn't capable of being incredibly loud, it's what I use for PA. Generally you'd have to pay over £1k for a new bass speaker specifically designed for FRFR, have a look at Barefaced and Vanderkley. But, there is another option @stevie of Bass Chat has launched a range of FRFR bass speakers under the LFSys brand. Cheaper and better sounding than the above. If you contact Stevie he might be able to arrange a trial for you (He's on holiday this week coming) I'll declare an interest though Stevie is a friend of mine.

It's getting difficult as more and more stuff goes online, our local shop Axe Music has closed and even Mansons in Exeter has gone. PMT have a bit of bass stuff but the range is limited. The very best place to go is a bass bash if you can get to one, if you don't know they are annual meetings of Bass Chat members where everyone brings their best stuff to show off, you can try a lot of gear in one place. The SW one is excellent (just outside Taunton) The Big Fat South-West Bass Bash 2023 - Events - Basschat I'm not sure if the South East one is happening this year.

the audience will be completely on your side, really. make sure your first song is one you know best so you can all steady your nerves. Part of being in a band is that you share these feelings and it is one for all and all for one. Try and smile at the other band members it'll make them feel better and you will feel it too. The whole experience is going to flash by once you start and once you've finished you'll want more, just like a scary fairground ride

oops

Thanks everyone. it's good to know that what I heard wasn't just an illusion. You all know that some days at the bass are just magic and others just a mirage that disappears when you look too closely. I really admire people who set up different sounds for each song but I'm never going to be able to concentrate on that live as I'm usually managing the PA. I do play in a duo though and am looking to fill out my sound. Anyway this has been really helpful. I'm off to try Seven Nation Army with some plate reverb

I'm really **** too. Probably in the same way as you and I have a terrible ear too, so probably even more ****. I too resort to brute force and repetition to learn new songs. I suspect there are lots of us here trawling BC for clues. I know with certainty that learning music would improve me as a bassist and make learning new songs much easier. I've friends who are classical musicians or who have done their grades on the piano when they were kids and what they can do seems like magic to me. Sing all the harmony parts in a song, no trouble. Play along with a song they've never heard before? Locked in by the end of the first verse. We had a keyboard player once who had never listened to Dark Side Of The Moon. We played her Great Gig in the Sky and she played the piano part back to us, both hands. This is great power but I know it isn't magic, it's knowledge. I can't do music but I can do numbers and logic (I was a science teacher) my wife taught English and can spot a grammatical error or a misplaced apostrophe every single time. The point is that my maths seems like magic to her and her command of language and ability to spot a spelling mistake seems magic to me. I got short shrift from her when the first reports came out of Wuhan and I sat down and calculated what the death toll would be. But then I can't spot a fleckle when we're watching Strictly and she can't pick the googly We drive each other to distraction I know I should learn a lot more about musical theory and to read and write music. If I loved poetry not being able to read would be madness, it would shut me out of nearly everything good, I'd still be able to recite poems and learn new one, maybe even perform live at open mics but I'd still be lacking opportunity. I don't think people who have skills and knowledge understand how it feels to be at the bottom of the mountain. We do know we are at the bottom using strategies to get round problems rather than addressing the problem, Telling us to learn scales, major minor and diminished isn't helping even if it is well intentioned. I wouldn't tell someone to learn their tables up to 19x and then they would be able to do maths. Learning needs to be structured, integrated and needs to understand where the pupil is. It needs to understand the fear factor and the feelings of inadequacy, of not being able to do what others seem to find so easy. There's hope though, you have curiosity on your side and there are so many resources out there to help. Me I'm contemplating getting music lessons on another instrument where I have to read from the start and have to face learning the grades. My son learned to read in a couple of years of piano lessons even though he hated it. Maybe my mind is not as flexible as his but I want to do it. The answer is not another bass with a string missing. Good luck

Just that really, I'm not really an fx guy. I've been playing along to mp3's this morning through a desk into headphones and the bass was sounding really nice and I noticed I'd accidentally left some plate reverb on from switching out the vocal mic. Nothing dramatic but the bass did just sit nicely in the mix all morning. So does anyone use Echo playing live and if so when/how. How about delay? Sorry if this is a newby question I know about speakers but almost nothing about bass effects. I'm normally just bass ->amp-> speaker or I occasionally let a SansAmp sprinkle some fairy dust lightly into my live sound.

Get some decent strings on that bass and give us a proper review Seriously this is going to sound just about identical with our cab so anything you say about the sound is pretty much going to apply for anyone who builds my design, only the aesthetics will differ. The advantage of small speakers is that with lighter cones you tend to get an extended frequency range especially if the cone is designed to flex in a controlled way. If you look at the graph on p1 of this thread you'll see the Fane has a significant output up to 10kHz. It's not flat but the peak at 4kHz adds a bit of top end sparkle. As you'd expect from an 8" speaker the off axis response starts to drop at 500Hz but it holds it together up to 2kHz. It pretty much covers all the higher frequencies you'll get out of an electric bass. The top end was about as good as I could find out of an 8" speaker so I'm pleased you've commented on it. How do you like the bottom end? I was quite proud of how full that sounds if you don't expect to drown out Phil Collins' Gorilla on the drums. for our younger viewers Go on I dare you to take it to rehearsal, back off the bass a little and shove the little fella into a corner turn the amp up and watch your bands faces Seriously though well done and I'd love a longer review once you've got used to it.

You'd need to find the centre of gravity, I haven't got the cab here but I suspect it would be forward of the mid line. Then depending upon the tilt wanted you might need the support at the front. Guitar combos tend to be top heavy.

OK jumping to conclusions again, There's a Falkirk in North Carolina (I think) and the Kodiak Bear is Alaskan. @stevie uses 15mm ply in preference and for bigger cabs 12mm ply needs substantial bracing. I think it'll be fine for this tiny cab though. We used 18mm for the prototype because I had more offcuts of that than 12mm. It's only a matter of balancing toughness, finish, weight and rigidity. I disown all ownership of the early versions of the MK2 and 3 cabs Spruce Ply? Good Grief.

OK not Falkirk in Scotland then I used to work in the building trade for a while, marine as the top grade and exterior with one good face is what I was used to but we have a lot of different materials coming in now with a lot more of it coming from China. Builders are as bad as medics for changing the terms they use for things. Sounds like what you are using would be ideal, just keep the inside dimensions the same. I nearly suggested you send me an off cut Sounds like you know what you are doing. The important factor is to tune the cab. It's tuned the way you tune a bottle when you blow across it where the crucial factors are the volume of air and the dimensions of the mouth. It forms something called a Helmholtz resonator and is tuned to (roughly) the resonant frequency of the speaker. So long as you keep the internal volume the same and the port dimensions identical the tuning will stay the same. Can you get hold of the Fane Sovereign 8-225? if you can't and use another driver I'm happy to see what might work and suggest a new tuning if you need it

Exterior ply in the UK just means the resin/glue is waterproof, ideally you'd want ply that is free of voids and will finish well. To finish well you need a high quality outer veneer but high build paints like Tuff Coat cover a multitude of sins. The ultimate grading of plywood is complex and getting more so over time. I'm quite nerdy about most things and I struggle to keep up. The increase in the use of plywood boards for timber framed houses and other construction uses has confused things a little. If your exterior timber is for construction in that way It's likely to be a bit rough on the outside and likely to splinter when you cut it and may have voids and or repairs to the core plies, so not great. Some of Wickes exterior ply is decent hardwood ply that I use a lot with BB grade exterior veneers. In the end if you build an airtight, solidly made box it will work as a cab though and some people here made their prototypes with exterior softwood shuttering ply and it worked. You can buy a decent piece of ply from B&Q and have it cut to size for less than £20 though so it's your choice. If it's something you use at work why not ask one of the chippies what they think?

Hi Matt, I've been thinking about your problem of achieving an easy to build kickback. I used to have a Hartke kickback the shape you describe. The biggest problem is that you need to cut really accurate 45 degree angles along the long edges of three panels, easy if you have access to a table saw but not something most people can do at home. I also found the Hartke a bit unstable, it tended to roll around in the car and fall back down or onto it's back at gigs. Ok, I'm a clumsy fool and it wasn't entirely the Hartke's fault Anyway I think the problem could be solved with a foldaway flap/strut fixed to the bottom of the cab which would tuck away under some rubber feet when you were carrying the cab or didn't want the tilt back option.

nice job

yes go for the cheaper one

to be fair it might be subjective, I don't use it at home and in any situation where there is the usual audience hubbub the fan just can't be heard. We all perceive things differently. I would also imagine that no two fans sound exactly the same . To produce amps at these prices there are bound to be small discrepancies. I suppose the crucial bit is that I dont really think that the other models will be much different. In these days of internet shopping it could be difficult to compare.

OK we are going for 12mm, the lightweights have it. I'll put up the dimensions for the 18mm panels too so you can build the one you prefer. We should have full plans next week and a cutting list to go with it. I'm going to rake through some of my old pics and put up a 'How To' guide, it won't be for this cab as you'll have to wait too long but it will show all the steps.

Can I ask if we can keep this thread for people who are thinking of building this exact cab or a direct variation of it. I know these threads get used many years after the initial post and there is a lot of patience involved in sorting out essential details when you get to 20+ pages. Many thanks

That's one way of looking at it, I don't want to get into a long debate about bracing but my belief is that it is much more complex than even a good rule of thumb would suggest. It would become a bit of a thread de-rail. There's a difference between opinion and experience. I've built and tried all the cabs I've designed and recommended on BC. I built the prototype for this out of 18mm and panel resonance is not a problem. I doubt that there would be a problem with 12mm ply but I haven't tried that yet. Thinner panels are lighter and bend more easily but these are still small panels, they are also braced all around the edges so I don't think that would be a problem, I've been designing and building cabs for 50 years so that is a bit more than a guess but the proof is 'in the eating'. I'm most concerned about the baffle (front panel) as with two cut-outs the panel is weakened there is no central point to fix to as the speaker is in the way. An 18mm baffle and 12mm might be better for a manufacturer but adds problems in sourcing panels for most people who might build this.

Hi Smanth, can we expect to see this at the next bass bash

I like this a lot. People should feel free to adapt to their own needs. If you have any problems/questions then if anyone wants to ask here I'll do my best to help.

Sorry about the brevity of my answer. I was in the middle of re-jigging the cabinet shape to fit on a smaller sheet of ply to make a cheaper build and as @Downunderwonder said missed the bit about the baffle in between. So, yet that would work but probably isn't the best way to do it. Miss out the baffle and just double the volume and calculate a new port is better. A lot of this design is about the practical problems of packing everything in to a small cab. I'd prefer a bigger port but easily available plastic pipe of the right diameter isn't available. Creating a wooden port would make the build more complex and put people off, I wanted this to be the simplest build possible. If you double up you can use a bigger port and you have to re-tune anyway. If you decide a 2x8 is what you want then you could fit a 110mm soil pipe as a port. 11cm will give the same tuning. the bigger pipe will reduce the chance of turbulence and port chuffing to just about zero. That would give you a 4 ohm, 450W cab capable of 122db continuously capable of matching up with any drummer. You could probably keep the weight down to around 11kg depending upon whatever material you decided to build in. It would be a serious cab