Phil Starr

She seems to be doing her research but ask/suggest that her next step is to go for a digital mixer. My preferenmce is for a stagebox mixer like the behringer XR18 or the Allen and Heath CQ20 Unless you have a sound engineer it's easier to mix with an Ipad or other tablet so a stage-box works well. The Behringer has software that is a bit glitchy and moderately complex but is uber-flexible, the Allen and Heath is still flexible but has more intuitive software. Both are well loved by users and open up the possibility of multi-track recording at gigs or in the recording studio. Digital mixers will give you far more control over your sound with lots of studio quality sound shaping and fx, once you are used to them they are easier to control than the anologue equivalents, take up less space and best of all you can save and recall your best settings at will. Lots of discussion here For you however the big plus would be that a digital mixer offers up to six separate monitor mixes for your in-ears so you won't have to share a mix and all of you will be able to adjust the mix individually. PS if you want the simplest of mixers I noticed Thomann have a b-stock one of these RCF M18 which is what I use. RCF have discontinued them but they have the advantage that they are designed for semi-pro live bands. The control software is superb and really intuitive so there is next to no learning curve M18

+1^^^ I think this is important, there is more than one way of doing things. Your Yamahas and RCF912's are great speakers compared with any gear we used 20 years ago. Used by someone with years of experience, who has a good ear and cares about the sound they can sound wonderful. That's about the whole chain as well. Good mics, good technique when mic'ing up equipment, a great mix and good discipline from well rehearsed musicians are all just as important as decent speakers and I'd rather listen to a band that has a decent sound engineer and OK speakers than one which has all the kit and no idea. I do get a bit tired about all the internet advice which is so categorical, "you need 18" subs if you have 15" tops" type of thing. That takes no account of the size of the venue, the type of music played or the particular presentation of the song the band are attempting to create, or the skill of the musicians come to that. The answer to most questions is spending a lot of money will improve your sound. Subs properly used will tighten up your bass sound of course, but would it be better to spend £800 on a new mixer than subs? £200 on a new vocal mic or £20 on a new set of bass strings? How can anyone answer that over the internet. My advice is to keep it simple, you have nice speakers and your band will sound great if you can squeeze the best out of them. They'll happily deal with everything from 50-15,000Hz and probably more so don't worry about the 40-50Hz bit until it becomes obvious something is missing and you've tried all you cn to put it right with the kit you've got. Btw you haven't mentioned your mixer, what are you using? Going in-ears is probably the best thing you can do to improve your sound. A good mixer helps that a lot. I'm curious.

I'm going to guess that with a female vocalist you won't be going for silly volumes or an over heavy bass sound. The DXR's are good speakers that will go really loud and are also well protected against abuse so you are unlikely to damage them in normal use. Honestly I don't think you will have a problem though that depends upon how big a venue you will normally be playing. Certinly until you are established I'd be prepared to go out with just the Yamahas and save your money until you are absolutely sure there is something lacking. If you do find you are lacking at a larger venue then applying HPF to the mix will allow you a little extra headroom and probably a cleaner sound but in all probability Yamaha wil have some sort of dynamic speaker management in place already which will get the best out of the speakers and be almost unnoticed by you and the audience. Subs are a nice addition but not an absolute necessity in most UK pubs and clubs.

If you are combining two tweetered cabs then it is better to stack them vertically with the tweeters as close together as possible, so as you say horn>woofer>horn>woofer is not good. There are two approaches, simply invert the top speaker so the horn is now on the bottom and in some cabs very close to the horn on the bottom cab, this approximates to a D'Appolito configuration giving a fairly coherent wavefront but you'll get some phase issues in the vertical plane due to the spacing between the horns. You've now moved the two mid bass drivers further apart so you'll lower the point where the mids become directional and start beaming so this works best in speakers where the crossover is lower like the LFSys. Radiation in the horizontal plane should be good and a lot beter than a side by side arrangement. The second method is to stack the speakers but on their sides with woofer above woofer and horn above horn in a classic line array. The problem with this is that the horns are on their side and typically they are designed to radiate a wide horizontal beam which will now be narrow and high. The audence may hear less detail in the bass guitar if they are off axis but the player will benefit from the extra height which will be giving more upper mids to their ears. If you were doing this regularly then you could rotate the horns. LFSys have the horns rotated already though to direct the mids to the bassists ears whilst in the conventional position. Sometimes I bore myself

There are cabs with a round 'dimple' routed out to receive a round foot. I deliberately deleted the word better from my post though I did contemplate 'better' but in the end there are a lot of compromises involved in cab design and the feet/corners are the least of the worries. Or should tht be 'least'

I hope you don't mind me using this image but it illustrates the problem for manufacturers. If you look at the top left corner has two diagonal ridges and three hollows. Top right has three ridges and two hollow channels. When stacked the corners on the top cab interlock with those on the bottom and the riges are thick enough that the bottom panel is held clear of the floor. The corner is also the foot. The fitted round feet are obviously better than the corners in clearing the floor but will stop the cabs interlocking. If I were buying two cabs to stack I would expect interlocking corners and which manufacturer wouldn't want their cabs to stack neatly. It drives you nuts though if there is a top handle and the corners wont separte the cabs enough to accomodate the handle and the top cab rocks. You can't suit all of the people all of the time.

That is so sad, like so many I was chatting via pm with Sam. She was going to build one of the first of the new BassChat 8" cabs. I have a kit of parts here packed and ready to go and was increasingly concerned when she suddenly stopped communicating. Now we know why. I'd like to think whatever happened was sudden and quick while she was still planning for the future with new builds and new adventures. She will be missed and she touched a lot of us it seems.

Just a quick one from last weekend's gig at the Coal Orchard in Taunton. It's a bit of a barn inside, I think it might have been an old Cinema. The low ceiling looked like a cinema foyer with some huge art deco 'lumps' built into the ceiling. It had been a Weatherspoons with the huge long bar and space for a lot of people until Covid struck. The point is that it's a big, difficult space acoustically. Lots of reflections echoing the sound back at us with quite a bit of delay. This was with my duo using a couple of RCF ART310A for PA and a couple more as floor monitors with the bass on the monitors rolled back 12db and everything HPF'd at 50Hz. Mixer is an RCF M18 I'm still slightly surprised every time just how good the vocal sound is from sub £300 speakers. Bass and drums sound great too (no back line at all) The only reason I'm putting this up is that we were louder than we've ever been before. It's a big space, low ceilings and a lot of the audience were a good distance from the speakers. There was also a band playing in the pub next door and also further down the street plus my good friend @GrahamT playing with his band Bar None just round the corner. I whacked the sound up to match the levels coming from the band next door. I have to report that first of all I still had headroom with the little 10" PA, I went a bit too loud for one song so edged it back after wandering out into the FOH area to check. We were matching the sound levels of the band next door who had a 'proper' drumkit and a couple of 12" RCF speakers. (they sounded great too btw, someone knew how to set up a PA and the drummer knw how to control the energy). The moral of the story I suppose is don't underestimate what you can do with decent mid-priced point source speakers. Great sound, utterly reliable and surprisingly loud. Other brands are available

The design of the drivers in a sub differ from those used as mid bass drivers. The voice coil is usually bigger which dissipates heat and allows greater power handling. The coil and supension are designed to allow greater excursion and the cone is heavier to reduce flexing and to lower the resonant frequency extending the bottom end of the frequency range. Collectively these changes mean a 15 in a full range cab is a different beast to a 15 in a sub. What I have considered is buying a small sub for use with the 10" tops. It isn't a problem though: I really do have all the bass I want from the 310's, and no issues to date with power handling.

I'm against carrying stuff I don't need Subs are a mixed blessing, more to set up and take down so I factor that in. You get a lot of bass coming back on-stage and monitoring without in-ears is an issue. That's why a cardioid set up appeals. I'm actually very happy with my RCF 745's as they do everything I want. Higher sound levels than I ever need including kick and bass, and a fabulous sound especially with acoustic instruments and voice where the big compression driver really scores. The ART 310's I love too as I've indicated above. Integrating the 1" driver with a 10" mid/bass is obviously more successful than trying to do it with a 15 so the big horn driver would be an unnecessary expense. I think the ART932 would be a better compromise for me. The smaller form factor would help at many gigs and I don't ever use the full capabilities of the 15" drivers. I'd looked hard at the 732 before I bought but the 745's came up in unused condition at a great price as a covid era bargain so I just jumped. The 932 wasn't available when I started looking. I'm also not convinced that small subs aren't really useful. A big sub needs big vehicles to carry them. I've run PA at open mic with some old JBL Eon subs, just 150W and the sound was exceptional. I've also some friends with an FBT (another Italian PA builder) system that has a 2x8 sub and that sounds terrific, I've been meaning to write that up sometime. I just don't like that overblown bass sound, I filter at 50Hz anywhere other than outdoors anyway. Almost no-one notices the difference and half of those that do prefer the HPF'd sound. Big subs do all the things that people claim so I'm not criticising but mainly they are running well below their capabilities. When buying would a single 12" sub you took to 80% of your gigs be better value than a couple of 15's or an !* that you left at home as too much hassle? That clearly is a decision which is personal to your circumstances but something I think people should think about before they buy. Subs are great but not a solution for every band or occasion.

Don't ask My duo partner programs everything he uses soundtrap an online app, if you sign up for a months trial it seems to stay free forever. We signed up for it during lockdown as a way of continuing to play together. It's a DAW really but very simple and straightforward if not vey flexible. Having learned to drive the program Mike is reluctant to change. You have to use their kits, so using a kick drum from one kit and a snare from another is an issue for example. Also won't let you change the time signature or put in a single bar of 2/4. Sounds great though and has moved our duo a long way forwardI'm not complaining because I don't do any of the work on the drums. We are much tighter as you have to be with backing tracks but the presence of drums has resulted in people dancing at every gig now and our set list evolving more quickly.

I'm still looking out for a pair of RCF 910's which are near enough to collect and at the right price. Though my duo did a gig on Sat at a large pub (an ex-Weatherspoons and I think an ex cinema before that) with just the 310's and no sub. and we cranked it up to 11 to compete with other venues along the street which had bands making more noise than us. They sounded really good, startingly good out in the audience area. We have my bass and synthesized drums going through them. The drums are probably compressed and the speakers have a limiter in the DSP but none of this was noticeable. I think the 127db rating in ad-speak, 121db in real money for the 310's must be pretty accurate and very comparable with the old 12" Yamaha S112IV Club Series speakers I used for years. I've only used the ART 905 mkIII once, it sounded nice but was overkill for the venue, I had to crank it right down and it was barely on. My drummer was excited with the kick drum sound but nobody but she would have noticed mid gig. I bought it to replace my pair of Wharfedale 15" subs on the basis one of these would replace the two Wharfedales which are also heavier individually than the 905. The mkIII's also have a simple set up for Cardioid bass which is an added attraction. I only use subs once a year on average and only at open air gigs as the 15" tops I have never struggle indoors. I keep meaning to try the single 905 next to the pair of Wharfedales. The specs say they should be capable of matching each other in terms of volume. BTW worth mentioning is that the Wharfedale T-sub 15B is a good budget priced alternative sub and well proven, it is basically identical with my EVP15 subs but with a lighter plywood cab, a new grille and a class D amp replacing the class AB amp in the EVP's making it 18kg lighter! You can pick up used Wharfedale EVP subs at under £300 each in good condition so if you can lift 43kg they are a real bargain and you can still repair the AB amp or replace the speakers if they blow so a long term option if you are on a budget.

I don't think you'll have any problems at all, especially if you are operating in dual mono rather than stereo. Certainly nothing is going to happen that will stop you entertaining your audiences. In the past when I had no money we mixed all sorts of amps and speakers using whatever we could get. I won't pretend it was ideal but these are two great speakers which are essentially flat response so sonically I don't think anyone in the audience will notice. I did wonder about suggesting you buy the 932A. I think they'd be my first choice for our PA if I was buying today, my 745's are just so damn big, over the top in many venues. I recently acquired a single ART905 mkIII sub at a knockdown price and will be looking out for another, It's a great way to update and not spend too much if you have a plan and a bit of patience. Buying used when the opportunity arises means you usually get your money back when the time comes to take the next step up and sell of your old kit. Good move

We've all been there The obvious still trips me up and the adrenaline flowing when something goes wrong at the start of a gig makes it hard to be entirely rational. It's good to see a happy ending

Of course you are right, I was really just thinking of amplifier prices and did not make that clear. In the UK in the early 1970's a month's average wages wouldn't pay for a 100W bass amp. Currently an average UK week's wage would buy a 500W amp and leave you some change.

I'm not sure this is counter intuitive. A lot of what is happening is I think down to improvements in PA. Even fairly modest bands can carry a fairly capable PA system with no need to reach the audience with back line amps, bass goes through the PA for FOH just like the rest of the band. Increasingly people are using digital mixers with multiple aux sends and individual monitor mixes, often through in-ears. If there is back line then it only needs to reach the band on-stage so you don't need he same volume that a few years ago you used to reach the back of the venue. The other technical advance is the gradual development of long throw loudspeakers with extremely temperature resistant voice coils. They aren't efficient and need a lot more power than the 4x10's but amplifier power is so cheap nowadays that small speakers and lot's of power has become a practical option. Portability is an issue too for a lot of us. I can turn up with a SansAmp and a set of in-ears for most gigs. I have a 1x10 600W AES thermal and 800W amp for the odd occasion when I need backline.

Just a thought, with slap on an upright you are really whacking everything much harder than would be the case on electric bass a lot of the time. Electric bass doesn'tactually have much content below 80Hz but using an upright bass as a percussive instrument might be creating a lot of subsonic peaks. Ported speaker cabs will go into extremes of excursion just above and below the resonant frequency of the port. If that is the case when slapping (and this is just a theory) then an HPF on the amp might reduce the problem and less audibly than a really sharp limiter. Is a castrated bass a viola?

I don't know if this helps. As Bill has said it's all about the natural compression valve amps give you. The peaks aren't any bigger but you can bring the average level up and the overloaded peaks sound OK. Clipping of the waveform in most solid state amps is pretty unpleasant. Other factors are that a lot of the power claims are basically untrue. There is also the importance of a decent power supply to consider, a lot of switch mode amps also have switch mode power supplies which are specced for fairly low duty cycles. I'd expect Mesa valve amps to have a pretty decent power supply.

I'm curious about this, do we know this for certain and do we have any idea of how they are achieving that? Is there some sort of DSP or other trickery going on or is this just some sort of limiting. We know from measurement that all the micro amps have particular and different voicings. I did prefer the voicing of the Elf whan we tested it at the Bass Bash and in the shootout but a genuine compression circuit would justify the extra cost of the Elf.

Anyone who has done any recording will know music looks like this That's three notes or possibly three drum beats. Each note starts loud and then decays. Within each sound there is a complex waveform which is also going up and down.This is just a random image but it looks like the scale on the side is in decibels and the loudest part of the sound is the first peak just above -6db. If you imagine that 0db is the maximum power of your 300W amp then this trace is probably not unlike your bass playing. The loudest note is nowheere near using full power, -3db is half power and -6db is a quarter power and that only lasts a few thousandths of a second. Within a tenth of a second the note is down to less than 10W and the average power is below even that 10W level. Your amp isn't being pushed at all. Swap the amp for a 150W amp (-3db on the trace) and the peak is still nowhere near the amps peak handling or indeed the handling of a 130W into 8 ohms of the Elf/BAM/Gnome amps. In fact if you bring in a 70W amp only the first peak is going to be distorted. This is where a valve amp scores, the distortion will only be barely noticable compared to horrid solid state distortion so a 50W valve amp would probably sound as loud but with a little bit of crunch. This would only be in the peaks and the rest of the music would be the same. The watts aren't bigger but you can turn the valve amp up a bit more before it sounds bad so you can get the same average power and not worry so much about distorted peaks. Incidentallyyou can use this information to get away with a smaller amp. The biggest peaks will all be in the subsonic bass so an HPF filters out the biggest peaks and you can turn up a couple of notches knowing your amp and speakers are safe. Alternatively you can add in a compressor which will reduce the difference between the loud and quiet bits of each note. You can then turn up the average volume with smaller peaks keeping within the amps limits but sounding louder. Maybe you don't need new speakers

Great advice too. QSC and FBT are both great brands as are Yamaha and RCF. I've committed to the RCF745's for the immediate future with my band but also use RCF 310's in my quite noisy duo. I've done band gigs with them and a sub as an experiment and that went well but the vocal clarity of the 745's is outstanding. I'm toying with the idea of upgrading the 310's to 910's with a view to doing all my gigs with RCF 910's plus a sub though. I gigged for about four years with a previous band using QSC K12-2's without a sub and didn't need my bass stack ever. K12's are pretty heavy though, depending upon your age and fitmness

I'm going to agree too. You can build a nice sounding PA around the DBR's. I went for the two 15's route with a couple of RCF 745's. It works in that I can do just about any gig with just a pair of speakers and they sound fabulous but in small venues they are completely over the top and obscure the stage. Lifting them onto the poles is starting to wear thin as is the load in and out. I can't say I'm unhappy with them as the sound is just glorious but if I had my time again I'd probably go for a single sub with smaller tops. The DBR's would probably handle the smaller pubs without a sub too so you'd have options.

You got marks for building a cab! I spent most of my time at university building cabs but I was supposed to be studying Applied Zoology and I didn't get a 2:1 Why didn't they invent this course back then 😂

While it's all been good advice I don't think this has moved you forwards too much, though it may have refined your thinking. What you are really asking for is a small'ish/portable single speaker that matches your Elf nicely and you have a bigger system when you need it. The Elf is voiced differently from your Streamliner so you want something with a bit more 'oomff' at the bottom end. Have I got that about right? I've got a Warwick Gnome in my bass case I use mainly the same way, but also as a backup if my main amp goes down. I pair my Gnome with variously a 6" cab, an 8", 10" and an LFSys Monza, also a 10" cab. I've got 12" cabs also but I've never felt the need to use one with the Gnome. If I need that much volume I take a bigger system. I'm going to be a heretic and say 2db is worth having if you don't have to sacrifice anything else so 4ohms isn't a bad thing but Bill is right in warning you that you won't be able to mix or pair cabs with this. However you can buy cabs that are louder than others so you could buy something 8ohms and efficient so more than 2db louder than some 4 ohm cabs. Since there aren't many 4ohm cabs out there it makes more sense to me to look at any cab, have a listen and then decide on how it sounds and simply don't worry about the impedance. I'd suggest you stop worrying about using a 12 too all other things being equal you can get better bass out of the same size cab by using a smaller driver rather than squeezing a 12 into something portable. Look at 10's anbd 12's. My experience with the 6" speaker it that it is way louder and more capable than I expected. I designed it for open mics to match up with amplified vocals and acoustic guitar and at most open mics it can be the loudest thing in the room. As a joke I took it to a rehearsal and set it up next to the drummer who was always too loud. Actually it was loud enough and I didn't bother swapping it out for a proper speaker. Small rehearsal room and I backed it into a corner to give as much extra help as I could, I also rolled off the bass a little and boosted the mids to give a little more volume and protect the speaker but I surprised myself. I've used it at dozens of open mics and it always causes a stir. The 8 has an equally sensitive driver and what you get extra is all at the bottom end below 80Hz. It sounds great. You aren't going to use it at an open air gig or a room with 100 people in the audience and probably not with a full on rock band but it'll do a decent job in a smaller venue or with something relatively laid back even if you have a drummer in the band. My regular 10 has a horn as well and a really clean sound. I've regularly used it with a pop covers band, without PA support in most pubs will work and with PA support it is easily good enough for the whole band as a stage monitor. I'd use this mainly with my 300W amp but I've tried it with the Gnome and I've still had a little headroom. All these speakers are home built and I've published the designs on BassChat but they obey the laws of physics, there's nothing special about them. Nobody commercially makes one anything like the 6" cab but there are plenty of cabs you can buy like the others. Only you can decide what limitations you are happy with based upon simple practicality. My experience says we often take far more kit than we need. In the 60's and 70's 100W was considered to be a decent amp and 200W a monster. Amps are so cheap relatively now that we all run much bigger stuff and the standard 300/500W amp is probably rarely actually needed to work flat out. As a practical suggestion how about something designed to have an old school warm bass sound like the Barefaces One-10, Mark Bass also make some warm and loud sounding cabs but so do many manufacturers, go and try a few and see what you think.

@BassmanPaul is almost certainly right. If you can identify the wires going in to the crossover then one is positive and one negative. Often positive is red and negative black. The crossover may be a complex affair with a separate circuit for the bass drivers and the horn but often is just a simple high pass filter that only affects the tweeter. Take some pics if you aren't sure and someone will advise how to connect everything.